THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY: a fr1a~a~ne of Uterature, ~cience, art, ani~ I~oIitic~. VOL. LXXXV. JANUARY, 1900. No. D VIL AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF W. J. STJLLMAN. A THEORY is advanced by some stu- dents of character that in what concerns the formation of the individual nature, the shaping and determination of it in the plastic stage, and especially in re- spect to the moral elements on which the stability and purpose of a mans life de- pend, a man is indebted to his mother, for good or for ill. The question is too subtle for argument, but so far as my own observation goes, it tends to a con- firmation of the theory. I have often noticed, in children of friends, that in childhood the likeness to the mother was so vivid that one found no trace of the father, but that in maturity this likeness disappeared to give place to that of the father. In my own case, taking it for what it is worth, I can only wish that the moth9rs part had been more endur- ing; not that I regret the effect of my fathers influence, but because I think my mother had some qualities from which my best are derived, and which I should like to see completely carried out in the life of a man, while I re- cognize in a certain vagarious tendency in my father the probable hereditary basis of the inconstancy of purpose and pursuit which may not have deprived my life of interest to others, but which has made it comparatively barren of practi- cal result. As a study of a character- istic phase of New England life which has now entirely disappeared, I believe that a picture of my mother and her fam- ily will not be without interest. My mother, Eliza Ward Maxson, was born in Newport, Rhode Island, as near- ly as I can determine, in 1782, my fa- ther being seven years her senior. Th~ childhood of both was therefore sur- rounded by the facts and associations of the war of American independence. My father in fact, as I have heard him say, was born under the rule of the king of England, and his father considered the Revolution so little justified that to the day of his death he refused to recognize the government of the United States; but, living a quiet life on his farm, he was never disturbed by the measures which exiled the noted and active Tories.~ My mothers earliest recorded an- cestor was a John Maxson, one of the band of Roger Williams, driven by the Puritans out of Massachusetts into the wilder parts of Rhode Island and Pro- vidence Plantations, where they might worship God in the way their consciences dictated, free from the restrictions on the liberty of belief and practice im- posed by the Pilgrim Fathers. There at last complete freedom of dissent was found, and one of the consequences was that the colony became a sort of field for Christian dialectics, where the most ex- treme doctrines on all points of Chris- tian belief were discussed without more serious results of the odium theologi- cum than the building of many meeting houses and the multiplication of sects. Among these sects was one which played an important part in the local theology of that day, and for many years after- ward, known as the Seventh-Day Ba~ 2 Autobiography of W. J. Stiliman. tist, to which, it seems, John Maxson be- longed. It was not a new invention of the colonists, but had existed in England since the days of early dissent, and it is possible that John Maxson had brought the doctrine with him from England. Adhering to the practice of baptism by immersion, the sect also maintained the immutable obligation of the Seventh-Day Sabbath of the ten commandments, the Jewish day of rest. The grave disabilities imposed upon them in Massachusetts by the obligatory abstention from labor on two days on one day by conscience, and the other by the rigorous laws of the Puritans made Roger Williamss little state the paradise of the Sabbatarians, and the sect flour- ished greatly in it, while the social isola- tion consequent on the practice of con- tracting marriages only within their church membership (made imperative if family dissensions were to be avoided on a question of primary importance to that community, which had sacrificed all worldly advantages to what it believed to be obedience to the Word of God) at once knit together their church in closer relations, and drew to it others from the outside, attracted by the mag- netism of a more ascetic faith. Amongst the emigrants from England on the Restoration were a family by the name of Stillman, who having become in- volved with the Regicides went into what was then the most obscure and remote part of New England, and settled at Wethersfield in Connecticut. One of the brothers, George, hearing of this strange doctrine denying the sanctity of the Lords Day, caine to Newport to con- vert the erring brothers; but, convinced by them, remained in the colony, where he became a shining light. Thus it hap- pened that both lines of my ancestry be- came involved in the mystic bonds of a faith which shut them off in a peculiar manner from all around them. The consequent isolation, I fear, made much for self-righteousness. In their eyes it was this observance which maintained continuity between the Christian church and the institutions imposed in Paradise, and therefore made them peculiarly the people of God. This amiable fanaticism, fervent without being uncharitable, in- terfered in nowise with the widest ex- ercise of Christian sympathy with other sects, the observance of the Seventh-Day Sabbath not being held as an essential to godliness, or to Christian fellowship, the nonobservance being possibly only due to ignorance, so that the relations of the his- toric First Seventh-Day Baptist Church at Newport with the churches observing the Lords-Day Sabbath were always most kindly. The meeting house occu- pied by the Sabbatarians on the seventh day was occupied by one of the Sunday- observing sects on the first, and the preachers of one often officiated for the other. But the worldly advantage en- joyed by the Sunday keeper was so con- siderable that all who did not hold to the finest scruple of conscience in their conduct passed over to the majority and were excluded from the communion, as a precantion against the Sunday keepers becoming a majority in the church and taking it away from the Sabbath keep- ers, as did actually occur with one of their congregations in Vermont. In our community generally there was a most scrupulous avoidance of any occu- pation on Sunday which might annoy these who held it as Sabbath, and though in the state of New York the laws were extremely liberal in this respect, my fa- ther in my boyhood always made it a point not to allow in his workshop any work which would be heard by the neigh- bors. It can be readily understood that this continual selection of the most scru- pulous consciences, the closest thinkers and the least worldly characters, in the church of my ancestors, must have de- veloped a singularly fine and cutting- edge temper in its adherents; and the succession of generations of men and women who had graduated in the school Autobiofj/rctphy of W. J. Stilirnan. 8 of Scripture dialectics, and knew every text and its various interpretations, made a community of Bible disputants such as even Massachusetts could not show. My mother was the eldest of a family of five, left motherless when she was sixteen. Her father was the director of the smallpox hospital in Newport, then an institution of grave importance to the community, as the practice of obligatory inoculation prevailed, and all the young people of the colony had to go up in classes to the hospital and pass the or- deal. Her mothers death left her the matron of the hospital and caretaker of her sister and brothers, and fhe stories of her life at that time which she told me now and then showed that with the posi- tion she assumed the effective authority, and ruled her brothers with a severity which my own experience of her maturer years enables me to understand. Spare the rod, and spoil the child, was the maxim which flamed in the air before every father and mother of that New England, and my mothers physical vigor at sixty, when her conception of authori- ty began to relax, I being then a lad six feet high and indisposed to physical per- suasion, satisfied me that when her duty had required her to assume the responsi- bility bequeathed her by her mother she was fully competent to meet it. Accustomed to the hardest life, the most rigid economy in the household, and without servants, for except rare and lately emancipated negro slaves there was then no servile class in that colony, the children had to perform all the du- ties pertaining to the daily life, official or private, and my mother was able to pull an oar or manage the sailboat with her brothers, and catch the horses and ride them bareback from pasture, when necessary, for the daily work, which was not insignificant; for Newport was real- ly the seaport of that section of the state, and being on an island of importance, the intercourse with the mainland called for sea and land service. The boys were all fishermen, for a large part of the subsistence of the family came from the fishing grounds outside the harbor; and as the oldest brother took early to the sailors life, my mother had to assume a larger share of all the harder services. The hospital was also the quarantine station, and received all the cases of smallpox which came to the port; and they must have been many and fatal, for I have heard her say that she had to go the rounds of the hospital at night, and that there would sometimes be more than one dead in the dead-room at once. The first acquaintance of my parents with each other was made in the inocu- lating class, my father being resident in Westerly, a town of Rhode Island, on the borders of Connecticut. The marriage must have taken place about two years later, on the second marriage of my grandfather Maxson to the daughter of Samuel Ward, one of the leading dele- gates from Rhode Island to the conven- tion which drew up and promulgated the Declaration of Independence. The ear- ly days of their married life must have been passed in an extreme frugality. My father was one of a large number of children, and, after childhood on a farm, learned the trade of ship carpen- ter, which he alternated, as was often the habit of the young men of the New England coast, with voyages to the banks of Newfoundland in the codfish- ing season. Having in addition a share of Yankee inventiveness, he became in- terested in the perfecting of a fulling- machine, to introduce which into what was then the West he made a temporary residence in the state of New York at the old Dutch town of Schenectady, at that time an important entrepot of com- merce between the Eastern cities and the state of New York, and the North- west. Utica was a frontier settlement, Buffalo an outpost in the wilderness. 1 Mr. Ward died just before the signing of the Declaration, so that his name does not fig- nrc in the list of signers. 4 The country was recovering from the war of 181215 between the United States and England, and enterprise was beginning to push through the thin lines of settlements along the valleys ~f the Mohawk and upper Hudson, westward by Buffalo and the Great Lakes, to Ohio, and northward to the valley of the St. Lawrence. Schenectady was the dis- tributing point of this wagon-borne com- merce and movement until the comple- tion of the Erie Canal, which down to my own period of recollection was the quickest channel of communication west- ward, with its horse packets, traveling at the creditable speed of four miles an hour, the traffic barges making scarcely more than two. Hardly established in what was in- tended for a temporary visit, the resi- dence of the family became fixed in New York state, owing to my fathers partner, who had been left to manage the busi- ness at Westerly, becoming involved in personal em barrassments, which brought on the bankruptcy of the firm and the seizure of all my fathers little property, and, what was worse, the risk of impris- onment for debt in the case of his re- turning home. Owing to the judgments hanging over him, which a succession of misfortunes prevented him from ever satisfying, it was late in my own remem- brance I thir~k about 1848 or 1850 before he was enabled to visit his early home. Hard times came on the whole people of that section, and the practical destruction of his business by the loss of all his capital drove him into seeking any employment which would give a momentary relief. Of this period of their existence my mother rarely spoke, and it must have been one of severe pri- vations. She has told me that she often went to bed hungry, that the children might have enough to eat. She had no assistance in her domestic labors except that of her daughter, a girl of tender years, and, having her husbands five journeymen as members of the house- Autobiography of TV. J. Stilirnan. hold, with five children, of whom my sister was the second, she not only did the daily household duties, including washing and baking, but spun and wove the cloth for the clothes of her husband and children, cut them and made them up. Her cheerful faith in an overruling Pro- vidence must have been, in those days, a supreme consolation; for even in re- calling them in the days of my boyhood, the light of it still illumined her, and she never questioned that He who had led them into the wilderness would main- tain them in it. She seemed to have but one care in her life while I knew her, to know arid do her duty. She found a special providence in every instance of re- lief from their pressing wants, and I recall the religious serenity with which she told me of the greatest strait of the hardest winter of that period, when resources had been exhausted almost to the last crumb, and they unexpectedly received from one of her half-brothers, who had gone further west, and lived in what was practically time wilderness, a barrel of salted pigeons breasts. There had been one of those almost fabulous flights of the now nearly extinct passenger pigeons which used to come north to breed, in such numbers that the forests where they colonized were so filled with their nests that the settlers went into them and beat the young down with poles, arid the branches became so overloaded with the broods in their nests that their weight sometimes broke them down and threw the young on the ground. The birds had that year chosen the forests in my uncles neighborhood for their nesting ground, and had been killed by thou- sands, and salted down for winter pro- vision; only the breast being used, owing to the superabundance of the birds. The gift came like the answer to a prayer, for there was hunger in the house, and the snow heavy on the ground, all the community being more or less in the same straits. Being the youngest of nine children, Autobiography of W. J Stiliman. I can only remember my mother in the days of comparative freedom from anxi- ety, when, the days work over and the house quiet, she used, as she sat by the fire with her knitting, which occupied all the moments when her hands were not required for other duties, to tell me incidents of her past life, mostly to show how kind God had been to her and hers, and how faith in His providence was justified in the event. Of herself she only spoke incidentally. Doininat- ing every act and thought of her exist- ence was the profoundest religious vener- ation I have ever met with, an openness of her mind upward, as if she felt that the Eternal Eye was on her and reading her thoughts. The sense of her responsi- bility was so serious that I think that only the absorbing activity of her daily life and the way in which every mo- ment was occupied with positive duties prevented her from falling into religious insanity. Her life ~vas a constant prayer, a wrestling with God for the salvation of her children. No image of her re- mains in my mind so clear as that in which I see her sitting by the fireside, in the dim light of our siugle home- made candle, her knitting needles flying, and her lips moving in prayer, while the tears stole down her cheeks, in the fervency of her devotion, until she felt that she was being noticed, when the windows of her soul were suddenly shut, and she turned to some subject of com- mon interest as if ashamed to be dis- covered praying; for she permitted her- self no ostentation of devotion, but re- served it for her nights and solitary moments. Of her own salvation she had only a faltering hope, harassed always by a fear that she had at some time in her life unconsciously committed the unpardonable sin, the nature of which being unknown made it all the more fearful, the terrible mystery of life and death. ,What I inherit from her, and doubtless the indelible impression of her fervent faith overshadowing my young life, produced a moulding of my character which has never chauged. I lived in an atmosphere of prayer and trust in God which so impressed me, that to this day the habit of thought and conduct thus formed is invincible; and in all the subsequeut modifications of the primitive and Hebraic concep- tion of the spiritual life with which she inoculated me, an unconscious aspiration in prayer and an absolute and organic trust in the protection of the divine Pro- vidence persist in my character, though reason has long assured me that this is but a crude and personal conception of the divine law, a conception which my reason repudiates. My mother was also haunted by the dread of Gods wrath at her loving her children more than she did Him, for with all the fervency of her gentle devotion, she never escaped the ghastly Hebrew conception of a God, always in wrath at every omission or transgression of the law, who at the last great day would de- mand of her an account of every neglect of duty, every idle word and thought, and especially of the manner in which she had taught her children to obey His commandments. She seemed to scan her life continually to find some sin in the past for which she had not specifi- cally repented, and at times, as I knew by her confidences to me in later years, when she would appeal to me for my opinion, the problem of the unpardon- able sin became one of absorbing study, which she finally laid aside in the su- preme trust in His goodness who alone knew her intentions and desire to be obedient to the Law. Every one of her sons, as they were born, she dedicated to the service of the Lord, in the ardent hope that one of them would become a minister, and over me, the last, she let her hopes linger longest, for, as I was con- sidered a delicate child, unable to sup- port the life of hard work to which my older brothers had taken one by one, she hoped that I might be spared for study. 5 6 Autobiography of 11/. J. Stiliman. Only the eldest son ever responded to her desire by the wish to enter the ser- vice of the church, and he was far too important to my fathers little workshop to be spared for the necessary schooling. He struggled through night schools and in the intervals of day leisure to qualify himself to enter the College in our city. Before doing so he fell under the notice of old Dr. Nott, President of the College, who was, beside being a teacher of won- derful ability, a clever inventor, and, perceiving my brothers mechanical ca- pacity, persuaded him to abandon the plan of entering the ministry, and made him foreman of his establishment, the Novelty Iron Works, at New York, for many years known as the leading estab- lishment of its kind in America. The next two brothers, having more or less the same gifts, followed the eldest to New York; the next, an incurable stam- merer, was disqualified for the pulpit, and studied medicine, being moreover of a fragile constitution; and the next, having the least possible sympathy for the calling, also took to medicine. With the migration of the three older brothers to New York, the diminution of the family and the aid the brothers in New York were able to give the younger children at home, my mothers life took on a new activity, in her resolute deter- mination that the younger boys should have such an education as the College (Union) afforded them. This determi- nation was opposed by my father, whose idea of the education needed by boys did not go beyond the elements, and who wanted them in the workshop. But it had become to my mother a conception of her duty, that as the relations between my eldest brother and the President of the College led to an offer of what was practically a free education, the younger boys should have equal advantages, and when duty entered her head there was no force capable of driving it out. Charles, the first of us to graduate, was, during his course, the College bell ringer, to pay his fees, but Jacob and myself were in turn dispensed even from this service. My fathers practical opposition, the re- fusal to pay the incidental expenses for what he always persisted in regarding as an useless education, was met in Charless case by my mothers taking in the stu- dents washing to provide them. In the cases of Jacob and myself, this drudgery was exchanged for that of a students boarding house. In all the housework involved in this complication of her du- ties, she never had a servant until shortly before my birth, when she took into the house a liberated African slave, the only other assistance in the house in my child- hood being a sister six years older than myself, and the daughter of one of our neighbors, who came as a help at the time of my birth, and subsequently mar- ried my second brother. My mother was also the family doctor, for, except in very grave cases, we never had any other physician. She pulled our teeth and prescribed all our medicines. I was well grown before I wore a suit which was not of her cutting and making, though sometimes she was obliged to have in a sewing woman for the light work. She made all the bread we ate, cured the hams, and made great batches of sausages and mince pies, sufficient for the winters consumption as well as huge pigs-head cheeses. How she ac- complished all she did I never under- stood. But with all her passionate desire to see one of her boys in what she consid- ered the service of God, there was never on my mothers part the least pressure in that direction, no suggestion that the sacrifices she was making demanded any measure of deviation from our views as to the future. It was her hope that one of us would feel as she did, but she cheerfully resigned the hope, as son af- ter son turned the other way. A bro- ther born three years before me, and who was taken from her before my birth, was perhaps in her mind the fulfillment Autobography of W. J. Stiliman. 7 of her dedication, for he was, according to the accounts of friends of the family, a child of extraordinary intelligence, and she felt that God had taken him from her. In one of those moments of con- fidence in the years when I had become a counselor to her, I remember her tell- ing me of this boy (known as little William to distinguish him from me) and the sufferings she endured through her doubts lest he should have lived long enough to sin, and had not repented; for, her dreary creed taught that the rig- ors of eternal damnation rested on every one who had not repented of each indi- vidual sin, and that adult baptism was the only assurance of redemption. All the rest of her children had professed reli- gion and received baptism according to the rites of the Baptist Church, but lit- tle William left in her mothers heart the sting of uncertainty. Had he lived long enough to transgress the Law and not re- pented? This was to her an ever present question of terrible import. Years rolled by without weakening this torture of ap- prehension that this little lamb of all her flock might be expiating the sin of Adam in the flames of Eternity, a per- petual babyhood of woe. The depth of the misery this haunting fear inflicted on her can only be imagined by one who knew the passionate intensity of her love for her children, a love which she feared to be sinful, but could not abate. Finally one night, as she lay perplexing her soul with this and other problems of sin and righteousness, she saw, stand- ing near her bed, her lost child, not as she supposed him to be, a baby for eternity, but apparently a youth of sixteen, re- garding her silently, but with an expres- sion of such radiant happiness in his face that the shadow passed from her soul forever. She needed no longer to be told that he was amongst the blessed. She told me this one day, timidly, as something she had never dared tell the older children, lest they should think her superstitious, or, perhaps dissipate her consolation by the assurance that she had dreamed. In charity, comfort for the afflicted, help, not in money, for of that there was little to spare, but in food; in watching with the sick, and consoling the bereaved in her own loving, sym- pathetic, mothers way, she abounded. There was always something for the really needy, and I remember one of her most painful experiences from hav- ing refused food to a woman who came to beg, and to whose deathbed she was called the next day, a deathbed of lit- eral starvation. She recognized the wo- man, who had come to our house with a story of a family of starving children; but as my mothers experienced eye as- sured her she had never been a mother, she refused to her, as a deceiver, what the honest poor always got. Why did you tell me you had children, my mother asked her, when you came to me yes- terday? It was not true, said the dying woman, but I was starving and I thought you would be more willing to help me if you thought I had children. And from that day no beggar was turned from our door without food. Silently and in secret she did what good works came to her to be done, letting not her right hand know what her left hand was doing, but all the poor knew her and her works. Silent, too, and undemon- strative in all her domestic relations she always was, and I question if to any other of her family than myself she ever confided her secret hopes or fears. And to me even she was so undemon- strative that I never remember her kiss- ing me from a passing warmth; only when I went away on a journey, or re- turned from one, did she offer to kiss me, and this was the manner of the family. Her maintenance of family dis- cipline was on the same rigorous level, dispassionate as the Law. If I trans- gressed the commands of herself or of my father the punishment was inevi- table, never in wrath, generally on the Autobiography of W. J. Stiliman. day after the offense, but inexorable; she never meant to spoil the child by sparing the rod, but flogged with tears in her eyes and an aching heart, often giving the punishment herself to pre- vent my father from giving it, as he al- ways flogged mercilessly and in anger, though if I could keep out of his sight till the next day he forgot all about it; she never forgot, and though the flog- ging might not come for a week, it was never omitted. And .her worst severity never raised a feeling of resentment in me, for I recognized it as well deserved, while my fathers floggings always made me rebellious. I only remember one occasion on which I was punished un- justly by my mother. A neighboring farmer had asked me to go to his field close by and shake down the apples of two trees belonging to him. It was in the hour before dinner, and the regula- tions of the family were very severe about being at meals, and unfortunately I had, in my glee at having a job of pay- ing work to do, infringed on the dinner time. In payment for my services I received from the farmer two huge pump- kins, charged with which I hastened home, looking forward to my mothers praise and pleasure, but was met by her in the hall, strap in hand, with which she administered a solid flogging, ex- plaining that my father was so angry at my being out at dinner that she gave me the punishment to forestall his, which would be, as I well knew, much severer. It is more than sixty years since that punishment fell on my shoulders, but the astonishment with which I received the flogging instead of the thanks I an- ticipated for the wages I was bringing her, the haste with which my mother administered it ~lest my father should anticipate her and beat me after his fashion, are as vivid in my recollection as if it had taken place last year. This was a sample of the family discipline: I was forbidden to walk with other boys when I drove the cow to pasture; for- bidden to bathe in the millpond near by, except at stated times; to play with certain children; to amuse myself on the Sabbath, and other similar doings, all to my childish apprehension harmless in themselves, and the punishment never failed to follow the discovery of the transgression. Naturally I learned to lie, a thing contrary to my inclination and nature, and a torture to my con- science, but I had not the courage to meet the flogging, or the firmness to re- sist temptation and the persuasion of my young companions who rejoiced in a domestic freedom of which I knew nothing. My fathers severity finally brought emancipation by its excess. He used to follow me to see if I obeyed his orders, and one day when I had been persuaded by some boys of our neigh- borhood to go and bathe in the forbid- den hours, lie found me in the pond, led me home, and, after cutting two tough pear-tree switches about the thickness, at the butt, of his forefinger, he took me down into the cellar, and, making me strip off my jacket, broke them up to stunips over my back, protected only by a cotton shirt. This was the deciding event which determined me to run away from home, which I did the next week, and though my escapade did not last beyond ten days, on my return the rod was buried. Looking back at my mother, after the lapse of thirty-seven years since I saw her last, I am surprised at the largeness of character developed in the narrow and illiberal mould of the exclusive Puritan- ism of the church of her inheritance; at her freedom from bigotry and the breadth of her knowledge of human na- ture, as well as at the justice of her instincts of religious essentials, which kept her cheerful and hopeful in spite of the gloomy doctrine imposed on her by her education and surroundings. Be- lieving firmly in the eternity of hell fire, with the logical nnd terrible day of judgment casting its gloomy shadow over 8 Autobiography of W. J. ~Stillman. 9 her life, she maintained an unbounded charity for all humanity except herself, admitting the extenuation of ignorance for all others, and condoning, in her judg- ment of those who differed from her, the offenses which for herself she would have thought mortal sins. In her own house- hold, all latitude in religious observance was resisted with all her strength. In my paternal grandfathers house the sev- enth day was a day of feasting, and after the church services all the connection went to the ancestral home to eat the most sumptuous dinner of the week. Against this infraction of the law which forbade on the Sabbath all work not of mercy or necessity my mother set her face, and when this was done there was no long resistance possible and my father had to give way, so that on that day we had a cold dinner, cooked on Friday. At sun- set on Friday all work and all secular reading or amusements ceased, and on Saturday only a Sabbath-Days journey was permitted so far as she could control. But iiy father was a rover from his youth, and Saturday being his only leisure day he used to take rue with him on long walks in the woods and fields, according to the season; and the weather and the length of the day were his only limitations. In the house she ruled, but out of it he made his own conscience, and so it hap- pened that the only pleasures that I owe him, except the bringing me a few books when he came hack from his business trips to New York to sell his machines, were these long walks in the face of na- ture. He was, in his family, apparently a cold, hard man, but out of it. kindly and benevolent, melting always to dis- tress which came in his way, with a pas- sionate love of animals and of nature. He was a poor business man, for he could never press for the payment of debts due him, and of an honesty so rigid that it became a proverb in our town that a man should be as honest as old Joe Stillman, and his good name was all he gave or left his children. My father died in one of my occasion- al absences in Europe, and when I saw my old mother in the black she never again laid off, she told me, tranquilly and with a firm voice, but with the tears run- ning down her cheeks, how he died, and said, He was so handsome that I want- ed to keep him another day. The warmth of expression struck me strairge- ly, for in all my home experience I had never heard before a word which could be taken as a token of conjugal tender- ness, but when I reflected, I could see that it was and always had been the same with the children. Of tire nine children she bore, five died before she did, includ- ing her second and, during my life, her only (laughter, but in all the bereave- ments she retained her calm, self-con- tained manner, weeping silently, and tranquilly going about the house, corn- forting those who shared the sorrow, un- complaining, reconciled in advance; she had consigned her beloved to the God who gate them to her, and would have thought it rebellion to repine at any diS- pensation which He sent her. In the most sudden and crushing grief I re- member her to have experienced~ that which came with the news that my bro- ther Alfred had been killed by the ex- plosion of a boiler at Ne~v Orleans, there was one brief breakdown of her forti- tude, an hours yielding, and then all her thought was for his widow and children. No detail of the household duties was neglected, and nothing was forgotten that concerne(l the comfort of others. She avoided all external signs of grief, and until my father died, she never wore mourning. Her bereavements and her prayers were matters that concerned only God and herself. What I have said might give her the character of~an ascetic, but nothing could he further from her. She was always optimistic as to earthly troubles, habit- ually cheerful, and fond of mild festivi- ties. At times no one was more merry than she, and I have seen her laughing 10 Autobiography of 1 JJ Stiliman. at a good joke or story till the tears ran down her cheeks. Her ardent desire that her children should have a liberal education came to a climax on me, the last of them. She taught me my letters before I could artic- ulate them, and when I was two I could read, and at three I was put on a high stool to read the Bible for visitors, so that I cannot remember when I could not read, and when not more than five or six I used to be at the head of the spelling classes and spelling matches, in which all the boys and girls were divided into equal companies, and the schoolteacher gave out the hardest words in the spell- ing book, to each side in turn, all who failed to spell their word sitting down, until the solitary survivor on one side or the other decided the victory; even before I was seven I was generally that survivor. I read insatiably all the good story books I was allowed to have, and I cannot recall the time at which any part of the Bible was new to me. With an incipient passion for nature and an- imal life, I read also all the books of natural history I could get, and I have heard in later years, that in all the com- munity of Sabbatarianisin I was known as a prodigy. Fortunately I was saved from a probable idiocy in my later life by a severe attack of typhoid fever at seven, out of which I came a model of stupidity, and so remained until I was fourteen, my thinking powers being so completely suspended, that at the dames school to which I was sent, I was re- peatedly flogged for not comprehending the simplest things. I got through sun- ple arithmetic as far as long division,~~ and there had to turn back to the begin- ning three times, before I could be made to understand the principle of division by more than one number. In the humiliation of this period of my life, in which I came to consider my- self as little better than a fool, my only consolation was the large liberty I en- joyed in the woods and fields either with my father on Saturdays, or my brothers Charles and Jacob on their long bota- nizing excursions, or in the moments of leisure when I was not wanted to turn the grindstone, or blow the bellows in the workshop. Those long walks in which I was indefatigable, and the days or nights when I went fishing with my brother Jacob, who was ten years older than myself, and who inherited the wan- dering and adventurous longings of my father, are the only things I can remem- ber of this period which gave me any pleasure. I can see vividly the banks of the Mohawk where we used to fish for perch, bream, and pike-perch; I recall where my brother Charles and I found the rarer flowers of the valley, the cyp- ripediums, the most rare wild ginger, only to be found in one locality, and the walking fern, equally rare. The murmur of the west wind in the branches of the pine forests fascinated me more than any other thing in nature, and my first rapturbus vision of the open sea comes back to me with the memory of the pines. I had gone with my father and mother to New York on a visit to my eldest brother who had just then finished the engines of the steamer Diamond, which was the first that by her build was enabled to run through from New York to Albany, past time overshaugh or bar formed in the Hudson, which pre- vented the steamers of greater draught from getting up to the wharf at Albany, and he had profited by her first trip to visit home again, and take us back with him. My brother pointed out to me the Clermont, Fultons trial steamer, then disused and lying at Hoboken, but a cockboat to the Diamond, which was one of the great successes of the day. Ma- chinery fascinated me, being of the me- chanical breed, and I can recall the en- gines of the boat, which were of a new type, working horizontally, and so per- mitting larger engines in proportion to the draught of the steamer than had been before used. We all went one day A~ttobiography of W. J. StiUman. it to Coney Island on the southern shore of gave up finally the oft-renewed ambition Long Island, since a much reguente4 to see one oi her boys ~in the pu~pit, an~X, I bathing place for New York, bu~ tfien a never quite una~er5toGd~wLiy, m~va~e ev~y - ~ ~ & ~ bathing boxes and a temporary structure for my abilities in that line were little where bathers might get refreshments. more than nine boys out of ten show. We drove out in my brothers buggy, It was a fortunate thing for my after and as, at a turn in the road, I caught a life that I lived so near the forests that glimpse of the distant sea horizon, I rose all my odd time was spent in them and in the buggy, shouting, The sea! the in the surrounding fields. I knew every sea! and, in an uncontrollable frenzy, apple tree of early fruiting for miles caught the whip from my brothers hand around, and every hickory tree whose and slashed the horse in wild delirium, nuts were choice. One of the joyous unconscious of what I was doing. The experiences of the time was the run- emotion remains ineffaceable after more ning down a young gray squirrel in the than threescore years, one of the most woods and catching him with my bare vivid of my life. And how ecstatic was hands, which he bit sharply. I took him the sensation of the plunge into the home and tamed him perfectly, and was breakers while I held fast to my mothers very happy with him, my first pet. He hand, and then the race up the beach be- used to come and sleep in my pocket fore the next comber, trembling lest it and was never kept in a cage. My fa- should catch me, as if it were a living ther one morning left the window of our thing ready to devour me. They never room open and Bob went out to cx- come back, these first emotions of child- plore, and when trying to find his way hood, and though I have loved the sea back again a dog of the neighborhood, all my life, I have never again felt the as a neighbor told us, chased him away, sight of it as then. aiid to my intense grief he was shot by I remember, too, very well the grand a hunter a few days after in the adjoin- occasion of the opening of the Hudson ing forest. I cannot to this day see a and Mohawk Railway, the first link in squirrel without emotion and affection- that line which is now the New York ate remembrance of Bob. The love of Central, and see vividly the curious old animals, which I inherited from my fa- coaches, three coach bodies together on ther, was one of the passions of my child- one truck. This was in 1832, when I hood, and I had an insatiate longing for was four years old. The road was, I pets. believe, the first successful passenger Naturally my religious education dur- railway in America, and was sixteen ing these early years was of the severest miles long, with two inclined planes up orthodox character, and my mothers which the trains were drawn, and down sincere, fervent, and practical piety which they were lowered, by cables. brought home to me with the conviction There was an opposition line of stage- of certainty the persuasion of its divine coaches between Albany and Schenec- authority. Hell and its terrors were al- tady, running at the same price, and ways present to me, and she taught me making the same time. that the wandering suggestions of the Before I was seven I began to try to childish imagination, the recurrence of draw, especially birds and beautiful profane expressions heard from others, forms, though years before I had been and all forms of impious fantasies were used to color the woodeuts in my books. the very whisperings of the Devil, to her My mother, who had an utterly un- as to me, consequently, an ever present cultivated but most tender love of art, spirit, perpetually tempting me to re 12 Autobiography of TV. J. Stiliman. peat and so make myself responsible for the wickedness in them. I was never allowed a candle to go to bed with, and as I slept in the huge garret, which formed the whole upper story of the house, I used to shut my eyes when I left the kitchen wheie we all sat in the evening, and grope my way to bed with- out ever again opening my eyes till the next morning, for fear of seeing the Devil. Awful spiritual presences haunt- ed me always iii the dark, when I passed a churchyard or an empty and solitary house. A deserted house stood in the pasture where I used to drive the cow, and when it happened that she had not come home at nightfall and I had to go to find her, the panic I endured from the necessity to search around this old dwelling no one can imagine but a boy naturally timid and accustomed to fancy ghosts and evil spirits in the dusk. But I kept my fears to myself, and always made a conscientious search. The whole community in which we lived, with exception of a small Episcopal (Anglican) church, was nonconformist, with the same ideas of conversion and regeneratiom ; and a prominent feature in our social existence was the frequent recurrence of the great revival meet- ings in which all the rude eloquence of celebrated and powerful preachers, Baptist, Methodist, and of other sects, was poured out on excited congregations. There were protracted meetings, or campaigns of prayer and exhortation, lasting often a fortnight, at which all the resources of popular theology were em- ployed to awaken and maintain their audiences in a state of frenzy and reli- gious delirium, in which conviction of sin was sul)posed to enter the heart niore effectually. To these meetings my mother used to send me, giving me a holiday for all the time the protracted meeting lasted. But conviction never camo. I was honest with myself, and though the frenzied and ghastly exhortations harried my soul with dread, and I longed for the coming of the ecstasy which was the re- cognizable sign of the grace of God, I could not rise to the participation in it which the most material and hysterical of the congregation enjoyed, so that day after day I went home, saddened by the conviction that I was still one of the un- regenerate. The sign never came, but several years later, I went to make a visit to my brother Charles, who had then removed to Plainfield, N. J., where he practiced medicine and was one of the main supports of our church in a community where the sect was large enough to have a constant worship, which it never had in Schenectady. Here I came under the influence of a beloved brother of my mother, one of the most earnest and humble Christians I have ever known, and here were gathered oth- ers of the denomination at a protracted meeting, at which some of my friends of my own age became seriously in- clined, and we drifted together into the profession of Christian faith. But here there was nothing of the ghastly terrors of the great revival agitations. My un- cle was a man of the world, had been all his early life a sailor, and had taken late to what, in his experiences of men and the vicissitudes of life, he consid- ered the only reality, the duty of making known to his fellows the importance of the spiritual life. To fit himself for the ministry, lie taught himself Hebrew and Greek as well as Latin, and ninny years later was chosen as one of the New Tes- tament revisers for the American revi- sion committee. But to him the profes- sion of relic~ion was an act of tIme reason, not of revival excitement, and in his ministrations lie shunned carefully all the frenzied exhortation of the revival- ists. The movement at Plainfield, finding me in different surroundings from those in amy native place, and under the influ- ence of deliberate and sober-minded people, put the religious question in an- Autobiography of W. J. Stillman~ other light, but, being still under the persuasion, the natural result of my lifes training, that some special emo- tion or spiritual change was an indis- pensable sign of the chan~,e of heart which was desired, I was unhappy that no such sign appeared. I can distinctly remember that the desire to satisfy my mothers passionate longing for what she considered my regeneration was a large part of my desire to meet the change and, if I might, provoke it. I longed for it, prayed for it, and consid- ered myself forsaken of God because it would not come; but come it never did, and it seemed to me that I was attempting to deceive both my mother and the church when I finally yield- ed to the current which carried along my young friends, and took the grace for granted, since, as I thought, having asked the special prayers of the elders, men of God, and powerful in influence with Him, I had a right to assume the descent of the redeeming light on me, though I had never been con~cious of that peculiar manifestation of it which my companions professed to have expe- rienced. Still, I felt not a little twinge of conscience in assuming so much, but I could not consent to prolong my mo- thers suspense and grave concern at the exclusion of one of her children from the fold of gi~ace. I put down the doubts, accepted the conversion as logical and real, and went forward with the others. We were baptized, my companions an(l I, in the little river in midwinter af- ter a partial thaw, the blocks of ice floating by us in the water. I must have been about ten or eleven when I went through this experience, and I never got rid of the feeling of a certain unreality in the whole transaction, bnt on the other hand I had the same feel- ing of unreality in the system of theo- logy which led to it. I tried to do my best to carry out the line of spiritual duties imposed upon me. I made no question that I was a bad boy, but the conception of total depravity in the the- ological sense never gained a hold on me, and once inside the church there seemed to be a certain safeguard thrown over me. The sense of ecstasy (which my uncle William had experienced in his religious relation, the power of the revivalists) I have since known in conditions of extraordinary mental ex- altation, and understand it as a mental phenomenon, the momentary extension of the consciousness of the individual beyond the limitations of the bodily sense, a being snatched away from the body and ma(le to see and feel things not describable in terms of ordinary ex- perience; but in niy religious evolution it had no place then or since. The intellectual slowness of which I have spoken continued year after year. I had left the dames school where the rule of long division proved my pons asinorum, and went to a mans school, where I earned my schooling by making the fires and sweeping the schoolroom, and here I learned by rote sonic Latin and the higher rules in arithmetic, al- ways with the reputation of a stupid boy, good in the snowball fights of the intermissions, when we had two snow forts to capture and defend ; in run- ning foot races the speediest, and in backhand wrestling the strongest, but mentally hopeless. All this period of my life seems dreary and void, except when I got to nature, and the delight of my hours in the fields and woods is all that remains to me of a childhood tor- mented by burthens of conscience laid on me prematurely, and by a severity of domestic discipline, which, with all the reverence and gratitude I bear my par- ents, I can hardly consider otherwise than gravely mistaken and disastrous to me. Onr ~vinters were long and hard, and I remember the snow falling on Thanksgiving Day (time last Thursday in November) and not thawing again until the beginning of Marcim. The fall of snow was so heavy that the drift coy- 13 14 Autobiograpky of W. J. Stiliman. ered the house, and we had to tunnel a path to the barn door. The coming of spring was my constant preoccupation, and my joy was intense at the first swell- ing of the buds, the fresh color in the willow twigs, then the catkins, and at last the leaves. The long rains which carried off the snow were welcome as daylight after a weary night because they re- stored me to the forests and the wild flowers, the fields and the streams; and for miles around I sought every sunny spot where came the first anemones, hepaticas, and, before all, the trailing ar- butus, joy of my childhood, the little white violets, their yellow sisters, then the dogtooth violet, and many an- other flower whose name I have long for- gotten. Then began the excursions into the forests around us and the succession of new sights and sounds, the order of the unfolding of the leaves, fromthe wil- low to the oak, the singing of the frogs in the marshes, and of the birds in the copses and fields. I knew them all and when and where to~ hear them. The arctic bluebird, or blue robin as it was called in our neighborhood, was the first, and his plaintive song, the sweetest to memory of all natures voices, assured us that spring had really come. Then the robin (the migratory thrush), with his bold, cheery note, full of summer life; and after these the chief was the bobolink, singing up into the sky the mer- riest and most rollicking of all bird songs, as that of the bluebird was the tenderest. Then came the hermit thrush, heard only in the forest, shy and remote in his life and nesting, and the whip-poor-will, in the evening. Each was a new leaf turned over in my book of life, the reading of which was my only happiness. What else, or more, could be expected of an existence hedged in by the terrors of eternity, the hauntings of an inevitable condemnation unless I could obtain some mysterious renovation only attainable through an act of divine grace which no human merit could entitle me to, and of which I tried in vain to win the bene- diction? And how dreary seemed the heaven I was set to win! No birds, no flowers, no fields or forests; only the eternal continuation of the hymn-singing and protracted meetings in which, in our system, consisted the glorification of God which was the end and aim of our existences. I wonder how many reli- gious parents conceive the misery of child life under such influences! The struggles of conscience through which I went in these days can be ima- gined by no one, and I can hardly re- alize them myself, except by recalling little incidents which show what the pressure must have been. I have men- tioned an escapade of this period, con- nected with the last flogging my father gave me. It was a matter of conscience at bottom. My mother had, when I was about six years old, taken a little octoroon girl of three, the illegitimate daughter of a quadroon in our neighbor- hood, with the intention of bringing her up as a servant. The child was quick- witted and irrepressible, and disputes began between us as soon as she felt at home. Every outbreak of temper in- duced by her conduct toward me became occasion of a period of penitence, for I was taught that such outbreaks were sin- ful, and the self-reproaches that my con- science had to bear up under became an intolerable load. At this juncture came the brutal and, as I felt, most unmerited flogging of which I have told the story earlier: this precipitated a decision which had been slowly forming from my con- scientious worries. I determined to go away from home and seek a state of life in which I could maintain my spiritual tranquillity. I discussed the subject with a playmate of my age, the son of a gar- dener living near us, and as his father had even a stronger propensity to the rod than mine, we sympathized on that ground and agreed to run away and work our passages on some ship to a land where we could live in a modified Robinson Autobiography of TV. J. Stiliman. 15 Crusoe manner, not an uninhabited land, but one where we could earn, by fishing and similar devices, enough to live on. I had been employed for a few months be- fore in carrying to and fro the students clothes for a washerwoman, one of the neighbors, and had earned three or four dollars, which my mother had, as usual with any trifle I earned, put into the fund for the daily expenses. I do not know how it was with the elder boys, but for me the rule was rigid, what I could earn was a part of the household income. I inwardly rebelled against this, but to no effect, so I never had any pocket money. I submitted, as any son of my mother must have done at my age, but on this occasion when money was indispensable to that expedition on which so much depended, I quietly re- asserted my right to my earnings, and took the wages I had received from the drawer where they were kept. My com- panion had no money at all, and thus my trifle had to pay for both as far as it would go; fortunately, perhaps, as it shortened the duration of the expedi- tion. We went by train to Albany, where we took deck passage on a towing steamer for New York. The run was longer than that of a passenger steamer, so that the New York police, who were warned to look out for us by the post, had given us up before we arrived and search was diverted in another direc- tion. When we reached New York my funds were already nearly exhausted by the food expenses en route, and my companions courage had already given out; he was homesick and discouraged, and announced his determination to re- turn home. My own courage, I can honestly say, had not failed me, I was ready for hardship, but not yet to go alone into a strange world. I yielded, and with the last few shillings in my pocket bargained for a deck passage with- out board on a barge back to Albany. It was midsummer, and the sleeping on some bags of wool which fo~rmed the bet- ter part of the deckload gave me no in- convenience, and the want of provisions of any sort was remedied as well as might be by a pile of salt codfish which was the other part of the deckload, and which af- forded us the only food we had until our arrival at Albany, where we arrived at night after a voyage of twenty-four hours. We slept under a boat by the riverside that night until the rising tide drove us out, when we decided to take the road back to Schenectady on foot, through a wide pine forest that occupied the in- tervening country, a distance of about sixteen miles. Passing on the way a stable in which there was nobody, not even a beast, we turned in to sleep away the darkness, and I remember very well what a yielding bed a manger filled with salt gave me. With the dawn we re- sumed the journey, and by the way ate our fill of whortleberries with which the forest abounded. Th& joy of my mother at our unhoped-for arrival for she had received no news of us since our departure is easily imagined, but for me the failure of all my plans for an ascetic and more spiritual life was made more bitter by the fact that the little oc- toroon who had heard read the letter which I left for my mother, giving the motives for my self-exile, had repeated it to all the neighborhood, so that I had not only failed but became the butt of the jokes of the boys of the neighbor- hood who already looked askance on me for my serious ways and my habit of re- buking certain vices amongst them. I was jeered at as the boy who left his mother to seek religion, and this made life for a time almost intolerable. But it was in part compensated for by the change in my situation in the household. Henceforth I was to be taken au s& ieux, and reasoned with rather than flogged. I had escaped from the pupa stage of existence. I still look back with surprise to the unflinching confidence in the future with which I committed myself to this esca 16 Reform in Theological Education. pade. I thought I was right, and that the aspiration for spiritual freedom which was the chief motive of my leaving home was certain to be supported by Provi- dence, to whom I looked with serene complacence. If my companion had not deserted me I should not have turned back, but his defection destroyed all my plans. In several of my maturer yen- tures I can recognize the same mental condition of serene indifference to dan- ger while doing what I thought my duty, owing perhaps in a great measure to ig- norance or incapacity to realize the dan- ger, but also largely to ingiained confi- dence in an overruling Providence which took account of my steps and would carry me through. William James Stiliman. REFORM IN THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. AT the recent International Congrega- tional Council, the question which sharp- ly divided the andience, was twice re- opened by special order, and furnished the chief topic of discussion for the re- mainder of the session was one not l)ri- warily of doctrine or polity, but of edu- cation. Yet problems of education are always rooted in philosophy, and affect the conduct of life. As Principal Fair- bairn pointed out, the education of the minister involves the conception of the- ology on which the ministry is based. It also involves the momentous issue of the sort of man the minister shall be. Under the limitations of time and mode of treatment which a great assem- bly imposes, these deeper aspects of the subject the discussion at the Council could not touch. The sharp collision of opposing views is valuable as a means of bringing needed reforms to public atten- tion, but is incompetent to throw much light on the issues raised. For, as Ed- ward Caird has said, controversy is apt to narrow a principle, and to deprive it of the full riches of its meaning, just be- cause it tends to reduce it to the mere negative of that to which it is opposed. In the present article I propose to con- trast two conceptions of theology, two types of minister, two policies of theo- logical education which are struggling for supremacy in all our Protestant denomi nations; and to point out the reforms which are needed to make our Ameri- can seminaries expressive of the theology which the world is fast coming to be- lieve, and productive of the kind of min- ister which the churches are already be- ginning to demand. For, though insti- tutions are slower to change than either ideas or men, doctrines, men, and insti- tutions must ultimately become all of one type or all of the other. One conception of theology regards God as a Being beyond the clouds, who at sundry times and in divers manners has broken through the mechanical world or(ler to promulgate his laws, inflict his vengeance, and rescue his favorites; and in due time sent his Son to suffer tl~e penalty which otherwise would have fall- en upon all mankind. Mans salvation depends on rightly apprehending the ex- act letter of the law which God miracu- lously revealed, the precise terms of the covenant he arbitrarily made, the specific conditions of pardon which he graciously established. Because God is holy and Christ is gracious, it follows as a logical inference and implication that man should be holy and gracious too. Yet these eth- ical and social obligations are deductions from the decree of God and the sacrifice of Christ, rather than the eternal prin- ciple and substance out of which Gods law and Christs sacrifice alike proceed.

16 Reform in Theological Education. pade. I thought I was right, and that the aspiration for spiritual freedom which was the chief motive of my leaving home was certain to be supported by Provi- dence, to whom I looked with serene complacence. If my companion had not deserted me I should not have turned back, but his defection destroyed all my plans. In several of my maturer yen- tures I can recognize the same mental condition of serene indifference to dan- ger while doing what I thought my duty, owing perhaps in a great measure to ig- norance or incapacity to realize the dan- ger, but also largely to ingiained confi- dence in an overruling Providence which took account of my steps and would carry me through. William James Stiliman. REFORM IN THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. AT the recent International Congrega- tional Council, the question which sharp- ly divided the andience, was twice re- opened by special order, and furnished the chief topic of discussion for the re- mainder of the session was one not l)ri- warily of doctrine or polity, but of edu- cation. Yet problems of education are always rooted in philosophy, and affect the conduct of life. As Principal Fair- bairn pointed out, the education of the minister involves the conception of the- ology on which the ministry is based. It also involves the momentous issue of the sort of man the minister shall be. Under the limitations of time and mode of treatment which a great assem- bly imposes, these deeper aspects of the subject the discussion at the Council could not touch. The sharp collision of opposing views is valuable as a means of bringing needed reforms to public atten- tion, but is incompetent to throw much light on the issues raised. For, as Ed- ward Caird has said, controversy is apt to narrow a principle, and to deprive it of the full riches of its meaning, just be- cause it tends to reduce it to the mere negative of that to which it is opposed. In the present article I propose to con- trast two conceptions of theology, two types of minister, two policies of theo- logical education which are struggling for supremacy in all our Protestant denomi nations; and to point out the reforms which are needed to make our Ameri- can seminaries expressive of the theology which the world is fast coming to be- lieve, and productive of the kind of min- ister which the churches are already be- ginning to demand. For, though insti- tutions are slower to change than either ideas or men, doctrines, men, and insti- tutions must ultimately become all of one type or all of the other. One conception of theology regards God as a Being beyond the clouds, who at sundry times and in divers manners has broken through the mechanical world or(ler to promulgate his laws, inflict his vengeance, and rescue his favorites; and in due time sent his Son to suffer tl~e penalty which otherwise would have fall- en upon all mankind. Mans salvation depends on rightly apprehending the ex- act letter of the law which God miracu- lously revealed, the precise terms of the covenant he arbitrarily made, the specific conditions of pardon which he graciously established. Because God is holy and Christ is gracious, it follows as a logical inference and implication that man should be holy and gracious too. Yet these eth- ical and social obligations are deductions from the decree of God and the sacrifice of Christ, rather than the eternal prin- ciple and substance out of which Gods law and Christs sacrifice alike proceed. 17 Reform in Theological Education. The other conception of theology re- gards God not so much as an arbitrary authority outside the world as the spirit of love and sacrifice within it. All right- eous legislation and moral insight are the progressive unfolding of his will; and the unique position of Hebrew law and prophecy is due to intrinsic ethical and social superiority, and the clearness with which legal co(le and prophetic insight in fictitious and literary rather than in scientific and historically accurate form, but with substantial truth and practical impressiveness, are ascribed to the one God who rules the world in righteousness and mercy. Christ is the well-authenti- cated Son of God, because the righteous- ness and mercy which are the very es- sence of divinity became his constant meat and drink, and the spirit of love, which is the Spirit of God, was without measure upon him. Sin is selfishness; and pain to others, degradation of self, are ts inevitable and indissoluble penal- ties. The wrong sin does and the de- gradation it works can be redeemed by nothing less personal and costly than that bearing of the sufferers sorrows and that sharing of the sinners shame of which the cross of Christ is the consummate and typical example. Salvation is restora- tion to the lost life of love. Whatever goes to time making of a happy home, the upbuilding of an honest fortune, the just administration of industry, tIme wise con- duct of public affairs, is part and parcel of that life of love wherein the Christian walks humbly with the omnipresent God, lives in fellowship with the ever living Christ, holds communion with the Holy Spirit. Heaven is not merely the hope of a happy hereafter, but the present ex- perience of the joys of human love and the glory of human service and sacrifice, when seen in their true light as a partici- pation in the life and love of the Father, in whose image all mankind are made. Concern for sinners is not an apprehen- sion, deduced from passages of Scripture, that they will be punished by and by; VOL. LXXXV. NO. 507. 2 but perception of the obvious fact that, in so far as they are selfish, sensual, cruel, mean, they are already dead to their best capacities, lost to their true estate, and that nothing but the resurrcction of the crucified Christ within theni can save them from the death and degradation in which they actually are. Corresponding to these two theological conceptions are two types of minister. The minister of the first type knows that since all men are descendants of Adam, all have sinned. He is prepared to warn them of the punishment that is in store for them hereafter. At the same time he holds out the pardon which, in consid- eration of the sufferings of Christ, God offers to all who will accept it on the proffered terms. To all who thus repent of their sin in the lump, and accel)t the covenant o~ grace, he gives assurance of abundant entrance into heaven. To be sure, this bare theological outline is not the total content of the gospel he proclaims. The minister of this type has inherited common sense, and shares the common notions of morality which are recognized by the community in which he was brought up. He is prompt to condemn the obvious vices, like lying, stealing, drunkenness, and licentiousness, which both the Bible and public senti- ment denounce; and to commend the staple virtues of temperance, chastity, truthfulness, and honesty. He is usually a man of tender human sympathy; and, through meditation,prayer, and the study of the Scriptures, he has become deeply imbued ~vith a Christlike holiness and charity. His office and function. his common sense and sympathy, his con- duct and character, make him a power for good, second to none in the commu- nity in which he lives and works. Min- isters and missionaries of this type are often men of a depth of piety, a force of character, a wemdth of sympathy, a record of heroic conflict with evil and sacrificing service to their fellows, so strong and deep and sweet and pure that those of 18 Reform in Theological Education. us who fancy we hold broader views of spiritual truth feel personally unworthy to unloose the latchet of their shoes. Nevertheless, we must resolutely refuse to confound in our minds the nobleness of personal character, which is due to a great combination of influences, with the more specific question of the adequacy of a conception of theology or a method of theological training. The minister of the second type, of whom, in certain respects, Henry Ward Beecher was the great forerunner, has a vision of what Gods love would make of human life. He sees the happy children, the eager yoifth, the pure lovers, the ten- der husbands and fathers, the devoted wives and mothers, the considerate bro- thers and sisters, the revered grandpar- ents, Gods love begets within the Chris- tian home. He sees the honest work, the thrifty economy, the independent self- respect, the fair exchange, the mutual good will, which Gods love breathes into industrial and commercial life. He sees the loyalty and enthusiasm and heroism and self-sacrifice which Gods love in- spires in the citizen of a free Christian state. He sees how ennobling to the mind, how chastening to the affections, how steadying to time will, Gods love becomes when, in the form of education, it trains ardent youth to trace the work- ings of Gods mind in natural laws, and the expressions of his will in human in- stitutions. He sees how beautiful and sweet is social intercourse when Gods love brings together men and women in mutual admiration and helpfulness, en- joyment and improvement. The minister of this second type, just because he carries with him to every heart and home, to every custom and in- stitution, this beauteous picture of the heaven Gods love would make of them, finds much sorrow to share, much sin to rebuke and correct. Every childs un- happiness is to him a personal grief, the cause of which it is his care to remove. The bitterness that is in store for each wanton, wayward youth he feels pressed to his own lips; and by warning and counsel is as anxious to avert it as though the cup that holds it were his own. The young girl, heedless of the priceless pearl of -pure affection she bears within her maiden breast, lie will gently warn against the swinishness that would flatter and ca- ress merely to trample and defile. He will be tactful to point out to the hard and mercenary father the greater riches he is missing in neglecting to win the confidence and share the innocent en- thusiasms of his children; and to show the anxious and troubled mother the point at which a just maternal fondness and solicitude pass over into slavishness and fussiness on the one hand, or pride and vanity on the other. He knows how to drop here and there the needed hint to make the neglected wife more appre- ciated by the thoughtless husband, or the aged parent more prized by the grown- up children, before it is too late. The minister of this second type feels with every workingman in his parish the fearful temptation to do shiftless work, when good work receives no more recog- nition and pay than bad, and studies how to make it worth the poor mans while to persevere in unappreciated and unre- warded integrity. He shares with the merchant and contractor the tremendous stress of competition with inferior and adulterated products, with men and firms who do not intend to pay their creditors, with corporations which have secured from public or quasi-public officials ex- emptions, discriminations, and rebates, which only bribery or power can buy. He will stand with the member of the trade union at the parting of the ways, and tell him whether he will best honor God, and least dishonor himself and wrong his fellows, by standing alone in support of his wife and children, or by joining his comrades in an attempt to secure the claims, just or unjust, of the union. He will stand up for the employer when all men revile him, so long as in his ac Reform in Theological Education. 19 tion the employer is simply obeying the great impersonal forces of supply and demand, market rate of wages, competi- tion, and combination; and be will dare to reprove him to his face the moment he goes a step beyond this, and by his personal choice adds a feathers weight to the burdens and privations of the ~vorkers in his employ. He will not at- tempt to dictate to his people what po- litical views they shall support; but he will hold them strictly responsible for giving the full measure of influence and efficacy that belongs to their position to whatever views they hold. He will know enough about education to give advice as to whether a boyls better fitted to the plough or the bar, to bookkeeping or authorship; and to tell young girls and their mammas what fools they make of themselves when they purchase artistic accomplishments, or college education, or social position, at the cost of impaired health, unbalanced nerves, and prema- turely exhausted vigor and vitality. He will be keen to discover and disclose the difference between the wholesome social life which is a joy to those who give and those who receive, and its wretched coun- terfeit ~vhich is begotten of rivalry, born of ostentation, and fruitful in heart-burn- ings and bickerings and jealousies and animosities. Yet clearly as he sees and grasps these multitudinous details of human life, the minister of this second type does not, like a mere ethical teacher, regard them as so many unrelated fragments. He sees them all as cases of the presence or absence of Gods love in human hearts. To all ~these various problems he applies the one sovereign remedy of the love of God, as it came into the world in Jesus Christ, and dwells here to-day as the Holy Spirit in which Christian men and women live and do their work. Corresponding to these two concep- tions of theology and types of minister are two plans of theological education. A seminary course constructed on the first plan consists chiefly of five parts, each of which may have subordinate branches. First, Hebrew, to get the text of the divine law and covenant. Chaldee, As- syrian, and Arabic may be added as op- tions. Second, Greek, to get the letter of the new covenant, and the precise word of the latest inspiration. -Hebrew and Greek exegesis may be duplicated by Biblical theology, which binds into sheaves time gleanings from these linguis- tic fields. Third, dogmatic theology, which weaves into a single system the separate strands of truth gathered from the Scriptures. Subordinate to this is apologetics, the defense of time established doctrines against critics and heretics. Fourth, church history, the study of the ways in which previous dogmatic theo- logians have done their work, including the forms and institutions in wlmich the Christian truth imas found embodimnent. Subsidiary to this may be added excur- sions into patristic literature, mediawal customs, and mnodern controversmes. Fifth, homiletics, the art of fitting a doc- trine to a text, and proclainming it con- vincingly. To this department elocution is the most usual and important append- age. Seminaries established on this plan may appropriately be tied to a creed, which professors must sign, and in which the students are to be so trained that they shall believe and preach the creed, the whole creed, amid nothing but the creed. In view of the immense importance of having precisely these doctrines, and no others, proclaimed to the churches, every student who goes through the three years course without dissent, however listlessly and indifferently, should be graduated and ordained to the ministry. Indeed, wlmere this vmew is carried to its logical conclusion, short cuts, devised by well- meaning evangelists, prepare a man in a few months, without either of the lan- guages or much of the history and phi- losophy, to go forth and proclaim the simple story of how God canine into the 20 1?eform in Theological Education. world, what he said and did, what terms he laid down for mans salvation, and what men must do to avail themselves of the offer that he made. Th readiness of many churches ~ be content with these undisciplined exhorters shows how firmly the old conception of theology is still rooted in rural regions, and how lit- tle the new type of minister is appreci- ated there. Whether the course is long or short, provision will be made that little or no original thinking and investigation shall be done. The fa,vorite method of instruc- tion in seminaries conducted on this plan is the dictated lecture, which gives in finished and final form the interpreta- tions, doctrines, and motives the students are expected passively to receive, and forever after subserviently to proclaim. Seminaries which are the chosen arks for such precious traditions will not hesitate, by free tuition, free room rent, doubled- up scholarships, and indiscriminate chari- ty, to fill up with as many duly docile students as they can afford to hire; and to retain them, regardless of whether they are industrious or lazy, bright or stupid, thoughtful or superficial. The seminary course constructed on the second plan will include most of the traditional theological subjects; but it will approach them in a different spirit. Imbued with the historical method, it will trace the beginnings of our faith in Jewish and Christian sources, availing it- self of the most exact literary and histor- ical criticism and antiquarian research. Yet it will value the Hebrew prophets for the light they throw on the labor problem, the problems of taxation and currency and expansion, the problems of chari- ty and correction and municipal govern- ment, the problems of domestic happiness and social purity and industrial opportu- nity. It will read the Biblical writers with constant reference to the writers who are stirring the conscience and creating the ideals of the modern world. It will teach theology in erder to show all truths of nature and of man reduced to rational unity around the central insight of that loving purpose of God which finds its consummate fulfillment in the supreme character of Christ. But the unity thus gained will not be a little closed circle apart from the scientific, ethical, and philosophical conceptions of the age. It will be a strenuous attempt to see through these conceptions to the Divine Thought which is at their common centre, and gives them all whatever measure of rea- sonableness they contain. It will teach church history, not as a single section of the life of the past, but as showing how spiritual conceptions have moulded secular institutions, and divine forces have guided human affairs. It will pre- sent Athanasius against the world as the inspiration of the modern Christian scholar, whose task it is to make men ~ee and believe that there is a God with- in the world, in an age when agnosti- cism has conclusively demonstrated that we can prove the existence of no God outside it. It will hold up Luther as an example to the theological reformer of to-day who will venture to carry to its logical conclusion the principles of the Reformation. It will set before its stu- dents the Puritan of the seventeenth century as the model for the preacher of the twentieth, who shall abandon the rhetorical ritualism of the sermon, and plead with his congregation, simply as a man with men, to live the life they know they ought to live. It will teach homi- letics, Aot to show how to make sermons of the approved pattern, but, by inces- sant practice under severe criticism, every week throughout the whole three years, to train the minister to drive home, by telling phrase and luminous figure and logical demonstration, the truth he sees, into the hearts and consciences of the men who see it not. Such a seminary will leave its profes- sor free to Draw the Thing as he sees It, for the God of Things as They Are. Reform in Theological Education. 21 It will insist that its students shall either come from families which have acquired the economic virtues of thrift and inde- pendence, or else in some degree shall have worked out these virtues for them- selves. It will compel them to make their own investigations, do their own thinking, and present satisfactory origi- nal results, as a condition of scholarship aid and ultimate approbation to preach. It will introduce into its curriculum enough secular subjects, like philoso- phy, ethics, sociology, and literature, which underlie the ministry as anatomy and physiology and chemistry underlie medicine, to give the students sufficient material for the application of their spir- itual principles, and to keep them in close touch with actual life. It will take for its province whatever truth is necessary to help its students to grasp human life in the unity of the love of God. This l)lain statement of the case ren- ders nrgument superfluous. The adher- ent of the first conception of theology, who hopes to perpetuate the minister of the first type, does not need to he told that the new l)lan of seminary instruction will gently lay his favorite theological positions upon the shelf, and in due time reIJ(ler the old type of minister extinct. Neither does the adherent of the second conception of theology, who prefers the minister of the second type, need to be told that the old seminary curriculum can never, save by the provocation of opposition and reaction, foster the mod- ern theological opinions, or turn out the modern minister. Still, by way of sum- mary, it may not be amiss to state in definite terms the precise steps which must be taken to transfer the seminaries from the old basis to the new. First, indiscriminate eleemosynary aid to theological students must be stopped. If law and medicine held out the oppor- tunity of board and room, heat and light, clothing and furniture, instruction, and all the comforts and refinements of a cultivated club to anybody who could raise fifty dollars a year, these professions would soon be swamped by the horde of idlers and degenerates who would apply. It is one of the highest testimo- nials to the Christian ministry that it has suffered so little harm from these pauperizing processes which would have been the utter ruin of any other profes- sion. Under these eleemosynary con- ditions natural selection does not get a fair chance to do its wholesome work of toning up the manhood of the ministry. Second, a high standard of scholar- ship must be maintained. Men who seek to enter the ministry by short cuts from the Young Mens Christian Asso- ciation or the Young Peoples Society of Christian Endeavor, through a few months of cramming in a school for workers or a preparatory course for evangelists, must he rigidly rejected. They are as little fit for the profession of the ministry as a Christian Scientist is fit for the practice of surgery. To help out these would-be preachers, plagiarism has been reduced to a profession, an(i unscrupulous publishing houses are grow- ing rich out of this miserable merchan- dise. With the most liberal borrowing from pernicious homiletical helps, and the most ingenious reshuffling of cant phrases, these premature preachers burmin the ground of their parishes over iii shorter time than it took them t~ learn their trade; and the last state of the fields which they have devastated is like that of the swept and garnished chamber of the parable. The regular seminaries need to rigidly exclude un- promising material at the start, and weed out the in(lolent and the incompe- tent throughout the course. A year ago, Union Seminary in New York, on care- ful sifting of applicants, found that out of seventy-two candidates thirty-six were not sufficiently promising to spend time and money upon, and had the con- science and courage to reject them. Sev- eral of those who were admitted were discouraged from returning at the close 22 Reform in Theological Education. of the first year. The Chicago Congre- gational Seminary reports this year a move in the same direction. The min- ister must be taught to endure intellec- tual hardship, equal at least to that of professions like engineering and jour- nalism, which have less to say about con- secration and self-sacrifice. Third, the seminaries must not tie their professors to the teaching of a pre- scribed creed. A man can dictate the views of another man, or body of men; he can teach no views but those he indi- vidually holds. The attempt to tie teach- ing to creeds is either futile or perni- cious. If a man believes the identical creed set forth, then there is no use in making him sign it; for in that case he will teach it, whether he signs or not. If he does not believe it, he must either teach what he does not believe, which is in every way disastrous and reprehensi- ble; or else, as all men under such cir- cumstances do, he must crawl away from his signature through some such loop- hole as for substance of doctrine, or subject to the further light which may yet break forth from Gods Holy Word. If he must sign, he of course must resort to some such device to nullify his action. For that any candid and open-minded man should find himself in exact agree- ment with t~he substance and what Pro- fessor James calls the fringe of doc- trinal systems drawn up generations ago is psychologically impossible. Human minds are not cast in moulds which can be employed unaltered year after year. They grow in ~orrespondence to their en- vironment. To evade the strict conse- qu~nces of agreement to teach a creed is a less evil than to teach it contrary to one~ s convictions ; though neither atti- tude is ideal. That the men who sign these creeds, and then contrive to find liberty under them, are perfectly honest and conscientious, one does not question for a moment. But the position in which the requirement to sign a creed places them is a very unfortunate one, and ex poses them to much annoyance and mis- understanding. For a Protestant, im- bued with the scientific spirit, to teach the letter of an ancient creed is abso- lutely impossible; and to explain to the satisfaction of the public his necessary departure from it is not always easy. Hereafter no seminary should be found- ed with such impossible conditions; any more than a charter should be granted to a college which proposed to bind its professors foi~ever to teach the McKin- ley doctrine of the tariff or the Bryan views of the free coinage of silver. If a man is as sure of the truth of a theolo- gical position as he is of the law of gravi- tation or the equality of the three an- gles of a triangle to two right angles, he will not feel the need of stipulating that the professors in the institution which lie founds shall always teach those views. It is the doubter posing as believer who ties up teaching to a creed. For he is afraid that, if left to candid inquiry and fair discussion, the views he thus seeks to protect may be disproved and over- thrown. When you see a baseball bat or a golf club tightly wound around with cord, you instinctively infer that there is some weakness or crack at the protected point. These creeds which are wound so tightly around our theological profes- sorships are everlasting proclamations of the weakness of the doctrines they thus artificially protect. If professors in Pro- testant seminaries generally would reso- lutely refuse to sign any creed what- ever as a basis of their teaching, not on grounds of dissent from this or that ob- jectionable dogma in this or that par- ticular document, but on the principle that all such subscription is inconsistent with the first principles of Protestant- ism, then either the courts would excuse professors from signing, as Quakers are now excused from taking oath, or else new foundations would be forthcoming to support men who should be nominally as well as actually free. Fourth, secular studies must be car- Reform in Theological Education. 23 ned on side by side with the traditional theological subjects, throughout the sem- inary course. A seminary in which the bulk of the students time and attention for the three years previous to his en- tering upon the ministry is devoted to events that happened, languages that were spoken, views that Were formulated, more than a thousand years ago, is not a place where men are most effectively fitted to become leaders of their fellows. Men so trained are in danger of becom- ing mere blind leaders of the blind, whose common destination is the ditch of tra- dition; dead buriers of the dead in the grave of conventionalities. The seminary should keep its men constant- ly grappling with philosophical, ethical, social, industrial, political problems. It should keep them busy reading the lit- erature in which the temptations and struggles, the ambitions and passions, the complications and entanglements, characteristic of this modern life are re- flected and portrayed. It cannot throw the burden back upon the colleges, and say that it is their business to teach these subjects. Partly from the limita- tion of time, partly from the immaturity of the students, partly from the difficul- ty of finding men competent to teach them in a vital way, the colleges make at best only a beginning. The proper attitude and approach to these subjects for a professional student is very much more thorough and fundamental than the average college is able to give to its un- dergraduates. Then what is wanted of the seminary is their presentation in the light of the central Christian principle. The seminary student should know not only how men actually think and feel and act in their domestic, industrial, so- cial, and public life, but how the Chris- tian spirit will help them to transform each of these relations into the sweet, pure, just, generous, heroic life which is at once the will of God and the glory of man. As a matter of fact, the average graduate of the seminary in time past has not gone forth to his parish with clear-cut conceptions of just the changes which he hopes to see the spirit of love work in these concrete conditions. A pitcher of a university baseball nine tells me that lie keeps a list of all the men on other teams with which he ever ex- pects to play, and over against each name is noted down whatever weaknesses and peculiarities that player has. The mo- ment one of these players comes up to the bat, this pitcher knows the kind of ball most likely to make him strike out, or bat into a basemans hands, and pitches accordingly. How many ministers have such a clear conception of just how each member of his congregation stands to- ward the spiritual life, and is prepared, in public or in private, to say the precise word which will help that man to im- prove his course of life at the particular point of greatest selfishness and mean- ness and animality? How large a part of the seminary course is fitted to equip its students for this task of taking men just where they are, in moral obtuseness and deterioration, in philosophical crude- ness and perplexity, in social indiffer- ence to the condition of their fellows, in economic parasitism and political irre- sponsibility, and wake them up to insight and sympathy and responsibility and practical serviceableness? The study of Hebrew and Greek and church history and theology and homiletics is indeed a help in this direction. In these days of the historical method, no one would think of cutting these subjects out of the semi- nary course. But they ought to be car- ried farther, and brought down to date. Hebrew and American moral and social problems should be made to shed light on each other. The literature of Pales- tine and the literature of England should be studied together, so that the ideals of the former should measure the worth of the ideals of the latter; and the meth- ods of the latter should explain the fig- ures of speech and other rhetorical ex- pedients of the former. Carlyle and 24 Reform in Theological Education. Ruskin, Matthew Arnold and E[nerson, Newman and Browning, all have points in common with the prophets of the Old Testament, and the biographers and let- ter-writers of the New. Only the man who can appreciate these points which Biblical and modern writers have in common is in a position to recognize the profound superiority of the Bible writ- ers over all who have come after them, in the directness with which they seize the central point of spiritual significance, and by holding fast to that are able not only to sway and mould the men and is- sues of their day, but to exercise a per- petual influence over all succeeding gen- erations. In the same way, the man who is not grappling with the problems of tariff, coinage, corporations, and impe- rialism will never appreciate the real greatness of Moses and tIme prophets who were the successful solvers, on spir- itual principles, of the kindred problems of their day. rrhe man who has never seen the inside of a prison, a settlement, a tenement-house sweatshop, a cheap lodging house, or known the hard condi- tions in which the less fortunate work- ers in our cities toil for the mere con- ditions of subsistence, with nothing left for comfort or even decency, can scarce un(lerstand either Christs sympathy with the poor and the outcast, or his fierce outbursts of indignation against the prosperous hypocrites who were re- sponsible for their condition. The actual life of the men and women of to-day, in all its heights and depths, in all its hopes and fears, in all its despair and aspiration, in all its cruel- ty and bitterness, in all its impersonal grin(ling and its personal brutality; life as it is affected by customs, institutions, and ideals; life as it is dependent on charity, correction, and legislation; life as it is reflected in amusements, e(luca- tion, literature, and art; life as it looks to God; life as it stands related to the purpose of Christ; life as it can be trans- formed by the Holy Spirit, that should form no small part of the subject matter of study and investigation, reflection and prayer, of the theological student throughout his seminary course. A the- ological course which makes no adequate provision for these things is as wide of the mark as a medical course which should recite the origin and history of medicine, the names of the diseases to which men are liable and the prescribed remedies therefor; but should give no opportunity for dissection of the human body, no study of normal and patho- logical physiological processes, no histo- logical and bacteriological study of the minute tissues and the organisms which, by fastening and feeding on them, are the occasiomi of the disease of the body as a whole. Fifth, methods of instruction must be more individual and original. In the lower grades, we can teach children the elements of history, geography, gram- mar, and science by the authority of book or teacher. But we do not expect theni to become geographers, historians, or grammarians as the result of such a process. Even in the lower grades these methods are rapidly being supplemented by more first-hand methods. Long be- fore he leaves college, the student learns to make his own selection of subjects for study, and to regard the pages of text- book or the notes of lecture simply as guides for the independent reading and discussion of time subject. The semina- ries, on the other hand, were established, not to investigate truth, but to propagate specific views and doctrines. hence the dictated lecture, handing on the received doctrine in final and finished form, was the appropriate mode of instruction. Nevertheless, the departures from this method have been notable. Had tIme sin- gle elemnent of candor been added, had there been a disposition to wehiome and adjust to considerations not iflclu(led in the assumed premises, the classroom of Professor Park, where some were set to attack, others to defend the lectures, Reform in Theological Education. 25 would have presented as fine a spectacle of intellectual gymnastics as the world Yias w~ftnesseiX ~rnce i~ne hays iX~Zis~s. There are lecture rooms of theology in American seminaries to-day where the atmosphere is as free as in any German university. On the other hand, there are many such rooms where the air is very hot and close and stifling, where the windows are never opened and yen- tilators are unknown. There is some research in church history; some (but nowhere enough) systematic writing throughout the entire course, with mer- ciless and constant criticism, in homilet- ics. But on the whole, the tradition of passive receptivity, rather than active, independent, and original investigation, still dominates the seminaries of the coun- try. Too many students are content with what the book or the professor says, ra- ther than eager to discover for themselves the dictate of reason or the deliverance of research. When these students be- come ministers they lose power as years go on. No one can stock np in three years with enough ideas to feed a con- gregation upon for the following forty. Even the truth that a man gets in this second-hand way speedily dries up and shrivels on his hands. The true function of the seminary is, not to impart fixed and final information, but to awaken in- terest, open up fields for reading and in- vestigation, give a central germinal prin- ciple, and train the student to apply it in a limited field, so that he can go out and continue to apply it for himself to what- ever new matter he may meet. The minister ought to be the man who knows that the principle of love is competent to solve all moral and spiritual problems in earth, or heaven, or hell; who has been trained to solve a few problems in the light of it; and who, when he strikes a domestic sorrow, a labor difficulty, a po- litical policy, a social custom, will know how to analyze it and show just how the lack of love accounts for whatever is bad in it, and how the application of love can make it better. No man who has merely listened respectfully to the lectures of his fessor may be, will ever be able to unrav- el and disentangle the complicated pro- blems of life, and bring in the principle of love to make them smooth aud straight. Everywhere else the graduate student must present some work of his own, in law case or dissection or thesis or ex- periment, to show, not what he has heard from a man or read in a book, but what he can do for himself. More work akin to this should be required of the student of theology. I do not mean to say that most men hold in toto either the one or the other of the contrasted conceptions of theolo- gy; or that most of our seminaries are altogether antiquated, while few or none have any redeeming features; or that most ministers are hopelessly abstract and general in their views; and that we must wait until the reconstructed semi- nary turns out a new crop before we shall have men who are fit to preach the gospel. The broader conceptions of theology are stealing over the world without observation, silently and grad- ually, as sunlight breaks upon the sleep- ing world at dawn. Few of us fortu- nately have gotten the old altogether out of our blood; and fewer still can pre- tend to have thought the modern view through to its logical conclusions. Be- tween seminaries there are great differ- ences. A majority of those connected with the more conservative sects are still in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity, so far as either theological progress or pedagogical improvement is concerned. On the other hand, the Har- vard and the Episcopal schools in Cam- bridge, Union Seminary in New York, the Baptist Seminary in Chicago, most of the Congregational seminaries, and some others have taken decided and pro- mising steps in the direction of one or more of the reforms suggested. In all these seminaries there are departments If / 26 Between Elections. which have been completely and radical- ly reconstructed on a thoroughly modern and scientific basis. In some of them so- ciological opportunities have been opened, philosophical and literary courses offered, which are all that could be desired. The seminaries, however, were built on a model which was furnished by a theology which is fast becoming obso- lete, and so far as they cling to that model they tend to turn out men who are not properly fitted to grapple with the complex problems of the modern world. I once heard Professor Paulsen, in a lec- ture at the University of Berlin, attempt to account for the fact that at the begin- ning of the century among professional students at the university the majority were students of theology, and the mi- nority were students of medicine, while at the end of the century the proportion is exactly reversed. Formerly, lie said, when one had anything the mat- ter with his body he assumed that na- ture would bring him out all right; but if anything was the matter with his soul, he went at once to the clergyman to get it cured. Whereas now, if one has any ailment of the body, he runs straight for a doctor; but if there is any trouble in his soul, he keeps it to himself. The reason, I fancy, is deeper than the mere change of disposition in the patient. The science of medicine, which then was vague, general, clumsy, and of- ten false, has made enormous strides, until at the end of the century it is pre- pared to ascertain the causes, describe the course, and accurately, if not always successfully, prescribe the remedy for most of the diseases to which flesh is heir. Theology, on the contrary, has made no corresponding increase in the precision and definiteness with which it attacks the problems of the spiritual life. It still deals with sin in the mass, and adminis- ters drastic doses, indicated by general symptoms, laid down in the authorita- tive books. Give the world a theology as detailed and definite as modern med- icine, and ministers as skillful to trace the workings of the spirit of man in holiness and sin as is the modern physi- cian to trace physiological processes in health and disease, and both the minister and the salvation he preaches and ap- plies will be as much in demand as ever. The theological seminaries hold the key to the situation. Hence it is not in unkindly criticism, but in an earnest de- sire to secure official expression for the theology which the world has come to believe, and adequate training for the ministers the times demand, that atten- tion is called to their traditional weak- nesses and inherited shortcomings. William De Witt Hyde. BETWEEN ELECTIONS. AN election is like a flash of lightning at midnight. You get an instantaneous photograph of what every man is doing. You see his real relation toward his gov- ernment. But an election happens only once a year. Government goes on day and night. It is hard breaking down the popular fallacy that there is such a thing as poli- tics governed by peculiar conditions, which must be understood and respected; that the whole thing is a mystic avoca- tion, run as a trade by high priests and low priests, and is remote from our daily life. Our system of party government has been developed with this end in view: to keep the control in the hands of pro- fessionals by multiplying technicalities and increasing the complexity of the rules of the game. There exists, con-

26 Between Elections. which have been completely and radical- ly reconstructed on a thoroughly modern and scientific basis. In some of them so- ciological opportunities have been opened, philosophical and literary courses offered, which are all that could be desired. The seminaries, however, were built on a model which was furnished by a theology which is fast becoming obso- lete, and so far as they cling to that model they tend to turn out men who are not properly fitted to grapple with the complex problems of the modern world. I once heard Professor Paulsen, in a lec- ture at the University of Berlin, attempt to account for the fact that at the begin- ning of the century among professional students at the university the majority were students of theology, and the mi- nority were students of medicine, while at the end of the century the proportion is exactly reversed. Formerly, lie said, when one had anything the mat- ter with his body he assumed that na- ture would bring him out all right; but if anything was the matter with his soul, he went at once to the clergyman to get it cured. Whereas now, if one has any ailment of the body, he runs straight for a doctor; but if there is any trouble in his soul, he keeps it to himself. The reason, I fancy, is deeper than the mere change of disposition in the patient. The science of medicine, which then was vague, general, clumsy, and of- ten false, has made enormous strides, until at the end of the century it is pre- pared to ascertain the causes, describe the course, and accurately, if not always successfully, prescribe the remedy for most of the diseases to which flesh is heir. Theology, on the contrary, has made no corresponding increase in the precision and definiteness with which it attacks the problems of the spiritual life. It still deals with sin in the mass, and adminis- ters drastic doses, indicated by general symptoms, laid down in the authorita- tive books. Give the world a theology as detailed and definite as modern med- icine, and ministers as skillful to trace the workings of the spirit of man in holiness and sin as is the modern physi- cian to trace physiological processes in health and disease, and both the minister and the salvation he preaches and ap- plies will be as much in demand as ever. The theological seminaries hold the key to the situation. Hence it is not in unkindly criticism, but in an earnest de- sire to secure official expression for the theology which the world has come to believe, and adequate training for the ministers the times demand, that atten- tion is called to their traditional weak- nesses and inherited shortcomings. William De Witt Hyde. BETWEEN ELECTIONS. AN election is like a flash of lightning at midnight. You get an instantaneous photograph of what every man is doing. You see his real relation toward his gov- ernment. But an election happens only once a year. Government goes on day and night. It is hard breaking down the popular fallacy that there is such a thing as poli- tics governed by peculiar conditions, which must be understood and respected; that the whole thing is a mystic avoca- tion, run as a trade by high priests and low priests, and is remote from our daily life. Our system of party government has been developed with this end in view: to keep the control in the hands of pro- fessionals by multiplying technicalities and increasing the complexity of the rules of the game. There exists, con- Between Elections. sequently, an unformulated impression that the corruption of politics is some- thing by itself. Yet there probably never was a civilization where the mesh of powers and interests was so close. It is like the interlocking of roots in a swamp. Such density and cohesion were never seen in any epoch, such a mat and tangle of personalities where every man is tied up with the fibres of every other. If you take an axe or a saw, and cut a clean piece out of it anywhere, you will maim every member of society. How idle, then, even to think of polities as a subject by itself, or of the corruptions of the times as localized! Politics gives what the chemists call a mirror, and shows the ingredients in the average mans composition. But you must take your mind off of politics if you want to understand America. You must take up the lives of individuals, and follow them out, as they play against one another in counterpoint. As soon as you do this you will not be able to de- termine where politics begins and where it stops. It is all politics. It is all so- cial intercourse ; it fs all business. Any square foot of this soil will give you the whole fauna and flora of the land. Where will you put in your wedge of reform? There is not a cranny anywhere. The mass is like crude copper ore that can- not be blasted. It blows out the charge. We think that political agitation must show political results. This is like try- ing to alter the shape of a shadow with- out touching its object. The hope is not only mistaken, it is absurd. The results to be obtained from reform movements cannot show in the political field till they have passed through the social world. But, after all, what you want is votes, is it not? It would be so encouraging to see virtue win that everybody would vote for you thereafter. Why dont you manage it somehow? This sort of talk is the best record of incompetence that corruption has imprinted. Enlight- en this class and you have saved the re 27 public. Why, my friend, you are so lost, you are so much a mere product of tyranny that you do not know what a vote is. True, we want votes, but the votes we want must be cast spontaneous ly. We do not want them so badly as to buy them. A vote is only important because it is an opinion. Even a dicta- tor cannot force opinions upon his sub- jects by six months of rule; and yet the complaint is that decency gets few votes after a year of effort by a handful of unimportant and conteml)tible people. We only enter the field of politics be- cause we can there get a hearing. The candidates in reform movements are tools. They are like crowbars that break open the mind of the age. They cannot be dodged, concealed, or laughed away. Every one is aroused from his lethargy by seeing a real man walk on the scene amid all the stage properties and mari- onettes of conventional politics. No fair! the people cry. They do not vote for him, of course, but they talk about the portent with a vigor no mere doc- trine could call forth, and the discussion blossoms at a later date into a new pub- lic spirit, a new and genuine demand for better things. It is apparent that between the initial political activity of reformers and their ultimate political accomplishments there must intervene the real agitation, the part that does the work, which goes on in the brains and souls of individual men, and which can only be observed in social life, in manners and conversation. Now let us take up the steps by which in practical life the reaction is set going. Enter the nearest coterie of radicals, and listen to the quarrel. Reformers prover- bially disagree, and their sects mince themselves almost to atoms. With us the quarrel always arises over the same point. Can we afford under these particular circumstances to tell the ex- act truth? I have never knowim a re- form movement in which this discussion did not rage from start to finish, nor 28 Between Elections. have I known one where any other point was involved. You are a citizens com- mittee. The parties offer to give you half a loaf. Well and good. But this is not their main object. They want you to call it a whole loaf. They want to dissipate your agitation by getting you to tell the public that you are satisfied. What they hate is the standard. The war between you and them is a spiritual game of chess. They must get you to say they are right. It is their only means of retaining their power. Thus the apple of discord falls into the reform camp. Half its members take the bait. In New York city our politics have been so picturesque, the pleas of the politician so shallow, the lies demanded from the reformers so obvious, that the eternal principles of the situa- tion have been revealed in their elemen- tal simplicity. It is just because the impulse toward better things carries no material content, we do not want any particular thing, but we want an im- provement in everything, it is just because the whole movement is purely. moral, that the same questions always arise. We ought not to grieve over the dis- cussion, over the heartburn and heated argument that start from a knot of rad- icals and run through the community, setting men against one another. The initiative of all this wholesome life is the quarrel in the executive committee of some reform body. They are no more responsible for it, they can no more avoid it, the community can no more advance to higher standards before they have had it, than a child can skate before it can walk. The executive committee is discussing the schools. In consequence of a recent agitation the politicians have put up a candidate who will give new plumbing, even if he does steal the books, and the question is whether the School Associa- tion shall indorse this candidate. If it does, he wins. If it does not, both plumbing and books are likely to remain the prey of the other party, and the Lord knows how bad that is. The fight rages in the committee and some sincere old gentleman is prophesying typhoid. The practical question is, Do you want good plumbing, or do you want the truth? You cannot have both this year. If the Association goes out and tells the public exactly what it knows, it will get itself laughed at, insult the can- didate, and elect his opponent. If it tells the truth, it might as well run a candidate of its ow~ as a protest and an advertisement of that truth. It can buy good plumbing with a lie, and the 01(1 gentleman thinks it ought to do so. The reformers are going to indorse the candidate, and upon their heads will be visited his theft of the books. They have sold out the little public confidence they held. Had they stood out for an- other year, under the practical r6gime which they had already endured for twenty, and had they devoted themselves to augmenting the public interest in the school question, both parties would have offered them plumbing and books to al- lay the excitement. Perhaps the par- ties would have relaxed their grip on the whole school system rather than meet the issue. But the Association does not under- stand this. It does not as yet clearly know its own mind. All this procedure, this going forward and back, is necessary. The community must pass through these experiences before it discovers that the shortest road to good schools is truth. A few men learn by each turn of the wheel, and these men tend to consolidate. They become a sort of school of politi- cal thought. They see that they do not care a whit more about the schools than they do about the parks; that the school agitation is a handy way to make the citizens take notice of maladministra- tion in all departments; that the parties may be left to reform themselves, and to choose the most telling bid for popu Between Elections. 29 lar favor; that the parties must do this, and will do this, in so far as the public demands it, and will not do it under any other circumstances. It is the very greatest folly in the world for an agitator to be content with a par- tial success. It destroys his cause. He fades instantly. You cannot see him. He is become part of the corrupt and con- tented public. His business is to make others demand good administration. He must never reap, but always sow. Let him leave the reaping to others. There will be many of them, and their material accomplishments will be the same whe- ther he indorses them or not. If by chance some party, some administration gives him one hundred per cent of what he demands, let him acknowledge it handsomely; but he need not thank them. They did it because they had to, or because their conscience compelled them. In neither case was it done for him. In other words, reform is an idea that must be taken up as a whole. You do not want any specific thing. You use every issue as a symbol. Let us give up the hope of finding any simpler way out of it. Let us take up the burden at its heaviest end, and acknowledge that nothing but an increase of personal force in every American can change our poli- tics. It is curious that this course, which is the shortest cnt to the millennium, should be met with the reproach that it puts off victory. This is entirely due to a defect in the imagination of people who are dealing with an unfamiliar sub- ject. We have to learn its principles. We know that what we really want is all of virtue; but it seems so unreason- able to claim this that we try to buy it piecemeal, item a schoolhouse, item four parks; and with each gain comes a sacrifice of principle, disintegration, dis- couragement. Fools, if you had asked for all, you would have had this and more. We are defeated by compromise, because no matter how much we may de ceive ourselves into thinking that good government is an a~gregate of laws and parks, this is not true. Good govern- lnei)t is the outcome of private virtue, and virtue is one thing, a unit, a force, a mode of motion. It cannot pass through a nonconductor of selfishness at any point. Compromise is loss: first, because it stops the movement, and kills energy; second, because it encourages the illusion that the woodcn schoolhouse is good gov- ernment. As against this you have the fact that sonic hundreds of school cliii- dren do get housed six months before they would have been housed otherwise. But this is like cashing a draft for a thousand pounds with a dish of oatmeal. We have perhaps followed in the wake of some little reform movement, and it has left us with an insight into the relation between private opinion and public occurrences. We have really found out two things : first, that, in or- der to have better government, the talk and private intelligence upon which it rests must be going forward all the time ; arid second, that the individual conscience, intelligence, or private will is always set free by the same process, to wit, by the telling of truth. The identity between public and private life reveals itself the instant a man adopts the plan of indiscriminate truth-telling. He unmasks batteries and discloses wires at every dinner party; he sees practical politics in every law office, arid social influence in every convention, and wher- ever he is, he suddenly finds himself, by his own will or against it, a centre of forces. Let hini blurt out his opinion. Instantly there follows a little flash of reality. The shams drop, and the lines of human influence, the vital currents of energy, are (lisciosed. J7he only dif- ference between a reform movement, so called, and the private act of any man who desires to better conditions is that the private man sets one drawing-room in a ferment by speaking his mind or by cutting his friend, and the agitator sets 30 Between Elections. ten thousand in a ferment by attacking the age. As a practical matter the conduct of politics depends upon the dinner-table talk of men who are not in politics at all. For instance, there is a public ex- citement about Civil Service Reform. A law is passed and is being evaded. If the governor is to set it up again he must be sustained by the public. They must follow and understand the situation or the official is helpless. Government is carried on from moment to moment by the people. The executive is a mere hand and arm. But do we sustain him? We do not. We are half-hearted. To lend power to his hand we shall have to be strong men. If we now stood ready to denounce him for himself falling short by the breadth of a hair of his whole duty, our support when we gave it would be worth having. But we are starchiess and deserve a starchless service. What did you find out at the last meeting of the Library Committee? You found out that Commissioner Hopkinss nephew was in the piano business. Hence the commissioners views on the music question. Repeat it to the first man you meet in the street, and bring it up at the next meeting of the committee. You did not think you had much influ- ence in town politics and hardly knew how to begin. Yet the town seems to have no time for any other subject than your attack on the commissioner. From this point on you begin to understand conditions. Every man in town reveals his real character and his real relation to the town wickedness and to the uni- verse by the way he treats you. You are beginning to get near to something real and something interesting. There is no one in the United States, no mat- ter how small a town he lives in, or how inconspicuous he or she is, who does not have three invitations a week to enter practical politics by such a door as this. It makes no difference whether he re- gards himself as a scientific man study- ing phenomena, or a saint purifying so- ciety; he will become both. There is no way to study sociology but this. The books give no hint of what the science is like. They are written by men who do not know the world, but who go about gleaning information instead of trying experiments. The first discovery we make is that the worst enemy of good government is not our ignorant foreign voter, but our educated domestic railroad president, our prominent business man, our lead- ing lawyer. If there is any truth in the optimistic belief that our standards are now going up, we shall soon see proofs of it in our homes. We shall not note our increase of virtue so much by seeing more crooks in Sing Sing as by seeing fewer of them in the drawing-rooms. You can acquire more knowledge of American politics by attacking in open talk a political lawyer of social standing than you can in a year of study. These backstair men are in every Bar Association and every Re- form Club. They are the agents who supervise the details of corruption. They run between the capitalist, the boss, and the public official. They know as fact what every one else knows as inference. They are the priestly class of commerce, and correspond to the intriguing ecclesi- astics in periods of church ascendency. Some want money, some office, some mere power, others want social promi- nence; and their art is to play off inter- est against interest and advance them- selves. As the president of a social club, I have a power which I can use against my party boss, or for him. If he can count upon me to serve him at need, it is a gain to him to have me establish my- self as a reformer. The most depend- able of these confidence men (for they betray nobody and are universally used and trusted) can amass money and stand in the forefront of social life; and now and then one of them is made an Between Elections. archbishop or a foreign minister. They are indeed the figureheads of the age, the essence of all the wickedness and degradation of our times. So long as such men enjoy public confidence we shall remain as we are. They must be deposed in the public mind. These gentlemen and their attorneys are the weakest point in the serried ranks of iniquity. They are weak be- cause they have social ambition, and the place to reach them is in their clubs. They are the best possible object lessons, because everybody knows them. Social punishment is the one cruel reality, the one terrible weapon, the one judgment against which lawyers cannot protect a man. It is as silent as theft, and it raises the cry of Stop thief I like a burglar alarm. The general cowardice of this age cov- ers itself with the illusion of charity, and asks in the name of Christ that no one s feelings be hurt. But there is not in the New Testament any hint that hypocrites are to be treated with charity. This class is so intrenched on all sides that the enthusiasts cannot touch them. Their elbows are interlocked; they sit cheek by jowl with virtue. They are rich; they possess the earth. How shall we strike them? Very easily. They are so soft with feeding on politic lies that they drop dead if you give them a dose of ridicule in a drawing-room. Denuncia- tion is well enough, but laughter is the true ratsbane for hypocrites. If you set off a few jests the air is changed. The men themselves cannot laugh or be laughed at, for natures revenge has given them masks for faces. You may see a whole roomful of them crack with pain because they cannot laugh. They are angry, and do not speak. Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this both in politics and social life is the same, hardihood. Give them raw truth. They think they will die. Their friends call you a murderer. Four thousand ladies 31 and eighty bank directors brought vine- gar and brown paper to Low when he was attacked, and Roosevelt posed as a martyr because it was said up and down that he acted the part of a selfish poli- tician. What humbug! How is it that all these things grow on the same root, fraud, cowardice, formality, sentimen- talism, and a lack of humor? Why do people become so solemn when they are making a deal, and so angry when they are defending it? The righteous indig- nation expended in protecting Roosevelt would have founded a church. The whole problem of better govern- ment is a question of how to get people to stop simpering and saying After you to cant. A is an aristocrat. B is a boss. C is a candidate. D is a dis- tiller. E is an excellent citizen. They dine. Gloomy silence would be more respectable than this chipper concern that all shall go well. Is not this poli- tics? Yes, and the very essence of it. Is not the exposure of it practical re- form? How easily the arrow goes in! A does not think you should confound him with B, nor E with C. Each is a reformer when he looks to the right, and a scamp as seen from the left. What is their fault? Collusion. But A means so well! They all mean well. Let us not confound the gradations of their virtue, but can we call any one an honest man who knowingly consorts with thieves? This they all do. Let us de- clare it. Their resentment at finding themselves classed together drives the wedge into the clique. Remember, too, that there is no such thing as abstract truth. You must talk facts, you must name names, you must impute motives. You must say what is in your mind. It is the only means you have to cut yourself free from the body of this death. Innuendo will not do. Nobody minds innuendo. We live and breathe nothing else. If you are not strong enough to face the issue in pri- vate life, do not dream that you can do 32 Between Elections. anything for public affairs. This, of course, means fight, not to-morrow, but now. It is only in the course of con- flict that any one can come to under- stand the system, the habit of thought, the mental condition, out of which all our evils arise. The first difficulty is to see the evils clearly; and when we do see them, it is like fighting an atmosphere to contend against them. They are so universal and omnipresent that you have no terms to name them by. We must burn a disinfectant. We have observed thus far that no question is ever involved in practical agitation except truth-telling. So long as a man is trying to tell the truth his remarks will contain a margin which other people will regard as mystifying and irritating exaggeration. It is this very margin of controversy that does the work. The more accurate he is, the less he exaggerates, the more he will excite people. It is only by the true part of what is said that the interest is roused. No explosion follows a lie. The awakening of the better feelings of the individual man is not only the immediate but the ultimate end of all politics. Nor need we be alarmed at any collateral results. No one has ever succeeded in drawing any valid distinc- tion between positive and negative edu- cational work, except this that in so far as a man is positive himself he does posi- tive work. It is necessary to destroy reputations when they are lies. Peace be to their ashes. But war and fire un- til they be ashes. This is positive and constructive work. You cannot state your case without using popular illustra- tions, and in clearing the ground for jns- tice and mercy some little great man gets shown u~ as a make-believe. This is constructive work. It is impossil)le to do harm to reform unless you are taking some course which tends to put people to sleep. Strangely enough, the great outcry is made upon occasions when men are refusing to take such a course. This is due to the hyp- notism of self-interest. Dont wake us up! they cry; we cannot stand the agony of it, and the rising energy with which they speak wakes other sleepers. In the early stages of any new idea the only advertising it gets is denunciation. This is so much better than silence that one may hail it as the dawn. You must speak till you draw blood. The agita- tors have always understood this. Such men as Wendell Phillips were not ex- travagant. They were practical men. Their business was to get heard. They used vkriol, but they were dealing with the hide of the rhinoceros. If you look at the work of the anti- slavery people by the light of whai they were trying to do, you will find that they had a very clear understanding of their task. The reason of some of them cant- ed ~ little from the strain and stress, but they are so much nearer being right- minded than their contemporaries that we may claim them as respectable hu- man beings. They were the rock on which the old politics split. They were a new force. As soon as they had ga- thered head enough to affect political issues they broke every public man at the North by forcing him to take sides. There is not a man of the era whom they did not shatter. Finally their own lead- ers got into public life, and it was not till then that the new era began. The same thing is happening to-day. It is the function of the reformer to cracV up any public man who dodges the issue of corruption, or who tries to ride two horses by remaining a straight party man and shouting reform. This is no ones fault. It is a natural process. It is fate. Some fall on one side of the line, and some oa the other. One gets the office and the next loses it, but oblivion yawns for all of them. There is no cas- sia that can embalm their deeds; they can do nothing interesting, nothing that itjies in the power of the human mind to remember. Why is it that Calhouns Between Elections. 33 speeches are unreadable? He had the earnestness of a prophet and the ability almost of a Titan; but he was engaged in framing a philosophy to protect an interest. He was maintaining something that was not true. It was a fallacy. It was a pretense. it was a house built on the sands of temporary conditions. Such are the ideas of those middling good men who profess honesty, in just that degree which will keep them in office. Honesty beyond this point is, in their philosophy, incompatible with earthly conditions. These men must exist at present. They are an organic product of the times; they are samples of mediocrity. But they have nothing to offer to the curi- osity of the next generation. No, not though their talent was employed in pro- tecting an empire, as it is now em- ployed in piecing out the supremacy of a disease in a country whose deeper health is beginning to throw the poison off. Our public men are confronted with two systems of politics. They cannot hedge. If the question were suddenly to be lost in a riot, no doubt a good ad- ministrator might win applause, even a Tammany chief. But we have no riots. We have finished the war with Spain, and, unless foreign complications shall set in, we are about to sit down with the politicians over our domestic issue, theft. Are you for theft or against it ? You cant be both; and your conversation, the views you hold and express to your friends, are the test. It is only because politics affect or reflect these views that politics have any importance at all. Your agents, Croker, Platt, Hanna, are serv- ing you faithfully now. Nothing else is to be heard at the clubs but the sound of little hammers riveting abuse. There is another side to this shield, that calls not for scorn, but for pity. Have you ever been in need, of money? Almost every man who enters our soci- ety joins it as a young man in need of money. His instincts are unsullied, his VOL. LXXXV. NO. 507. 3 intellect is fresh and strong, but he must live. How comes it that the country is full of maimed human beings, of cynics~ and feeble good men, and outside of this no form of life except the diabolical in- telligence of pure business? How to make yourself needed: this is the sycophants problem, and why should we expect a young American to act dif- ferently from a your~ Spaniard at the court of Philip II.? He must get on. He goes into a law office, and if he is offended at its dishonest practices he cannot speak. He soon accepts them. Thereafter he cannot see them. He goes into a newspaper office. The same. A bankers, a merchants, a dry - goods shop. What has happened to these fel- lows at the end of three years, that their minds seem to be drying up? I have seen many men I knew in college grow more and more uninteresting from year to year. Is there something in trade that desiccates and flattens out, that turns men into dried leaves at the age of for- ty? Certainly there is. It is not due to trade, but to intensity of self-seeking combined with narrowness of occupa- tion. If I had to make my way at the court of Queen Elizabeth, I should need more kinds of wits and more knowledge of human nature than in the New York button trade. No doubt I should be a preoccupied, cringing, and odious sort of person at a feudal festivity, but I should be a fascinating man of genius compared to John H. Painter, who at the age of thirty is making fifteen thousand dollars a year by keeping his mouth shut and attending to business. Put a pressure gauge into Painter, and measure the business tension at New York in 1900. He is passing his youth in a trance over a game of skill, and thereby earning the respect and admiration of all men. Do not blame him. The great current of business force that passes through the port of New York has touched him, and he is rigid. There are hundreds of these fellows, and they make us think of the 34 Between Elections. well-meaning young man who has to sup- port his family, and who must compete against them for the confidence of his business patrons. Our standard of com- mercial honesty is set by that current. It is entirely the result of the competi- tion that comes from everybodys want- ing to do the same thing. But, you say, we are here deal- ing with a natural force. If you like, it withers character, and preoccupies one part of a man for so long that the rest of him becomes numb. He is hard and queer. He cannot write because he cannot think; he cannot draw because he cannot think; he cannot enter real politics because he cannot think. He is all the wretch you depict him, but we must have him. Such are men. This is the biggest folly in the world, and shows as deep an intellectual injury in the mind that thinks it as self-seeking can inflict. Business has destroyed the very knowledge in us of all other natu- ral forces except business. What shall we do to diminish this awful pressure that makes politics a hell and wrings out our manhood, till (you will find) the Americans condone the death of their brothers and fathers who perished in home camps during the war, because it all happened in the cause of trade, it was business thrift, done by smart men in pursuance of self-interest ? You ask what you can do to diminish the tension of selfishness which is as cruel as super- stition, and which is not in one place but everywhere in the United States. It runs a hot iron over young intellect, and crushes character in the bud. It is blind- ness, palsy, and hip disease. You can hardly find a man who has not got some form of it. There is no newspaper which does not show signs of it. You can hardly find a man who does not proclaim it to he the elixir of life, the vade mecum of civilization. What can you do? Why, you can oppose it with other natural forces. You yourself cannot turn Ni- agara; but there is not a town in Ainer ica, where one single man cannot make his force felt against the whole torrent. He takes a stand on a practical matter. He takes action against some abuse. What does this accomplish? Everything. How many people are there in your town? Well, every one of them gets a thrill that strikes deeper than any ser- mon he ever heard. He may howl, but he hears. The grocers boy, for the first time in his life, believes that the whole outfit of morality has a place in the prac- tical world. Every class contributes its comment. Next year a new element comes forward in politics as if the fran- chise had been extended. Remember this: you cannot, though you owned the world, do any good in it except by de- vising new ways of advertising the fact that you felt in a particular way. It is the personal influence of example that is the power. Nothing else counts. You can do harm by other methods, but not good. This influence is a natural force, and works like steam power. Why all this commotion over your protest? If you accuse the mayor of being a thief, why does he not reply in the words of modern philosophy, Of course I m a thief; Im made that way? Instead of that he resents it, and there ensues a dis- cussion that takes peoples attention off of trade, and qualifies the atmosphere of the place. You have appreciably re- lieved the tension and checked the plague. This whole subject must be looked at as a crusade in the cause of humanity. You are making it easier for every young man in town to earn his livelihood with- out paying out his soul and conscience. There is no royal road to this change. You cannot help any one man. You are forced into helping them all at once. Every time a man asserts himself he cuts a cord that is strangling somebody. The first time that independent candi- dates for local office were run in New York city strong men cried in the street for rage. The supremacy of commerce had been affronted. New York, in all Between Elections. 35 that makes life worth living, is a new city since the reform movements began to break up the torpor of serfdom. You asked how to fight force. It must be fought with force, and not with arguments. Indeed, it is easier to start a reform and carry it through than it is to explain either why or how it is done. You can only understand this after you have been three times ridiculed as a re- former, and then you will begin to see that throughout the community, running through every one, there are currents of power that accomplish changes, some- times visible, sometimes hard to see; that this power is in its nature quite as strong, quite as real and reliable, as that Wall Street current, terrible forces both of them, forever operative and struggling and contending together as they surge and swell through the people. It is the sight of that second power that you need. I cannot give it to you. You must sink your own shaft for it. It is this current passing from man to man that makes the unity of all efforts for public betterment. You have a move- ment and an excitement over bad water, and it leaves you with kindergartens in your schools. It is this current that turns your remark at the Club (which every one repeated in order to injure you) into a piece of encouragement to the bankers clerk, who could not have made it himself except at the cost of his livelihood. It is this current, not only the fear of it but the presence of it in the heart of your merchants, that leQves them at your mercy. Cast anything into this current and it goes everywhere, like aniline dye put into a reservoir; it tinges the whole local life in twenty-four hours. It is to this current that all ap- peals are made. All party platforms, all resolutions, all lies are dedicated to it, all literature lives by it. The head of power is near and easy if you strike directly for it. There is an opinion abroad that good politics requires that every man should give his whole time to politics. This is another of the superstitions disseminated by the politicians who want us to go to their primaries, and accepted by people so ignorant of life that they believe that the temperature depends upon the ther- mometer. Why, you are running those prima- ries now. If you were different, they would become different. You need never go near them. Go into that camp where your instinct leads you. The mm- provement in politics will not be marked by any cyclonic overturn. There will always be two parties competing for your vote. It takes no more time to vote for aL good man than for a bad man. There will be no more men in public life then than now. There will be no overt change in conditions. A few lead- ers will stand for the new forces. It is true that it requires a general increase of interest on the part of every one in order that these men shall be found. Your personal duty is to support them in private and public. That is all. The extent to which you yourself become in- volved in public affairs depends upon forces with which you need not concern yourself. Only try to understand what is happening under your eyes. Every time you see a group of men advancing some cause that seems sensible, and be- ing denounced on all hands as self-ap- pointed, see if it was not something in yourself, after all, that appointed those men. As we grow old, what have we to rely on as a touchstone for the times? You once had your own causes and entliusi- asms, but you cannot understand these new ones. You had your certificate from the Almighty, but these fellows are self - appointed. What you wanted was clear, but these men want something unattainable, something that society as you know it cannot supply. Calm your- self, my friend: perhaps they bring it. Has the great Philosophy of Evolu- tion done nothing for the mind of man, 36 that new developments as they arrive are received with the same stony solem- nity, are greeted with the same phrases as ever? How can you have the ingen- uousness to argue soberly against me, supplying me by every word you say with new illustrations, new hope, new fuel? Until I heard you repeat word by word the prayer book of crumbling con- servatism I was not sure I was right. You have placed the great seal of the world upon new truth. Thus should it be received. The radicals are really always saying the same thing. They do not change; every one else changes. They are ac- cused of the most incompatible crimes, of egoism and a mania for power, in- difference to the fate of their own cause, fanaticism, triviality, want of humor, buffoonery, and irreverence. But they sound a certain note. Hence the great practical power of consistent radicals. To all appearance nobody follows them, yet every one believes them. They hold a tuning fork and sound A, and every- body knows it really is A, though the time-honored pitch is G flat. The com- munity cannot get that A out of its head. Nothing can prevent an upward tendency in the popular tone so long as the real A is kept sounding. Every now and then the whole town strikes it for a week, and all the bells ring; and then all sinks to suppressed discord and denial. The only reason why we have not, of late years, had strong consistent centres of influence, focuses of steady political power, has been that the community had not developed men who could hold the note. It was only when the note made a temporary concord with some heavy political scfieme that the reform leaders could hear it themselves. For the rest of the time it threw the whole civilization out of tune. The terrible clash of interests drowned it. The re- formers themselves lost it, and wandered up and down guessing. Between Elections. It is imagined that nature goes by jumps, and that a whole community can suddenly sing in tune after it has been caterwauling and murdering the scale for twenty years. The truth is, we ought to thank God when any man or body of men makes the discovery that there is such a thing as absolute pitch, or absolute honesty, or absolute personal and intellectual integrity. A few years of this spirit will identify certain men with the fundamental idea that truth is stronger than consequences, and these men will become the most serious force and the only truly political force in their community. Their ambition is illimita- ble, for you cannot set bounds to person- al influence. But it is an ambition that cannot be abused. A departure from their own course will ruin any one of them in a night, and undo twenty years of service. It would be natural that such sets of men should arise all over the country, men who wanted nothing, and should reveal the inverse position of the boss system; a set of moral bosses with no organizations, no politics; men thrown into prominence by the operation of all the forces of human nature now sup- pressed, and the suppression of those now operative. It is obvious that one such man will suffice for a town. In the competition of character, one man will be naturally fixed upon whom his competitors will be the first to honor; and upon him will be condensed the public feeling, the confidence of the community. If the extreme case do not arise, nevertheless it is certain that the tendencies toward a destruction of the present system will reveal them- selves as a tendency making for the weight of personal character in practi- cal politics. Reform politics is after all a simple thing. It demands no great attain- ments. You can play the game in the dark. A child can understand it. There are no subtleties nor obscurities, no Impressions of an Indian Childhood. 37 higher analysis or mystery of any sort. If you want a compass at any moment in the midst of some difficult situation, you have only to say to yourself, Life is larger than this little imbroglio. I shall follow my instinct. As you say this your compass swings true. You may be surprised to find what course it points to. But what it tells you to do will be practical agitation. John ~Jay Chapman. IMPRESSIONS OF AN INDIAN CHILDHOOD. I. MY MOTHER. A WIGWAM of weather-stained canvas stood at the base of some irregularly as- cending hills. A footpath wound its way gently down the sloping land till it reached the broad river bottom; creep- ing through the long swamp grasses that bent over it on either side, it came out on the edge of the Missouri. Here, morning, noon, and evening, my mother came to draw water from the muddy stream for our household use. Always, when my mother started for the river, I stopped my play to run along with her. She was only of medium height. Often she was sad and silent, at which times her full arched lips were compressed into hard and bitter lines, and shadows fell under her black eyes. Then I clung to her hand and begged to know what made the tears fall. Hush; my little daughter must never talk about my tears; and smiling through them, she patted my head and said, Now let me see how fast you can run to-day. Whereupon I tore away at my highest possible speed, with my long black hair blowing in the breeze. I was a wild little girl of seven. Loosely clad in a slip of brown buck- skin, and light-footed with a pair of soft moccasins on my feet, I was as free as the wind that blew my hair, and no less spirited than a bounding deer. These were my mothers pride, my wild free- dom and overflowing spirits. She taught me no fear save that of intruding my- self upon others. Having gone many paces ahead I stopped, panting for breath, and laughing with glee as my mother watched my every movement. I was not wholly con- scious of myself, but was more keenly alive to the fire within. It was as if I were the activity, and my hands and feet were only experiments for my spirit to work upon. Returning from the river, I tugged beside my mother, with my hand upon the bucket I believed I was carrying. One time, on such a return, I remember a bit of conversation we had. My grown-up cousin, Warca - Ziwin (Sun- flower), who was then seventeen, always went to the river alone for water for her mother. Their wigwam was not far from ours; and I saw her daily going to and from the river. I admired my cousin greatly. So I said: Mother, when I am tall as my cousin Warca-Ziwin, you shall not have to come for water. I will do it for you. With a strange tremor in her voice which I could not understand, she an- swered, If the paleface does not take away from us the river we drink. Mother, who is this bad paleface? I asked. My little daughter, he is a sham, a sickly sham! The bronzed Dakota is the only real man. I looked up into my mothers face while she spoke; and seeing her bite her lips,

Impressions of an Indian Childhood. 37 higher analysis or mystery of any sort. If you want a compass at any moment in the midst of some difficult situation, you have only to say to yourself, Life is larger than this little imbroglio. I shall follow my instinct. As you say this your compass swings true. You may be surprised to find what course it points to. But what it tells you to do will be practical agitation. John ~Jay Chapman. IMPRESSIONS OF AN INDIAN CHILDHOOD. I. MY MOTHER. A WIGWAM of weather-stained canvas stood at the base of some irregularly as- cending hills. A footpath wound its way gently down the sloping land till it reached the broad river bottom; creep- ing through the long swamp grasses that bent over it on either side, it came out on the edge of the Missouri. Here, morning, noon, and evening, my mother came to draw water from the muddy stream for our household use. Always, when my mother started for the river, I stopped my play to run along with her. She was only of medium height. Often she was sad and silent, at which times her full arched lips were compressed into hard and bitter lines, and shadows fell under her black eyes. Then I clung to her hand and begged to know what made the tears fall. Hush; my little daughter must never talk about my tears; and smiling through them, she patted my head and said, Now let me see how fast you can run to-day. Whereupon I tore away at my highest possible speed, with my long black hair blowing in the breeze. I was a wild little girl of seven. Loosely clad in a slip of brown buck- skin, and light-footed with a pair of soft moccasins on my feet, I was as free as the wind that blew my hair, and no less spirited than a bounding deer. These were my mothers pride, my wild free- dom and overflowing spirits. She taught me no fear save that of intruding my- self upon others. Having gone many paces ahead I stopped, panting for breath, and laughing with glee as my mother watched my every movement. I was not wholly con- scious of myself, but was more keenly alive to the fire within. It was as if I were the activity, and my hands and feet were only experiments for my spirit to work upon. Returning from the river, I tugged beside my mother, with my hand upon the bucket I believed I was carrying. One time, on such a return, I remember a bit of conversation we had. My grown-up cousin, Warca - Ziwin (Sun- flower), who was then seventeen, always went to the river alone for water for her mother. Their wigwam was not far from ours; and I saw her daily going to and from the river. I admired my cousin greatly. So I said: Mother, when I am tall as my cousin Warca-Ziwin, you shall not have to come for water. I will do it for you. With a strange tremor in her voice which I could not understand, she an- swered, If the paleface does not take away from us the river we drink. Mother, who is this bad paleface? I asked. My little daughter, he is a sham, a sickly sham! The bronzed Dakota is the only real man. I looked up into my mothers face while she spoke; and seeing her bite her lips, 38 Impressions of an Indian Childhood. I knew she was unhappy. This aroused revenge in my small soul. Stamping my foot on the earth, I cried aloud, I hate the paleface that makes my mother cry! Setting the pail of water on the ground, my mother stooped, and stretching her left hand out on the level with my eyes, she placed her other arm about me; she pointed to the hill where my uncle and my only sister lay buried. There is what the paleface has done! Since then your father too has been buried in a hill nearer the rising sun. We were once very happy. But the paleface has stolen our lands and driven us hither. Having defrauded us of our land, the paleface forced us away. Well, it happened on the day we moved camp that your sister and uncle were both very sick. Many others were ailing, but there seemed to be no help. We traveled many days and nights; not in the grand happy way that we moved camp when I was a little girl, but we were driven, my child, driven like a herd of buffalo. With every step, your sister, who was not as large as you are now, shrieked with the painful jar until she was hoarse with crying. She grew more and more feverish. Her little hands and cheeks were burning hot. Her little lips were parched and dry, but she would not drink the water I gave her. Then I dis- covered that her throat was swollen and red. My poor child, how I cried with her because the Great Spirit had forgot- ten us! At last, when we reached this west- ern country, on the first weary night your sister died. And soon your uncle died also, leaving a widow and an or- phan daughter, your cousin Warca- Ziwin. Both your sister and uncle might have been happy with us to-day, had it not been for the heartless paleface. My mother was silent the rest of the way to our wigwam. Though I saw no tears in her eyes, I knew that was be- cause I was with her. She seldom wept before me. II. THE LEGENDS. During the summer days, my mother built her fire in the shadow of our wig- wam. In the early morning our simple break- fast was spread upon the grass west of our tepee. At the farthest point of the shade my mother sat beside her fire, toasting a savory piece of dried meat. Near her, I sat upon my feet, eating my dried meat with unleavened bread, and drinking strong black coffee. The morning meal was our quiet hour, when we two were entirely alone. At noon, several who chanced to be passing by stopped to rest, and to share ~our luncheon with us, for they were sure of our hospitality. My uncle, whose death my mother ever lamented, was one of our nations bravest warriors. His name was on the lips of old men when talking of the proud feats of valor; and it was mentioned by younger men, too, in connection with deeds of gallantry. Old women praised him for his kindness toward them; young women held him up as an ideal to their sweethearts. Every one loved him, and my mother worshiped his memory. Thus it happened that even strangers were sure of welcome in our lodge, if they but asked a favor in my uncles name. Though I heard many strange ex- periences related by these wayfarers, I loved best the evening meal, for that was the time old legends were told. I was always glad when the sun hung low in the west, for then my mother sent me to invite the neighboring old men and women to eat supper with us. Ranning all the way to the wigwams, I halted shyly at the entrances. Sometimes I stood long moments without saying a word. It was not any fear that made me so dumb when out upon such a hap- py errand; nor was it that I wished to Impressions of an Indian Childhood. 39 withhold the invitation, for it was all I could do to observe this very proper si- lence. But it was a sensing of the at- mosphere, to assure myself that I should not hinder other plans. My mother used to say to me, as I was almost bounding away for the old people: Wait a mo- ment before you invite any one. If other plans are being discussed, do not inter- fere, but go elsewhere. The old folks knew the meaning of my pauses; and often they coaxed my confidence by asking, What do you seek, little granddaughter? My mother says you are to come to our tepee this evening, I instantly exploded, and breathed the freer after- wards. Yes, yes, gladly, gladly I shall come! each replied. Rising at once and carrying their blankets across one shoulder, they flocked leisurely from their various wigwams toward our dwelling. My mission done, I ran back, skipping and jumping with delight. All out of breath, I told my mother almost the ex- act words of the answers to my invi- tation. Frequently she asked, What were they doing when you entered their tepee? This taught me to remember all I saw at a single glance. Often I told my mother my impressions without being questioned. While in the neighboring wigwams sometimes an old Indian woman asked me, What is your mother doing? ~Jnless my mother had cautioned me not to tell, I generally answered her ques- tions without reserve. At the arrival of our guests I sat close to my mother, and did not leave her side without first asking her consent. I ate my supper in quiet, listening pa- tiently to the talk of the old people, wish- ing all the time that they would begin the stories I loved best. At last, when I could not wait any longer, I whispered in my mothers ear, Ask them to tell an Iktomi story, mother. Soothing my impatience, my mother said aloud, My little danghter is anx- ious to hear your legends. By this time all were through eating, and the even- ing was fast deepening into twilight. As each in turn began to tell a legend, I pillowed my head in my mothers lap; and lying flat upon my back, I watched the stars as they peeped down upon me, one by one. The increasing interest of the tale aroused me, and I sat up eagerly listening for every word. The old wo- men made funny remarks, and laughed so heartily that I could not help joining them. The distant howling of a pack of wolves or the hooting of an owl in the river bottom frightened me, and I nes- tled into my mothers lap. She added some dry sticks to the open fire, and the bright flames leaped up into the faces of the old folks as they sat around in a great circle. On such an evening, I remember tIme glare of the fire shone on a tattooed star upon the brow of the old warrior who was telling a story. I watched him curi- ously as he made his unconscious ges- tures. The blue star upon his bronzed forehead was a puzzle to me. Looking about, I saw two parallel lines on the chin of one of the old women. The rest had none. I examined my mothers face, but found no sign there. After the warriors story was finished, I asked the old woman the meaning of the blue lines on her chin, looking all the while out of the corners of my eyes at the warrior with the star on his fore- head. I was a little afraid that he would rebuke me for my boldness. Here the old woman began: Why, my grandchild, they are signs, secret signs I dare not tell you. I shall, how- ever, tell you a wonderful story about a woman who had a cross tattooed upon each of her cheeks. It was a long story of a woman whose magic power lay hidden behind the marks upomi her face. I fell asleep be- fore the story was completed. 40 Impressions of an Indian Childhood. Ever after that night I felt suspicious of tattooed people. Wherever I saw one I glanced furtively at the mark and round about it, wondering what terrible magic power was covered there. It was rarely that such a fearful story as this one was told by the camp fire. Its impression was so acute that the picture still remains vividly clear and pronounced. III. THE BEADWORK. Soon after breakfast, mother some- times began her beadwork. On a bright clear day, she pulled out the wooden pegs that pinned the skirt of our wigwam to the ground, and rolled the canvas part way up on its frame of slender poles. Then the cool morning breezes swept freely through our dwelling, now and then wafting the perfume of sweet grasses from newly burnt prairie. Untying the long tasseled strings that bound a small brown buckskin bag, my mother spread upon a mat beside her bunches of colored beads, just as an ar- tist arranges the paints upon his palette. On a laphoard she smoothed out a double sheet of soft white buckskin; and drawing from a beaded case that hung on the left of her wide belt a long, nar- row blade, she trimmed the buckskin into shape. Often she worked upon small moccasins for her small daughter. Then I became intensely interested in her designing. With a proud, beaming face, I watched her work. In imagina- tion, I saw myself walking in a new pair of snugly fitting moccasins. I felt the envious eyes of my playmates upon the pretty red beads decorating my feet. Close beside my mother I sat on a rug, with a scrap of buckskin in one hand and an awl in the other. This was the beginning of my practical observa- tion lessons in the art of beadwork. From a skein of finely twisted threads of silvery sinews my mother pulled out a single one. With an awl she pierced the buckskin, and skillfully threaded it with the white sinew. Picking up the tiny beads one by one, she strung them with the point of her thread, always twisting it carefully after every stitch. It took many trials before I learned how to knot my sinew thread on the point of my finger, as I saw her do. Then the next difficulty was in keeping my thread stiffly twisted, so that I could easily string my beads upon it. My mo- ther required of me original designs for my lessons in beading. At first I fre- quently ensnared many a sunny hour into working a long design. Soon I learned from self-inflicted punishment to refrain from drawing complex patterns, for I had to finish whatever I began. After some experience I usually drew easy and simple crosses and squares. These were some of the set forms. My original designs were not always symmet- rical nor sufficiently characteristic, two faults with which my mother had little patience. The quietness of her oversight made me feel strongly responsible and dependent upon my own judgment. She treated me as a dignified little in- dividual as long as I was on my good behavior; and how humiliated I was when some boldness of mine drew forth a rebuke from her! In the choice of colors she left me to my own taste. I was pleased with an outline of yellow upon a background of dark blue, or a combination of red and myrtle-green. There was another of red with a bluish gray that was more conventionally used. When I became a little familiar with designing and the various pleasing combinations of color, a harder lesson was given me. It was the sewing on, instead of beads, some tinted porcupine quills, moistened and flattened between the nails of the thumb and forefinger. My mother cut off the prickly ends and burned them at once in the centre fire. These sharp points were Impressions of an Indian Childhood. poisonous, and worked into the flesh wherever they lodged. For this reason, my mother said, I should not do much alone in quills until I was as tall as my cousin Warca-Ziwin. Always after these confining lessons I was wild with surplus spirits, and found joyous relief in running loose in the open again. Many a summer after- noon, a party of four or five of my play- mates roamed over the hills with me. We each carried a light sharpened rod about four feet long, with which we pried up certain sweet roots. When we had eaten all the choice roots we chanced upon, we shouldered our rods and strayed off into patches of a stalky plant under whose yellow blossoms we found little crystal drops of gum. Drop by drop we gathered this natures rock- candy, until each of us could boast of a lump the size of a small birds egg. Soon satiated with its woody flavor, we tossed away our gum, to return again to the sweet roots. I remember well how we used to ex- change our necklaces, beaded belts, and sometimes even our moccasins. We pre- tended to offer them as gifts to one an- other. We delighted in impersonating our own mothers. We talked of things we had heard them say in their conver- sations. We imitated their various man- ners, even to the inflection of their voices. In the lap of the prairie we seated our- selves upon our feet; and leaning our painted cheeks in the palms of our hands, we rested our elbows on our knees, and bent forward as old women were most accustomed to do. While one was telling of some heroic deed recently done by a near relative, the rest of us listened attentively, and exclaimed in undertones, Han! han! (yes ! yes!) whenever the speaker paused for breath, or sometimes for our sym- pathy. As the discourse became more thrilling, according to our ideas, we raised our voices in these interjections. In these impersonations our parents were led to say only those things that were in common favor. No matter how exciting a tale we might be rehearsing, the mere shifting of a cloud shadow in the landscape near by was sufficient to change our impulses; and soon we were all chasing the great shadows that played among the hills. We shouted and whooped in the chase; laughing and calling to one another, we were like little sportive nymphs on that Dakota sea of rolling green. On one occasion, I forgot the cloud shadow in a strange notion to catch up with my own shadow. Standing straight and still, I began to glide after it, putting out one foot cautiously. When, with the greatest care, I set my foot in ad- vance of myself, my shadow crept onward too. Then again I tried it; this time with the other foot. Still again my shadow escaped me. I began to run; and away flew my shadow, always just a step beyond me. Faster and faster I ran, setting my teeth and clenching my fists, determined to overtake my own fleet shadow. But ever swifter it glided before me, while I was growing breath- less and hot. Slackening my speed, I was greatly vexed that my shadow should check its pace also. Daring it to the utmost, as I thought, I sat down upon a rock imbedded in the hillside. So! my shadow had the impudence to sit down beside me! Now my comrades caught up with me, and began to ask why I was running away so fast. Oh, I was chasing my shadow! Did nt you ever do that? I inquired, surprised that they should not under- stand. They planted their moccasined feet firmly upon my shadow to stay it, and I arose. Again my shadow slipped away, and moved as often as I did. Then we gave up trying to catch my shadow. Before this peculiar experience I have no distinct memory of having recognized any vital bond between myself and my 41 Impressions of an ]ihdian Childhood. own shadow. I never gave it an after- thought. Returning our borrowed belts and trinkets, we rambled homeward. That evening, as on other evenings, I went to sleep over my legends. Iv. ~HE COFFEE-MAKING. One summer afternoon, my mother left me alone in our wigwam, while she went across the way to my aunts dwell- ing. I did not much like to stay alone in our tepee, for I feared a tall, broad- shouldered crazy man, some forty years old, who walked loose among the hills. Wiyaka-Napbina (Wearer of a Feather Necklace) was harmless, and whenever he came into a wigwam he was driven there by extreme hunger. He went nude except for the half of a red blanket he girdled around his waist. In one tawny arm he used to carry a heavy bunch of wild sunflowers that he gathered in his aimless ramblings. His black hair was matted by the winds, and scorched into a dry red by the constant summer sun. As he took great strides, placing one brown bare foot directly in front of the other, he swung his long lean arm to and fro. Frequently he paused in his walk and gazed far backward, shading his eyes with his hand. He was under the be- lief that an evil spirit was haunting his steps. This was what my mother told me once, when I sneered at such a silly big man. I was brave when my mother was near by, and Wiyaka-Napbina walk- ing farther and farther away. Pity the man, my child. I knew him when he was a brave and handsome youth. He was overtaken by a malicious spirit among the hills, one day, when he went hither and thither after his ponies. Since then he cannot stay away from the hills, she said. I felt so sorry for the man in his mis- fortune that I prayed to the Great Spir- it to restore him. But though I pitied him at a distance, I was still afraid of him when he appeared near our wig- wani. Thus, when my mother left me by myself that afternoon, I sat in a fearful mood within our tepee. I recalled all I had ever heard about Wiyaka-Napbina; and I tried to assure myself that though he might pass near by, he would not come to our wigwam because there was no little girl around our grounds. Just then, from without a hand lifted the canvas covering of the entrance; the shadow of a man fell within the wigwam, and a large roughly moccasined foot was planted inside. For a moment I did not dare to breathe or stir, for I thought that could be no other than Wiyaka-Napbina. The next instant I sighed aloud in relief. It was an old grandfather who had often told me Iktomi legends. Where is your mother, my little grandchild? were his first words. My mot,her is soon coming back from my aunts tepee, I replied. Then I shall wait awhile for her re- turn, he said, crossing his feet and seat- ing himself upon a mat. At once I began to play the part of a generous hostess. I turned to my mo- thers coffeepot. Lifting the lid, I found nothing but coffee grounds in the bottom. I set the pot on a heap of cold ashes in the cen- tre, and filled it half full of warm Mis- souri River water. During this perform- ance I felt conscious of being watched. Then breaking off a small piece of our unleavened bread, I placed it in a bowl. Turning soon to the coffeepot, which would never have boiled on a dead fire had I waited forever, I poured out a cup of worse than muddy warm water. Car- rying the bowl in one hand and cup in the other, I handed the light luncheon to the old warrior. I offered them to him 42 Impressions of an Indian Childhood. 43 with the air of bestowing generous hos- pitality. How! how! he said, and placed the dishes on the ground in front of his crossed feet. He nibbled at the bread and sipped from the cup. I sat back against a pole watching him. I was proud to have succeeded so well in serv- ing refreshments to a guest all by my- self. Before the old warrior had finished eating, my mother entered. Immedi- ately she wondered where I had found coffee, for she knew I had never made any, and that she had left the coffeepot empty. Answering the question in my mothers eyes, the warrior remarked, My granddaughter made coffee on a heap of dead ashes, and served me the moment I came. They both laughed, and mother said, Wait a little longer, and I shall build a fire. She meant to make some real coffee. But neither she nor the warrior, whom the law of our custom had com- pelled to partake of my insipid hospi- tality, said anything to embarrass me. They treated my best judgment, poor as it was, with the utmost respect. It was not till long years afterward that I learned how ridiculous a thing I had done. V. THE DEAD MAN S PLUM BUSH. One autumn afternoon, many people came streaming toward the dwelling of our near neighbor. With painted faces, and wearing broad white bosoms of elks teeth, they hurried down the narrow footpath to Haraka Wambdis wigwam. Young mothers held their children by the hand, and half pulled them along in their haste. They overtook and passed by the bent old grandmothers who were trudging along with crooked canes to- ward the centre of excitement. Most of the young braves galloped hither on their ponies. Toothless warriors, like the old women, came more slowly, though mount- ed on lively ponies. They sat proudly erect on their horses. They wore their eagle plumes, and waved their various trophies of former wars. In front of the wigwam a great fire was built, and several large black kettles of venison were suspended over it. The crowd were seated about it on the grass in a great circle. Behind them some of the braves stood leaning against the necks of their ponies, their tall figures draped in loose robes which were well drawn over their eyes. Young girls, with their faces glowing like bright red autumn leaves, their glos- sy braids falling over each ear, sat co- quettishly beside their chaperons. It was a custom for young Indian women to invite some older relative to escort them to the public feasts. Though it was not an iron law, it was generally observed. Haraka Wambdi was a strong young brave, who had just returned from his first battle, a warrior. His near relatives, to celebrate his new rank, were spreading a feast to which the whole of the Indian village was invited. Holding my pretty striped blanket in readiness to throw over my shoulders, I grew more and more restless as I watched the gay throng assembling. My mother was busily broiling a wild duck that my aunt had that morning brought over. Mother, mother, why do you stop to cook a small meal when we are invited to a feast? I asked, with a snarl in my voice. My child, learn to wait. On our way to the celebration we are going to stop at Chanyus wigwam. His aged mother-in-law is lying very ill, and I think she would like a taste of this small game.,~ Having once seen the suffering on the thin, pinched features of this dying wo- man, I felt a momentary shame that I had not remembered her before. On our way, I ran ahead of my mo- ther, and was reaching out my hand to 44 Impressions of an Indian Childhood. pick some purple plums that grew on a small bush, when I was checked by a low Sh I from my mother. Why, motber, I want to taste the plums! I exclaimed, as I dropped my hand to my side in disappointment. Never pluck a single plum from this bush, my child, for its roots are wrapped around an Indians skeleton. A brave is buried here. While he lived, he was so fond of playing the game of striped plum seeds that, at his death, his set of plum seeds were buried in bis hands. From them sprang up this little bush. Eyeing the forbidden fruit, I trod lightly on the sacred ground, and dared to speak only in whispers, until we had gone many paces from it. After that time, I halted in my ramblings whenever I caine in sight of the plum bush. I grew sober with awe, and was alert to hear a long-drawn-out whistle rise from the roots of it. Though I had never heard with my own ears this strange whistle of departed spirits, yet I had lis- tened so frequently to bear the old folks describe it that I knew I should recognize it at once. The lasting impression of that day, as I recall it now, is what my mother told me about the dead mans plum bush. VI. THE GROUND SQUIRREL. In the busy autumn days, my cousin Warca-Ziwins mother came to our wig. wam to help my mother preserve foods for our winter use. I was very fond of my aunt, because she was not so quiet as my mother. Though she was older, she was more jovial and less reserved. She was slender and remarkably erect. While my mothers hair was heavy and black, my aunt had unusually thin locks. Ever since I knew her, she wore a string of large blue beads around her neck, beads that were precious because my uncle had given them to her when she was a younger woman. She had a peculiar swing in her gait, caused by a long stride rarely natural to so slight a figure. It was during my aunts visit with us that my mother forgot her ac- customed quietness, often laughing heart- ily at some of my aunts witty remarks. I loved my aunt threefold: for her hearty laughter, for the cheerfulness she caused my mother, and most of all for the times she dried my tears and held me in her lap, when my mother had re- proved me. Early in the cool mornings, just as the yellow rim of the sun rose above the hills, we were up and eating our break- fast. We awoke so early that we saw the sacred hour when a misty smoke hung over a pit surrounded by an impas- sable sinking mire. This strange smoke appeared every morning, both winter and summer; but most visibly in midwinter it rose immediately above the marshy spot. By the time the full face of the sun appeared above the eastern horizon, the smoke vanished. Even very old men, who bad known this country the longest, said that the smoke from this pit had never failed a single day to rise heaven- ward. As I frolicked about our dwelling, I used to stop suddenly, and with a fearful awe watch the smoking of the unknown fires. While the vapor was visible, I was afraid to go very far from our wig- wam unless I went with my mother. From a field in the fertile river bot- tom my mother and aunt gathered an abundant supply of corn. Near our te- pee, they spread a large canvas upon the grass, and dried their sweet corn in it. I was left to watch the corn, that no- thing should disturb it. I played around it with dolls made of ears of corn. I braided their soft fine silk for hair, and gave them blankets as various as the scraps I found in my mothers workbag. There was a little stranger with a black-and-yellow-striped coat that used Impressions of an Indian Childhood. 45 to come to the drying corn. It was a little ground squirrel, who was so fear- less of me that he came to one corner of the canvas and carried away as much of the sweet corn as he could hold. I wanted very much to catch. him, and rub his pretty fur back, but my mother said he would be so frightened if I caught him that he would bite my fingers. So I was as content as he to keep the corn between us. Every morning he came for more corn. Some evenings I have seen him creeping about our grounds; and when I gave a sudden whoop of recognition, he ran quickly out of sight. When mother had dried all the corn she wished, then she sliced great pump- kins into thin rings; and these she dou- bled and linked together into long chains. She hung them on a pole that stretched between two forked posts. The wind and sun soon thoroughly dried the chains of pumpkin. Then she packed them away in a case of thick and stiff buckskin. In the sun and wind she also dried many wild fruits, cherries, berries, and plums. But chiefest among my early recollections of autumn is that one of the corn drying and the ground squirrel. I have few memories of winter days, at this period of my life, though many of the summer. There is one only which I can recall. Some missionaries gave me a little bag of marbles. They were all sizes and colors. Among them were some of col- ored glass. Walking with my mother to the river, on a late winter day, we found great chunks of ice piled all along the bank. The ice on the river was floating in huge pieces. As I stood be- si(le one large block, I noticed for the first time the colors of the rainbow in the crystal ice. Immediately I thought of my glass marbles at home. With my bare fingers I tried to pick out some of the colors, for they seemed so near the surface. But my fingers began to sting with the intense cold, and I had to bite them hard to keep from crying. From that day on, for many a moon, I believed that glass marbles had river ice i,~side of them. VII. THE BIG RED APPLES. The first turning away from the easy, natural flow of my life occurred in an early spring. It was in my eighth year; in the month of March, I afterward learned. At this age I knew but one language, and that was my mothers native tongue. From some of my playmates I heard that two paleface missionaries were in our village. They were from that class of white men who wore big hats and carried large hearts, they said. Run- ning direct to my mother, I began to question her why these two strangers were among us. She told me, after I had teased much, that they had come to take away Indian boys and girls to the East. My mother did not seem to want me to talk about them. But in a day or two, I gleandd many wonderful stories from my playfellows concerning the strangers. Mother, my friend Jud~win is going home with the missionaries. She is go- ing to a more beautiful country than ours; the palefaces told her so! I said wistfully, wishing in my heart that I too might go. Mother sat in a chair, and I was hang- ing on her knee. Within the last two seasons my big brother Daw6e had re- turned from a three years education in the East, and his coming back infin- enced my mother to take a farther step from her native way of living. First it was a change from the buffalo skin to the white mans canvas that covered our wigwam. Now she had given up her wigwam of slender poles, to liVe, a for- eigner, in a home of clumsy logs. Yes, my child, several others besides 46 Impressions of an Indian Childhood. Jud~win are going away with the pale- faces. Your brother said the mission- aries had inquired about his little sister, she said, watching my face very closely. My heart thumped so hard against my breast, I wondered if she could hear it. Did he tell them to take me, mo- ther? I asked, fearing lest Daw~e had forbidden the palefaces to see me, and that my hope of going to the Wonder- land would be entirely blighted. With a sad, slow smile, she answered: There! I knew you were wishing to go, because Jud6win has filled your ears with the white mens lies. Dont believe a word they say! Their words are sweet, but, my child, their deeds are bitter. You will cry for me, but they will not even soothe you. Stay with me, my little one! Your brother Daw6e says that go- ing East, away from your mother, is too hard an experience for his baby sister. Thus my mother discouraged my cu- riosity about the lands beyond our east- ern horizon; for it was not yet an am- bition for Letters that was stirring me. But on the following day the mission- aries did come to our very house. I spied them coming up the footpath lead- ing to our cottage. A third man was with them, but he was not my brother Daw6e. It was another, a young inter- preter, a paleface who had a smattering of the Indian language. I was ready to run out to meet them, but I did not dare to displease my mother. With great glee, I jumped up and down on our ground floor. I begged my mother to open the door, that they would be sure to come to us. Alas! They came, they saw, and they conquered! Jud6win had told me of the great tree where grew red, red apples; and how we could reach out our hands and pick all the red apples we could eat. I had never seen apple trees. I had never tasted more than a dozen red apples in my life; and when I heard of the or- chards of the East, I was eager to roam among them. The missionaries smiled into my eyes, and patted my head. I wondered how mother could say such hard words against them. Mother, ask them if little girls may have all the red apples they want, when they go East, I whispered aloud, in my excitement. The interpreter heard me, and an- swered: Yes, little girl, the nice red apples are for those who pick them; and you will have a ride on the iron horse if you go with these good people. I had never seen a train, and he knew it. Mother, I m going East! I like big red apples, and I want to ride on the iron horse! Mother, say yes! I pleaded. My mother said nothing. The mis- sionaries waited in silence; and my eyes began to blur with tears, though I strug- gled to choke them back. The corners of my mouth twitched, and my mother saw me. I am not ready to give you any word, she said to them. To-morrow I shall send you my answer by my son. With this they left us. Alone with my mother, I yielded to my tears, and cried aloud, shaking my head so as not to hear what she was saying to me. This was the first time I had ever been so unwilling to give up my own desire that I refused to hearken to my mothers voice. There was a solemn silence in our home that night. Before I went to bed I begged the Great Spirit to make my mother willing I should go with the mis- sionaries. The next morning came, and my mo- ther called me to her side. My daugh- ter, do you still persist in wishing to leave your mother? she asked. Oh, mother, it is not that I wish to leave you, but I want to see the wonder- ful Eastern land, I answered. My dear old aunt came to our house that morning, and I heard her say, Let her try it. I hoped that, as usual, my aunt was Disarming the Trusts. 47 pleading on my side. My brother Daw~e caine for mothers decision. I dropped my play, and crept close to my aunt. Yes, Daw6e, my daughter, though she does not understand what it all means, is anxious to go. She will need an education when she is grown, for then there will be fewer real Dakotas, and many more palefaces. This tearing her away, so young, from her mother is ne- cessary, if I would have her an educated woman. The palefaces, who owe us a large debt for stolen lands, have begun to pay a tardy justice in offering some education to our children. But I know my daughter must suffer keenly in this experiment. For her sake, I dread to tell you my reply to the missionaries. Go, tell them that they may take my lit- tle daughter, and that the Great Spirit shall not fail to reward them according to their hearts. Wrapped in my heavy blanket, I walked with my mother to the carriage that was soon to take us to the iron horse. I was happy. I met my play- mates, who were also wbaring their best thick blankets. We showed one another our new beaded moccasins, and the width of the belts that girdled our new dresses. Soon we were being drawn rapidly away by the white mans horses. When I saw the lonely figure of my mother vanish in the distance, a sense of regret settled heavily upon me. I felt suddenly weak, as if I might fall limp to the ground. I was in the hands of strangers whom my mother did not fully trust. I no longer felt free to be myself, or to voice my own feelings. The tears trickled down my cheeks, and I buried my face in the folds of my blanket. Now the first step, parting me from my mother, was taken, and all my belated tears availed no- thing. Having driven thirty miles to the fer- ryboat, we crossed the Missouri in the evening. Then riding again a few miles eastward, we stopped before a massive brick building. I looked at it in amaze- ment, and with a vague misgiving, for in our village I had never seen so large a house. Trembling with fear and dis- trust of the palefaces, my teeth chatter- ing from the chilly ride, I crept noise- lessly in my soft moccasins along the narrow hall, keeping very close to the bare wall. I was as frightened and be- wildered as the captured young of a wild creature. Zitkcda-Sct. DISARMING THE TRUSTS. THERE has recently been held in Chicago a conference on the subject of trusts. The members of it represented many sections and many interests, and the addresses that were delivered may be taken as revealing the position of the American people on the question of monopolies. In advance of the fuller expression of the popular feeling that will be given during the coming presi- dential canvass, this conference, per- haps, affords the best means of per- ceiving at a glance how the people of this country think and feel, and how they will probably act, in relation to those vast corporations that are acquir- ing a certain monopolistic power. The most encouraging fact that has come to light is the existence of a limit- less amount of moral earnestness, a feeling of antagonism to real monopoly, that is uniting people, particularly in the South and West, in a crusade that has a remote resemblance to the anti- slavery movement. People of this way of thinking and feeling do not usually

Disarming the Trusts. 47 pleading on my side. My brother Daw~e caine for mothers decision. I dropped my play, and crept close to my aunt. Yes, Daw6e, my daughter, though she does not understand what it all means, is anxious to go. She will need an education when she is grown, for then there will be fewer real Dakotas, and many more palefaces. This tearing her away, so young, from her mother is ne- cessary, if I would have her an educated woman. The palefaces, who owe us a large debt for stolen lands, have begun to pay a tardy justice in offering some education to our children. But I know my daughter must suffer keenly in this experiment. For her sake, I dread to tell you my reply to the missionaries. Go, tell them that they may take my lit- tle daughter, and that the Great Spirit shall not fail to reward them according to their hearts. Wrapped in my heavy blanket, I walked with my mother to the carriage that was soon to take us to the iron horse. I was happy. I met my play- mates, who were also wbaring their best thick blankets. We showed one another our new beaded moccasins, and the width of the belts that girdled our new dresses. Soon we were being drawn rapidly away by the white mans horses. When I saw the lonely figure of my mother vanish in the distance, a sense of regret settled heavily upon me. I felt suddenly weak, as if I might fall limp to the ground. I was in the hands of strangers whom my mother did not fully trust. I no longer felt free to be myself, or to voice my own feelings. The tears trickled down my cheeks, and I buried my face in the folds of my blanket. Now the first step, parting me from my mother, was taken, and all my belated tears availed no- thing. Having driven thirty miles to the fer- ryboat, we crossed the Missouri in the evening. Then riding again a few miles eastward, we stopped before a massive brick building. I looked at it in amaze- ment, and with a vague misgiving, for in our village I had never seen so large a house. Trembling with fear and dis- trust of the palefaces, my teeth chatter- ing from the chilly ride, I crept noise- lessly in my soft moccasins along the narrow hall, keeping very close to the bare wall. I was as frightened and be- wildered as the captured young of a wild creature. Zitkcda-Sct. DISARMING THE TRUSTS. THERE has recently been held in Chicago a conference on the subject of trusts. The members of it represented many sections and many interests, and the addresses that were delivered may be taken as revealing the position of the American people on the question of monopolies. In advance of the fuller expression of the popular feeling that will be given during the coming presi- dential canvass, this conference, per- haps, affords the best means of per- ceiving at a glance how the people of this country think and feel, and how they will probably act, in relation to those vast corporations that are acquir- ing a certain monopolistic power. The most encouraging fact that has come to light is the existence of a limit- less amount of moral earnestness, a feeling of antagonism to real monopoly, that is uniting people, particularly in the South and West, in a crusade that has a remote resemblance to the anti- slavery movement. People of this way of thinking and feeling do not usually 48 make a deep analysis of the situation. They do not fully understand the com- mercial evolution that is going on in the world. In their opposition to the monopolistic action of trusts, they are likely to undervalue their productive power. The statutes that they will fa- vor, and that they will often enact, will be sweeping prohibitions with plentiful penalties attached to them. They will be laws that cannot be enforced, and that would do harm if they ~vere en- forced. And yet, in a way, what this section of the people has to contribute toward the solution of the trust problem is worth more than is anything that other sections can contribute. A zeal that is not now according to knowledge will be pretty certain to be according to it before the struggle is over. It will, at least, begin to do something; and if what it does proves to be not the right thing, it will do something else. In the end it will solve the problem; while, on the other hand, a knowledge that is not backed by zeal will do nothing either at the outset or afterwards. Fortunately, not all of the zeal is con- fined to the South and West. Agricul- ture develops the most powerful opposi- tion to trusts; but all through the coun- try capital that is not massed in colossal holdings is opposed to them. The coun- try as a whole has little use for real monopoly, or for political parties that entangle themselves with monopolies. Success in elections is to be had only un- der the old banner of economic freedom. There are two small classes of people who are predisposed to favor trusts, even though they shall prove to be real mo- nopolies. These are, first, the revolu- tionary classes, socialists, anarchists, communists, and the like; and secondly, the workmen in a few highly organized trades, who have some inclination to favor those trusts which will exact high prices from the purchasing public, and share with their workmen the gains thus re- alized. Experience seems to show that Disarming the Trusts. a trust that has a real monopolistic power may form an alliance with its workmen, or with important classes of its workmen, against the public. In that case the la- borers who benefit by the high prices that are secured are attached to the trust, though it is by a conditional and precarious friendship. What is the attitude of the great body of the people? Has it not taken any decided attitude? Does it not know what it thinks and wishes? In so far as the details of law.making are concerned, it certainly does not. It is in the inquirers position; and the question that it is hoping to have answered is whether it should try to frame statutes that will crush the trusts, or should content itself with trying to regulate them, or even with letting them alone. On the more fundamental issue, as I venture to af- firm, the mind of the people is made up. There is one thing that it wants and will have; and there is another thing that it fears, hates, and will repress. What it wants is productive efficiency. The people will ha~ve capital so organized that it can compete successfully with any capital in the world. What they will not have is capital so endowed with spe- cial and abnormal powers that it can do a plundering work as well as a produc- tive one. There are certain distinctions that the people almost never make with sufficient clearness, and that they must at some time make, if their moral earnestness is, in a practical way, to be good for much. There are three things, not at all identi- cal, which the people, in their thought and speech, jumble together, and even attack without any discrimination. They are, first, capital as such; secondly, central- ization; and thirdly, monopoly. When a general attack is pending, the word that is used, in blanket fashion, to cover them all is monopoly. Whenever the anti-monopoly movement takes the shape of an assault on all bondholders or stock- holders, it is clear that the first discrim Disarming the Trust8. 49 ination has not been made. Capital as such is confounded with capital endowed with pernicious powers. This, fortunately, is not the attitude of the people in general. It was not the attitude of those representatives of the people who were recently gathered at the Chicago conference. There are persons who have a quarrel with bondholders and stockholders as such, because they are opposed to the men who have some- thing. They are, however, in a very small minority. It is only in the heat of a contest that an attack on monopoly becomes, to any important extent, an ac- tual attack on capital. An attack on monopoly easily becomes an attack on centralization. Clear dis- crimination is rare in this connection. To many people the massing of capital seems necessarily to make it monopolis- tic. If it does so, then there is no dis- tinction in fact between highly central- ized capital and monopoly. We cannot have capital in very big masses without being in the grip of an octopus or enslaved, as some of our friends from the West and South think that we al- ready are. There is one great question of fact pending: Does centralization carried to great lengths necessarily involve mono- poly? If so, the people are perfectly right in jumbling the two together, and attacking them both with all the energy of which they are capable. Monopoly is unendurable. If we cannot exter- minate it or reduce it to harmless dimen- sions, we shall begin even to listen to the seductions of the socialists. We shall think better than we ever thought before of the plan of letting the trusts do their utmost, to the end that, as soon as one vast network of them shall have full pos- session of the industrial field, we shall seize its whole capital and use it for the benefit of the people. Is this the only alternative? It is so if centralization and monopoly are prac- tically the same thing, and if the central- VOL. LXXXV. NO. 507. 4 izing tendency cannot be stopped. If they are not the same, then we may have centralization without having monopoly. We may get the good that there is in the trust, and cast away the evil. We may save all the productive energy that vast capitals involve, and make ourselves victorious competitors in the struggle for the traffic of the world. We may enable ourselves to undersell every one else, not because our workmen will take low wages, but because, thanks to our big shops and our automatic machines, they produce more than any other work- men. If America is, as it seems to be, the natural home of the trust, and if we can draw the fangs of the monster and tame him to good uses, we can get all that it is possible to get out of ma- terial civilization. We can be commer- cially dominant and the leaders in eco- nomic progress. We can win the prizes that leadership brings, and there is no measuring the value of those prizes; for wealth honestly gained and honestly dispersed among the people means a high level of life, intellectual and moral as well as physical. Momentous beyond the power of lan- guage to measure is the question whether centralization may be allowed to go to the utmost lengths without fastening on the people the intolerable burden of mo- nopoly. Answer this question in one way, and you will probably be a social- ist, and certainly you ought to be one. Answer it in another way, and you will be an individualist, though that is an inexact term for indicating the develop- ment for which you hope. You will be- lieve, however, in freedom of individual action, in competition, in the right of contract; in short, in the things that have made our civilization thus far what it is. You will keep your optimism in either case, for you will be sure that, in the end, we shall get out of our troubles and dangers; but if you think that the only thing that can save us is the seizing of all capital by the state, then the eco 60 Disarming th~e Trusts. nomic millennium, the vision of which will cheer you in the dark days before it can be realized, will be a time of fra- ternal sharing of everything, of the keep- ing of a common purse for humanity, and of a forced equality that will leave little chance for liberty. If, on the other hand, you think that competition and private initiative can save us, if only they have a fair trial, what you will see before you is an endless era of progress insured by old and familiar forces. You will see the wealth-creating power of the social organism always growing, wages always rising, wealth often massed, in- deed, in great corporate capitals, but also divided, in its ownership, into a myriad of holdings scattered widely among the people. You will see work- ers acquiring capital, while still earning wages in the mill; and, as an outcome not so remote as a Philistine view would make it, you may see production moving so steadily that the bonds of great cor- porations, and even the stocks, may be- come common and safe forms of invest- ment of workmens savings. Not indeed without very intelligent action on the part of the government, and therefore not without much experimenting, will all this come. But it will come ultimately. And the guarantee of this fact is the overwhelming probability that socialism will never come to stay. If it shall be tried in one of our states or in one coun- try of Europe, the results of the experi- ment will cause it to be rejected both there and elsewhere The practical thing to be decided, therefore, is what a state can do to open the rift between centralization and mo- nopoly, to enable the mills to produce and to sell as cheaply as the biggest es- tablishments can do, but to stop the ex- tortion that trusts practice, and ward off the greater extortion that they threaten to practice. What is the kind of legislation that a government needs to enact, if it will pluck the flower of commercial success from a very thorny and dangerous bush? The key to the solution of this problem is afforded by the natural forces that are already curbing the great corporations. We have only to act according to nature. We must do what a skillful physician does when he wishes his patient to get well, and must remove the obstructions that prevent nature from doing its heal- ing work. Great corporations would never be monopolies if competition were not abnormally fettered, and if individ- ual action had a fair field and no favor. When prices are unduly high, owing to the grasping policy of some trust, what happens? New competition usually ap- pears in the field. Capital is seeking outlets; and it has become hard to find them. Readily, and sometimes almost recklessly, does it build new mills and be- gin to compete with trusts, when these consolidated companies do not know enough to proceed on a conservative plan. Let any combination of producers raise the prices beyond a certain liin- it, and it will encounter this difficulty. The new mills that will spring into exist- ence will break down prices; and the fear of these new mills, without their actual coming, is often enough to keep prices from rising to an extortionate height. The mill that has never been built is already a power in the market; for if it surely will be built under cer- tain conditions, the effect of this certain- ty is to keep prices down. The real and serious difficulty is the fact that the curbing influence of this latent competition cannot always be de- pended on to prevent a real and con- siderable extortion. There is often a considerable range within which trusts can raise prices without calling potential competition into a positive activity. The possible competitor does not become a real one, by any means, as promptly as he should. The trouble is, that he has not a fair chance for his life when he actually appears on the scene. He is in very great danger of being crushed by the Disarming the Trusts. 51 trust, by virtue of certain abnormal things that the trust is now allowed to do. If the great company could not do these ab- normal things, the new competitor would be safe. He would appear promptly, whenever profits should become high enough to call for him. The possibility of his coming would hold prices at a nat- ural level. The trust would benefit the people by its economies, and would not trouble them by its exactions. Potential competition is certainly a real force. Experience has proved this a hundred times, in the short period within which modern trusts have ex- isted. It is, however, a force that can be easily obstructed. Capital is prover- bially timid; and here is a case where it has to be bold, if it is to do what the public needs to have it do. Our system of laws now perniits overgrown capitals to bully small ones. The big company has a right to beat the little one in an honest race for cheapness in making and selling goods; but it has no right to foul its competitor and disable it by an un- derhanded blow ; and this is exactly what great trusts are doing. Where a state needs to secure a delicate action by a highly sensitive agent, its clumsy laws and clumsier policing allow that agent to receive rough handling when it comes into the field, or to be so terrorized in advance that it often does not come at all. The fact is that a trust is allowed to do things that are out of harmony with the spirit of the law, things that it could not do if the law were accomplish- ing even the single task that a narrow Spencerian policy demands of it, name- ly, the protection of property. There are actions that have in them the essence of robbery, though they lie altogether outside of the scope of statutes hereto- fore enacted. It is not so clear that they are outside of the scope of common law; but they are not actually suppressed by it. I may be a manufacturer outside of the trust, selling my product in a lim ited section of the country. A trust may sell goods in my particular field for less than it costs to produce them; and if, while it thus loses money in my territory, it can make money in twenty other places, there is no doubt as to the way in which the struggle between it and myself will result. If, on the other hand, in order to get away my trade, it were obliged to reduce prices everywhere below the cost of production, there is no reason to sup- pose that it could hold out in competition any longer than I could. A trust would never think of lowering prices in a ruin- ous way all over the country, for the pur- pose of crushing out competition in one corner of the country. It is commonly supposed that mere size gives corporations a competing ad- vantage; but this is an inaccurate sup- position. A concern with a capital of twenty million dollars cannot lose a mil- lion a year any more safely than one with a capital of twenty thousand dol- lars can lose a thousand a year. If the losses that t~ corporation sustains by cut- throat competition are in proportion to the amount of its capital, it is not neces- sarily a dangerous competitor. As a practical fact, a new mill, equipped with most recent and perfect machinery, is of- ten a stronger competitorthan a trust that is encumbered with antiquated plants. Quite akin to that predatory competi- tion which lowers prices in one corner of the country and sustains them elsewhere, for the purpose of ruining somebody whose market is in that limited region, is the kind that lowers prices on particu- lar grades or qualities of goods which happen to be made by a competing con- cern, and sustains prices on all other grades and qualities. The discrimina- tion may be, not between one locality and another, but between a type of goods made by some one whose production is highly specialized and other types. It is easy for tIme trust, if it makes many kinds of goods, to crush a competitor who makes only one. 52 Closely affiliated with these methods of price discrimination is another that has been much used, namely, a kind of factors agreement. The trust may make with merchants who sell its goods a contract that compels theni not only to keep prices at the level which the trust prescribes, but to handle no goods of a general class other than those which the trust makes. Under these circum- stances the new competitor has hard work to find a market; for unless the whole- sale merchants are willing to give up handling any of the goods manufactured by the trust, they are unable to buy from hiin. If then this producer betakes him- self directly to the retailer, the trust may still pursue him and deprive the retailer of the privilege of handling any of its products unless he too refuse to buy and sell competing goods. The factors agree- ment may take the shape, not of abso- lutely refusing to sell to merchants who handle goods made outside of the trust, but that of refusing to give to those who sell competing goods the full discounts that are given to those who do not sell them. All these things are in restraint of trade, and contrary to the public interest and to the spirit of common law. All of them, moreover, involve personal dis- crimination in the treatment of different customers, and could not be practiced with success without such unequal and unfair treatment. If trusts were com- pelled to treat all of their customers alike, none of this kind of predatory work could be done. The independent producer would have a fair field and no favor; and that is all he needs. If that were secured, there would be in every department of industry some actual com- petition and a great deal of competition of the potential kind. Between them they would protect the public from extor- tion. Moreover, it could be shown that protecting the public from high prices shields the laborer from the lowering of wages. Disarming the Trusts. There is much to be said about tariff laws and patent laws; for it is often partly by means of them that a great corporation becomes a quasi-monopoly. The total abolition of import duties and patent laws would be a rash measure; but a reformation of these laws that would prevent them from playing into the hands of trusts would be an entirely reasonable measure. This means of curbing the power of trusts has been considerably discussed. The suppression of that favoritism which railroads show to certain producers is so obviously ne- cessary that we have no need of discuss- ing it The policy that is unfamiliar to our people, and that is most promising, though, like other good things, it en- counters difficulties, aims at the complete suppression of personal discrimination by the trusts themselves in their dealings with their customers. The ruinous local cutting of prices, and the ruinous cutting of the prices of particular grades of goods, for like predatory purposes, must at all hazards be stopped. The factors agree- ment that forces merchants to boycott independent producers must also be stopped. We must find or make a way to accomplish these things. It will be hard to do it; and yet it will be easier than to force a way to success in prohib- itory legislation. Reforming the tariff, reforming the patent laws, controlling the common carriers, and, above all, se- curing uniform treatment of all custom- ers by the trusts themselves, this combi- nation of measures constitutes a policy in regard to trusts that, however difficult it may at first be, is possible, because it is in harmony with powerful tendencies that are already working. It appeals to a latent power of competition that even now holds trusts greatly in check. To hold them more in check, and to do it in a natural way, is to solve the problem of trusts. A consideration which has far less weight than it should have when the evils of monopoly are in the foreground Disarming the Trusts. 53 is the necessity of preserving for our country the productive power that com- bination gives. In the international field there is a great question to be settled: which country is to come out uppermost in the struggle which is growing fiercer and fiercer for dominance in the trade of the world? The country that in- vents machinery rapidly will have an advantage over others; and so will the one that fosters centralization by allow- ing corporations to become greater and still greater, so long as they do not gain the position of real monopolies. There is little doubt that the competition of nations will force every one of them, in the end, to tolerate production on the largest scale. If that is so, there are two general alternatives, and only two, open to the different countries. One and all of them must choose between some kind of state socialism, on the one hand, and the appeal to the power of competition, on the other. It looks, superficially, as if socialism might be the easier. It looks as though a na- tion, tired of futile attempts to regulate trusts, might find it more practicable to take possession of them. We shall see what we shall see; for the issue must be decided experimentally. But if laws and tendencies that are now at work are a guide, it is safe to conclude that the surviving system will be the competitive one. States will do many things that they do not now do; but they will not seize and conduct all industries. If one state were to do this, its example would deter others from following suit. If one state should keep the principle of competition alive, with all that that means in the way of progress, its ex ample would compel others to do the same. By a law of evolution, the state where industries are centralized, but not monopolistic, will succeed ia the interna- tional contest. These are assertions that one article cannot undertake to prove; but fortu- nately the experience of a comparative- ly few years will either confirm or re- fute them. The real uncertainty is not so much what will be the type of trust legislation that will prevail in the end, as how many wasteful experiments, how many disturbances and disruptions, we must experience before we get it. Shall we trust wholly to future experiment? Shall we make, by costly blundering, a list of things that are surely not to be done, in order that, by elimination, we may ultimately get the remainder of things that are to be done? Something of this kind we may have before us; but there is a chance of avoiding a disastrous amount of it. We may try the right ex- periment early. We may use insight and perceive how nature is already working. We may liberate the competitive forces that, even now, trammeled as they are, make our state a tolerable one, and enable them to develop their full in- fluence. The monsters that alarm us are tied by a half visible leash that we did not consciously put on them; but it is one that we caa strengthen to the point at which it will hold and tame them, and make them serve us. Success in the fierce rivalries into which nations are now entering will come to those which utilize, for all that it is worth, the power that massed capital gives, without surrendering their economic free- dom. John Bates Clark. To Have and to Hold. TO HAVE AND TO HOLD.1 XXXI. IN WHICH AN INDIAN FORGIVES AND FORGETS. A MAN who bath been a soldier and an adventurer into far and strange coun- tries must needs have faced Death many times and in many guises. I had learned to know that grim countenance, and to have no great fear of it. And beneath the ugliness of the mask that now pre- sented itself there was only Death at last. I was no babe to whimper at a sudden darkness, to cry out against a curtain that a Hand chose to drop between me and the life I had lived. Death frighted me not, but when I thought of one whom I should leave behind me I feared lest I should go mad. Had this thing come to me a year before, I could have slept the night through; now now I lay, bound to the log, before the open door of the lodge, and, looking through it, saw the pines waving in the night wind and the gleam of the river beneath the stars, and saw her as plain- ly as though she had stood there under the trees, in a flood of noon sunshine. Now she was the Jocelyn Perry of Weyanoke, now of the ministers house, now of a storm-tossed boat and a pirate ship, now of the gaol at Jamestown. One of my arms was free; I could take from within my doublet the little pur- ple flower, and drop my face upon the hand that held it. The bloom was quite withered, and scalding tears would not give it life again. The face that was now gay, now de- fiant. now pale and suffering, became steadfastly the face that had leaned upon my breast in the Jamestown gaol, and looked at me with a mournful bright. ness of love and sorrow. Spring was in the land, and the summer would come, but not to us. I stretched forth my hand to the wife who was not there, and my heart lay crushed within me. She had been my wife not a year; it was but the other day that I knew she loved me After a while the anguish lessened, and I lay, dull and hopeless, thinking of trifling things, counting the stars between the pines. Another slow hour, and, a braver mood coming upon me, I thought of Diccon who was in that plight be- cause of me, and spoke to him, asking him how he did. He answered from the other side of the lodge, but the words were scarcely out of his mouth before our guard broke in upon us commanding silence. Diccon cursed them, whereupon a savage struck him across the head with the handle of a tomahawk, stunning him for a time. As soon as I heard him move I spoke again, to know if he were much hurt; when he had answered in the negative we said no more. It was now moonlight without the lodge and very quiet. The night was far gone; already we could smell the morn- ing, and it would come apace. Knowing the swiftness of that approach, and what the early light would bring, I strove for a courage which should be the steadfast- ness of the Christian, and not the vain- glorious pride of the heathen. If my thoughts wandered, if her face would come athwart the verses I tried to re- member, the prayer I tried to frame, per- haps He who made her lovely understood and forgave. I said the prayer I used to say when I was a child, and wished with all my heart for Jeremy. Suddenly, in the first gray dawn, as at a trumpets call, the village awoke. From the long, communal houses poured Copyright, 1899, by MARY JOHNsTON.

To Have and to Hold. TO HAVE AND TO HOLD.1 XXXI. IN WHICH AN INDIAN FORGIVES AND FORGETS. A MAN who bath been a soldier and an adventurer into far and strange coun- tries must needs have faced Death many times and in many guises. I had learned to know that grim countenance, and to have no great fear of it. And beneath the ugliness of the mask that now pre- sented itself there was only Death at last. I was no babe to whimper at a sudden darkness, to cry out against a curtain that a Hand chose to drop between me and the life I had lived. Death frighted me not, but when I thought of one whom I should leave behind me I feared lest I should go mad. Had this thing come to me a year before, I could have slept the night through; now now I lay, bound to the log, before the open door of the lodge, and, looking through it, saw the pines waving in the night wind and the gleam of the river beneath the stars, and saw her as plain- ly as though she had stood there under the trees, in a flood of noon sunshine. Now she was the Jocelyn Perry of Weyanoke, now of the ministers house, now of a storm-tossed boat and a pirate ship, now of the gaol at Jamestown. One of my arms was free; I could take from within my doublet the little pur- ple flower, and drop my face upon the hand that held it. The bloom was quite withered, and scalding tears would not give it life again. The face that was now gay, now de- fiant. now pale and suffering, became steadfastly the face that had leaned upon my breast in the Jamestown gaol, and looked at me with a mournful bright. ness of love and sorrow. Spring was in the land, and the summer would come, but not to us. I stretched forth my hand to the wife who was not there, and my heart lay crushed within me. She had been my wife not a year; it was but the other day that I knew she loved me After a while the anguish lessened, and I lay, dull and hopeless, thinking of trifling things, counting the stars between the pines. Another slow hour, and, a braver mood coming upon me, I thought of Diccon who was in that plight be- cause of me, and spoke to him, asking him how he did. He answered from the other side of the lodge, but the words were scarcely out of his mouth before our guard broke in upon us commanding silence. Diccon cursed them, whereupon a savage struck him across the head with the handle of a tomahawk, stunning him for a time. As soon as I heard him move I spoke again, to know if he were much hurt; when he had answered in the negative we said no more. It was now moonlight without the lodge and very quiet. The night was far gone; already we could smell the morn- ing, and it would come apace. Knowing the swiftness of that approach, and what the early light would bring, I strove for a courage which should be the steadfast- ness of the Christian, and not the vain- glorious pride of the heathen. If my thoughts wandered, if her face would come athwart the verses I tried to re- member, the prayer I tried to frame, per- haps He who made her lovely understood and forgave. I said the prayer I used to say when I was a child, and wished with all my heart for Jeremy. Suddenly, in the first gray dawn, as at a trumpets call, the village awoke. From the long, communal houses poured Copyright, 1899, by MARY JOHNsTON. To Have and to Hold. 55 forth men, women, and children; fires sprang up, dispersing the mist, and a commotion arose through the length and breadth of the place. The women made haste with their cooking, and bore maize cakes and broiled fish to the warriors who sat on the ground in front of the royal lodge. Diccon and I were loosed, brought without, and allotted our share of the food. We ate sitting side by side with our captors, and Diccon, with a great cut across his head, seized the In- dian girl who brought him his platter of fish, and pulling her down beside him kissed her soundly, whereat the maid seemed not il~ pleased and the warriors laughed. In the usual order of things, the meal over, tohacco should have followed. But now not a pipe was lit, and the women made haste to take away the platters and to get all things in readiness. The werowance of the Paspaheghs rose to his feet, cast aside his mantle, and began to speak. He was a man in the prime of life, of a great figure, strong as a Sus- quehannock, and a savage cruel and crafty beyond measure. Over his breast, stained with strange figures, hung a chain of small bones, and the scalp locks of his enemies fringed his moccasins. His tribe being the nearest to Jamestown, and in frequent altercation with us, I had heard him speak many times, and knew his power over the passions of his peo- ple. No player could be more skillful in gesture and expression, no poet more nice in the choice of words, no general more quick to raise a wild enthusiasm in the soldiers to whom he called. All Indians are eloquent, but this savage was a leader among them. He spoke now to some effect. Com- mencing with a day in the moon of blos- soms when for the first time winged ca- noes brought white men into the Pow- hatan, he came down through year after year to the present hour, ceased, and stood in silence, regarding his triumph. It was complete. In its wild excitement the village was ready then and there to make an end of us who had sprung to our feet and stood with our backs against a great bay tree, facing the maddened throng. So much the best for us would it be if the tomahawks left the hands that were drawn back to throw, if the knives that were flourished in our faces should be buried to the haft in our hearts, that we courted death, striving with word and look to infuriate our executioners to the point of forgetting their former purpose in the lust for instant vengeance. It was not to be. The werowance spoke again, pointing to the hills with the black houses upon them, dimly seen through the mist. A moment, and the hands clenched upon the weapons fell; another, and we were upon the march. As one man, the village swept through the forest toward the rising ground that was but a few bowshots away. The young men bounded ahead to make pre- paration; hut the approved warriors and the old men went more sedately, and with them walked Diccon and I, as steady of step as they. The women and children for the most part brought up the rear, though a few impatient hags ran past us, calling the men tortoises who would never reach the goal. One of these women bore a great burning torch, the flame and smoke streaming over her shoulder as she ran. Others carried pieces of bark heaped with the slivers of pine of which every wigwam has store. The sun was yet to rise when we reached a hollow amongst the low red hills. Above us were the three long houses in which they keep the image of Okee and the mummies of their kings. These temples faced the crimson east, and the mist was yet about them. Hideous priests, painted over with strange devices, the stuffed skins of snakes knotted about their heads, in their hands great rattles which they shook vehemently, rushed through the doors and down the bank to meet us, and began to dance around us, contorting their bodies, throwing up their 56 To Have and to Hold. arms, and making a hellish noise. Die- con stared at them, shrugged his shoul- ders, and with a grunt of contempt sat down upon a fallen tree to watch the ene- mys manceuvres. The place was a natural amphithea- tre, well fitted for a spectacle. Those Indians who could not crowd into the narrow level spread themselves over the rising ground, and looked down with fierce laughter upon the driving of the stakes which the young men brought. The women and children scattered into the woods beyond the cleft between the hills, and returned bearing great armfuls of dry branches. The hollow rang to the exultation of the playgoers. Taunt- ing laughter, cries of savage triumph, the shaking of the rattles, and the furious beating of two great drums combined to make a clamor deafening to stupor. And above the hollow was the angry redden- ing of the heavens, and the white mist curling up like smoke. I sat down beside Diccon on the log. Beneath it there were growing tufts of a pale blue, slender-stemmed flower. I plucked a handful of the blossoms, and thought how blue they would look against the whiteness of her hand; then dropped them in a sudden shame that in that hour I was so little steadfast to things which were not of earth. I did not speak to Diccon, nor he to me. There seemed no need of speech. In the pandemonium to which the world had narrowed, the one familiar, matter-of-course thing was that he and I were to die together. The stakes were in the ground and painted red, the wood properly arranged. The Indian woman who held the torch that was to light the pile ran past us, whirling the wood around her head to make it blaze more fiercely. As she went by she lowered the brand and slow- ly dragged it across my wrists. The beat- ing of the drums suddenly ceased, and the loud voices died away. To Indians no music is so sweet as the cry of an enemy; if they have wrung it from a brave man who has striven to endure, so much the better. They were very still now, because they would not lose so much as a drawing in of the breath. Seeing that they were coming for us, Diccon and I rose to await them. When they were nearly upon us I turned to him and held out my hand. He made no motion to take it. In- stead he stood with fixed eyes looking past me and slightly upwards. A sud- den pallor had overspread the bronze of his face. There s a verse somewhere, he said in a quiet voice, it s in the Bible, I think, I heard it once long ago, before I was lost: Iuill look unto the hills from whence cometh my help Look, sir! I turned and followed with my eyes the pointing of his finger. In front of us the bank rose steeply, bare to the sum- mit, no trees, only the red sand, with here and there a low growth of leafless bushes. Behind it was the eastern sky. Upon the crest, against the sunrise, stood the figure of a man, an Indian. From one shoulder hung an otterskin, and a great bow was in his hand. His limbs were bare, and as be stood motionless, bathed in the rosy light, he looked like some bronze god, perfect from the bead- ed moccasins to the calm, uneager face below the feathered headdress. He had but just risen above the brow of the hill; the Indians in the hollow saw him not. While Diccon and I stared our tor- mentors were upon us. They caine a dozen or more at once, and we had no weapons. Two hung upon my arms, while a third laid hold of my doublet to rend it from me. An arrow whistled over our heads and struck into a tree be- hind us. The hands that clutched me dropped, and with a yell the busy throng turned their faces in the direction whence had come the arrow. The Indian from whose quiver it was missing was descending the bank. An in- stants breathless hush while they stared at the solitary figure; then the dark To Have and to Hold. 57 forms bent forward for the rush straight- ened, and there arose a loud cry of re- cognition. The son of Powhatan! The son of Powliatan! He came down the hillside to the level of the hollow, the authority of his look and gesture making way for him through the crowd that surged this way and that, and walked up to us where we stood, hemmed round, but no longer in the clutch of our enemies. It was a very big wolf this time, Captain Percy, he said~ You were never more welcome, Nan- tauquas, I answered, unless, indeed, the wolf intends making a meal of three instead of two. He smiled. The wolf will go hun- gry to-day. Taking my hand in his he turned to his frowning countrymen. Men of the Pamunkeys! he cried. This is Nantauquas friend, and so the friend of all the tribes that called Pow- hatan father. The fire is not for him nor for his servant; keep it for the Mo- nacans and for the dogs of the Long House! The calumet is for the friend of Nantauquas, and the dance of the maidens, the noblest buck and the best of the weirs There was a surging forward of the Indians, and a fierce murmur of dissent. The werowance, standing out from the throng, lifted his voice. There was a time, he cried, when Nantauquas was the panther crouched upon the bough above the leader of the herd; now Nan- tauquas is a tame panther and rolls at the white mens feet! There was a time when the word of the son of Powhatan weighed more than the lives of many dogs such as these, but now I know not why we should put out the fire at his command! He is war chief no longer, for Opechancanough will have no tame panther to lead the tribes. Opechan- canough is our head, and Opechan- canough kindleth a fire indeed! We will give to this one what fuel we choose, and to-night Nantauquas may look for the bones of the white men! He ended, and a great clamor arose. The Paspaheghs would have cast them- selves upon us again but for a sudden action of the young chief, who had stood motionless, with raised head and un- moved face, during the werowances bit- ter speech. Now he flung up his hand, and in it was a bracelet of gold carved and twisted like a coiled snake and set with a green stone. I had never seen the toy before, but evidently others had done so. The excited voices fell, and the Indians, Pamunkeys and Paspaheghs alike, stood as though turned to stone. Nantauquas smiled coldly. This day hath Opechancanough made me war chief again. We have smoked the peace pipe together my fathers brother and I in the starlight, sitting before his lodge, with the wide marshes and the river dark at our feet. Singing birds in the forest have been many; evil tales have they told; Opechancanough has stopped his ears against their false singing. My friends are his friends, my brother is his brother, my word is his word: witness the armlet that bath no like ; that Ope- chancanough brought with him when he came from no man knows where to the land of the Powhatans, many Huskana- wings ago; that no white men but these have ever seen. Opechancanough is at hand; he comes through the forest with his two hundred warriors that are as tall as Susquehannocks, and as brave as the children of Wahunsonacock. He comes to the temples to pray to Kiwassa for a great hunting. Will you, when you lie at his feet, that he ask you, Where is the friend of my friend, of my war chief, of the Panther who is one with me again? There came a long, deep breath from the Indians, then a silence, in which they fell back, slowly and sullenly; whipped hounds, but with the will to break that leash of fear. Hark! said Nantauquas, smiling. I hear Opechancanough and his war- riors coming over the leaves. 58 To Have and to Hold. The noise of many footsteps was in- deed audible, coming toward the hollow from the woods beyond. With a burst of cries, the priests and the conjurer whirled away to bear the welcome of Okee to the royal worshiper, and at their heels went the chief men of the Pamun- keys. The werowance of the Paspa- heghs was one that sailed with the wind; he listened to the deepening sound, and glanced at the son of Powhatan where he stood, calm and confident, then smoothed his own countenance and made a most pacific speech, in which all the blame of the late proceedings was laid upon the singing birds. When he had done speak- ing, the young men tore the stakes from the earth and threw them into a thicket, while the women plucked apart the new- ly kindled fire and flung the brands into a little near-by stream, where they went out in a cloud of hissing steam. I turned to the Indian who had wrought this miracle. Art sure it is not a dream, Nantauquas U I said. I think that Opechancanough would not lift a finger to save me from all the deaths the tribes could invent. Opechancanough is very wise, he answered quietly. He says that now the English will believe in his love in- deed when they see that he holds dear even one who might be called his enemy, who hath spoken against him at the Eng- lishmens council fire. He says that for five suns Captain Percy shall feast with Opechancanough, and that then he shall be sent back free to Jamestown. He thinks that then Captain Percy will not speak against him any more, calling his love to the white men only words with no good deeds behind. He spoke simply, out of the nobility of his nature, believing his own speech. I that was older, and had more know- ledge of men and the masks that they wear, was but half deceived. My belief in the hatred of the dark Emperor was not shaken, and I looked yet to find the drop of poison within this honey flower. How poisoned was that bloom God knows I could not guess! When you were missed, three suns ago, Nantauquas went on, I and my brother tracked you to the hut beside the forest, where we found only the dead panther. There we struck the trail of the Paspaheghs; but presently we came to running water, and the trail was gone.~~ We walked up the bed of the stream for half the night, I said. The Indian nodded. I know. My brother went back to Jamestown for men and boats and guns to go to the Pas- pahegh village and up the Powhatan. He was wise with the wisdom of the white men, but I, who needed no gun, and who would not fight against my own people, I stepped into the stream and walked up it until past the full sun pow- er. Then I found a broken twig and the print of a moccasin, half hidden by a bush, overlooked when the other prints were smoothed away. I left the stream and followed the trail until it was bro- ken again. I looked for it no more then, for I knew that the Paspaheghs had turned their faces toward Uttamussac, and that they would make a fire where many others had been made, in the hol- low below the three temples. Instead I went with speed to seek Opechanca- nough. Yesterday, when the sun was low, I found him, sitting in his lodge above the marshes and the colored river. We smoked the peace pipe together, and I am his war chief again. I asked for the green stone, that I might show it to the Paspaheghs for a sign. He gave it, but he willed to come to Uttamussac with me. I owe you my life, I said, with my hand upon his. I and Dccon ~ What I would have said he put aside with a fine gesture. Captain Percy is my friend. My brother loves him, and he was kind to Matoax when she was brought prisoner to Jamestown. I am glad that I could pull off this wolf. To Have and to Hold. 59 Tell me one thing, I asked. Be- fore you left Jamestown had you heard aught of my wife or of my enemy? He shook his head. At sunrise the commander came to rouse my brother, crying out that you had broken gaol and were nowhere to be found, and that the man you hate was lying within the guest house, sorely torn by some beast of the forest. My brother and I followed your trail at once; the town was scarce awake when we left it behind us, and I did not return. By this we three were alone in the hollow, for all the savages, men and wo- men, had gone forth to meet the Indian whose word was law from the falls of the far west to the Chesapeake. The sun now rode above the low hills, pour- ing its gold into the hollow and bright- ening all the world besides. The little stream flashed diamonds, and the carven devils upon the black houses above us were frightful no longer. There was not a menace anywhere from the cloud- less skies to the sweet and plaintive chant to Kiwassa, sung by women and float- ing to us from the woods beyond the hol- low. The singing grew nearer, and the rustling of the leaves beneath many feet more loud and deep; then all noise ceased, and Opechancanongh entered the hol- low alone. An eagle feather was thrust through his scalp lock; over his naked breast, that was neither painted nor pricked into strange figures, hung a tri- ple row of pearls; his mantle was woven of bluebird feathers, as soft and sleek as satin. The face of this barbarian was dark, cold and impassive as death. Be- hind that changeless mask, as in a safe retreat, the supersubtle devil that was the man might plot destruction and plan the laying of dreadful mines. He had dig- nity and courage, no man denied him that. I suppose he thought that he and his had wrongs: God knows! perhaps they had. But if ever we were hard or unjust in our dealings with the savages, I say not that this was the case, at least we were not treacherous and dealt not in Judas kisses. I stepped forward, and met him on the spot where the fire had been. For a minute neither spoke. It was true that I had striven against him many a time, and I knew that he knew it. It was also true that without his aid Nantau- quas could not have rescued us from that dire peril. And it was again the truth that an Indian neither forgives nor for- gets. He was my savior, and I knew that mercy had been shown for some dark reason which I could not divine. Yet I owed him thanks, and gave them as shortly and simply as I could. He heard me out with neither liking nor disliking nor any other emotion writ- ten upon his face; but when I had fin- ished, as though he suddenly bethought himself, he smiled and held out his hand, white-man fashion. Now, when a mans lips widen I look into his eyes. The eyes of Opechancanough were as fathom- less as the pool at midnight, and as de- void of mirth or friendliness as the star- ing orbs of the carven imps upon the temple corners. Singing birds have lied to Captain Percy, he said, and his voice was like his eyes. Opechancanough thinks that Captain Percy will never listen to them again. The chief of the Powhatans is a lover of the white men, of the English, and of other white men, if there are others. He would call the Englishmen his brothers, and be taught of them how to rule, and who to pray to Let Opechancanough go with me to- day to Jamestown, I said. He hath the wisdom of the woods; let him come and gain that of the town. The Emperor smiled again. I will come to Jamestown soon, but not to-day nor to-morrow nor the next day. And Captain Percy must smoke the peace pipe in my lodge above the Pamunkey, and watch my young men and maidens dance, and eat with me five days. Then he may go back to Jamestown with pre 60 To Have and to Hold. sents for the great white father there, and with a message that Opechancanough is coming soon to learn of the white men. I could have gnashed my teeth at that delay when she must think me dead, but it would have been the madness of folly to show the impatience which I felt. I too could smile with my lips when occa- sion drove, and drink a bitter draught as though my soul delighted in it. Blithe enough to all seeming, and with as few inward misgivings as the case called for, Diccon and I went with the subtle Emper- or and the young chief he had bound to himself once more, and with their fierce train, back to that village which we had never thought to see again. A day and a night we stayed there; then Opechan- canough sent away the Paspaheghs, where we knew not, and taking us with him went to his own village above the great marshes of the Pamunkey. XXXII. IN WHICH WE ARE THE GUESTS OF AN EMPEROR. I had before this spent days among the Indians, on voyages of discovery, as conqueror, as negotiator for food, ex- changing blue beads for corn and tur- keys. Other Englishmen had been with me. Knowing those with whom we dealt for sly and fierce heathen, friends to- day, to-morrow deadly foes, we kept our muskets ready and our eyes and ears open, and, what with the danger and the novelty and the bold wild life, managed to extract some merriment as well as profit from these visits. It was different now. Day after day I ate my heart out in that cursed village. The feasting and the hunting and the triumph, the wild songs and wilder dances, the fantastic mummeries, the sudden rages, the sud- den laughter, the great fires with their rings of painted warriors, the sleepless sentinels, the wide marshes that could not be crossed by night, the leaves that rustled so loudly beneath the lightest footfall, the monotonous days, the end- less nights when I thought of her grief, of her peril, maybe, it was an evil dream, and for niy own pleasure I could not wake too soon. Should we ever wake? Should we not sink from that dream without pause into a deeper sleep whence there would be no waking? It was a question that I asked myself each morning, half looking to find another hollow between the hills before the night should fall. The night fell, and there was no change in the dream. I will allow that the dark Emperor to whom we were so much beholden gave us courteous keeping. The best of the hunt was ours, the noblest fish, the most delicate roots. The skins beneath which we slept were fine and soft; the women waited upon us, and the old men and warriors held with us much stately converse, sitting beneath the budding trees with the blue tobacco smoke curl- ing above our heads. We were alive and sound of limb, well treated and with the promise of release; we might have waited, seeing that wait we must, in some measure of content. We did not so. There was a horror in the air. From the marshes that were growing green, from the sluggish river, from the rotting leaves and cold black earth and naked forest, it rose like an exhalation. We knew not what it was, but we bveathed it in, and it went to the marrow of our bones. Opechancanough we rarely saw, though we were bestowed so near to him that his sentinels served for ours. Like some god, he kept within his lodge with the winding passage, and the hanging mats between him and the world without. At other times, issuing from that retirement, he would stride away into the forest. Picked men went with him, and they were gone for hours; but when they re- turned they bore no trophies, brute or To Have and to Hold. 61 human. What they did we could not guess. We might have had much com- fort in Nantauquas, but the morning af- ter our arrival in this village the Em- peror sent him upon an embassy to the Rappahannocks, and when for the fourth time the forest stood black against the sunset he had not returned. If escape had been possible, we would not have awaited the doubtful fulfillment of that promise made to us below the Uttamus- sac temples. But the vigilance of the Indians never slept; they watched us like hawks, night and day. And the dry leaves underfoot would not hold their peace, and there were the marshes to cross and the river. Thus four days dragged themselves by, and in the early morning of the fifth, when we came from our wigwam, it was to find Nantauquas sitting by the fire, magnificent in the paint and trappings of the ambassador, motionless as a piece of bronze, and apparently quite unmind- ful of the admiring glances of the women who knelt about the fire preparing our breakfast. When he saw us he rose and came to meet us, and I embraced him, I was so glad to see him. The Rappahannocks feasted me long, he said. I was afraid that Captain Percy would be gone to Jamestown before I was back upon the Pamunkey. Shall I ever see Jamestown again, Nantauquas? I demanded. I have my doubts. He looked me full in the eyes, and there was no doubting the candor of his own. You go with the next sunrise, he answered. Opechancanough has given me his word. I am glad to hear it, I said. Why have we been kept at all? Why did he not free us five days agone ? He shook his head. I do not know. Opechancanough has many thoughts which he shares with no man. But now he will send you with presents for the Governor, and with messages of his love to the white men. There will be a great feast to-day, and to-night the young men and maidens will dance before you. Then in the morning you will go. Will you not come with us? I asked. You are ever welcome amongst us, Nantauquas, both for your sisters sake and for your own. Rolfe will re- joice to have you with him again; he ever grudgeth you to the forest. He shook his head again. Nantau- quas, the son of Powhatan, bath had much talk with himself lately, he said simply. The white mens ways have seemed very good to him, and the God of the white men he knows to be greater than Okee and to be good and tender; riot like Okee, who sucks the blood of the children. He remembers Matoax, too, and how she loved and cared for the white men and would weep when danger threatened them. And Rolfe is his bro- ther and his teacher. But Opechan- canough is his king, and the red men are his people, and the forest is his home. If, because he loved Rolfe, and because the ways of the white men seemed to him better than his own ways, lie forgot these things, he did wrong, and the One Over All frowns upon him. Now he has come back to his home again, to the forest and the hunting and the warpath, to his king and his people. He will be again the panther crouching upon the bough Above the white men? He gazed at me in silence, a shadow upon his face. Above the Monacans, he answered slowly. Why did Cap- tain Percy say above the white men? Opechancanough and the English have buried the hatchet forever, and the smoke of the peace pipe will never fade from the air. Nantauquas meant above the Monacans or the Long House dogs. I put my hand upon his shoulder. I know you did, brother of Rolfe by na- ture if not by blood! Forget what I said; it was without thought or mean- ing. If we go indeed to-morrow, I shall be loath to leave you behind; and yet, 62 To Have and to Hold. were I in your place, I should do as you are doing. The shadow left his face and he drew himself up. Is it what you call faith and loyalty and like a knight? he de- manded, with a touch of eagerness break- ing through the slowness and gravity with which an Indian speaks. Yea, I made reply. I think you good knight and true, Nantauquas, and my friend, moreover, who saved my life. His smile was like his sisters, quick and very bright, and leaving behind it a most entire gravity. Together we sat down by the fire and ate of the sylvan breakfast, with shy brown maidens to serve us and with the sunshine streaming down upon us through the trees that were growing faintly green. It was a thing to smile at to see how the Indian girls maneuvred to give the choicest meat, the most delicate maize cakes, to the young war chief, and to see how quietly he turned aside their benevolence. The meal over, he went to divest himself of his red and white paint, of the stuffed hawk and strings of copper that formed his headdress, of his gorgeous belt and quiver and his mantle of raccoon skins, while Diccon and I sat still before our wigwam, smoking, and reckoning the dis- tance to Jamestown and the shortest time in which we could cover it. When we had sat there for an hour the old men and the warriors came to visit us, and the smoking must commence all ~over again. The women laid mats in a great half circle, and each savage took his seat with perfect breeding; that is, in absolute silence and with a face like a stone. The peace paint was upon them all, red, or red and white; they sat and looked at the ground until I had made the speech of welcome. Soon the air was dense with the fragrant smoke; in the thick blue haze the sweep of paint- ed figures had the seeming of some fan- tastic dream. An old man arose and made a long and touching speech with much reference to calumets and buried hatchets. When he had finished a chief talked of Opechancanoughs love for the English, high as the stars, deep as Po- pogusso, wide as from the sunrise to the sunset, adding that the death of Ne- mattanow last year and the troubles over the hunting grounds had kindled in the breasts of the Indians no desire for re- venge. With which highly probable statement he made an end, and all sat in silence looking at me and waiting for my contribution of honeyed words. These Pamunkeys, living at a distance from the settlements, had but little English to their credit, and the learning of the Pas- paheghs was not much greater. I sat and repeated to them the better part of the seventh canto of the second book of Mas- ter Spensers Faery Queen. Then I told them the story of the Moor of Venice, and ended by relating Smiths tale of the three Turks heads. It all answered the purpose to admiration. When at length they went away to change their paint for the coming feast Diccon and I laughed at that foolery as though there were none beside us who could juggle with words. We were as light-hearted as children God forgive us! The day wore on, with relay after relay of food which we must taste at least, with endless smoking of pipes and speeches that must be listened to and answered. When evening caine and our entertainers drew off to prepare for the dance, they left us as wearied as by a long days march. The wind had been high during the day, but with the sunset it sank to a deso- late murmur. The sky wore the strange crimson of the past year at Weyanoke. Against that sea of color the pines were drawn in ink, and beneath it the wind- ing, threadlike creeks that pierced the marshes had the look of spilt blood mov- ing slowly and heavily to join the river that was black where the pines shadowed it, red where the light touched it. From the marsh arose the cry of some great bird that made its home there; it had a To Have and to Hold. 63 lonely and a boding sound, like a trumpet blown above the dead. The color died into an ashen gray and the air grew cold, with a heaviness beside that dragged at the very soul. Diccon shivered violently, turned restlessly upon the log that served him as settle, and began to mutter to himself. Art cold? I asked. He shook his head. Something walked over my grave, he said. I would give all the pohickory that was ever brewed by heathen for a toss of aqua vita~ I In the centre of the village rose a great heap of logs and dry branches, built dur- ing the day by the women and children. When the twilight fell and the owls began to hoot this pile was fired, and lit the place from end to end. The scattered wig- wams, the scaffolding where the fish were dried, the tall pines and wide - branch- ing mulberries, the trodden grass, all flashed into sight as the flame roared up to the topmost withered bough. The vil- lage glowed like a lamp set in the dead blackness of marsh and forest. Ope- chancanough came from the forest with a score of warriors behind him, and stopped beside me. I rose to greet him, as was decent; for he was an Emperor, albeit a savage and a pagan. Tell the Eng- lish that Opechancanough grows old, he said. The years that once were as light upon him as the dew upon the maize are now hailstones to beat him back to the earth whence he came. His arm is not swift to strike and strong as it once was. He is old; the warpath and the scalp dance please him no longer. He would die at peace with all men. Tell the English this; tell them also that Ope- chancanough knows that they are good and just, that they do not treat men whose color is not their own like babes, fooling them with toys, thrusting them out of their path when they grow trouble- some. The land is wide and the hunt- ing grounds are many. Let the red men who were here as many moons ago as there are leaves in summer and the white men who came yesterday dwell side by side in peace, sharing the maize fields and the weirs and the hunting grounds to- gether. He waited not for my answer, but passed on, and there was no sign of age in his stately figure and his slow, firm step. I watched him with a frown until the darkness of his lodge had swal- lowed up him and his warriors, and mis- trusted him for a cold and subtle devil. Suddenly, as we sat staring at the fire we were beset by a band of maid- ens, coming out of the woods, painted, with antlers upon their heads and pine branches in their hands. They danced about us, now advancing until the green needles met above our heads, now retreat- ing until there was a space of turf be- tween us. Their slender limbs gleamed in the firelight; they moved with grace, keeping time to a plaintive song, now raised by the whole choir, now fallen to a single voice. Pocahontas had danced thus before the English many a time. I thought of the little maid, of her great wondering eyes and her piteous, untime- ly death, of how loving she was to Rolfe and how happy they had been in their brief wedded life. It had bloomed like a rose, as fair and as early fallen, with only a memory of past sweetness. Death was a coward, passing by men whose trade it was to outbrave him, and strik- ing at the young and lovely and inno- cent. . We were tired with all the mummery of the day; moreover, every fibre of our souls had been strained to meet the hours that had passed since we left the gaol at Jamestown. The elation we had felt earlier in the day was all gone. Now, the plaintive song, the swaying figures, the red light beating against the trees, the blackness of the enshrouding forest, the low, melancholy wind, all things seemed strange, and yet deadly old, as though we had seen and heard them since the beginning of the world. All at 6nce a fear fell upon me, causeless and un 434 To Have and to Hold. reasonable, but weighing upon my heart like a stone. She was in a palisaded town, under the Governors protection, with my friends about her and my en- emy lying sick, unable to harm her. It was I, not she, that was in danger. I laughed at myself, but my heart was heavy and I was in a fever to be gone. The Indian girls danced more and more swiftly, and their song changed, becoming gay and shrill and sweet. Higher and higher rang the notes, faster and faster moved the dark limbs; then, quite suddenly, song and motion ceased together. They who had danced with the abandonment of wild priestesses to some wild god were again but shy brown Indian maids who went and sat them meekly down upon the grass beneath the trees. From the darkness now came a burst of savage cries only less appalling than the war whoop itself. In a mo- ment the men of the village had rushed from the shadow of the trees into the broad, firelit space before us. Now they circled around us, now around the fire; now each man danced and stamped and muttered to himself. For the most part they were painted red, but some were white from head to heel, statues come to life, while others had first oiled their bodies, then plastered them over with small bright-colored feathers. The tall headdresses made giants of them all; as they leaped and danced in the glare of the fire they had a fiendish look. They sang, too, but the air was rude, and broken by dreadful cries. Out of a but behind us burst two or three priests, the conjurer, and a score or more of old men. They had Indian drums upon which they beat furiously, and long pipes made of reeds which gave forth no uncertain sound. Fixed upon a pole and borne high above them was the image of their Okee, a hideous thing of stuffed skins and rattling chains of copper. When they had joined them- selves to the throng in the firelight the clamor became deafening. Some one piled on more logs, and the place grew light as day. Opechancanough was not there, nor Nantauquas. Diccon and I watched that uncouth spectacle, that Virginian masque, as we had watched many another one, with disgust and weariness. It would last, we knew, for the better part of the night. It was in our honor, and for a while we must stay and testify our pleasure; but after a time, when they had sung and danced themselves into oblivion of our presence, we might retire, and leave the very old men, the women, and the children sole. spectators. We waited for that relief with impatience, though we showed it not to those who pressed about us. Time passed, and the noise deepened and the dancing became more frantic. The dancers struck at one another as they leaped and whirled, the sweat rolled from their bodies, and from their lips came hoarse, animal-like, cries. The fire, ever freshly fed, roared and crackled, mocking the silent stars. The pines were bronze-red, the woods beyond a dead black. All noises of marsh and forest were lost in the scream of the pipes, the wild yelling, and the beating of the drums. From the ranks of the women beneath the reddened pines rose shrill laughter and applause as they sat or knelt, bent forward, watching the dancers. One girl alone watched not them, but us. She stood somewhat back of her companions, one slim brown hand touching the trunk of a tree, one brown foot advanced, her attitude that of one who waits but for a signal to be gone. Now and then she glanced impatiently at the wheeling fig- ures or at the old men and the few war- riors who took no part in the masque, but her eyes always came back to us. She had been among the maidens who danced before us earlier in the night; when they rested beneath the trees she had gone away, and the night was much older when I marked her again, com To Have and to Hold. 65 ing out of the firelit distance back to the fire and her dusky mates. It was soon after this that I became aware that she must have some reason for her anxious scrutiny, some message to deliver or warn- ing to give. Once when I made a slight motion as if to go to her, she shook her head and laid her finger upon her lips. A dancer fell from sheer exhaustion, another and another, and warriors from the dozen or more seated at our right began to take the places of the fallen. The priests shook their rattles, and made themselves dizzy with bending and whirl- ing about their Okee; the old men, too, though they sat like statues, thought only of the dance, and of how they themselves had excelled, long ago when they were young. I rose, and making my way to the werowance of the village where he sat with his eyes fixed upon a young Indian, his son, who bade fair to outlast all oth- ers in that wild contest, told him that I was wearied and would go to my hut, I and my servant, to rest for the few hours that yet remained of the night. He listened dreamily, his eyes upon the dancing Indian, but made offer to escort me thither. I pointed out to him that my quarters were not fifty yards away, in the broad firelight, in sight of them all, and that it were a pity to take him or any others from the contempla- tion of that whirling Indian, so strong and so brave that he would surely one day lead the war parties. After a moment he acquiesced, and Diccon and I, quietly and yet with some ostentation, so as to avoid all appearance of stealing away, left the press of sav- ages and began to cross the firelit turf between them and our lodge. When we had gone fifty paces I glanced over my shoulder and saw that the Indian maid no longer stood where we had last seen her, beneath the pines. A little farther on we caught a glimpse of her winding in and out among a row of trees to our left. The trees ran past our lodge. When we had reached its entrance we paused and looked back to the throng we had left. Every back seemed turned to us, every eye intent upon the leaping figures around the great fire. Swiftly and quietly we walked across the bit of even ground to the friendly trees, and found ourselves in a thin strip of shadow between the light of the great fire we had left and that of a lesser one burning redly before the Emperors lodge. Beneath thetrees, wait- ing for us, was the Indian maid, with her light form, and large, shy eyes, and fin- ger upon her lips. She would not speak or tarry, but flitted before us as dusk and noiseless as a moth, and we followed her into the darkness beyond the fire- light, well-nigh to the line of sentinels. A wigwam, larger than common and shadowed by trees, rose in our path; the girl, gliding in front of us, held aside the mats that curtained the entrance. We hesitated a moment, then stooped and entered the place. Mary Johnston. (To be continued.) VOL. LXXXV. NO. 507. 9 66 England in 1899. ENGLAND IN 1899. IN England to-day we have almost forgotten Dreyf us. But it is not many months since press and people alike were clamorous with righteous indigna- tion over the spectacle of justice in- sulted, innocence condemned, a nation without honor. France, as usual, was enlightening the world by an intensely dramatic illustration of the difficulties which beset the government of an emo- tional people. At present she is com- mitted to the impossible position of be- ing democratic under military control. The army has its own ethics, its own methods of government; and suddenly, unexpectedly, they are exposed to the light of day and the test of democratic codes. France clings wildly to her rights, her prestige, her honor; and there issues chaos. Whatever be the facts of the original question, Dreyfus had been set up as the banner of a party: in the eyes of the world he was twice condemned without evidence. We are scandalized, France is bruised. The pardon has, at least temporarily, diverted public attention; but it is her own affairs which have most effectually silenced the unmeasured indignation and complacently implied self - congratula- tions of England. In France we have seen a struggle between the ideals of militarism and democracy: we turn to find ourselves in conduct of a great cri- sis in the progress of democracy along the warpath of imperialism. It remains to-day for England to bear witness that the people may be trusted with the con- science and the honor of an empire. Our policy must be governed entirely by consideration of the interests and the duties of the colony. Our troops have gone out as policemen, not as bullies. However justly and enthusiastically we may rejoice in individual gallantry or mourn over heavy losses, there can be no patriotic excitement over victory, no national pride in conquest. We are fighting to stamp out race prejudices, not to inflame them. And if the power be put in our hands, it is our imperative duty to use it for the establishment of peace, contentment, and equal liberties among the peoples of what is probably destined to become a federal union of self-governing South African colonies. It is our disgrace that, by vacillation and want of faith, we have missed in bygone years the opportunities of establishing such a federation by pacific and concili- atory methods. Which stage of our di- plomacy was most at fault may be ques- tioned; but now, being committed to a forward policy, we had best act with decision and, if possible, with finality. Imperialism, though liable to the noisy support of thoughtless jingoism, is the dream of a humanitarian imagination. To accept its inspiration is to accept responsibilities of immeasurable extent and variety. The problem before us to-day is whether a democracy, neces- sarily eager about home affairs, fitfully occupied with a class warfare for the abolition of classes, selfishly or philan- thropically agog with schemes of social reform, whether a democracy with 50 many legitimate interests of its own can possess the time, the inclination, or the foresight needed for imperial govern- ment. It will prove, no doubt, that we must leave even more than we have been accustomed to do to competent men on the spot, and that Home Rule is the ideal for every colony, the ultimate safeguard of her loyalty; but there will always be times of transition like the present, and other emergencies, when a policy must be adopted by the imperial government, to be indorsed or condemned by the English people. We have seen, more than ever since the public emotion over Mr. Rud

66 England in 1899. ENGLAND IN 1899. IN England to-day we have almost forgotten Dreyf us. But it is not many months since press and people alike were clamorous with righteous indigna- tion over the spectacle of justice in- sulted, innocence condemned, a nation without honor. France, as usual, was enlightening the world by an intensely dramatic illustration of the difficulties which beset the government of an emo- tional people. At present she is com- mitted to the impossible position of be- ing democratic under military control. The army has its own ethics, its own methods of government; and suddenly, unexpectedly, they are exposed to the light of day and the test of democratic codes. France clings wildly to her rights, her prestige, her honor; and there issues chaos. Whatever be the facts of the original question, Dreyfus had been set up as the banner of a party: in the eyes of the world he was twice condemned without evidence. We are scandalized, France is bruised. The pardon has, at least temporarily, diverted public attention; but it is her own affairs which have most effectually silenced the unmeasured indignation and complacently implied self - congratula- tions of England. In France we have seen a struggle between the ideals of militarism and democracy: we turn to find ourselves in conduct of a great cri- sis in the progress of democracy along the warpath of imperialism. It remains to-day for England to bear witness that the people may be trusted with the con- science and the honor of an empire. Our policy must be governed entirely by consideration of the interests and the duties of the colony. Our troops have gone out as policemen, not as bullies. However justly and enthusiastically we may rejoice in individual gallantry or mourn over heavy losses, there can be no patriotic excitement over victory, no national pride in conquest. We are fighting to stamp out race prejudices, not to inflame them. And if the power be put in our hands, it is our imperative duty to use it for the establishment of peace, contentment, and equal liberties among the peoples of what is probably destined to become a federal union of self-governing South African colonies. It is our disgrace that, by vacillation and want of faith, we have missed in bygone years the opportunities of establishing such a federation by pacific and concili- atory methods. Which stage of our di- plomacy was most at fault may be ques- tioned; but now, being committed to a forward policy, we had best act with decision and, if possible, with finality. Imperialism, though liable to the noisy support of thoughtless jingoism, is the dream of a humanitarian imagination. To accept its inspiration is to accept responsibilities of immeasurable extent and variety. The problem before us to-day is whether a democracy, neces- sarily eager about home affairs, fitfully occupied with a class warfare for the abolition of classes, selfishly or philan- thropically agog with schemes of social reform, whether a democracy with 50 many legitimate interests of its own can possess the time, the inclination, or the foresight needed for imperial govern- ment. It will prove, no doubt, that we must leave even more than we have been accustomed to do to competent men on the spot, and that Home Rule is the ideal for every colony, the ultimate safeguard of her loyalty; but there will always be times of transition like the present, and other emergencies, when a policy must be adopted by the imperial government, to be indorsed or condemned by the English people. We have seen, more than ever since the public emotion over Mr. Rud England in 1899. 67 yard Kiplings illness and the introduc- tion of the colonial penny postage, that imperialism is with us, and must be fair- ly faced. As Englishmen we have: no intention of being beaten by its complex- ities. It was, no doubt, the fact of our being a geographically small country with vast colonial possessions which specialized for us the problems before the Peace Conference, and accounted for the atti- tude of our representative at the Hague. The first Worlds Parliament produced no very sensational results, and it can- not be pretended that the bulk, at least, of English thoughtlessness was much in- terested in its sittings or its conclusions. But our peace societies have been great- ly encouraged in their good work; and among the few who are capable of feel- ing for humanity there is cause indeed for rejoicing over a real advance in the progress of civilization. It is much that such a conference should have been pro- posed and held; that it will be followed by others; that the principle of arresting armaments has been formally indorsed; and that a project for investigation, ruedi- ation, and arbitration has been actually adopted. The International Council of Women, which held its congress in London last summer, claims not altogether fantas- tically to be the forerunner of the per- manent International Parliament which may result from the arbitration schemes discussed at the Hague; and it is certain that the furtherance of peace was the only positive propaganda to which its members were universally committed. The congress, indeed, as a whole, was somewhat dissipated by the widely varied subjects of its deliberations; but a good many important questions were well ven- tilated, and earnest leaders of thought had the opportunity of comparing notes. The opinion seemed generally dominant that men and women will always work best in cot~peration. Peace talked over, war dreaded, and the weight of a compact ministerial ma- jority have combined to deaden political activity; and the social reformers, who are ever knocking at the doors of our national assembly, can record but one achievement, the provision of seats for shopgirls. Outside the House, however~,. a certain amount has been accomplished.. The new London teaching and examin- ing university, whose home will be the Imperial Institute, is gradually taking shape in the hands of a statutory com- mission. No details are yet made pub- lic; but the principles of the University of London Act, 1898, which the com- mission has been appointed to embody, are calculated to insure a real advance. in education by dignifying, centralizing, developing, and consolidating the teach- ing institutions of the capital. Kindred movements have been the proposal for a Stopford Brooke Lectureship in Litera- ture at University College, London, and Mrs. Rylands magnificent gift of the late Lord Spencers library to the city of Manchester. The seven days newspaper has been born, and strangled in its cradle by the nonconformist conscience. The first numbers of the Sunday Telegraph and the Sunday Mail naturally sold in their thousands, but the innovation was not suffered in silence. The pulpit spoke for the people; the advertisements of the Telegraph fell suddenly to what they bad been twenty-five years ago, and no doubt the Mail was similarly affected. Then Lord Rosebery seized the oppor- tunity of a news-venders dinner for an appeal to the rival proprietors, and they agreed simultaneously to accept the pub- lic verdict. The triumph of good feel- ing and social instinct over the tyranny of commercial enterprise was signal and complete. But apart from this check the feverish multiplication of papers and magazines has gone on as usual; and the latest advertisement craze of push- ing solid books through newspapers threatens to absorb the entire press~ 68 England in 1899. In literature proper, always the first to fall, and the last to recover from any period of trade depression, very little of great distinction has been produced. The year has witnessed, on the other hand, the most foolish, and may we not hope the last of the steps by which so- called reformers have nearly driven the publishing trade into the quagmire of commercial speculation in which the stage has long floundered. First came the literary agent, who destroys small authors and small publishers by creating fictitious prices for the favorites, and endangers the permanent success of the latter by handing their manuscripts to the highest bidder, thus dissipating their interests among the fortunes of many houses. The short-sighted abolition of the three-volume editions of fiction, by demanding large profits and quick re- turns, has temporarily shut the door on all distinguished, original, but not quite popular novelists. And now, in 1899, we are faced by the crowning absurdity of new copyright sixpenny novels, which, if successful, would rapidly make liter- ature the slave of advertisement, and transform our publishing houses into co- operative general stores. The venture, I understand, has proved financially sni- cidal, and it is to be hoped that this may teach us a lesson. The new fiction most characteristic of the moment falls naturally into two groups of quite contradictory interests. Superior in literary form, perhaps, are the quiet studies of country life, for which the ground had been more or less pre- pared by Dean Holes enthusiasm for roses, the charming gardening books by Mrs. Dewe Smith and others, and Mrs. Eaxles fascinating Potpourri of a Sur- rey Garden, of which, by the way, a no less delightful sequel has actually appeared this year. Elizabeth and her German Garden, despite its touches of vulgarity, has been generally accepted i~,s preeminent in this kind, and the same authors The Solitary Summer was anti- cipated with much interest by the read- ing inner circle. It appears, however, that Elizabeth has not conquered her idle incapacity for lifting a finger of her own in her beloved garden: she perse- veres in her foolish trick of nicknames, and is still most lamentably wanting in the grace of neighborly charity. She remains convinced that existence with- out an army of servants, as much money as you want, and the convenience of a husband to manage your affairs would be intolerably fatiguing. But, on the other hand, her taste and her enthusi- asms for nature, her occasional humor, and the atmosphere of genuine country life surrounding her are as vital as ever. They combine to produce a manner of very potent and restful charm. Similar, but far more distinguished, are the Etchingham Letters, by Mrs. Fuller Maitland and Sir Frederick Pol- lock. Elizabeth Etchingham, too, has never been touched by material care, but she lives under the shadow of a great sorrow, most delicately and sym- pathetically revealed. Like Mrs. Mait- lands Berthia Hardacre she has a pas- sion for herbals, and she betrays other symptoms of the cultured bibliophile; but her letters are instinct with humani- ty, playing lightly round the dangerous topics of an uncongenial stepmother, a pompous wooer, a perverse pair of lovers, yet never commonplace or dull. In their company we may linger awhile under the twilight which rests and strengthens our eyes for the hot noontide of passion and toil. In all their leisured complacency the Etchinghams are never indifferent to the realities of life. In marked contrast to these somewhat dreamy volumes, redolent alike of the library and the .garden, may be noticed the handful of vivid studies in London street life which have been issued this year. They come in response to a de- mand created by the restless philan- tliropy which goes slumming and stud- ies Mr. Booths map; by the taste for England in 1899. 69~ so-called realism which has exhausted problems, and, being aweary of the kail yard, will have its local color by the awakening self-consciousness to the melo- drama of the metropolis, which has sub- stituted an intimacy with the Halls for the grand tour, as a factor in the education of experience. The growing fascination of London for her sons is witnessed by the praise accorded to Mr. Richard Whiteings No. 5 John Street, a book with a thou- sand artistic faults, and almost entirely lacking in personal human interest. Based on the clumsy and familiar arti- fice of an aristocrat masquerading as a casual laborer, for the would-be hu- morous purpose of reporting on Civili- zation to a foolishly imagined happy Island, it is in reality no more than a series of loose-jointed sketches from the lives of the very poor and the preposter- ously rich. It ends with a false touch of heroics. But Mr. Whiteings types are quite living, and he possesses the saving grace of earnestness. To London Town, by Mr. Arthur Morrison, is much more effectively con- structed. It should be read in connec- tion with its authors Tales of Mean Streets and A Child of the Jago; for it pictures the same stratum of life from a similar standpoint, but the happier pos- sibilities are here revealed. Mr. Mor- rison has given us, with unerring cer- tainty of touch, a dull gray monotone of the daily struggles to be met with in hon- est poverty, and, by resisting every temp- tation to stage effect, has secured our sympathy for quite commonplace people. A few carefully drawn figures suffice to fill his canvas, centred around a young wi(low of strictly limited imagination, but upright, courageous, and possessing an unexpected talent for business. Mrs. May is suddenly called upon to support her family in London, and Mr. Morrison has wisely confined himself to the direct narration of her simple difficulties and triumphs. She is deceived, naturally, by the most obvious of adventurers, and befriended by the sheer kindliness of a very ordinary neighbor. Her daughter is only an affectionate cripple; her son but a clever apprentice, honest lover, and very good fellow. No one of them is stirred by subtle, abnormal emotions, or tempted to heroism in vice or virtue. Their joys, their sorrows, their interests, their ambitions, are thoroughly and pro- saically plebeian; their experience is not even illumined by the glare of crime. The whole atmosphere of the book is solidly real. Of that quite other London, Society with a big S and the city, long the fa- vorite hunting ground of the novelists, we have also heard much from some- what elder writers. Mr. Henry James, whose masterly re- straint and exquisite finish have been so conspicuously revived in all his latest work, chooses this year, in a sudden burst of confidence, to reveal himself, the affectionate and keenly appreciative onlooker. Mr. Longdon, of The Awk- ward Age, is of course a creation, not a portrait; but his attitude of whimsi- cal tolerant pride and insatiable curiosi- ty toward the set called smart is that of the writer himself. This is en- tirely distinct from the manner of Mr. Benson, who is in it and enjoys it; of the small minority who know and con- demn it, and of the majority who are only linked thereto by an ambition to write of it with an air of familiarity. Its characteristics, as seen through Mr. Longdons eyes, are marked and unmis- takable; so that those who are in it, but not wholly of it, like his hero and hero- ine, work their way inevitably to tragic issues of temperament battling with cir- cumstances. The realism of Mr. Henry James, moreover, is entirely his Own. His characters, for the most part, are per- petually engaged in analyzing their own emotions, thus stultifying their impulse to action, and they delight in elaborate discussions of the process. Yet while 70 England in 1899. thus speaking of what in real life we allow ourselves only to think, they do not use the elemental language of pas- sion (which is the language of great dramas), but retain instead the elusive and detached conversational style of a polished and reticent civilization. Thus it happens that all they do and say is so bewilderingly unreal, and they them- selves are so convincing. Mr. E. F. Benson is a far less care- ful workman, but he stands out from his peers by virtue of a certain indefin- able freshness and sincere vigor. Lady Conybeare, known as Kit, the heroine and very corner stone of Mammon & Co., is Dodo with the old charm of audacity less obtrusively indicated. She appears, however, in two entirely new r6les: as the good comrade of her husband, and having tumbled into tragedy as the earnest penitent. Mr. Bensons highly correct moralizings may seem, at first sight, to be thin and conventional, but I suspect that he has the wit to realize how simple and undeveloped the inner nature of an externally complicated and artificial individuality may remain. To Kit and her circle genuine emotions are almost an unknown quantity, and, when accidentally excited, will prove to be elementary and crude. As sinners and as saints Lady Conybeare and her husband are most admirably drawn; but Mr. Benson is rather reckless about the minor persons of the drama, and has, in particular, a bad habit of attributing qualities to a character which he forgets to substantiate. Company promoters, incidentally pro- minent, as its title suggests, in Main- mon & Co., form the entire subject- matter of Mr. Harold Frederics The Market Place, which indeed is overladen with financial detail. The central char- acter of Joly or Stormont l2horpe, in its rugged vitality recalling the work of Mr. George Meredith, is powerfully con- ceived and portrayed. He is coarse in mind and manner; generous enough to his own people, but absolutely selfish and relentless in fight. Yet the dominant passion for conquest in the man is his one fascination, and Mr. Frederic has done well to exhibit it through the eyes of Lady Cressage, who, womanlike, leads back her hero to the warpath from a restless period of inglorious ease. The Market Place is a book with a single motive admirably driven home, but not entirely its authors best. Three writers alone have altogether escaped the influence of the town: Mr. George Gissing, who is seldom local; Mr. Anthony Hope, who in this matter wisely stands by the Dolly Dialogues; and Mr. Rudyard Kipling, who appar- ently has never felt the temptation. Mr. Gissing, after all, is an incorrigible idealist. What may have been already suspected is proved beyond question by The Crown of Life. He has not, indeed, thrown off the old unreasoning prejudice against university men and the profes- sions; he cannot escape altogether from the atmosphere of sordidness; he is still bitter enough against average humani- ty, and in the accidents of character he does not rise to the conception of a higher manhood than the modern drifting type created for all time in Mr. C. F. Keerys Herbert Vanlennert. But his latest hero, Piers Otway, is an idealist of the first water. With a rarely fine and passionate nature that can feel and inspire a great love, he has the emo- tional intuition to choose quickly and well; the concentrated will power to hope, wait, and win. True marriage will be his Crown of Life; anything short of it, for him, spells failure and ultimate de- gradation. The companion picture of an honest and joyous girlhood, developing, through mistakes courageously repudi- ated, to the perfect woman, is wortby of its setting. Mr. Gissing has seldom done better work. Mr. Hopes The Kings Mirror be- longs to the class of romantic character studies owning R. L. Stevenson for their England in 1899. 71 legitimate father. Like A Prisoner of Zenda and several plays by William Shakespeare, it is entirely concerned with the effect on character of regal re- sponsibilities. The atmosphere is sur- prisingly free from adventure, but light- hearted, as it should be, and not quite real to a strenuous modernity. Yet the problems of temperament may fairly be stated in the language of romance; for, though few are born kings, we have all some part to play; and every moment of life is, consciously or uncon- sciously, occupied, among other ways, in striking a compromise between our real and our stage, or apparent, selves. For the children of romance, particu- larly royal children, the chains of cir- cumstance are more obvious, the extra- personal duties apparently more signi- ficant. The situation, in a word, is more picturesque, more dramatic, more sus- ceptible to artistic treatment. But its fascination lies in its universal applica- tion; and the first duty of the roman- cist is, by isolating character from its familiar and accidental trappings, to ex- pose its reality. Stalky & Co., by Mr. Rudyard Kip- ling, is certainly not a volume of ro- mance. It is daringly, almost brusquely realistic. These nine thrilling stories of mischievous ingenuity are absolutely alive with memories of one sort of Eng- lish schoolboy: foul-mouthed but clean- hearted, impish, rebellious, bursting with vitality, loyal to the core, but simply fiendish in attack. For such as Stalky, McTurk, and Beetle partially a re- miniscence of himself the last word has been written. The type is created, and will live forever. But we expect, perhaps unreasonably, something more than this from Mr. Kipling. These boys are very Jshmaels, and have a dozen peculiarities which make them abnor- mal, unpopular, and above all un-Eng- lish. Beyond scoring off the rest of the world, they have no powers of enjoyment save from reading, talking, and smok ing. They hate games, and are entirely devoid of public spirit. Yet the Epilogue suggests that it is they who have made our empire. The book is splendid read- ing, unflagging in interest; but it has not done for our generation what Tom Brown did for our fathers. That is our claim on the author of The Jungle Book; for he, of all men, can see into the heart of a boy. The poets have been alm6st entirely silent this year. Mr. Swinburne, in- deed, has embodied the story of Lom- bard Rosamund in one of those intense- ly passionate and relentless dramas by which it may prove that he will ultimate- ly live. He shows himself, here as al- ways, a master of blank verse, in which he is less liable to false notes than in the swinging rhyme music of his lyrics. With classic concentration and directness he paints the lurid tragedy, trusting wholly to its primitive appeal, seeking no aid from the pomp of circumstance or the play of contrast. The action is confined to four characters, and they serve only for the development of one idea. Save in beauty of language the play is absolutely without relief. The beauty is supreme. On primitive religions, we have had the interesting chapters on Fetish in Miss Mary Kingsleys West African Stud- ies, almost as thrilling as her Travels; and the valuable second series of Asiatic Studies which Sir Alfred Lyall has add- ed to his new edition of the volume of 1882. The comparative study of nat- ural religion, as he points out, divides itself into two working departments. In one of them is the collector of materials, who roams far afield and scrambles about among wild folk to gather his specimens and take note of varieties; in the other is the philosophic savant, who remains at home to receive what is brought him from many countries, to classify, collate, and form his scientific inductions. The general aim of the present essays is to check a growing tend- 72 England in 1899. ency in the latter to speculative gen- eralization founded on an arbitrary se- lection of examples and precedents from the vast repertory provided by the for- mer. In particular, Sir Alfred Lyall distrusts the use of evolutionary princi- ples for the explanation of certain primi- tive customs and beliefs. His words are always well weighed and well worth weighing. SeveraPimportant additions have been made to the literature on Shakespeare, which is ever growing. From the Dic- tionary of National Biography has been reprinted Mr. Sidney Lees admirable Life, so welcome for its sound judg. ment and dispassionate statement, so irritating (the more by being possibly right) in its prosaic interpretation of the sonnet dedication. Mr. Frank Harris, perverse, unbalanced, and yet endlessly suggestive, has been disclosing, to The Saturday Review, the soul of Shake- speare as incidentally revealed in the plays: his conclusions are to be reprint- ed. Professor Herford, meanwhile, has nearly completed his useful and attrac- tive Eversley edition, designed for the cultivated but not learned reader; containing, in the briefest possible form, such information as may smooth his path without insulting his intelli- gence. The work gives evidence on every page of cultured scholarship. Other important biographies, whose arrivals are governed rather by acci- dent than by mental atmosphere, have come out this year. Mr. Justin Mc- Carthys Reminiscences are only a trifle more personal and less ordered than his histories, but quite as entertaining. rrhe Letters of Benjamin Jowett, published by Evelyn Abbott and Lewis Campbell as a supplement to his Life and Letters of 1897, are grouped under subjects; and the volume includes many detached utterances from his notebooks and re- membered sayings. Revelations of a vivid personality so influential as his are always interesting, and Jowetts language is generally forcible without being dog- matic. He faces the really important questions of life. Any one who will, he declares, may find his way through this world with sufficient knowledge to light him to another. The publication of The Letters of Rob- ert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning is a sacrilege which there are many temp- tations to justify. All of us knew, if Browning himself had not told us in a few perfect verses, that to him had been given the rare high gift of truly loving and being truly loved; but in the Letters his beautiful possession is laid before us in a setting of absolute sincerity and liter- ary grace. The vision is not ours by right; for the souls sacred places are mans first trust, and the meanest of Gods creatures Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, One to show a woman when he loves her! But now that the wrong has been com- mitted, it is possible, if we will, to enjoy justly without at least actively participat- ing therein. Forget that these are actual letters written by two who were once living amongst us. Read them as fic- tion, the mating of poet with poetess, and every man will be made better and more hopeful by the study of so perfect a union. The Life of William Morris, by Mr. J. W. Mackail, appropriately supreme among commercially produced books in its form, evinces at once good taste by its reticence, and sympathetic insight by its vigorous frankness. Though Mor- ris preached Arcadia and socialism, he spent his whole life in producing flue work that can only be possessed, or even appreciated, under the complex and lux- urious civilization in which he always personally lived. He was apparently without a moral or spiritual imagination, and he neglected entirely the highest fields of thought and emotion; while he could not away with those indifferent to his own subjects or questioning his own England in 1899. 73 ideals. Yet the serious simplicity of the man conquers us, and it must not be for- gotten that his boyish, rugged nature was able to captivate alike the great and the little ones of the earth who were his daily comrades and very dear friends. He was a rare instance of a man who, without ever once swerving from truth or duty, knew what he liked and did what he liked all his life long. But he was always eager to make everything something different from what it was, and the modern or scientific spirit, so long fought against, first by his aristo- cratic, and then by his artistic instincts, in the end took hold of him against his will, and made him a dogmatic so- cialist. The real man, nevertheless, not only as a craftsman and manufac- turer, a worker in dyed stuffs and tex- tiles and glass, a pattern designer and decorator, but throughout the whole range of life, was from first to last the architect, the master craftsman. He felt that architecture, connected at a thousand points with all the specific arts which ministered to it out of a thousand sources, was itself the tangible expres- sion of all the order, the comeliness, the sweetness, nay, even the mystery and the law, which sustain mans world and make human life what it is. To him the House Beautiful represented the visible form of life itself. This is the cen- tral creed, the inspiration, of what Mor- ris has done for the world. He created domestic taste, made universal what was once a pose called autheticism, revived honest serious craftsmanship, revealed the higher possibilities of bookmaking, and popularized the saga and medkeval- ism generally. In one word, he forced the rare and the beautiful upon the notice of a society steeped in commercialism and worshiping machinery. He has re- alized, as it is seldom given us to realize, the dream and the ambition of his very soul, to be, though men call you dead, a part and parcel of the living wisdom of all things. The band of his ardent disciples, with their splendidly self - denying idealism and their provokingly material limita- tions, are carrying on the good work. This year they have held another arts and crafts exhibition, containing much distinguished work, and have produced a masque of winter and spring called Beautys Awakening. This was designed to set forth, as well by poetry and mu- sic as by the various arts that appeal to and address the eye, that love (on the one hand) of London, our city, and (on the other) of the art we follow, which makes us hope that a day and time will come when, as our city is the greatest in the world, so she shall be the most beau- tiful, and that, preeminent now in com- merce, so shall she also be the leader of cities in the symbolizing of her greatness by the beauty of her outward show. The allegory was simple enough, but no trouble or expense was spared to show by every detail of pictorial effect how the cities of olden days achieved at least some progress toward an ideal of beauty, to which London for the present seems quite indifferent. Amidst the reign of expensive upholstery and glaring lime light, the guild of art workers have dared to offer us a pageant really artistic and harmonious. May their originality be rewarded! The ordinary theatres, spoilt by long runs and the rage for spectacular effects, have been duller than ever. Mr. Mar- tin Harvey, who bounded on to the se- rious stage some years ago by striking a discord in Little Eyolf, and then devel- oped a poetical imagination in Pelleas and Melisande, has established his repu- tation by a successful season at the Ly- ceum in The Only Way. Miss Irene Vanburgh has stepped into the front rank by a most telling interpretation of the masseuse in Mr. Pineros cynical Gay Lord Quex. It cannot be claimed, meanwhile, that the promoters of litera- ry drama have been very active. The New Century Theatre, which rose out 74 England in 1899. of the ashes of the genuinely pioneering Independent Theatre, after sitting upon its balance for many months, produced Mr. H. V. Esmonds Grierson s Way, a pitifully conventional attempt at thought, technically a brilliant play, intellectually worthless. Mr. George Bernard Shaws The Devils Disciple has reached the suburbs; and I hear of a new society, formed apparently for the performance of other plays by that author and by Ibsen. The honors be- long to Dublin, where Mr. W. B. Yeats has inaugurated the Irish Literary The- atre by the production of his own beau. tiful Countess Kathleen and Mr. Edward Martins The Heather Field, serious ef- forts after the visionary and the poetic. The Celtic revival, indeed, has made itself felt in many directions. Mr. W. B. Yeats has also brought out his long- promised new volume of poems, The Wind among the Reeds, a further ex- position of the Symbolism of the Rose; and Fiona Macleod has advanced on former work in her Dominion of Dreams. Herein are written, in language of great beauty and vigor, many weird and mys- tic legends of passion, magic, and fate. Symbols, yes: to some foolish; to others clear as the moon, the clear- ness that is absolute in light, that is so obvious, and is unfathomable. The intellectual and emotional event of the year has been the Church crisis, which turns, of course, on wider and deeper issues than the two questions of liturgical usage, burning incense and carrying lights in procession, on which the archbishops have delivered their fa- mous charge, in accordance with that political compromise of the sixteenth century now embodied in the law of our state Church. Judgment on the value or the dangers of ritualistic practices seems to be inextricably confused by the peculiar position of a Church at once established and reformed; and by the uncertainty prevailing as to the actual significance of the Reformation, which, in its origin, was concerned neither with church government nor with doctrine. The interpretations offered of the mo- tives inspiring the men responsible for our Prayer Book, by which the Church must stand or fall, are very various, but they may be provisionally grouped un- der four main heads: (1.) A desire to avoid the sanction of any authority ex- cept the Word of God. (2.) A deter- mination to approximate as nearly as possible to the customs of the Early Christian Church. (3.) A resolution to revive the English Catholic Church, which, by this contention, claims to have existed for many centuries, in commun- ion with the whole Western Church, but acknowledging no canonical submission to the See of Rome. (4.) An attempt to maintain the unity of the Catholic Church hitherto centred at Rome, with- out treason to the civil authority of Eng- land, and to take the opportunity of re- moving certain doctrines and practices which many earnest and loyal sons of the Church had already reviled as abuses. Speaking roughly, the first and second positions represent the Low Church view, while High Churchmen adopt the third or fourth. Meanwhile, Professor Mait- land has republished six essays on Ro- man Canon Law in the Church of Eng- land, which are mainly concerned to prove, in opposition to the third position outlined above, that papal authority had been always supreme in English eccle- siastical courts until summarily rejected by order of Henry VIII. The name of Professor Maitland alone would give weight to his conclusions, which, how- ever, are also supported with great wealth of scholarly detail. From this historical confusion, and from the inherent diffi- culty of blending reason with authority in spiritual matters, it comes to pass that those who feel strongly and speak elo- quently on these questions are wont to base their arguments on such various appeals as the conscience or personal faith of man, the words of Christ or England in 1899. 75 the Bible, doctrines held essential by the Catholic Church, the temperament of a nation, custom, tradition, law, the beau- ty of symbolism, the musthetic power of ceremonial. Thus one party is quite unable to answer the other; for they do not, here at least, accept the same ulti- matum. The present crisis has long been grad- ually approaching on the heels of a strong reaction. In former days it was the evangelical school whose magnificent moral energy awoke a sleeping Church. Now the ritualists, in their turn, have glorified her more spiritual message by adding dignity and beauty to her ser- vices; in particular, by restoring to its properly central position the sacrament of Communion. But they have gone further, until, by rejecting the merely mesthetic or symbolic aspect of ceremo- nies for their mystic or doctrinal signi- ficance, and by teaching a subtle form of sacerdotalism, they have excited the opposition of a spirit, very prevalent among us and essentially English, which hates the priest and distrusts the mys- tic. But the Church is a body of very strong and very earnest men. She has quieted the unseemly ardor of a few ag- gressive protestants, which for a time seemed to threaten disestablishment, and provided a new current of thought. The prominent note of the Church Congress, held this year in London, was aspiration after a genuine catholicity which should lead mankind by a more permanent be- cause less exacting authority than the pa- ternal government of the Middle Ages. It is a dream which has never been long absent from the hearts of thoughtful nonconformists, and has lately found expression among the most cultured of English Jews. It is noticeable, meanwhile, that at present, though the strength in numbers and in intellect of the clergy is ritual- istic, the great majority of conforming laymen are evangelical. Here the cler- gy are in touch with much of the deep- est thought of the day. Education has taught us that brain is stronger than mus- cle; we are but just beginning to realize that imagination can dominate both. Amidst the feverish energy of social re- form, philanthropy, and rampant com- mercialism may be heard the still small voice of the human soul, not yet insist- ent, and perhaps always inarticulate. Maeterlincks Wisdom Destiny, recently translated here, is one expression of an underlying desire for that spiritual strength to be gained from what has been called communion with God, the influence of mysticism on character. It has many manifestations to-day. To the orthodox Christian it means the rethron- ing of the sacraments; to the man of science, the recognition of a temporary quality in the so-called laws of nature, and of the importance of psychic phenom- ena; to the man of letters, the romantic especially the Celtic revival; to the superstitious majority, Christian Sci- ence, dogmatic spiritualism, palmistry, and witchcraft. However varied, however foolish, how- ever inadequate, they are elevating and progressive in their original and ever present inspiration, which is the first need and ultimate strength of human- ity, its invincible Faith. 1?. Brimleg Johnson. 76 TLlte Future of the Chinese People. THE FUTURE OF THE CHINESE PEOPLE. THE question What is to be the future of the Chinese people? is not identical with the question What is to be the fu- ture of the Chinese nation? The nation in its present form of government may disappear, and the people come under the government of other nations, and yet the Chinese race continue, and the civili- zation in its essential features be perpet- uated. It is perhaps natural for us to think of the life of a people as contemporaneous with the life of the nation, or at least that the extinction of national life causes sooner or later the disappearance of the race. Many historical instances can be pointed out to confirm this judgment. We should search in vain for the de- scendants of the ancient Babylonians, Assyrians, or Romans, and the descend- ants of the ancient Greeks and Egyp- tians are but degenerate representatives of the remarkable civilizations which their forefathers created. But it is un- safe to judge the future by the past without considering the altered relations of the nations of the earth. In ancient times rulers of nations were largely oc- cupied with war, either for conquest or for defense. Weapons of warfare were crude and imperfect, and soldiers repre- senting an advanced civilization were often overmatched by fierce and power- ful barbarian adversaries; so that once and again with the termination of na- tional life races disappeared, either by ex- tinction or by amalgamation. In modern times the art of war in its highest per- fection is possessed by the most civilized nations, and Christianity has exerted its influence to soften the fierceness of hu- man passions, and to ameliorate some of the worst features of ancient warfare. Wars of extermination, especially against a people so almost infinite in number as the Chinese, cannot be carried on as they were in former ages. If the Chinese are conquered by other nations, they must still be left in their places, must be given a government, and must be taken into account in the international problems of the future. To the question Will the Chinese gov- ernment continue under the administra- tion of the Chinese? no certain answer can be given. The presence of powerful Western nations on the soil or at the door of China, with their naval and military equipments, already marking out their spheres of influence in Chinese terri- tory, and the ignorance, jealousy, selfish- ness, and corruption among the rulers who have blindly allowed their country to drift into its present danger, unite in emphasizing the fact that there is a sick man in the Far East whose recovery is doubtful. China cannot continue to exist as a nation without the thorough reno- vation of her national life. She has no men in power who have either the disposi- tion or the ability to begin the renovation. The Emperor is now a prisoner in his own palace, and the reforms which he feebly attempted are in prison with him. There are many intelligent Chinese, who love their country, and desire to see the in- troduction of national and social reforms; but they are relatively few as compared with the masses of their countrymen, and their influence with the government is slight. The Empress Dowager is a cun- ning and ambitious woman, who has lived for more than a generation with Western civilization knocking at the door of the nation for admittance ; and yet she and her counselors have failed to in- terpret the meaning of that which their eyes have been compelled to see and their ears to hear, and they have lived in external contact with the civilization nineteen centuries after Christ, vainly imagining that they could keep them-

76 TLlte Future of the Chinese People. THE FUTURE OF THE CHINESE PEOPLE. THE question What is to be the future of the Chinese people? is not identical with the question What is to be the fu- ture of the Chinese nation? The nation in its present form of government may disappear, and the people come under the government of other nations, and yet the Chinese race continue, and the civili- zation in its essential features be perpet- uated. It is perhaps natural for us to think of the life of a people as contemporaneous with the life of the nation, or at least that the extinction of national life causes sooner or later the disappearance of the race. Many historical instances can be pointed out to confirm this judgment. We should search in vain for the de- scendants of the ancient Babylonians, Assyrians, or Romans, and the descend- ants of the ancient Greeks and Egyp- tians are but degenerate representatives of the remarkable civilizations which their forefathers created. But it is un- safe to judge the future by the past without considering the altered relations of the nations of the earth. In ancient times rulers of nations were largely oc- cupied with war, either for conquest or for defense. Weapons of warfare were crude and imperfect, and soldiers repre- senting an advanced civilization were often overmatched by fierce and power- ful barbarian adversaries; so that once and again with the termination of na- tional life races disappeared, either by ex- tinction or by amalgamation. In modern times the art of war in its highest per- fection is possessed by the most civilized nations, and Christianity has exerted its influence to soften the fierceness of hu- man passions, and to ameliorate some of the worst features of ancient warfare. Wars of extermination, especially against a people so almost infinite in number as the Chinese, cannot be carried on as they were in former ages. If the Chinese are conquered by other nations, they must still be left in their places, must be given a government, and must be taken into account in the international problems of the future. To the question Will the Chinese gov- ernment continue under the administra- tion of the Chinese? no certain answer can be given. The presence of powerful Western nations on the soil or at the door of China, with their naval and military equipments, already marking out their spheres of influence in Chinese terri- tory, and the ignorance, jealousy, selfish- ness, and corruption among the rulers who have blindly allowed their country to drift into its present danger, unite in emphasizing the fact that there is a sick man in the Far East whose recovery is doubtful. China cannot continue to exist as a nation without the thorough reno- vation of her national life. She has no men in power who have either the disposi- tion or the ability to begin the renovation. The Emperor is now a prisoner in his own palace, and the reforms which he feebly attempted are in prison with him. There are many intelligent Chinese, who love their country, and desire to see the in- troduction of national and social reforms; but they are relatively few as compared with the masses of their countrymen, and their influence with the government is slight. The Empress Dowager is a cun- ning and ambitious woman, who has lived for more than a generation with Western civilization knocking at the door of the nation for admittance ; and yet she and her counselors have failed to in- terpret the meaning of that which their eyes have been compelled to see and their ears to hear, and they have lived in external contact with the civilization nineteen centuries after Christ, vainly imagining that they could keep them- The Future of the Chinese People. 7T selves isolated from it, and preserve their own petrified civilization of nineteen cen- turies before Christ. It is a principle of international law that every nation should be left to itself to develop its form of government and regulate its internal affairs; but no na- tion has the right to close the door to intercourse with other nations, and de- cline to have with them either political, social, or mercantile relations. There is no doubt that, down to the present hour, this is what is desired by the vast ma- jority of the officials, the literati, the merchants, and the common people of China. They would shut and bolt the door against other nations, and live on into the ages of the future as they have lived from the ages of the past; prais- ing the institutions that have been be- queathed to them by the ancients; strag- gling with one another to secure from nature a sufficient ministry to the neces- sities of the masses, and to the comforts and luxuries of the few; and not doubt- ing that, in spite of the sorrows which tkey experience in life, their inheritance from the past is vastly superior to that of the outside nations. It is clear that in dealing with China, with her petrified and exclusive civiliza- tion, the principles of Western interna- tional law must have a modified applica- tion. It would be difficult to do a greater wrong to the people of China than to leave the nation to itself, to the oper- ation of those forces of evil that have their source in the selfishness, the pas- sions, and the ambitions of men, and are of the nature of an organic disease in all strata of government and all condi- tions of society. It is a fact deeply re- gretted by the best friends of China that she has failed to improve the opportuni- ties for reform that have been presented to her during the last forty years. This immobility is not to be wondered at when we consider her mass and her his- torical inertia. It is idle to censure the ignorant man who has neglected to be- come intelligent, and does not know what he has lost; it is, however, in order to censure men of intelligence who have dwelt by his side, but have failed to im- prove occasions once and again present- ed to them to lift their fellow out of his ignorance, and help him to become a man among men. Thus our censure of China for her present melancholy condition must be given with charity, but must fall with heavier weight upon the nations that have had the opportuni- ty to save China from herself, since they have only partly improved it, and with selfish rather than benevolent motives. When in 11860 the armies of England and France invested the capital of China, and dictated a treaty looking toward the reformation of her institutions, the development of her resources, and her introduction into the family of nations, these nations, and especially England with her predominant power and inter- ests in the East, became in a very real sense sponsors for the material, social, and political reorganization of China. No more difficult and no greater task was ever committed to a nation than was then committed to England. With well- digested plans as to the reforms which China should be urged to inaugurate, and with a firm insistence that they should be inaugurated and carried out, China would now stand in a totally different relation to the nations of the earth from the one she occupies. That which has taken place since the war with Japan, in what may prove to be the national death throes of China, ought to have taken place during the years from 1860 to 1890, when China was free from international complications; and with the counsel of a wise and benevolent sister nation she would have been able to enter upon a far-reaching system of reform, which at this date would have been approaching its realization. China ought not to have been left to herself to decide as to what reforms should be undertaken, or as to the time 78 The Future of the Chinese People. and manner of carrying them out. Ade- quate pressure should have been used to compel China to move. She should have been made to open her doors more rapid- ly and completely to foreign trade and intercourse, and to give more thorough protection to foreigners in her midst. She should have been made to adminis- ter proper punishment to the instigators of mobs and persecutions, and to call her officers to strict account for their neglect of duty toward foreigners residing in China. She should not have been al- lowed to resist the introduction of tele- graph lines for half a generation, and of railroads for an entire generation. She should have been pressed to reform her antediluvian system of education, to in- troduce Western learning, to multiply schools under the care of foreign in- structors, and to send selected students abroad for a wider education. If these and other lines of national reform had not only been proposed, but insisted upon, the international problems of the Far East would have been wholly dif- ferent from those that now occupy the thoughts of statesmen. The time for change and reform has fully come to China. New ideas from the Western world are already operating in the thoughts of many of the people, and new aspirations and hopes are be- ginning to be awakened. She must move from this time forth, and her great need is that type of sympathetic guidance and help that will promote her best interests; but under existing international compli- cations it is not easy to give such as- sistance- The question now at the front relates to the problem of the relative strength of the forces operating on the one side to disintegrate China, and on the other to preserve her national life. Russia has secured a hold on Manchuria, which she will surrender only under the compulsion of defeat in war. France, from her colonial possessions south of China, has already revealed her desire to gain possession of the border provinces. Germany is actively strengthening her position in Shan-Tung, and is watching to extend her power at any favorable op- portunity. The interests of England, the United States, and Japan are distinctly opposed to the international policy that looks to the dismemberment of China. If these nations could unite in a compact to pre- serve her integrity, their naval power is sufficient to secure the result without an appeal to arms; but much as the friends of China may desire that such a com- pact should be entered upon, it is doubt- ful if the desire will be realized. The element of doubt in the problem is the part to be taken by the United States. For more than a century she has been absorbed in developing her own institu- tions and gaining possession of her vast territory. She has now reached that stage in her material progress when she needs the markets of the world for the overplus products from her soil and from her ever expanding manufactories. It is difficult for a nation governed by the people to change suddenly its tradi- tional policy, however clearly it may be for the general interests to do so. Men put forth greater efforts to obtain the known good of the present than the un- certain good of the future. The interests of England in the integrity of China are present and manifest, while those of the United States, though potentially only second to those of England, are still pro- blematic. Citizens of the United States who have lived in the East for a generation proud as they have a right to be of their country, and conscious of her power have been sorely tried at the lack of a definite and vigorous international poli- cy, which has made our nation to appear as a fifth-rate power among the nations of the world. Through the accidents of war the Philippine Islands have fallen into the hands of the United States, and demand a well-ordered government. If, through this unhooked - for result, the The Future of the Chinese People. 79 United States is forced to recognize it- self as one of the great world powers, not for selfish aggrandizement, but to protect the rights of the weaker nations, to promote intercourse, and to stimulate trade, then we may rejoice in the at- tainment of a higher good that has come through a present evil. In the mean- time, as relates to China, we can only hope, almost against hope, that while the hands of the nations already outstretched for her partition are stayed for a little, new elements may enter into the pro- blem from sources as yet unseen, that will tip the balance in favor of continu- ing China in her integrity, that she may enter in earnest upon the great problems of national and social reform. But our interest in the organic life of a nation has its source in our concern for the social life and institutions of the people. Though China as a self-directed government may disappear for a time from among the nations, there is no ground for doubt that her social life, with its institutions modified and en- nobled by Christianity, will continue, and that the Chinese people will exert an important influence in solving the so- cial and political problems that are now engaging the serious attention of men. The Chinese people are not physically effete. No race of men propagate more rapidly, or adapt themselves more readi- ly to a wide variety of climate and con- dition. Throughout long ages, wars and pestilences, famines and floods, have been active in reducing their numbers. They have spent their lives under the most un- sanitary conditions, breathing impurity and poison, and yet they have multiplied from generation to generation, slowly absorbing outlying lands, and filling them with their unnumbered progeny. If they come under the government of Western nations, their conditions of life will vastly improve, with the certain re- sult that they will multiply in the future more rapidly than they have done in the past. No race of men can surpass the Chi- nese in habits of industry and thrift. These habits seem to have the stamp of heredity, and they are further enforced upon the young by the authority and ex- ample of their elders. With the masses of the people life is one long struggle to obtain the necessities and a few of the comforts of existence; and their estimate of the comforts of existence is a very modest one. With the introduction of Western civilizatiQn the vast resources of the country will be developed, the products of the soil and manufacture will indefinitely increase, and domestic and international trade will greatly expand. Now, in all this material regeneration of China the Chinaman will be in evi- dence. Not a dollar will be gathered from the soil, from trade, from mines, from manufactories, without his securing a due proportion as a reward for his part in the enterprise, He will patient- ly and faithfully work for a master for half a generation, and in the second half he will appear as his own master, at the head of a thriving business. Thus, in the industries of the future, wherever there is work to be done, there will be found Chinese ready to sell strength, as working for hire i~ called in China; and they will sell more strength for the money than will men of any other na- tion. Again, a dollar in the hands of a Chinaman represents far greater pur- chasing power than it does in the hands of a European. In China two ounces of silver have the value, in the general scale of living, that an ounce of gold has in the United States. In that country, a dollar will purchase fifteen hundred pieces of cash composed of copper and zinc. These cash, with a hole in the centre and strung on a cord, weigh seven pounds. In Peking, a servant or com- mon laborer is glad to give ten days of labor, and a carpenter or mason six days, to secure this amount of cash. So much money would give a comfortable support to an average family. Three dollars a. 80 The Future of the Chinese People. month, or thirty-six dollars a year, would cover the earnings of a Chinese family of the working class. The meaning of this is that the Chinaman will survive and prosper under conditions of life which would discourage, and finally over- whelm, the European. The Chinese are skillful workmen, and of good inventive talent. They invented the art of weaving and coloring silk, at the very dawn of civilization; they invented a remarkable system of symbols with which they have written their lan- guage for four thousand years; they in- vented the art of printing, and carried it to a high degree of perfection, centu- ries before it was known in Europe, and the claim that we learned it from China rests upon reasonable inferences. The Chinese have produced porcelain, pottery, lacquerware, cloisonn6, which are the admiration and despair of the Western world. They show a high degree of skill in their work in wood and metal. There are old bronze castings among the astronomical instruments mounted upon the eastern wall of Peking that rival any works of their kind that have been produced by other nations. As to la- bor-saving inventions, good reasons can be given for their discouragement in China, where the problem is not how to multiply labor power for the work that is waiting to be done, but rather to find work for the labor power that is waiting to be employed. A machine that ac- complishes the work of ten men would be accounted a boon to industry in the United States, but it would be worthless in China, as ten men are waiting to do the work at a saving in cost. Why, asks the puzzled Chinaman, do you spend twenty dollars to purchase a machine, which requires a man to opernte, to pump water from a well, when the same man could bring up the water so much more easily with a rope and a bucket? Why spend a hundred dollars to purchase a windmill to irrigate your garden, when you can accomplish the object at a great saving in cost by employing two men with a rope and a bucket swung in the centre? Why build a steam mill, at great expense, to saw lumber, while thou- sands of coolies are waiting to cut it up for you with handsaws, and must starve in idleness if the mills take away their work? Foreigners are occasionally surprised, in China, to note the skill of the people in many lines of handicraft, and the results accomplished in the use of cheap and crude tools and appliances. Delicate and wonderful patterns are woven in the clumsiest looms. A beautiful book is pro- duced in a shop perhaps ten feet square, with a pile of blank paper for material, with blocks for cutting the characters, a few steel rods terminating in knife points, needles and thread, two brushes, and a puddle of ink. Broken glass and crock- ery are mended with small brass clamps set in holes made with a minute diamond drill, the diamond squeezed into the end of a coarse iron drill-holder. I once saw a workmnn mending a huge hole in the bottom of a cast-iron kettle by melting iron in a porcelain crucible, ladling it in small quantities upon an asbestos pad, placing it in position, and squeezing it into shape with another pad, nnd thus building in the hole. The Chinaman, after proper training, will use Western tools, manipulate machinery, and reach results that will win him recognition for his skill and bring his services into re- quisition; and his faithfulness in work, his keenness of observation, his power of imitation, will make these services more and more valuable. The Chinese are born traders. No line of activity by which a livelihood can be obtained is more overcrowded than that of the trafficker; and while many fail, it is surprising how many succeed under the most adverse conditions. No Jew can smell out with keener instinct an opportunity where money may be made to grow than can a Chinaman. There is no chance so insignificant to plant a The Future of the chinese People. cash and make it bear fruit that it will not be improved. There is almost no- thing that does not have a value in trade, even to crooked nails, scraps of iron, cast-off shoes, and decayed vegetables. The rejected contents of an American garret, if placed in the hands of a China- man, would set him up in a business that would give him an advantage over his less wealthy competitors. An American traveler once called with me upon a Chinese Christian, who was a business man having a thriving trade. His mer- chandise was spread out on an unused section of an old bridge in the suburbs of the city, and covered a hundred square feet of space. The traveler could with difficulty suppress a smile at this varie- gated display of what seemed to be the results of a thorough house - cleaning. In reply to a question as to the value of his stock, the merchant said, with evident pride in his prosperity, These goods represent the accumulations of many years, and it is impossible to state their exact value. It is probable that the asking price would not have exceeded five dollars. But the Chinese trader is not a mere huckster; his capacities ex- pand with growing opportunities and requirements, until he manages a large and successful business with skill and prudence. The open ports of China are already full of Chinese traders in foreign commodities, who have been in the eni- ploy of foreign merchants, but, after mas- tering the business, have set up in trade in their own names; and in many lines of trade they have already driven out the foreigner, since they have lighter expenses and are satisfied with smaller returns. At the present time China is filled with discussions as to the methods of developing the vast agricultural and mineral resources of the country. There is manifest need of foreign capital and knowledge and skill, to accomplish this object with moderate rapidity and suc- cess; but the chief reason that such cap- ital and knowledge and skill are so tar- VOL. LXXXV. NO. 507. 6 dily employed is jealousy lest the larger number of dollars should find their way into foreign pockets. Those who know the Chinese best have little doubt that, in all enterprises in their country where gain is to be realized, the Chinaman will have his bag under the opening where the dol- lars are running out. What shall we say as to the ability of the Chinese to acquire Western learn- ing, and finally to contribute something to the extension of knowledge? It is generally thought that the Chinese must fail in the higher regions of imagination, of reflection, and of close and accurate observation. It should be remembered that modern science, and the habits of thought begotten of the study of sci- ence, are of recent development in West- ern lands. To do justice to the Chinese, we must remind ourselves that their civi- lization is an ancient one, and must be compared, not with the Europe of the nineteenth century, but with the most progressive portions of the Asia and Europe of the centuries immediately be- fore Christ. In such comparison the lit- erary productions of China would stand second only to those of Greece; and if we give the highest place to the ethical elements in literature, the teachings of the sages of China are undoubtedly on an altitude above the teachings of the sages of Greece. Confucius and Mencius had higher conceptions of the sacredness of the family, of the duties of rulers, and of the obligations of men in the varied relations of life than had Socrates and Plato. All down the centuries Chinese educa- tion has been conducted on narrow lines; but while the contents and methods of education have tended to dwarf the pow- ers of reflection and imagination, they have wonderfully stimulated the power of memory; and memory is the store- house of material for the use of the other faculties. In our modern Western method of education, stimulating as we do the reflective powers of children to 81 82 The Future of the Chinese People. precocious development, while we place a low estimate upon the training of the memory, are we not committing an error opposite to that committed by the Chi- nese ? Chinese students far surpass stu- dents of their class in Western lands in studies that especially exercise memory, and under the awakening process of in- struction in Western lines of study they develop excellent powers of thought, and become keen and accurate in their ob- servations. Many Chinese show espe- cial aptitude for mathematical studies. There are students now revealing them- selves to foreigners in all parts of China, who have gained a good knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, and geometry from the study of Western hooks translated into Chinese; and they have pursued this study without any help of teachers. It is difficult for the people of one civilization to appreciate at their full worth the people of a widely different civilization. Thus the Chinese are proud of their literature, and do not imagine that there can be anything comparable to it in the literature of Western nations. This is the inappreciation of ignorance, and we may easily be betrayed into the same fault by our ignorance of the achievements of the scholars of China. To the Chinese scholar, a thoroughly studied composition is the highest work of art. The thought is carefully wedded to the words, and there is a rhythm and melody and life in the movement of the clauses, as he hums them to himself, that delights him as music delights the for- eign ear. If the Chinese have shown a high order of literary ability while na- ture and providence and the deeper meaning of life were hidden from them, there is good ground for hope that they will enter upon a yet higher order of literary activity when they are taught the deeper truths that are the inspiration of a Christian civilization, and have more inspiring them& s upon which to exercise their powers of imagination, of thought, and of expression. Once and again we hear the opinion offered that the Chinese language is so crude and bungling, so imperfect a me- dium through which to express thought, that it must ultimately disappear from among the languages of the earth. This assumption is based upon ignorance of facts. It is true that every Chinese word is a monosyllable, a little block of sound identical in dimensions with every other sound; that a word in speech undergoes no inflection; that it takes neither pre- fixes nor suffixes, hut remains unchanged in its atomic unity. How can creatures run without legs, or fly without wings? How can words be woven into intelli- gent speech without modifications essen- tial to speech in other languages? Yet the Chinese language accomplishes this apparent impossibility, and gives clear and accurate expression to thought with- out the legs or wings of Western meth- ods of articulating speech. It is said and I believe with truth that the Chi- nese language is the most difficult of all languages for a foreigner to acquire and use with accuracy; but it is, notwith- standing, the easiest of all languages in the pronunciation of words and in their simpler combinations. A few dozens of square blocks are easily set up to produce a toy house, but they are not so readily fastened together to produce an elaborate structure. Children born in China of foreign parents learn to speak the lan- guage more easily than they do Western languages; and yet, a learned foreign sinologue, to the end of his life, employs a native literary assistant to give form and beauty to his productions in the lan- guage. In spite of the defects of the Chinese language, we must remember that it was produced by the Chinese peo- ple, and that it fits the thoughts which they desire to express. The language is a living language, and has never ceased to grow. It has indefinite powers of adaptation to the needs of the new learn- ing and of the higher civilization that are now being introduced into China. The Future of the chinese People. 83 The most thorough instruction that is given in China in Western learning is through the medium of the Chinese rather than of the English language. The reason is that students of English must put years of work into the acqui- sition of the new and difficult medium in which to give expression to thought. Meanwhile, other students, who have given a like amount of time to the study of Western learning in the use of the Chi- nese language, have gained a good mas- tery of the subjects pursued, and are able readily to communicate their new knowledge to others, as they possess it in the form of language that is familiar to their countrymen. There is as little probability that the Chinese language, in which has been produced a splendid literature, and which is spoken by a peo- ple embracing one fourth of the popula- tion of the earth, will ultimately become extinct as that the people will disap- pear. How shall we judge of the Chinese as regards their capacities for moral and religious development? We are often told by men who write about China from a distance that the people are lacking iu moral sensibilities. It must be admit- ted that, as a nation, they are untruthful in speech, and are selfish and sordid in their lives. On the other hand, in no literature, apart from the literature of Christianity, have the principles of right, covering the varied relations of man with man, been more fully and accurately set forth than in the literature of China; and among no people have these princi- ples been more habitually discussed than among the Chinese. Their fault is that they say, and do not; that they urge right conduct upon others, but too easily dis- regard its obligations upon themselves. This is only stating that, they are very human beings, and their knowledge of the right is proof of their capacity to love and do the right. It is a misappre- hension of the character of the Chinese to think of them in their mutual inter- course as forgetful of the principles of right and truth and duty. Where self- interest does not enter as a beam into their eye to obstruct vision, they are clear-sighted to distinguish between right and wrong. In their struggle for exist- ence, they are constantly defending them- selves, or condemning others, by appeal- ing to the universal law of right. A people who have a high order of moral capacities must of necessity have a like high order of religious capacities, since, if we speak with exactness, mens moral and religious capacities are the same, and differ only in their applica- tion. Love, honor, and obedience paid to man spring from the same capacities of mind and heart as do love, honor, and obedience paid to God. It is often said that the teachings of the- sages of China are ethical rather than religious; that they do not contain the elements of worship. In truth, religion perme- ates the entire system of Confucian teachings, and gives to it in good de- gree the measure of vitality which it possesses. rrllere is a state religion that is the bed rock of what is commonly known as Confucianism, and this elabo- rate ceremonial of worship exists to-day in substantial form as it existed four thousand years ago. Worship is paid by the Emperor to the great powers of nature, to ancient sages and deified he- roes, to deceased Emperors, and to the family ancestors. There is a ritual of worship in which all officers of govern- ment must participate, and custom pre- scribes a form of worship which must be observed by the head of each family. It is true that this worship is largely a mat- ter of ceremony, and that its end is tem- poral rather than spiritual good; but this has been equally true of Christian wor- ship in times of decadence. The fact of the persistence of the spirit of worship throughout the centuries, in spite of the secularizing motives that have operated upon the minds of the people, is proof sufficient of the religious capacity of the 84 The Future of the Chinese People. Chinese nature. To this may be added the further proof that comes from the progress of modern Christian missions. In the seventeenth century Roman Catho- lic missions in China gathered converts by many tens of thousands; and its inem- bership might now be numbered by mil- lions, if suspicions had not been aroused against that church as to the temporal ambitions of its representatives. Pro- testant missions in China are now in full vigor of growth; and there is abundant proof that when the Chinese are proper- ly instructed, and their hearts are thor- oughly aroused, they can learn to fear God and work righteousness with as much devotion and single-heartedness as can men of any other nationality. Here is the substance of the matter: China needs protection and guidance, even to the point of wise compulsion, at the hands of such Christian nations as are truly interested in her welfare, that she may be preserved in her integrity, and enter in earnest upon her career of re- form. Though the Chinese national life should disappear for a time, the life of the people will continue. There is no lack of virility to perpetuate and multi- ply their racial type. The Chinese are a people of industry and thrift, and in the sharp competition with other races will secure for themselves their relative share in the worlds productions. They will prove themselves to be skillful work- men, ready to adapt means to ends, and will make their labor a necessity in the varied activities of the world. They will be cautious and judicious traders, com- peting on equal terms with men of oth- er nations. Chinese students will prove their ability to master and use the learn- ing of the West, and finally, we may believe, contribute something to enlarge the sum of human knowledge. The Clii- nese language and literature will survive along with the race, and will be enlarged and enriched for use as the civilization advances. All that is best in the Con- fucian civilization will be preserved by the Chinese people, and the future Chris- tianity of China will not destroy, but rather renovate, the institutions of China. The Chinese have moral and religious capacities to develop a civilization of high moral purpose and of steadfast religious life which will not be below the best type of civilization that Christianity has pro- duced in Western lands. Men are disposed to think lightly and superficially of problems that do not im- mediately concern themselves; but the question What of China? will not down by its being dismissed from thought. It enters as an important factor into the great world problems that are now press- ing for solution. It is a question not only concerning the future of one fourth of the human race, but also concerning the influence of that portion of the race upon the other three fourths. The vast potential resources of China, the labor power of the people, and their undevel- oped capacity to share in the consump- tion of the products of the worlds in- dustries will compel statesmen and stu- dents of political and social problems to acquire that knowledge of China which as yet is possessed only by the few; and the opportunity for the religious and so- cial renovation of that people will more and more draw out the interest and claim the help of Christian teachers and philanthropists. Already the forces that are destined to create a new China are beginning to operate upon the lives of the people. The nation is waking from its long dream of the past to live in the present. There are many signs of the times which assure us that the day is not distant when China will be delivered from its effete civilization, will enjoy a stable and well-ordered government, will enter upon a period of material prosper- ity, and will come under the power of those motives which have their source in the vital truths of the Christian reve- lation D. Z. Sheffield. An Odyssey of the North. 85 AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH. I. SIXTY ounces, without even a piece of paper! Ever expect to see it again? Malemute Kid shrugged his shoulders. Why did he quit? Prince was in- terested in the Indian dog-driver whom his partner had just bought out of her Majestys mail service. Dont know. He could nt desert and then stay here, and he was just wild to remain in the country. Palavered around like a crazy man. Something happened to him when he got to Daw- son, could nt make out what, and he made up his mind on the jump; and in the same breath he said he d been working to this very end for years. He had everything mixed up. Talked of making me rich, putting me onto a mine with more gold than Eldorado and Bo- nanza together. Never saw a man take on so in my life. It was only sixty ounces, and the look in his face when I agreed was worth the price. Who is he, anyway? Dont know. But he s a fellow to whet your curiosity. I never saw him before, but all the Coast was talking about him eight years ago. Sort of mys- terious, you know. They called him the Strange One, Ulysses, and the Man with the Otter Skins. He came down out of the north, in the dead of winter, skirting Bering Sea and travel- ing liJe mad. No one ever learned where he came from, but he must have come far. He was badly travel-worn when he got food from the Swedish missionary on Golovin Bay, and asked the way south. We beard of this afterward. Then he abandoned the shore line, heading right across Norton Sound. Terrible weather, snowstorms and high winds, but he pulled through where a thousand other men would have died; missing St. Michaels, and making the land at Pastilik. He d lost all but two dogs, and was nearly gone with starvation. He was so anxious to go on that Father Roubeau fitted him out with grub; but he could nt let him have any dogs, for he was only waiting my arrival to go on trail himself. Mr. Ulysses knew too much to start without animals, and fret- ted around for several days. He had on his sled a bunch of beautifully cured otter skins, sea otters, you know, worth their weight in gold. There happened to be at Pastilik an old Shylock of a Rus- sian trader, who had dogs to kill. Well, they did nt dicker very long, but when the Strange One headed south again, it was in the rear of a spanking dog team. Mr. Shylock, by the way, had the otter skins. I saw them. Dogs must have brought him five hundred apiece. And it was nt as if the Strange One did nt know the value of sea otter: he was In- dian; and besides, what little lie talked showed he d been among white men. After the ice passed out of the sea, word came up from Nunivak Island that he had gone in there for grub. Then he dropped from sight, and this is the first heard of him in eight years. Now where did he come from? And what was he doing there? And why did he come from there? Another mystery of the north, Prince, for you to solve. Thanks, awfully, was the mining engineers response~ muffled and sleepy, from his sleeping-furs; but you have so many confounded mysteries up here that my hands are full as it is. Any- way, I dont expect I 11 ever hear of the chap again, nor you, either, of your sixty ounces. The cold weather had come on with the long nights, and the sun had begun to play his ancient game of peekaboo

An Odyssey of the North. 85 AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH. I. SIXTY ounces, without even a piece of paper! Ever expect to see it again? Malemute Kid shrugged his shoulders. Why did he quit? Prince was in- terested in the Indian dog-driver whom his partner had just bought out of her Majestys mail service. Dont know. He could nt desert and then stay here, and he was just wild to remain in the country. Palavered around like a crazy man. Something happened to him when he got to Daw- son, could nt make out what, and he made up his mind on the jump; and in the same breath he said he d been working to this very end for years. He had everything mixed up. Talked of making me rich, putting me onto a mine with more gold than Eldorado and Bo- nanza together. Never saw a man take on so in my life. It was only sixty ounces, and the look in his face when I agreed was worth the price. Who is he, anyway? Dont know. But he s a fellow to whet your curiosity. I never saw him before, but all the Coast was talking about him eight years ago. Sort of mys- terious, you know. They called him the Strange One, Ulysses, and the Man with the Otter Skins. He came down out of the north, in the dead of winter, skirting Bering Sea and travel- ing liJe mad. No one ever learned where he came from, but he must have come far. He was badly travel-worn when he got food from the Swedish missionary on Golovin Bay, and asked the way south. We beard of this afterward. Then he abandoned the shore line, heading right across Norton Sound. Terrible weather, snowstorms and high winds, but he pulled through where a thousand other men would have died; missing St. Michaels, and making the land at Pastilik. He d lost all but two dogs, and was nearly gone with starvation. He was so anxious to go on that Father Roubeau fitted him out with grub; but he could nt let him have any dogs, for he was only waiting my arrival to go on trail himself. Mr. Ulysses knew too much to start without animals, and fret- ted around for several days. He had on his sled a bunch of beautifully cured otter skins, sea otters, you know, worth their weight in gold. There happened to be at Pastilik an old Shylock of a Rus- sian trader, who had dogs to kill. Well, they did nt dicker very long, but when the Strange One headed south again, it was in the rear of a spanking dog team. Mr. Shylock, by the way, had the otter skins. I saw them. Dogs must have brought him five hundred apiece. And it was nt as if the Strange One did nt know the value of sea otter: he was In- dian; and besides, what little lie talked showed he d been among white men. After the ice passed out of the sea, word came up from Nunivak Island that he had gone in there for grub. Then he dropped from sight, and this is the first heard of him in eight years. Now where did he come from? And what was he doing there? And why did he come from there? Another mystery of the north, Prince, for you to solve. Thanks, awfully, was the mining engineers response~ muffled and sleepy, from his sleeping-furs; but you have so many confounded mysteries up here that my hands are full as it is. Any- way, I dont expect I 11 ever hear of the chap again, nor you, either, of your sixty ounces. The cold weather had come on with the long nights, and the sun had begun to play his ancient game of peekaboo 86 Am Odyssey along the southern snow line ere aught was heard of Malemute Kids grubstake. And then, one bleak morning in early January, a heavily laden dog train pulled into his cabin below Stuart River. He of the Otter Skins was there, and with him walked a man such as the gods have almost forgotten how to fashion. Men never talked of luck and pluck and five- hundred-dollar dirt without bringing in the name of Axel Gunderson; nor could tales of nerve or strength or daring pass up and down the camp fire without the summoning of his presence. And when the conversation flagged, it blazed anew at mention of the woman who shared his fortunes. As has been noted, in the making of Axel Gunderson the gods had remem- bered their old-time cunning, and cast him after the manner of men who were born when the world was young. Full seven feet he towered in his picturesque costume which marked a king of Eldo- rado. His chest, neck, and limbs were those of a giant. To bear his three hun- dred pounds of bone and muscle, his snowshoes were greater by a generous yard than those of other men. Rough- hewn, with rugged brow and massive jaw and unflinching eyes of palest blue, his face told the tale of one who knew but the law of might. Of the yellow of ripe corn silk, his frost-incrusted hair swept like day across the night, and fell far down his coat of bearskin. A vague tradition of the sea seemed to cling about him, as he swung down the narrow trail in advance of the dogs; and he brought the butt of his dogwhip against Male- mute Kids door as a Norse sea rover, on southern foray, might thunder for ad- mittance at the castle gate. Prince bared his womanly arms and kneaded sour-dough bread, casting, as he did so, many a glance at the three guests, three guests the like of which might never come under a mans roof in a life- time. The Strange One, whom Male- mute Kid had surnamed Ulysses, still of the North. fascinated him; but his interest chiefly gravitated between Axel Gunderson and Axel Gundersons wife. She felt the days journey, for she had softened in comfortable cabins during the many days since her husband mastered the wealth of frozen pay streaks, and she was tired. She rested against his great breast like a slender flower against a wall, replying lazily to Malemute Kids good-natured banter, and stirring Princes blood strangely with an occasional sweep of her deep, dark eyes. For Prince was a man, and healthy, and had seen few women in many months. And she was older than he, and an Indian besides. But she was different from all native wives he had met: she had traveled, had been in his country among others, he gathered from the conversation; and she knew most of tIme things the women of his own race knew, and much more that it was not in the nature of things for them to know. She could make a meal of sun-dried fish or a bed in the snow; yet she teased them with tantaliz- ing details of mainly-course dinners, and caused strange internal dissensions to arise at the mention of various quondam dishes which they had well-nigh forgot- ten. She knew the ways of the moose, the bear, and the little blue fox, and of the wild amphibians of the northern seas; she was skilled in the lore of the woods and the streams, and the tale writ by man and bird and beast upon the deli- cate snow crust was to her an open book; yet Prince caught the appreciative twin- kle in her eye as she read the Rules of the Camp. These Rules had been fa- thered by the Unquenchable Bettles at a time when his blood ran high, and were remarkable for the terse simplicity of their humor. Prince always turned them to the wall before the arrival of ladies; but who could suspect that this native wife Well, it was too late now. This, then, was the wife of Axel Gun- derson, a woman whose nanme and fame had traveled with her husbands, hand An Odyssey of the North. 87 in hand, through all the northland. At table, Malemute Kid baited her with the assurance of an old friend, and Priuce shook off the shyness of first acquaint- ance and joined in. But she held her own in the unequal contest, while her husband, slower in wit, ventured naught but applause. And he was very proud of her; his every look and action re- vealed the magnitude of the place she occupied in his life. He of the Otter Skins ate in silence, forgotten in the merry battle; and long ere the others were done he pushed back from the ta- ble and went out among the dogs. Yet all too soon his fellow travelers drew on their mittens and parkas, and followed him. There had been no snow for many days, and the sleds slipped along the hard-packed Yukon trail as easily as if it had been glare ice. Ulysses led the first sled; with the second came Prince and Axel Gundersons wife; while Male- mute Kid and the yellow-haired giant brought up the third. It s only a hunch, Kid, he said; but I think it s straight. He s never been there, but he tells a good story, and shows a map I heard of when I was in the Kootenay country, years ago. I d like to have you go along; but he s a strange one, and swore point-blank to throw it up if any one was brought in. But when I come back you 11 get first tip, and I 11 stake you next to me, and give you a half share in the town site besides. No! no! he cried, as the other strove to interrupt. I m running this, and before I m done it 11 need two heads. If it s all right, why it 11 be a second Cripple Creek, man; do you hear? a second Cripple Creek! It s quartz, you know, not placer; and if we work it right we 11 corral the whole thing, millions upon millions. I ye heard of the place before, and so have you. We 11 build a town thousands of workmen good waterways steam~ ship lines big carrying trade light- draught steamers for head-reaches survey a railroad, perhaps sawmills electric - light plant do our own banking commercial company syn- dicate Say! just you hold your hush till I get back, and then we 11 see The sleds came to a halt where the trail crossed the mouth of Stuart River. An unbroken sea of frost, its wide ex- panse stretched away into the unknown east. The snowshoes were withdrawn from the lashings of the sleds. Axel Gunderson shook hands and stepped to the fore, his great webbed shoes sinking a fair half yard into the feathery surface and packing the snow so the dogs should not wallow. His wife fell in behind the last sled, betraying long practice in the art of hafidling the awkward footgear. The stillness was broken with cheery farewells; the dogs whined; an& He of the Otter Skins talked with his whip to a recalcitrant wheeler. An hour later, the train had taken on the likeness of a black pencil crawling in a long, straight line across a mighty sheet of foolscap. II. One night, many weeks later, Male- mute Kid and Prince fell to solving chess problems from the torn page of an ancient magazine. The Kid had just returned from his Bonanza properties, and was resting up preparatory to a long moose hunt. Prince too had been on creek and trail nearly all winter, and had grown hungry for a blissful week of cabin life. Interpose the black knight, and force the king. No, that won~t do. See, the next move Why advance the pawn two squares? Bound to take it in transit, and with the bishop out of the way But hold on! That leaves a hole, and 88 An Odyssey No; it s protected. Go ahead! You 11 see it works. It was very interesting. Somebody knocked at the door a second time before Malemute Kid said, Come in. The door swung open. Something staggered in. Prince caught one square look, and sprang to his feet. The horror in his eyes caused Malemute Kid to whirl about; and he too was startled, though he had seen bad things before. The thing tottered blindly toward them. Prince edged away till he reached the nail from which hung his Smith & Wesson. My God! what is it? he whispered to Malemute Kid. Dont know. Looks like a case of freezing and no grub, replied the Kid, sliding away in the opposite direction. Watch out! It may be mad, he warn6d, coming back from closing the door. The thing advanced to the table. The bright flame of the slush lamp caught its eye. It was amused, and gave voice to eldritch cackles which be- tokened mirth. Then, suddenly, he for it was a man swayed back, with a hitch to his skin trousers, and began to sing a chanty, such as men lift when they swing around the capstan circle and the sea snorts in their ears Yan-kee ship come down de ri-ib-er, Pull! my bully boys! Pull! D yeh want to know de captain ru-nns her? Pull! my bully boys! Pull! Jon-a-than Jones oh South Caho-li-in-a, Pull! my bully He broke off abruptly, tottered with a wolfish snarl to the meat shelf, and before they could intercept was tearing with his teeth at a chunk of raw bacon. The struggle was fierce between him and Malemute Kid; but his mad strength left him as suddenly as it had come, and he weakly surrendered the spoil. Be- tween them they got him upon a stool, where he sprawled with half his body across the table. A small dose of whis of the North. key strengthened him, so that he could dip a spoon into the sugar caddy which Malemute Kid placed before him. After his appetite had been somewhat cloyed, Prince, shuddering as he did so, passed him a mug of weak beef tea. The creature s eyes were alight with a sombre frenzy, which blazed and waned with every mouthful. There was very little skin to the face. The face, for that matter, sunken and emaciated, bore very little likeness to human coun- tenance. Frost after frost had bitten deeply, each depositing its stratum of scab upon the half-healed scar that went before. This dry, hard surface was of a bloody-black color, serrated by grievous cracks wherein the raw red flesh peeped forth. His skin garments were dirty and in tatters, and the fur of one side was singed and burned away, showing where he had lain upon his fire. Malemute Kid pointed to where the sun-tanned hide had been cut away, strip by strip, the grim signature of famine. Who are you ? slowly and distinctly enunciated the Kid. The man paid no heed. Where do you come from? Yan-kee ship come down de ri-lb-er, was the quavering response. Dont doubt the beggar came down the river, the Kid said, shaking him in an endeavor to start a more lucid flow of talk. But the man shrieked at the contact, clapping a. hand to his side in evident pain. He rose slowly to his feet, half leaning on the table. She laughed at me so with the hate in her eye; and she would not come. His voice died away, and he was sink- ing back, when Malemute Kid gripped him by the wrist and shouted, Who? Who would not come? She, Unga. She laughed, and struck at me, so, and so. And then -. Yes ? An Odyssey pf the North. 89 And then And then what? And then he lay very still, in the snow, a long time. He is still in the snow. The two men looked at each other helplessly. Who is in the snow? She, Unga. She looked at me with the hate in her eye, and then Yes, yes. And then she took the knife, so; and once, twice she was weak. I traveled very slow. And there is much gold in that place, very much gold. Where is Unga? For all Male- mute Kid knew, she might be dying a mile away. He shook the man savage- ly, repeating again and again, Where is Unga? She is in the snow. Go on! The Kid was pressing his wrist cruelly. So I would be in the snow but I had a debt to pay. ItwasheavyIhad adebtto pay adebt to pay I had The faltering monosyllables ceased, as he fumbled in his pouch and drew forth a buckskin sack. Adebttopayfive pounds of gold grub stake MalemLlteKidI.. The exhausted head dropped upon the table; nor could Malemute Kid rouse it again. It s Ulysses, he said quietly, toss- ing the bag of dust on the table. Guess it s all day with Axel Gunderson and the woman. Come on, let s get him be- tween the blankets. He s Indian: he 11 pull through, and tell a tale besides. As they cut his garments from him, near his right breast could be seen two unhealed, hard-lipped knife thrusts. III. I will talk of the things which were, in my own way; but you will under- stand. I will begin at the beginning, and tell of myself and the woman, and, after that, of the man. He of the Otter Skins drew over to the stove as do men who have been de- prived of fire and are afraid the Prome- thean gift may vanish at any moment. Malemute Kid pricked up the slush lamp, and placed it so its light might fall upon the face of the narrator. Prince slid his body over the edge of the bunk and joined them. I am Naass, a chief, and the son of a chief, born between a sunset and a rising, on the dark seas, in my fathers oomiak. All of a night the men toiled at the paddles, and the women cast out the waves which threw in upon us, and we fought with the storm. The salt spray froze upon my mothers breast till her breath passed with the passing of the tide. But I, I raised my voice with the wind aimd the storm, and lived. We dwelt in Akatan Where? asked Malemute Kid. Akatan, which is in the Aleutians; Akatan, beyond Chiguik, beyond Kar- dalak, beyond Unimak. As I say, we dwelt in Akatan, which lies in the midst of the sea on the edge of the world. We farmed the salt seas for the fish, the seal, and the otter; and our homes shoul- dered about one another on the rocky strip between the rim of the forest and the yellow beach where our kayaks lay. We were not many, and the world was very small. There were strange lands to the east, islands like Akatan; so we thought all the world was islands, and did not mind. I was different from my people. In the sands of the beach were the crooked timbers and wave-warped planks of a boat such as my people never built; and I remember on the point of the island which overlooked the ocean three ways there stood a pine tree which never grew there, smooth and straight and tall. It is said the two men came to that spot, turn about, through many days, and 90 An Odyssey qf the North. watched with the passing of the light. These two men came from out of the sea in the boat which lay in pieces on the beach. And they were white, like you, and weak as the little children when the seal have gone away and the hunters come home empty. I know of these things from the old men and the old women, who got theni from their f a- thers and mothers before them. These strange white men did not take kindly to our ways at first, but they grew strong, what of the fish and the oil, and fierce. And they built them each his own house, and took the pick of our women, and in time children came. Thus he was born who was to become the father of my fathers father. As I said, I was different from my people, for I carried the strong, strange blood of this white man who came out of the sea. It is said we had other laws in the days before these men; but they were fierce and quarrelsome, and fought with our men till there were no more left who dared to fight. Then they made themselves chiefs, and took away our old laws and gave us new ones, insomuch that the man was the son of his father, and not his mother, as our way had been. They also ruled that the son, firstborn, should have all things which were his fathers before him, and that the brothers and sisters should shift for themselves. And they gave us other laws. They showed us new ways in the catching of fish and the killing of bear which were thick in the woods; and they taught us to lay by bigger stores for the time of famine. And these things were good. But when they had become chiefs, and there were no more men to face their anger, they fought, these strange white men, each with the other. And the one whose blood I carry drove his seal spear the length of an arm through the others body. Their children took up the fight, and their childrens children; and there was great hatred between them, and black doings, even to my time, so that in each family but one lived to pass down the blood of them that went be. fore. Of my blood I was alone; of the other mans there was but a girl, Unga, who lived with her mother. Her father and my father did not come back from the fishing one night; but after- ward they washed up to the beach on the big tides, and they held very close to each other. The people wondered, because of the hatred between the houses, and the old men shook their heads and said the fight would go on when children were born to her and children to me. They told me this as a boy, till I came to be- lieve, and to look upon Unga as a foe, who was to be the mother of children which were to fight with mine. I thought of these things day by day, and when I grew to a stripling I caine to ask why this should be so. And they answered, We do not know, but that in such way your fathers did. And I marveled that those which were to come should fight the battles of those that were gone, and in it I could see no right. But the peo- ple said it must be, and I was only a stripling. And they said I must hurry, that my blood might be the older and grow strong before hers. This was easy, for I was head man, and the people looked up to me because of the deeds and the laws of my fathers, and the wealth which was mine. Any maiden would come to me, but I found none to my liking. And the old men and the mo- thers of maidens told me to hurry, for even then were the hunters bidding high to the mother of Unga; and should her children grow strong before mine, mine would surely die. Nor did I find a maiden till one night coming back from the fishing. The sunlight was lying, so, low and full in the eyes, the wind free, and the kay- aks racing with the white seas. Of a sudden the kayak of Unga came driv An Odyssey of the North. 91 ing past me, and she looked upon me, so, with her black hair flying like a cloud of night and the spray wet on her cheek. As I say, the sunlight was full in time eyes, and I was a stripliimg; but somehow it was all clear, and I knew it to be the call of kind to kind. As she whipped ahead she looked back with- in the space of two strokes, looked as only the woman Unga could look, and again I knew it as the call of kind. The people shouted as we ripped past the lazy oomiaks and left them far be- hind. But she was quick at the paddle, and my heart was like the belly of a sail, and I did not gain. The wind freshened, the sea whitened, and, leap- ing like the seals on the windward breech, we roared down the golden pathway of the sun. Naass was crouched half out of his stool, in the attitude of one driving a paddle, as be ran the race anew. Some- where across the stove he beheld the tossing kayak and the flying hair of Unga. The voice of the wind was in his ears, and its salt beat fresh upon his nostrils. But she made the shore, and ran up the sand, laughing, to the house of her mother. And a great thought came to me that night, a thought worthy of him that was chief over all the peo- ple of Akatan. So, when the moon was up, I ~vent down to the house of her mother, and looked upon the goods of Yash-Noosh, which were piled by the door, the goods of Yash-Noosh, a strong hunter who had it in mind to be the father of the children of Unga. Other young men had piled their goods there, amid taken them away again; and each young man had made a pile great- er than the one before. And I laughed to the moon and the stars, and went to my own house where my wealth was stored. And many trips I made, till my pile was greater by the fingers of one hnnd than the pile of Yash-Noosh. There were fish, dried in time sun and smoked; and forty hides of the hair seal, and half as many of the fur, and each hide was tied at the mouth and big-bellied with oil; and ten skins of bear which I killed in the woods when they came out in the spring. And there were beads and blankets and scarlet cloths, such as I got in trade from the~people who lived to the east, and who got them in trade from the people who lived still beyond in time east. And I looked upon the pile of Yash-Noosh and laughed; for I was head man in Akatan, and my wealth was greater than the wealth of all my young men, and my fathers had done deeds, and given laws, and put their names for all time in the mouths of the people. So, when the morning came, I went down to the beach, casting out of the corner of my eye at the house of the mother of Unga. My offer yet stood untouched. And the women smiled, and said sly things one to time other. I wondered, for never had such a price been offered; and that night I added more to the pile, and put beside it a kayak of well-tanned skins which never yet had swam in the sea. But in the day it was yet there, open to the laugh- ter of all men. The mother of Unga was crafty, and I grew angry at the shame in which I stood before my people. So that night I added till it became a great pile, and I hauled up my oomiak, which was of the value of twenty kayaks. And in the morning there was no pile. Then made I preparation for the wedding, and the people that lived even to the east came for the food of the feast and the potlach token. Unga was older than I by tIme age of four suns in the way we reckoned the years. I was only a stripling; but then I was a chief, and the son of a chief, and it did not matter. But a ship shoved her sails above the floor of the ocean, and grew larger with the breath of the wind. From her 92 An Odyssey of the North. scuppers she ran clear water, and the men were in haste and worked hard at the pumps. On the bow stood a mighty man, watching the depth of the water and giving commands with a voice of thunder. His eyes were of the pale blue of the deep waters, and his head was maned like that of a sea lion. And his hair was yellow, like the straw of a southern harvest or the manila rope- yarns which sailormen plait. Of late years we had seen ships from afar, but this was the first to come to the beach of Akatan. The feast was broken, and the women and children fled to the houses, while we men strung our bows and waited with spears in hand. But when the ships forefoot smelt the beach the strange men took no notice of us, being busy with their own work. With the falling of the tide they careened the schooner and patched a great hole in her bottom. So the wo- men crept back, and the feast went on. When the tide rose, the sea wan- derers kedged the schooner to deep water, and then came among us. They bore presents and were friendly; so I made room for them, and out of the largeness of my heart gave them tokens such as I gave all the guests; for it was my wedding day, and I was head man in Akatan. And he with the mane of the sea lion was there, so tall and strong that one looked to see the earth shake with the fall of his feet. He looked much and straight at Unga, with his arms folded, so, and stayed till the sun went away and the stars came out. Then he went down to his ship. After that I took Unga by the hand and led her to my own house. And there was singing and great laughter, and the women said sly things, after the manner of women at such times. Bat we did not care. Then the people left us alone and went home. The last noise had not died away, when the chief of the sea wanderers came in by the door. And he had with him black bottles, from which we drank and made merry. You see, I was only a stripling, and had lived all my days on the edge of the world. So my blood became as fire, and my heart as light as the froth that flies from the surf to the cliff. Unga sat silent among the skins in the corner, her eyes wide, for she seemed to fear. And lie with the inane of the sea lion looked upon her straight and long. Then his men came in with bundles of goods, and he piled before me wealth such as was not in all Akatan. There were guns, both large and small, and powder and shot and shell, and bright axes and knives of steel, and cunning tools, and strange things the like of which I had never seen. When he showed me by sign that it was all mine, I thought him a great man to be so free; but he showed me also that Unga was to go away with him in his ship. Do you understand? that IJnga was to go away with him in his ship. The blood of my fathers flamed hot on the sudden, and I made to drive him through with my spear. But the spirit of the bottles had stolen the life from my arm, and he took me by the neck, so, and knocked my head against the wall of the house. And I was made weak like a newborn child, and my legs would no more stand under me. Unga screamed, and she laid hold of the things of the house with her hands, till they fell all about us as he dragged her to the door. Then he took her in his great arms, and when she tore at his yellow hair laughed with a sound like that of the big bull seal in the rut. I crawled to the beach and called upon my people; but they were afraid. Only Yash-Noosh was a man, and they struck him on the head with an oar, till he lay with his face in the sand and did not move. And they raised the sails to the sound of their songs, and the ship went away on the wind. The people said it was good, for there would be no more war of the An Odyssey of the North. 93 bloods in Akatan; but I said never a word, waiting till the time of the full moon, when I put fish and oil in my kayak, and went away to the east. I saw many islands and many people, ald I, who had lived on the edge, saw that the world was very large. I talked by signs; but they had not seen a schooner nor a man with the mane of a sea lion, and they pointed always to the east. And I slept in queer places, and ate odd things, and met strange faces. Many laughed, for they thought me light of head; but sometimes old men turned my face to the light and blessed me, and the eyes of the young women grew soft as they asked me of the strange ship, and Unga, and the men of the sea. And in this manner, through rough seas and great storms, I came to Una- laska. There were two schooners there, but neither was the one I sought. So I passed on to the east, with the world growing ever larger, and in the Island of Unamok there was no word of the ship, nor in Kadiak, nor in Atognak. And so I came one day to a rocky land, where men dug great holes in the moun- tam. And there was a schooner, but not my schooner, and men loaded upon it the rocks which they dug. This I thought childish, for all the world was made of rocks; but they gave me food and set me to work. When the schooner was deep in the water, the captain gave me money and told me to go; but I asked which way he went, and he pointed south. I made signs that I would go with him; and he laughed at first, but then, being short of men, took me to help work the ship. So I came to talk after their manner, and to heave on ropes, and to reef the stiff sails in sudden squalls, and to take my turn at the wheel. But it was not strange, for the blood of my fathers was the blood of the men of the sea. I had thought it an easy task to find him I songht, once I got among his own people; and when we raised the land one day, and passed between a gateway of the sea to a port, I looked for perhaps as many schooners as there were fingers to my hands. But the ships lay against the wharves for miles, packed like so many little fish; and when I went among them to ask for a man with the mane of a sea lion, they laughed, and answered me in the tongues of many peoples. And I found that they hailed from the uttermost parts of the earth. And I went into the city to look upon the face of every man. But they were like the cod when they run thick on the banks, and I could not count them. And the noise smote upon me till I could not hear, and my head was dizzy with much movement. So I went on and on, through the lands which sang in the warm sunshine; where the harvests lay rich on the plains; and where great cities were, fat with men that lived like women, with false words in their mouths and their hearts black with the lust of gold. And all the while my people of Akatan hunted and fished, and were happy in the thought that the world was small. But the look in the eyes of Unga coming home from the fishing was with me always, and I knew I would find her when the time was met. She walked down quiet lanes in the dusk of the evening, or led me chases across the thick fields wet with the morning dew, and there was a promise in her eyes such as only the woman Unga could give. So I wandered through a thousand cities. Some were gentle and gave me food, and others laughed, and still others cursed; but I kept my tongue between my teeth, and went strange wnys and saw strange sights. Sometimes, I, who was a chief and the son of a chief, toiled for men, men rough of speech and hard as iron, who wrung gold from the sweat and sorrow of their fellow men. Yet no word did I get of my 94 An Odyssey of the North. quest, till I came hack to the sea like a homing seal to the rookeries. But this was at another port, in another country which lay to the north. And there I heard dim tales of the yellow-haired sea wanderer, and I learned that he was a hunter of seals, and that even then he was ahroad on the ocean. So I shipped on a seal schooner with the lazy Siwashes, and followed his trackless trail to the north where the hunt was then warm. And we were away weary months, and spoke many of the fleet, and heard much of the wild doings of him I sought; hut never once did we raise him ahove the sea. We went north, even to the Pribyloffs, and killed the seals in herds on the heach, and hrought their warm hodies aboard till our scuppers ran grease and blood and no man could stand upon the deck. Then were we chased hy a ship of slow steam, which fired upon us with great guns. But we put on sail till the sea was over our decks and washed them clean, and lost ourselves in a fog. It is said, at this time, while we fled with fear at our hearts, that the yellow- haired sea wanderer put into the Prihy- loffs, right to the factory, and while the part of his men held the servants of the company, the rest loaded ten thousand green skins from the salt-houses. I say it is said, hut I helieve; for in the voy- ages I made on the coast with never a meeting, the northern seas rang with his wildness and daring, till the three nations which have lands there sought him with their ships. And I heard of Unga, for the captains sang loud in her praise, and she was always with him. She had learned the ways of his people, they said, and was happy. But I knew better, knew that her heart harked hack to her own people by the yellow heach of Aka- tan. So, after a long time, I went hack to the port which is by a gateway of the sea, and there I learned that lie had gone across the girth of the great ocean to hunt for the seal to the east of the warm land which runs south from the Russian Seas. And I, who was become a sailorman, shipped with men of his own race, and went after him in the hunt of the seal. And there were few ships off that new land; but we hung on the flank of the seal pack and harried it north through all the spring of the year. And when the cows were heavy with pup and crossed the Russian line, our men grumbled and were afraid. For there was much fog, and every day men were lost in the boats. They would not work, so the captain turned the ship back toward the way it came. But I knew the yellow-haired sea wanderer was un- afraid, and would hang hy the pack, even to the Russian Isles, where few men go. So I took a boat, in the black of night, when the lookout dozed on the fokshe- head, and went alone to the warm, long hand. And I journeyed south to meet the men by Yeddo Bay, who are wild and unafraid. And the Yoshiwara girls were small, and bright like steel, and good to look upon; but I could not stop, for I knew that Unga rolled on the toss- ing floor by the rookeries of the north. The men by Yeddo Bay had met from the ends of the earth, and had neither gods nor homes, sailing under the flag of the Japanese. And with them I went to the rich beaches of Copper Island, where onr salt-piles became high with skins. And in that silent sea we saw no man till we were ready to come away. Then, one day, the fog lifted on the edge of a heavy wind, and there jammed dQwn upon us a schooner, with close in her wake the cloudy funnels of a Russian man-of-war. We fled away on the beam of the wind, with the schooner jamming still closer and plun- ging ahead three feet to our two. And upon her poop was the man with the mane of the sea lion, pressing the rails under with the canvas and laughing in his strength of life. And Unga was there, I knew her on the moment, Am Odyssey of the North. 95 but he sent her below when the cannons began to talk across the sea. As I say, with three feet to our two, till we saw the rudder lift green at every jump, and I swinging on to the wheel and cursing, with my back to the Russian shot. For we knew he had it in mind to run before us, that he might get away while we were caught. And they knocked our masts out of us till we dragged into the wind like a wounded gull; but he went on over the edge of the sky-line, he and Unga. What could we ? The fresh hides spoke for themselves. So they took us to a Russian port, and after that to a lone country, where they set us to work in the mines to dig salt. And some died, and and some did not die. Naass swept the blanket from his shoulders, disclosing the gnarled and twisted flesh, marked with the unmistak- able striations of the knout. Prince hastily covered him, for it was not nice to look upon. We were there a weary time; and sometimes men got away to the south, but they always came back. So, when we who hailed from Yeddo Bay rose in the night and took the guns from the guards, we went to the north. Arid the land was very large, with plains, soggy with water, and great forests. And the cold came, with much snow on the ground, and no man knew the way. Weary months we journeyed through the endless forest, I do not remember, now, for there was little food and often we lay down to die. But at last we came to the cold sea, and but three were left to look upon it. One had shipped from Yeddo as captain, and he knew in his head the lay of the great lands, and of the place where men may cross from one to the other on the ice. And he led us, I do not know, it was so long, till there were but t~vo. When we came to that place we found five of the strange people which live in that country, and they had dogs and skins, and we were very poor. We fought in the snow till they died, and the captain died, and the dogs and skins were mine. Then I crossed on the ice, which was broken, and once I drifted till a gale from the xvest put me upon the shore. And af- ter that, Golovin Bay, Pastilik, and the priest. Then south, south, to the warm sunlands where first I wandered. But time sea was no longer fruitful, and those who ~vent upon it after the seal went to little profit and great risk. The fleets scattered, and the captains and the men had no word of those I sought. So I turned away from the ocean which never rests, and went among the lands, where the trees, the houses, and the mountains sit always in one place and do not move. I journeyed far, and came to learn many things, even to the way of reading and writing from books. It was well I should do this, for it came upon me that Unga must know these things, and that some day, when the time was met we you understand, when the time was met. So I drifted, like those little fish which raise a sail to the wind, but cannot steer. But my eyes and my ears were open always, and I went among men who traveled much, for I knew they had but to see those I sought, to remember. At last there came a man, fresh from time mountains, with pieces of rock in which the free gold stood to the size of peas, and he had heard, he had met, he knew them. They were rich, he said, and lived in the place where they drew the gold from the ground. It was in a wild country, and very far away; but in time I came to the camp, hidden between the mountains, where men worked night and day, out of the sight of the sun. Yet the time was not come. I listened to the talk of the people. He had gone away, they had gone away, to England, it was said, in the matter of bringing men with much money together to form companies. I saw the house they had lived in; more 96 An Odyssey of the North. like a palace, such as one sees in the old countries. In the nighttime I crept in through a window that I might see in what manner lie treated her. I ~vent from room to room, and in such way thought kings and queens must live, it was all so very good. And they all said lie treated her like a queen, and many marveled as to what breed of woman she was; for there was other blood in her veins, and she was different from the women of Akatan, and no one knew her for what she was. Ay, she was a ~queen; but I was a chief, and the son of a chief, and I had paid for her an untold price of skin and boat and bead. But why so many words? I was a sailorman, and knew the way of the ships on the seas. I followed to Eng- land, and then to other countries. Some- times I heard of them by word of mouth, sometimes I read of them in the papers; yet~ never once could I come by them, for they had much money, and traveled fast, while I was a poor man. Then came trouble upon them, and their wealth slipped away, one day, like a curl of smoke. The papers were full of it at the time; but after that nothing was said, and I knew they had gone back where more gold could be got from the ground. They had dropped out of the world, being now poor; and so I wandered from camp to camp, even north to the Koote- nay Country, where I picked up the cold scent. They had come and gone, some said this way, and some that, and still others that they had gone to the country of the Yukon. And I went this way, and I went that, ever journeying from place to place, till it seemed I must grow weary of the world which was so large. But in the Kootenay I traveled a bad trail, and a long trail, with a breed of the Northwest, who saw fit to die when the famine pinched. He had been to the Yukon by an unknown way over the mountains, and when he knew his time was near gave me the map and the secret of a place where lie swore by his gods there was much gold. After that all the world began to flock into the north. I was a poor man; I sold myself to be a driver of dogs. The rest you know. I met him and her in Dawson. She did not know me, for I was only a stripling, and her life had been large, so she had no time to remem- ber the one who had paid for her an untold price. So? You bought me from my term of service. I went back to bring things about in my own way; for I had waited long, and now that I had my hand upon him was in no hurry. As I say, I had it in mind to do my own way; for I read back in my life, through all I had seen and suffered, and remembered the cold and hunger of the endless forest by the Russian Seas. As you know, I led him into the east, him and Unga, into the east where many have gone and few returned. I led them to the spot where the bones and the curses of men lie with the gold which they may not have. The way was long and the trail unpacked. Our dogs were many and ate much; nor could our sleds carry till the break of spring. We must come back before the river ran free. So here and there we cached grub, that our sleds might be lightened and there be no chance of famine on the back trip. At the McQuestion there were~ three men, and near them we built a cache, as also did we at the Mayo, where was a hunt- ing-camp of a dozen Pellys which had crossed the divide from the south. After that, as we went oii into the east, we saw no men; only the sleeping river, the moveless forest, and fhe White Silence of the North. As I say, the way was long and the trail unpacked. Sometimes, in a days toil, we made no more than eight miles, or ten, and at night we slept like dead men. And never once did they dream that I was Naass, head man of Akatan, the righter of wrongs. An Odyssey of the North. 97 We now made smaller caches, and in the nighttime it was a small matter to go back on the trail we had broken, and change them in such way that one might deem the wolverines the thieves. Again, there be places where there is a fall to the river, and the water is unruly, and the ice makes above and is eaten away beneath. In such a spot the sled I drove broke through, and the dogs; and to him and Unga it was ill luck, but no more. And there was much grub on that sled, and the dogs the strongest. But he laughed, for he was strong of life, and gave the dogs that were left little grub till we cut them from the har- nesses, one by one, and fed them to their mates. We would go home light, he said, traveling and eating from cache to cache, with neither dogs nor sleds; which was true, for our grub was very short, and the last dog died in the traces the night we came to the gold and the bones and the curses of men. To reach that place, and the map spoke true, in the heart of the great mountains, we cut ice steps against the wall of a divide. One looked for a valley beyond, but there was no valley; the snow spread away, level as the great harvest plains, and here and there about us mighty mountains shoved their white heads among the stars. And midway on that strange plain which should have been a valley, the earth and the snow fell away, straight down toward the heart of the world. Had we not been sailormen our heads would have swung round with the sight; but we stood on the dizzy edge that we might see a way to get down. And on one side, and one side only, the wall had fallen away till it was like the slope of the decks in a topsail breeze. I do not know why this thing should be so, but it was so. It is the mouth of hell, he said; let us go down. And we went down. And on the bottom there was a cabin, built by some man, of logs which he had cast down from above. It was VOL. LXXXV. NO. 507. 7 a very old cabin; for men had died there alone at different times, and on pieces of birch bark which were there we read their last words and their curses. One had died of scurvy; anothers part- ner had robbed him of his last grub and powder and stolen away; a third had been mauled by a bald-face grizzly; a fourth had hunted for game and starved, and so it went, and they had been loath to leave the gold, and had died by the side of it in one way or another. And the worthless gold they had ga- thered yellowed the floor of the cabin like in a dream. But his soul was steady, and his head clear, this man I hind led thus far. We have nothing to eat, he said, and we will only look upon this gold, and see whence it comes and how much there be. Then we will go away quick, be- fore it gets into our eyes and sten~s away our judgment. And in this way we may return in the end, with more grub, and possess it all. So we looked upon the great vein, which cut the wall of tbe pit as a true vein should; and we mea- sured it, and traced it from above and below, and drove the stakes of the claims and blazed the trees in token of our rights. Then, our knees shaking with lack of food, and a sickness in our bel- lies, and our hearts chugging close to our mouths, we climbed the mighty wall for the last time and turned our faces to the back trip. The last stretch we dragged Unga between us, and we fell often, but in the end we made the cache. And lo, there was no grub. It was well done, for he thought it the wolverines, and damned them and his gods in the one breath. But Unga was brave, and smiled, and put her hand in his, till I turned away that I might hold myself. We will rest by the fire, she said, till morning, and we will gather strength from our moccasins. So we cut the tops of our moccasins in strips, and boiled them half of the night, that we might chew them 98 An Odyssey of the North. and swallow them. And in the morn- ing we talked of our chance. The next cache was five days journey; we could not make it. We must find game. We will go forth and hunt, he said. Yes, said I, we will go forth and hunt. And he ruled that Unga stay by the fire and save her strength. And we went forth, he in quest of the moose, and I to the cache I had changed. But I ate little, so they might not see in me much strength. And in the night he fell many times as he drew into camp. And I too made to suffer great weakness, stumbling over my snowshoes as though each step might be my last. And we gathered strength from our moccasins. He was a great man. His soul lift- ed his body to the last; nor did he cry aloud, save for the sake of Unga. On the second day I followed him, that I might not miss the end. And he lay down to rest often. That night lie was near gone; but in the morning he swore weak- ly and went forth again. He was like a drunken man, and I looked many times for him to give up; but his was the strength of the strong, and his soul the soul of a giant, for he lifted his body through all the weary day. And he shot two ptarmigan, but would not eat them. He needed no fire; they meant life;. but his thought was for Unga, and he turned toward camp. He no longer walked, but crawled on hand and knee through the snow. I came to him, and read death in his eyes. Even then it was not too late to eat of the ptarmigan. He cast away his rifle, and carried the birds in his mouth like a dog. I walked by his side, upright. And lie looked at me during the moments he rested, and wondered that I was so strong. I could see it, though he no longer spoke; and when his lips moved, they moved with- out sound. As I say, he was a great man, and my heart spoke for softness; but I read back in my life, and remem bered the cold and hunger of the endless forest by the Russian Seas. Besides, Unga was mine, and I had paid for her an untold price of skin and boat and bead. And in this manner we caine through the white forest, with the silence heavy upon us like a damp sea mist. And the ghosts of the past were in the air and all about us; and I saw the yellow beach of Akatan, and the kayaks racing home from the fishing, and the houses on the rim of the forest. And the men who had made themselves chiefs were there, the lawgivers whose blood I bore, and whose blood I had wedded in Unga. Ay, and Yashi-Noosh walked with me, the wet sand in his hair, and his war spear, broken as he fell upon it, still in his hand. And I knew the time was met, and saw in the eyes of Unga the promise. As I say, we came thus through the forest, till the smell of the camp smoke was in our nostrils. And I bent above him, and tore the ptarmnigan from his teeth. He turned on his side and rested, the wonder mounting in his eyes, and the hand which was under slipping slow toward the kmiife at his hip. But I took it from him, smiling close in his face. Even then lie did not understand. So I made to drink from black bottles, and to build high upon the snow a pile of goods, and to live again the things which happened on the night of my marriage. I spoke no word, but he understo~d. Yet was he unafraid. There was a sneer to his lips, and cold anger, and lie gathered new strength with the know- ledge. It was not far, but the snow was deep, and he dragged himself very slow. Once, he lay so long, I tuirned 1dm over and gazed into his eyes. And sometimes he looked forth, and sometimes death. And when I loosed him he struggled on again. In this way we came to the fire. Unga was at his side on the instant. His lips moved, without sound; then he point- ed at me, that Unga might understand. An Odyssey of t1~e NortI~. 99 And after that he lay in the snow, very still, for a long while. Even now is he there in the snow. I said no word till I had cooked the ptarmigan. Then I spoke to her in her own tongue, which she had not heard in many years. She straightened herself, so, and her eyes were wonder-wide, and she asked who I was, and where I had learned that speech. I am Naass, I said. - You ? she said. You ? And she crept close that she might look upon me. Yes, I answered; I am Naass, head man of Akatan, the last of the blood, as you are the last of the blood. And she laughed. By all the things I have seen and the deeds I have done, may I never hear such a laugh again. It put the chill to my soul, sitting there in the White Silence, alone with death and this woman who laughed. Come! I said, for I thought she wandered. Eat of the food and let us be gone. It is a far fetch from here to Akatan. But she shoved her face in his yel- low mane, and laughed till it seemed the heavens must fall about our ears. I had thought she would be overjoyed at the sight of me, and eager to go back to the memory of old times; but this seemed a strange form to take. Come! I cried, taking her strong by the hand. The way is long and dark. Let us hurry! Where? she asked, sitting up, and ceasing from her strange mirth. To Akatan, I answered, intent on the light to grow on her face at the thought. But it became like his, with a sneer to the lips, and cold anger. Yes, she said; we will go, hand in hand, to Akatan, you and I. And we will live in the dirty huts, and eat of the fish and oil, and bring forth a spawn, a spawn to be proud of all the days of our life. We will forget the world and be happy. very happy. It is good, most good. Come! Let us hurry. Let us go back to Akatan. And she ran her hand through his yellow hair, and smiled in a way which was not good. And there was no promise in her eyes. I sat silent, and marveled at the strangeness of woman. I went back to the night when he dragged her from me, and she screamed and tore at his hair, at his hair which now she played with and would not leave. Then I re- membered the price and the long years of waithig; and I gripped her close, and dragged her away as he had done. And she held back, even as on that night, and fought like a she-cat for its whelp. And when the fire was between us and the man, I loosed her, and she sat and listened. And I told her of all that lay between, of all that had hap- pened me on strange seas, of all that I had done in strange lands; of my weary quest, and the hungry years, and the promise which had been mine from the first. Ay, I told all, even to what had passed that day between the man and me, and in the days yet young. And as I spoke I saw the promise grow in her eyes, full and large like the break of dawn. And I read pity there, the ten- derness of woman, the love, the heart and the soul of Unga. And I was a striphing again, for the look was the look of Unga as she ran up the beach, laughing, to the home of her mother. The stern unrest was gone, and the hun- ger, and the weary waiting. The time was met. I felt the call of her breast, and it seemed there I must pillow my head and forget. She opened her arms to me, and I came against her. Then, sudden, the hate flamed in her eye, her hand was at my hip. And once, twice, she passed the knife. Dog! she sneered, as she flung me into the snow. Swine! And then she laughed till the silence cracked, and went back to her dead. As I say, once she passed the 100 Notes on a ificidgan Lumber Town. knife, and twice; but she was weak with hunger, and it was not meant that I should die. Yet was I minded to stay in that place, and to close my eyes in the last long sleep with those whose lives had crossed with mine and led my feet on unknown trails. But there lay a debt upon me which would not let me rest. And the way was long, the cold bitter, and there was little grub. The Pellys had found no moose, and had robbed my cache. And so had the three white men; but they lay thin and dead in their cabin as I passed. After that I do not remember, till I came here, and found food and fire, much fire. As he finished, he crouched closely, even jealously, over the stove. For a long while the slush-lamp shadows played tragedies upon the wall. But Unga! cried Prince, the vision still strong upon him. Unga? She would not eat of the ptarmigau. She lay with her arms about his neck, her face deep in his yellow hair. I drew the fire close, that she might not feel the frost; but she crept to the other side. And I built a fire there; yet it was little good, for she would not eat. And in this manner they still lie up there in the snow. And you? asked Malemute Kid. I do not know; but Akatan is small, and I have little wish to go back and live on the edge of the world. Yet is there small use in life. I can go to Constantine, and he will put irons upon me, and one day they will tie a piece of rope, so, and I will sleep good. Yet no; Idonotknow. But, Kid, protested Prince, this is murder! Hush! commanded Malemute Kid. There be things greater than our wisdom, beyond our justice. The right and the wrong of this we cannot say, and it is not for us to judge. Naass drew yet closer to the fire. There was a great silence, and in each mans eyes many pictures came and went. Jack London. NOTES ON A MICHIGAN LUMBER TOWN. I. HELEN suggests a sign manual for Alpena. It consists, she says, of a whitefish natant, three beavers mordant, and a pine tree statant. Good, say I; for the whitefish first enticed the Lake Huron fisherman to Thunder Bay; the beaver, yielding his skin an unwilling sacrifice to Indian trappers, made Al- pena a trading post; and the pine, as in all that southern peninsula of Michigan, attracted an army of sturdy woodsmen. This, strange to tell, was but fifty years ago. The early surveyors, through incompetency or intrigue, had charted the Thunder Bay country as a Great Northern Swamp. Men skilled in agri- culture saw nothing there but bugs and sand. The railways, hastening west- ward and coaxing immigration into the Mississippi Valley, merely skirted the southern borderland of Michigan; in- deed, they seemed set, heart and soul, upon inducing people to live as far as possible from the seaboard, so as to sell them the longer and the costlier tickets when they traveled to and fro. So the northern part of the lower peninsula received, with Oregon, the stigma of worthlessness. Its Marcus Whitman was the tall white pine. Was ever beginning more humble? Where the city of Alpena now rolls up

100 Notes on a ificidgan Lumber Town. knife, and twice; but she was weak with hunger, and it was not meant that I should die. Yet was I minded to stay in that place, and to close my eyes in the last long sleep with those whose lives had crossed with mine and led my feet on unknown trails. But there lay a debt upon me which would not let me rest. And the way was long, the cold bitter, and there was little grub. The Pellys had found no moose, and had robbed my cache. And so had the three white men; but they lay thin and dead in their cabin as I passed. After that I do not remember, till I came here, and found food and fire, much fire. As he finished, he crouched closely, even jealously, over the stove. For a long while the slush-lamp shadows played tragedies upon the wall. But Unga! cried Prince, the vision still strong upon him. Unga? She would not eat of the ptarmigau. She lay with her arms about his neck, her face deep in his yellow hair. I drew the fire close, that she might not feel the frost; but she crept to the other side. And I built a fire there; yet it was little good, for she would not eat. And in this manner they still lie up there in the snow. And you? asked Malemute Kid. I do not know; but Akatan is small, and I have little wish to go back and live on the edge of the world. Yet is there small use in life. I can go to Constantine, and he will put irons upon me, and one day they will tie a piece of rope, so, and I will sleep good. Yet no; Idonotknow. But, Kid, protested Prince, this is murder! Hush! commanded Malemute Kid. There be things greater than our wisdom, beyond our justice. The right and the wrong of this we cannot say, and it is not for us to judge. Naass drew yet closer to the fire. There was a great silence, and in each mans eyes many pictures came and went. Jack London. NOTES ON A MICHIGAN LUMBER TOWN. I. HELEN suggests a sign manual for Alpena. It consists, she says, of a whitefish natant, three beavers mordant, and a pine tree statant. Good, say I; for the whitefish first enticed the Lake Huron fisherman to Thunder Bay; the beaver, yielding his skin an unwilling sacrifice to Indian trappers, made Al- pena a trading post; and the pine, as in all that southern peninsula of Michigan, attracted an army of sturdy woodsmen. This, strange to tell, was but fifty years ago. The early surveyors, through incompetency or intrigue, had charted the Thunder Bay country as a Great Northern Swamp. Men skilled in agri- culture saw nothing there but bugs and sand. The railways, hastening west- ward and coaxing immigration into the Mississippi Valley, merely skirted the southern borderland of Michigan; in- deed, they seemed set, heart and soul, upon inducing people to live as far as possible from the seaboard, so as to sell them the longer and the costlier tickets when they traveled to and fro. So the northern part of the lower peninsula received, with Oregon, the stigma of worthlessness. Its Marcus Whitman was the tall white pine. Was ever beginning more humble? Where the city of Alpena now rolls up Notes on a Jifichigan Lumber Town. 101 its trailing clouds of pale blue smoke, a dank morass, snarled with fallen timber, wallowed beneath the primeval forest. Upon the border of the swamp, in mid- winter time, eighty miles from the near- est settlement, the pioneer lumber folk built their rude cabin. They had blan- kets at the windows in lieu of glass. Their door swung on leathern hinges. Men threaded the woods with snow- shoes, hunting, trapping, and looking for pine. A broken tribe of Indians, who called the white man chimokomon, held drunken powwows at the mouth of the river. Once a week the United States mail, in charge of a couple of half-breeds, came through on tra~neaux drawn by dogs. Settlers followed the traineaux with packs on their backs. In those days, if you fell ill of typhoid or malaria, a brave Mother Brickerdyke would tend you as best she could; if your case became desperate, men would swathe you in blankets, and take you in a sailboat to Thunder Bay Island, put you aboard the next steamer that hap- pened by, carry you to Bay City, and telegraph to Detroit for a physician. And yet, despite all those hardships, the roar of the wind-blown pines echoed out through Michigan, enticing newcomers. Four kinds of men flocked into Al- pena, i- traders, fishermen, land-lookers, and lumbermen. The knavish traders brought in rum, and took out furs; they dealt with the red man; and now, when the red man has montapied, the fur trade is soundly done for. Every year my friend Shannon buys some two thou- sand dollars worth of skins, bear, mink, coon, muskrat, wild cat, lynx, and otter, and ships them all away; but what, pray, is that to the old-time hunt- ing of the dispossessed and disappearing savage? Alpena and the thought is significant was anciently an Indian burying ground! To-day, dig down where you will through the sawdust and slabs, and there, with pipe, tomahawk, and rusted pistol, lo, the poor Indian! Fishing fared better than trading. Many a white-sailed schooner, listed hard to leeward by the breezes of Thunder Bay, went swinging her nets to the crystalline deeps, to gather them up filled near to bursting, while the slant-winged gulls clustered eagerly about. Yet so scant regard had the men for the days to come that they spoiled the bay by well-nigh fishing it out. Miles upon miles of seines are now set and lifted by tug- boats; the fishing grounds are replen- ished by the government hatchery; and the demand for fish is keener than ever; what was once the poor mans salted food has become, thanks to quick trans- portation, the rich mans dainty. When, in turn, the land-looker arrived in Al- pena, you found him a man with a beam in his eye. Wherever he went he saw standing pine. He came to prospect; he remained to inspect. For while origi- nally the land-looker went out to draught minutes, noting the whereabouts of valuable timber, his chief present func- tion is to detect wily trespassing. But the great newcomer, the man of large promise, was always the lumberman. The year 1861 brought a most bene- ficent catastrophe. Civil war, lifting gold to a towering premium, turned a single yellow coin to two and a half dol- lars in green paper, which, exchanged for Michigan scrip, more than doubled its value again. Accordingly, an acre of government land could be bought for some eighteen cents. Hence an inrush- ing of eager investors, chiefly from New York and New England. Helen, I fancy, might quarter the greenback along with the rest of her charming heraldic em- blems. Here, then, though tardy enough in coming, were all the resources ma- terial, industrial, persona], and financial for making a city. A city, therefore, was made forthwith, made at the mouth of Thunder Bay River, and there made chiefly of sawdust. Sawdust filled in the swamp; sawdust graded the streets; 102 Notes on a Michigan Lumber Town. sawdust extended the beach out into the lake; sawdust, inclosed within rows of piles, made huge piers or quays, where the busy dockwalloper shoves the lum- ber aboard ship. But for the tall, fum- ing refuse-consumers, steadily burning the pulverized plank, there would be a sawdust mountain, like that at Che- boygan, sixty feet in height and ten acres in area. Until twelve years ago the rumble of a wheel or the beat of a hoof was never heard in Alpena. Now they have roadways of round cedar blocks, affording an astonishing appear- ance, as if paved with pancakes. That is a forward step. For the sawdust pave- ments blew in at one window and out at the other, till you never knew whether you were at home or abroad. And pul- verized plank underfoot meant plank upon plank overhead; Alpena was built of wood, and the wood took fire. Twice the city burned to the ground. Then caine brick; and the present Alpena is a waste of two-story brick shops and two- story frame dwellings, level and feature- less as East London, save for those tow- ering sawdust - burners and the reeking chimneys and smokestacks. If such is the secular look of the city, what, pray, is its secular life? Origi- nally a lumber camp, Alpena became a mill town. To-day it is both. Year by year the camps have moved inland; and though the logs now travel sixty miles to the city, the same men work by turns iii the woods and the sawmills. Not to know the camps is not to know Alpena. Accordingly, the calendar of Alpena begins in October. It is then the woods- man dons his Mackinaw jacket (a merry Norfolk coat of coarse party-colored stuff, with a gorgeous barbaric pattern), packs his turkey, shoulders his cant hook and double-bitted axe, and makes for the wilds, there to remain (unless perchance lie jumps his job ) until the following spring. Now, these in brief are the ways of the camp. Law proceeds from the office, where dwell the superintendent and his mate the bookkeeper, who wear white collars and maintain a tablecloth. Mi- nor heroes, the foremen, enforce their edicts. At five, at the blast of the chore- boys horn, all hands turn out, to gather about the long breakfast tables in the cooking camp. There, as at every meal, dead silence reigns. One treats these men like children. One has to. ralking, they joke; joking, they romp, and the air will be filled with tin cups, blackstrap, white beans, and salt mule. Breakfast over, the days work is on, with the singing of the crosscut saw, the crash of the falling pine, the ring of the axe. Heavy horses or oxen draw a brace of huge wheels for hauling. (This is the Michigan buggy.) Paths open out through the woods to the pro- strate tree trunks. Immense rollers pass up the skids to be loaded on wagons or sledges. With the horn again for dinner and the toil again till dark, so runs the day. Then follows an evening of jovial hi- larity, and many a log shanty reels and shakes while the men play scuddy and shovel the brogue. Squatting in a wide circle, they beat the person of their chosen victim with an old potato hid in a sock. TIme victim, struck from behind, must detect his assailant, which is by no means easy, as the elusive old potato keeps making the round of the ring. After the game, why not a fight, just to see who s the best man And then, why not a song? The Lum- bermans Alphabet! cries a leading spirit, and starts the tune, which is sung with great vigor: A is the Axe, as you very well know, B is.cs Boys who can swing it al-so, C is for Chopping, which now does begin, D is the Danger that we are all in, E is the Echo that through the woods rang, F is the Foreman who headed our gang, and so on and on, with G for the Grind- stone, J for the Jobber, M for ones Mending, while Notes on a lilicliigan Lumber Town. 103 0 is the Owl that hooted at night, P is the Pine, which we always fell right; and more yet, with Q f or Quarrels, R for the River, and S for the Sleighs; the whole concluding with a touch of primi- tive poetry: W is the Wood we left in the spring, And on the way home we conid hear the birds sing. But whatever the evenings sport, scuddy, fight, song, or poker, the horn blows curfew at nine and the lights go out; unless, of course, it be Saturday night or the night of a stag dance. And of all odd spectacles, pike poles and pevie hooks! that is the oddest. Fe- rocious, unshaven woodsmen, hats on and coats off, prancing through a qua- drille, in yellow shoe pacs or Dutch socks and trousers cut pompadour, while a fiddle wails forth a highly Gregorian melody! Occasionally a lumbermans dance comes off in a neighboring f arm- house, and then the countrywomen as- semble from miles around. Sterling, the cedar king, gives testimony of thirteen babies stowed in one bed, and mean- while such an orgy as would scare the last witch from the Brocken. Day has also its frolics, chiefly practical jests, both gentle and cruel, though mainly the latter. And yet, for all the lumbermans rough jocularity, his heart is right. Once the forest harbored fugitives from justice ; but the railroad brought the sheriff, the sheriff brought the law, and law brings decency. Be- sides, as at sea and on the plains, the open air breathes a spirit of chivalry. Suppose a man affronts a waitress: twen- ty defenders leap to their feet. Suppose a poor fellow is hurt: round goes the hat. What is more, two comrades will drop their work and take him sixty miles to the doctor. And, sad to tell, there is need enough for that sort of sympathy. Woodman, says Helen, who, in spite of my earnest remonstrance, never veri- fies her quotations, Woodman, spare that toe! A fine hero, no doubt, is this man of the forest, a brave and a generous soul; but nevertheless, as in the case of Mr. Burgesss impurpled heifer, I d rather see than be one. For, roundly outdoing that sly humorists confessed preference for fingers rather than toes, the lumberman does his best to dispense with both. What are left by the woods are claimed by the mill. Millward tends the camping crew as winter verges toward spring. Brand- ed logs, heaped high on the banking grounds, await the drive. Freshets deep- en the river. Dams let loose the flood. The camp is abandoned. Then it is breaking the rollers, wading in cork boots in icy water, taking off the rear, baldheading, pigtailing, shoving the deadhead, tying up the drive at night, and eating and sleeping in a tented raft called a wangan. Out of the drive comes the boom, a sort of informal float inclosed by logs firmly chained together; and the boom goes to town. After the drive the mill, and the mill till autumn again. Up the slant of the endless chain go the dripping boom- sticks, to be measured at a stroke of the logarithmic scaling rod, and to enter the sawmill. Carriages, bright with red and green lanterns and manned by a squad of motor drivers, rush to and fro, seizing the logs as they come from the kickers and niggcrs, clamping them tight to their sides, and dashing them headlong into the band mill or circular saw. Cleft into planks, the lum- ber darts away across the live rollers, to mount the horse car and be trundled along an elevated railway, and added at last to the slanting piles that groan upon the pier. Oh, the charm and beauty of the mill, its dim light, its eager fig- ures, its excited motion, its daring, its shrieking saws, its color tone all brought to a soft, harmonious brown, a scene, in truth, for Rudyard Kipling! So ends the round of the year, a happy year, full of change and zestful 104 Notes on a lli/ichigan Lumber Town. incident. But how, think you, do these wild woodsmen abide being tied to the tongue of the mill bell? Never a choice have they. As with every kind of man who gets paid in the lump, whether sea- man or soldier or miner, the forester lacks the faculty of retention. The win- ters wage is quickly gone. A new suit of clothes, a dice game over the bar, a glad reunion with old friends, an ex- uberance of generosity, a solid week of reckless gayety! One thing alone the lumberman keeps, and that is his health. Of the Michigan volunteers who served through the Spanish war, the men from the logging camps fared best. They di- gested the embalmed beef with infi- nite relish. Salt mule in the woods had tutored their stomachs. The stomach, I think, is the seat of the labor problem. Educate the stomach, and you head off strikes and lockouts. Alpena knows nothing of industrial un- rest, has never witnessed an uprising of workingmen, suffers nothing from trades unions. There is practically no class of unemployed. The poorhouse is almost tenantless. When the hard times approached, the capitalists called a meet- ing and agreed to keep all the mills run- ning; the banks stood back of the capi- talists; the men submitted to a ten per cent cut; and the lumber lay piled in Cleveland and Chicago and Tonawanda till universal prosperity returned. II. We were standing at evening twilight in the Court of Honor at the Worlds Fair. It was the still hour of pause be- tween the excitement of the day and the ruddy gayety of the night. One looked forth upon dim white colonnades, upon fairy towers and domes, and upon inter- minable lines of soft yellow lights just beginning to pulse and quiver in the mir- ror lagoon. It was then snore than at any other time, before or since, that the wonder of America its wealth, its power, its plenty, its infinite, exuberant resourcefulness filled the imagination with inexpressible delight and gratitude. Helens eyes met mine, but before she could speak a peal of chimes rang out from an unseen belfry, Praise God, from whom all blessings flow. Have they of Alpena any similar re- ligious interpretation of their material advancement? Thank God, they have. Thronging into Michigan froni New England and New York, the Wolverines brought with them the faith of their old home. Churches lifted their spires above the tall pine crests; bells echoed across Thunder Bay ; Alpena gave thanks. Later and I know no sadder story Alpena evolved a new religion. It is with no censorious aim that I set that awful business on record. The Christ of Alpena illustrates an inex- orable spiritual law. It is only in the Paradiso that living man treads the courts of heaven: the saint bears watch- ing; the perfectionist, of all souls, stands most imperiled. So, when a group of devout women proclaimed in Alpena a novel dispensation whereby human life should be wholly purged of sin, you could see the end from the beginning. The Church Triumphant they styled it. A woman declared herself the bride of Christ. A stripling preacher became her apostolic advocate. After a time the woman died, and the faithful swore allegiance to the man who permitted him- self to be called the Returned Christ. He did not convert them; they converted him. Yet I cannot hold him innocent. He wore a double-pointed beard; he worked at the carpenters bench; he performed wonderful cures; and al- though, fearing the people, he never openly claimed Messiahship, he fostered a strange delusion. A hundred disciples left all and followed. In five other com- munities the Church Triumphant found lodgment, and the delusion was spread in all that forest land. Then was this Christ a knave? I think not, at least, not wholly. The Notes on a lifichigan Lumber Town. 105 spiritual power of the Christ of Al- pena led many a trusting soul to the very sunlit summits of religious exalta- tion. Be ye therefore perfect, said he, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. Here, then, lay the secret, the secret alike of success and of failure: of success, because that perfervid mystic instinct of the religious mind, which yearns eagerly for a higher and yet higher realization of moral possibilities, laid hold of a new and golden key to paradise; of failure, because it is on this wise that even the angel of the Most High falls like lightning from heaven. The Christ of Alpena has since confessed his delusion; but the sect still exists, though greatly diminished in num- bers. And while, of course, the Church Triumphant is by no means broadly re- presentative of the religious life of Al- pena, Alpena produced it, Alpena fos- tered it, and it remains the most star- tling fact in the spiritual history of the Wolverines. Nevertheless, the really po- tent factors in the higher life of Alpena are, and have always been, the great denominations transplanted unchanged from New York and New England. But the main issue is not one of ab- stract doctrine; rather one of practical realization. Trace the three dimensions of personality as drawn by Phillips Brooks: length, selfhood; breadth, bro- therhood; height, devotion. Thus mea- sured, Alpena is long and narrow, and none too tall. Self predominates. An intense indi- vidualism drove up the man from the old home to the new. Nothing less could have moved him. Coming to Michigan, he chose the southern peninsula rather than the northern, because the woods meant independence, while the deep mines of copper meant lifelong servitude. The aggressive, progressive self-assertion of the best type of New Englander and New Yorker got full expression; lum- ber Jacks and dockwallopers rose to wealth; Alpena borrowed little, paid all, and literally made itself. Such men bulk big and talk large. A round score boast each the honor of earliest arrival. Turn where you will, you meet him who built the first house, or measured the first load of lumber, or cut the first log, or scaled it, or drew it. Alpena sounds its blaring trumpet on the street corner; it also discloses a mad passion for hav- ing its picture taken. Ecce ego, spontaneous me! I like that trait. It speaks of youth and ardor and strong life. I like, too, the bluff manner of men just raised from the ranks. Truce to convenance! My host sits, while I stand; half the guests in the hotel tuck their napkins round their throats, as if prepared for a shave or a shampoo; strangers unpack their inmost souls, disembosoming them- selves gratuitously of half their family history. Your faithful Alpenite sports a diamond stud with a negligee shirt, the stud for brag, the soft shirt for com- fort, the two for individualism. Coarser fellows and I like them best of all wear immense badges or buttons adorned with photographs of their sweethearts. Delicious! I have seen Tommy Atkins caressing Judy OGrady on the top of the Mile End bus; Abner Glenn sat for his tintype with his brawny arms wound close about pretty Rachel: both had their hearts on their sleeves. So be it, say I; but here struts a man with his heart in his buttonhole. In quite this boyish spirit the errant chevalier sang forth his love, when knighthood was in flower. Very parfait gentle knights are they of Alpena. The man will dress like a devilish bad fellow, slouch hat, rude clothes, loose tie; he will wear the face of a desperado; you creep when you meet him; but within I pledge you the warm and tender heart of a fine gen- tleman. Better yet, in the fight with the forest he comes forth a character. Look at Pancake Jack, Baldy Dan, Buff Brown, and Buck Beaufort, fit heroes, one and all, for Malory or Cervantes. 106 Notes on a JJlichigan Lumber Town. This, say I, is length with a daz- zling vengeance, selfhood expressed in enterprise, in independence, in commu- nicativeness, brusqueness, and delightful mendacity. What now of breadth or brotherhood? Far less. Alpena knows nothing of public spirit; indeed, plainly shows its absence, no park, no town hall, no monuments, no club, no pioneer society, and, save for the women and upstart urchins, no sort of social inter- course! A library, to be sure, there is, and its principal lack is books. Every soul in Alpena is so busily counting out his money that only the weaklings (with never a dollar to count) will serve in office or toil for progress. Suggest im- provement, and the good citizen replies in the words of the fair Lynette, Lead, and I follow. Thus selfishly deferring to one another, the Alpenites avoid the task, like the two saints of Antioch, who stood from morn till night at the door of the anchorite cell, each too ostentatiously humble to enter first. Things were not so in Sapphira, yet with all my heart I believe that those daring Montanians obeyed a similar mi- pulse of individualism. Very grand were the public buildings they built, splen- did their spirit of progress, lavish their investment of capital; but underneath lay the hope of a brilliant personal re- ward. To boom the town was to boom ones self and ones property. That is why unlettered silver kings founded li- braries. That is why garnesters gave money for churches. Had Alpena the spirit of speculation, Alpena would turn, like old Rome, from brick to marble. As it is, Alpena will do a better thing. The Turtle Railroad, when completed to Che- boygan, will bring Alpena into touch with the rest of the world. More and more frequently young men will find their way to Yale or Harvard, to Wil- liams or Amherst, and young women to Wellesley or Smith or Vassar; little by little the finer idealism of older, riper commonwealths will emerge clear and bright from the rude and self-centred secularism of pioneer life. The truth is this: Alpena is just one generation be- hind Ohio. What happened there will happen here. Already a splendid possibility grows manifest. You expected to find in Al- pena the lawlessness of irresponsibility. You said, I doubt not, that there, as in frontier cities, the tapster, the gambler, and the courtesan would hold full sway. Yet it is not so. Stories go broadcast of horrid nights in the bull-pen, of a whole winters earnings flung to naught across the green table, and of infamous stock- ades, where lost women were kenneled against their will, and chased, if escap- ing, by bloodhounds. Rarely, however, were such things really done; and to-day I know no port, no milling town, no com- mercial centre, more moral under trying circumstances than this same Alpena. These Wolverines brought with them not only the laws and the sane standards of the East, but also a sturdy conscience for their enforcement. Here throbs that dynamic vitality which, in the next gen- eration, will yield the highest social and civic results. Length, breadth, and height, the symmetry of life! What, pray, is the purely devotional genius of Alpena? It is like that which prevails in all the middle West, youthful, practical, dogmatic, straightforward, but not poetic. Look at the churches! There they have spent their treasure unstinted; sought what they prized, and secured it. There is gay color, highly secular ornament, gar- ish light, evidence everywhere of strained and crude modernity. Jackknife seats, patented in 1899, face the pulpit direct- ly, suggesting a theatre. The preacher, called by his people a hustler, boasts of his up-to-date plant. Neither in house nor in service will you find any faintest suggestion of the historic, the romantic, the symbolic. It is not in the church becaus~ it is not in the people. They lack the spiritual culture of-the im Notes on a JJlichigan Lumber Town. 107 agination; they lack the solemn sense of religious awe; in fact, they boyishly de- spise it. Religiously, Alpena is but half- grown. At twenty you chatted glibly as you walked the stately aisles of York Minster, at twenty, but not at forty. All this will change. Standing one evening in the prow of an ocean steamer, Helen and I looked back upon the reel- ing ship; watched the toplights rushing to and fro across the starless sky; saw the lanterns, green and red, plunged al- ternately into the sea till you would have thought them buried there; felt the heave and swing of the midatlantic billows; learned the sense of utter and absolute dependence. And while we mused, a broken melody caine up from the steer- age, where a group of uncouth Devon peasants were singing, Jesus Say- iour pilot me! There, says Helen, was a deeper philosophy and a nobler sentiment than even the song of the chimes in the Court of Honor. Alpena, and indeed the whole of Michigan, will learn the difference. Just now they are chanting, Praise God praise God, we did the thins. III. There are two kinds of men, says the presidenL of the Turtle Railroad, those you can stretch, and those you cant stretch. The pine man belongs to the former kind, not the latter. A doleful plaint moaned the pine man: Fur trade gone, fisheries going, pine trees far and few! Stripped of our all, we shall fall like Au Sable. See what befell there. In 1885 Au Sable had twelve thousand people; now it has one thousand, or less. Eight sawmills ran day and night; three planing mills and four salt blocks kept them company; all have ceased save one. A Jew drives a bustling trade in second-hand dwelling houses. He takes their pictures, and shows you his album. You select the house you want (formerly fifteen hun- dred dollars, cut to a hundred and fifty), and he promptly pulls it to pieces, packs it on a car or a boat, and delivers it at any address in the United States, C. 0. D. The pine man had no place with the makers of the new Alpena. Younger hearts, stronger hands, and broader minds must establish its future. And so they did. To-day, as in many another Wolverine city, two eras meet and lap over. Little is left of the elder order. The whole land is rapidly being lumbered out. Woodland fires, whose smoke turned the moon into blood and drove wolf and deer to town for shelter, have wrought a mea- sureless havoc. Forests, once dense with pine and hemlock, cedar and tamarack, are left a sorry spectacle: beneath, the underbrush; above, the gaunt, infrequent skeletons of deadened, whitened, bark- torn trees. Only the northern penin- sula lumbers as once Alpena lumbered. The camps move farther away each year. But for the hated two-dollar tariff immense rafts of boomsticks would cross Lake Huron from Canada. Mills which formerly. selected only the stoutest pine trunks now welcome the slender log, the crooked log, the rotten log, and the sunken log fished up from the river bot- tom. In place of beams for the western railway bridge or huge rafters for the Gothic church, Alpena busily turns out planks, shingles, spools, pail handles, veneering, and the wooden p& g for fur- niture. It also makes manila paper out of hemlock pulp. It brings hemlock bark to its tannery. It combs its brains for inventions to utilize by-products, as does the Chicago perk-packer. Obedient to the quaint Oxonian max- im, the younger generation and the new- comers in Alpena set their shoulders to do ye nexte thyng. Scarce had the cry of despair been heard, when brave men took heart anew. We ye a harbor, said they, the only good harbor between Bay City and the Straits of Mackinaw; no fortune can rob us of that. Moreover, there were whitefish 108 Notes on a Michigan Lumber Town. left in Thunder Bay, which scientific methods should keep undiminished in numbers. Then they looked landward, and found vast beds of marl to make Portland cement, and quarries of lime- stone to refine beet sugar. Landward, too, were lakes full of trout and pike, and wild tracts where deer and the black bear, roaming with the fox and fox squirrel, lured countless sportsmen. Then might not Alpena live (like the northern islanders) on fish and stran- gers ? Besides, there were beaches and a lovely summer climate; so, with the factory and the outing hotel, the future looked bright indeed. Yet, for all this sturdy optimism, there was never the wild prediction or the blustering boast of the man overgunned for his beam. Alpena is Eastern, not Western. However else the Michiganders of Alpena have changed in a novel envi- ronment, they preserve the patient, sub- stantial sobriety of an older civilization. You find a very Eastern deliberateness in Alpenas struggle for social and in- dustrial reconstruction. One day a load of modern fanning mills came into Thun- der Bay, and the Alpenites stared as- tounded. Aha, said the Bay City paper, we know what that portends: Alpena means to separate the sawdust from the sand! Neither Bay City nor Alpena had heard of the marvelous agricultural evolution which had all the while been in progress back in the bush, an evolution which expresses and exemplifies the noblest traits of Yankee character. Little by little, toil- ing with infinite endurance, the habi- taw (French habitant) and the moss- back had redeemed the Great North- ern Swamp. The habitaw, trapper and hunter, tested the soil at his cabin door; the ~nossback, taught by the habitaw, trod on the heels of the lumber Jack. Both brought tidings of fertile loam; both met wide-eyed incredulity; both, spite of jeering, came laden at last with grapes of Eshcol. Here was once more the indomitable hardihood which had anciently turned the Puritan or Knick- erbocker home country from forest to garden. Think what that meant in Alpena County! First you sent out the land- looker. Trusting his minutes, you turned homesteader, entering your eighty acres at the cost of a five-dollar bill; five years later a deed would be grant- ed you, to reward your improvements. You began with no other capital than muscle and axe and courage and two months provisions. You tucked a load on your back, traced a blazed line through the woods, whisked with both hands at black flies and mosquitoes, built a brush tent, and pecked away in soli- tude at roots and stumps, till your pre- cious supplies ran short. Then you re- turned to Alpena to toil in a mill till you earned enough money for another stock of provisions. Back again you hied you, and the struggle began afresh, to end as before in retreat. Three years of such hardships would make you master, and, with wife and little ones, you took proud possession. Thus came a lusty rejoinder to pine mens plaints. Worthless soil ? Go look, and see! Yet the pine men had half the fact, after all; for the land of the Michigander lies based upon lime- stone foundations, which, ground to white sand by the surging of restless waters, rolled up long, undulating ridges, as sterile as the beaches of Thunder Bay. Beg pardon, sir, said Helen, leaning out of the buggy to accost a gen- ial mossback, but is this a good farm- ing country? Nope, said he; you cant even raise an umbrella! Half a mile further on, Helen repeated her question. You bet! exclaimed the mossback. Jest tickle the airth, an you 11 raise most anything. Both were right. Between the sand ridges the disappearing swamps laid down a deep deposit of rich black muck, so fer- tile that Alpena celery now figures on the Notes on a lilichigan Lumber Town. 109 bill of fare at the Russell House in De- troit in precedence to that of Kalamazoo. As for the sand tracts, with their coarse, sparse vegetation, why, there is the place for Little Bo-Peep to pasture her flock. What a pleasant ride together through Alpena County ! pleasant save for the corduroy roads, which set us both aquiv- er, as with the old-time ague; recalling the days when they rang the church bells every half hour in Alpena to remind the settlers to take their quinine, and when sawmills (so runs the tale) were operated solely by fever-and-ague power. Curi- ous sights met our unaccustomed East- ern eyes, as we rode, log homesteads chinked with plaster, root houses half buried in the earth, sheds thatched with straw, stump-pullers (immense portable derricks) at work clearing up, frequent drains, huge mounds of cobblestones new- ly plucked out of the fields, wagons load- ed with cedar ties moving cityward, splen- did crops on every hand; so, bless you, who minded the corduroy? Here and there it is covered with gravel, and for many a long mile it gives place in the farm land to modern macadam, intro- duced by the county at a cost of a hun- dred thousand dollars. Would that the Turtle Railroad had plotted its course with like deference to agricultural ad- vancement! Now and then Helen would alight, and go tripping into a pretty dooryard to ask if the house was haunted. That mischievous query, Helen says, conquers rural timidity, and cudgels the bucolic mind into reminiscence and philosophy. Invariably the ruse succeeds. Spooks lead to hungry bears, bears to red deer seen feeding that very morning amongst the cattle, red deer to flying squirrels, flying squirrels to partridge chicks adopted by the mother bantam, the mother bantam to the price of eggs, and that in turn to crops and critters; while beyond fail the subject of crops and critters leads indoors, where flows the purple wild- grape wine. Me an my woman, says the happy farmer, callate this here county s the best in the hull state of Michigan. Now, while I cannot conscientiously call Alpena the best county in Michi- gan, I can at least say this: The fu- ture of the whole broad peninsula lay unrolled before us, while that kindly mossback talked so large. The lum- ber Jack is passing, soon will have passed forever. Farms must cover the rural tracts, factories busy the people in town, commerce supply both country and city. Such is the social and indus- trial problem of the Great Northern Swamp, and such its solution. It is a good land, full of undeveloped possibili- ties. It is a good people, faithful and industrious. We shall not ask the finer outblossoming of culture and progress yet many a day. Alpena is doing its nearest duty, getting the pot a-boil- ing. Forgiving the crudity, the hard- n~ss, the dull beautilessness of that Wol- verine life, one cannot but admire its magnificent energy and perseverance. And however devout or however secu- lar ones personal philosophy, this much remains unmistakably legible: all things are working together for good. Rollin Lynde Hartt. 110 Mother. MOTHER. MOTHER looked up as I entered the room, with my white cape falling from my shoulders. Her eyeglasses lay on a book in her lap. I think she had been asleep in her chair. Did you have a good time? she asked. Yes, I answered, better than usual. It was very informal; more talking than dancing. Every one walked home. I thought I heard some ones voice, said Mother. She did not ask whose. Mr. De Forest walked up the hill with me. You like him? asked Mother, twirling her eyeglasses in her fingers. He is interesting. He has been tell- ing me about his life in Paris, while he was an art student there. Now that reminded Mother of Trilby, which she read through to see how it caine out, and called a queer book, very. What struck me so forcibly in it its intolerance of intolerance escaped her. Mother prefers novels in which the characters are labeled good, bad, or indifferent, so that she may know where she is, and where the author is. No un- trodden paths for her, thank you! I wonder why I did not tell her what Mr. De Forest had said of his bitter strug- gles and his first gleams of success, of the sickness that brought him once to the H6tel Dieu, and the joy under it all to be living the life he was made for. I dont know when I have talked so much about myself, Miss Wynne, he had said; but something in your atmo- sphere makes me want you to see me as I am. Was I glad? Oh, I do like a man who toils, and achieves, and is willing to suf- fer for his ideals. But II did not repeat his words to Mother; instead, I tossed a couple of ornate favors into her lap. Mr. Davenport sent them to you. He says I am not so handsome as you were at my age.~~ Mother blushed, and opened her eyes wide in an odd, expressive way she has. I was well enough, she said. That organdie is very becoming, Florence. I like it better so than the way the dress- maker wanted it. It suits my style better. When I was a girl, said Mother, I never talked about my style. I had things made in the fashion. Never were two persons more unlike than Mother and I. Or is it that every- thing is different? At twenty-four she had been married four years. I am older and younger than she was then. It makes a break in the continuity of ex- perience. I do not go to Mother for ad- vice about anything that really concerns me; for she has always given me ready- made opinions, and sometimes they were worn transparent. I have had to think things out for myself; but a girl wants some companionship on that road. As a child I questioned everything. If Mother punished me, instead of cry- ing I reasoned with her. Then I went off alone and cried, where she would not see me. When she told me once that I ought to be ashamed of speaking disre- spectfully to my mother, I asked her if it was any better for her to speak dis- respectfully to her daughter. I tell her sometimes now that the last generation could have improved upon the way they brought up their children. She says her children have turned out pretty well. That is nice, nest-ce pcts ? but it s no answer! Mother acted absent-minded to-day. I found her looking over her bureau, where she keeps all sorts of old things, and there was a tear in her eye as she said she had no errand for me. It was

110 Mother. MOTHER. MOTHER looked up as I entered the room, with my white cape falling from my shoulders. Her eyeglasses lay on a book in her lap. I think she had been asleep in her chair. Did you have a good time? she asked. Yes, I answered, better than usual. It was very informal; more talking than dancing. Every one walked home. I thought I heard some ones voice, said Mother. She did not ask whose. Mr. De Forest walked up the hill with me. You like him? asked Mother, twirling her eyeglasses in her fingers. He is interesting. He has been tell- ing me about his life in Paris, while he was an art student there. Now that reminded Mother of Trilby, which she read through to see how it caine out, and called a queer book, very. What struck me so forcibly in it its intolerance of intolerance escaped her. Mother prefers novels in which the characters are labeled good, bad, or indifferent, so that she may know where she is, and where the author is. No un- trodden paths for her, thank you! I wonder why I did not tell her what Mr. De Forest had said of his bitter strug- gles and his first gleams of success, of the sickness that brought him once to the H6tel Dieu, and the joy under it all to be living the life he was made for. I dont know when I have talked so much about myself, Miss Wynne, he had said; but something in your atmo- sphere makes me want you to see me as I am. Was I glad? Oh, I do like a man who toils, and achieves, and is willing to suf- fer for his ideals. But II did not repeat his words to Mother; instead, I tossed a couple of ornate favors into her lap. Mr. Davenport sent them to you. He says I am not so handsome as you were at my age.~~ Mother blushed, and opened her eyes wide in an odd, expressive way she has. I was well enough, she said. That organdie is very becoming, Florence. I like it better so than the way the dress- maker wanted it. It suits my style better. When I was a girl, said Mother, I never talked about my style. I had things made in the fashion. Never were two persons more unlike than Mother and I. Or is it that every- thing is different? At twenty-four she had been married four years. I am older and younger than she was then. It makes a break in the continuity of ex- perience. I do not go to Mother for ad- vice about anything that really concerns me; for she has always given me ready- made opinions, and sometimes they were worn transparent. I have had to think things out for myself; but a girl wants some companionship on that road. As a child I questioned everything. If Mother punished me, instead of cry- ing I reasoned with her. Then I went off alone and cried, where she would not see me. When she told me once that I ought to be ashamed of speaking disre- spectfully to my mother, I asked her if it was any better for her to speak dis- respectfully to her daughter. I tell her sometimes now that the last generation could have improved upon the way they brought up their children. She says her children have turned out pretty well. That is nice, nest-ce pcts ? but it s no answer! Mother acted absent-minded to-day. I found her looking over her bureau, where she keeps all sorts of old things, and there was a tear in her eye as she said she had no errand for me. It was lIifot her. 111 dull downtown, no one out. Billy Fairchild drove up behind me. Let me drive you home, Miss Florence? he asked. I could not refuse my old play- mate very well. He took me around by the river road. Just as we passed the lower bridge we met Mr. De Forest climb- ing up the bank, with his sketching traps under his arm. His face is very grave in repose. I bowed. Oh, it s that painter fellow! said Billy. Would I be an artust oh! I dislike Billys mind, it is so commercial. If lie were not his fathers secretary in their big paper mill, he would probably be a drum- mer, and the men on the road would call him Billy, just as every one does now. Mother was at the door as we drove up. I ye brought her home, you see, Mrs. W~nne! cried Billy. Yes, I s~e, replied Mother. She tried to have me talk about him, this ~vening. I wish she would ask stra,ight - questions, and not make those t,~iitative approaches. Finally she said, Billy has improved lately, has nt he? Oh yes; about as much as he ever will. Have you ever thought that Billy cared a good deal about you? Lots of times. He is nothing but a boy, Mother, so dont worry. He is twenty-six. I mean he has never experienced anything! I answered impatiently. He has a good head for business, and he will step into his fathers shoes, and be able to build a h6use on that corner lot of his for his wife, and get a bald spot on top of his head at forty, and that s the end of Billy Fairchild. Well, you must nt slight your old schoolmate; he has no bad habits, said Mother. No bad habits is a negative outfit to marry on, I replied, clasping my hands behind my head. Give me a few positive qualities, please. Mother sighed. She has heard some one say that Florence Wynne is not likely to marry, she is so critical. She does not want me not to marry, but every new acquaintance she turns over nervously in her mind. Nor is it indi- vidual fitness that would have weight with her, but general qualities, family, good habits, ability to support a wife. Marriage must have been simpler in her day. If I were to tell her what I really think about such things, she would be scandalized. What is it like to have ones mother see one from the inside? Some- times once twice I have seen that, and it makes me feel commonplace; I go down before it. That, I say to myself, is a family life that I have never known, and shall never know. I remember now why Mother was sad to-day. It is the birthday of my little brother, who died years before I was born. He would have been thirty-seven, if he had lived. Those were his baby clothes she had. With all the suffering in the world, it seems as if she would have wanted some poor little child to have them; but she never likes to give things away. The soul is free, and be- yond all earthly need. Our Club met this morning, for the first time since June. We are going on with the study of modern Europe. Last sea- son I felt that I was gaining broader views of history, but at times the feeling will creep over me that it is all a self- seeking in the name of culture. Are we to go on absorbing just for ourselves? After hearing any one speak of a strenu- ous, aspiring life, as Mr. De Forest did the other night, I long for a more active stake in existence. But Mother would not like me to leave her; we talked about that once. I bring home all the anec- dotes to tell her. Mother is interested in persons, not in tendencies; she likes to read about great events, not to trace the influences underneath which shaped their channels. While I was on the veranda, this after- noon. Mr. De Forest strolled up to the 112 ijiliotiter. gate. May I come in? he asked. He seated himself on the steps, below me. He has a good face, strong, sen- sitive, manly. I like the crisp look his dark hair has at the roots. I listened in a dream while he talked of Italy as he had seen it in the early summer, sea and sky and vineyards drenched with color. Drenched was his word. He talks in snatches, with eyes and hands; sud- denly his eyes twinkled. Then my money gave out! he said. I was afraid he had no humor. I dont know why I say I was afraid; I like people who can laugh with themselves. Italy was Brownings great find, he went on. Do you know his Old Pictures in Florence? It made me feel for a sec- ond as if he had called me by name. The poet says what the artist feels, but can express only through his own medium, I ventured. That s it. Few painters write well about art, and the poet cant paint; but he knows how a conception comes to one, to torment and baffle him, in seiz- ing its essence. Art Must fumble for the whole, once fixing on a part However poor, surpass the fragment, and as- pire - To reconstruct thereby the ultimate entire. The ultimate entire! he repeated, throwing out his nervous hand; his eyes were all aglow. I d give my life for that! daily Just then Mother came out, in her quiet, almost shy way. He sprang up, and I drew forward a chair. I wanted him to go on, and to have her join in. What I said was, We were talking of one of Brownings poems, Mother. Do you enjoy Browning, Mrs. Wynne? asked Mr. De Forest. Not particularly, Mother answered. I know he is very highly spoken of, but I have never read many of his poems. We went on talking, but no more of art, little, easy, commonplace things. Mr. De Forest seemed glad to stay to tea. Mother has such a charming way at our own table, although she hates formal functions. Ours is not one of the large old colonial houses, but I saw our guests eyes rest on our old mahog- any and our two or three bits of Revo- lutionary silver. Mother will not join the D. A. H., Mr. De Forest, said I, because. she thinks that the gray-haired ladies she finds grubbing away over genealogies at the town library ought to have cared for their ancestors earlier. She says that people may remember what part her great-grandfather took in the Revolution without a framed certificate in the front hall. And with good reason! said Mo- ther proudly. We all laughed at that. Mr. De Forest has aske4 if he may make a sketch of me. Maric~n Lowe hoped he would paint her, she is ~~ather pos6e, but he says he does not e~re about mere prettiness. The study is nearly finished, and is like me with one difference: I am not beautiful, but the picture is. It fasci- nates me to see any one working with a sure touch. We love it in literature, but there we cannot watch the process. Mo- ther came in to-day. It is a good like- ness, she said; but you have made her eyebrows alike. The left one is a bit higher in the middle. So it is, and it adds character, too. You are a close observer, Mrs. Wynne. I think I ought to know how my own child looks, replied Mother. Mr. De Forest goes on to Chicago soon, to establish himself. I suppose it has been just another subject to him. No, no, it was not! He loves me, he loved me from the first; but be had his own future to make, and he was afraid I would not But it was all too strong for him; I must do with him what I would. Do you think I can help you reach Jifotlier. 113 your ultimate entire? I asked at last. I shall never reach it without you, he answered. Never mind what I said. I led him in by the hand to Mother, and when she saw us her hand went up to her throat. Mother, he is your boy now, I said. I ye lost my daughter. No, Mrs. Wynne, said Jack. Be good to me I I want her! It thrilled me unspeakably. How could she help loving him? She gave him a quick, maternal peck. Mothers kisses are like lightning; they never hit you as you expect. She thinks he is per- fect now, because he is her boy. Carrie has come home with the chil- dren for a visit. It is good of her to help me. She thinks I might have man- aged my affairs better, and she is disap- pointed because I will not have her Dick and Franks Reggie as pages at my wed- ding. I dislike to see children made a picturesque adjunct to grown peoples occasions. I am to have a quiet morn- ing wedding, with a few of our best friends. Mother says it will be very suitable. She thinks a great deal about me lately, I know. This afternoon, as we sat sewing, I saw that there was something on her mind. Of all her ex- periences, had she nothing for me now? Since I have known that Jack wants me I wish I could live my life over and make up for lost time. Finally she said, Florence? Yes, Mother dear. I have been thinking that, after all, it would be better to send to New York for the white-silk sa~mples. I shall never tell her that I cried to- night. Mothers seem to me so helpless! Oh, if girls had a richer emotional life at home, they would be happier; they would not feel so on the outside! I have been happy as things go, but if ever why should I not say it ? if I should ever have children, I would VOL. LXXXV. KO. 507. 8 not call them queer. I would try to befriend their inner life, and not think that because they were my children there was no more to be said. Mother nearly broke down when I came away. She looked so sweet in the silvery gray silk I chose to match her hair. I 11 write to-morrow, I said. Everything around me seemed distant and unreal. I have not been such a good daughter that she should miss me much. Besides, I shall come home sometimes, as Carrie does. Jack grasped me by both hands as the carriage drove off. Mine, my own! he said. He could nt wait a minute to appropriate me, could he? I wonder if a man ever realizes what it means to a woman, that it is a break with all the old life. Our little interior in one of the tall- est of tall buildings is cosily contrived. We have a large studio with an admira- ble light, a bedroom and kitchen across a tiny hall. We get our own French breakfasts, and sometimes dinners, too. Jack says it is Paris with a differ- ence. I am the difference. It was great fun to choose hangings and cush- ions for the studio. His eye for colors and textures comes high; but our com- promises show taste, at least. Mother writes to ask if I am happy in my atmo- sphere. That is clever of her, to quote Jacks pet phrases at me. Jack sold a picture at the last exhibi- tion, and has several orders for portraits. On our reception day his chums gather around my tea table in the corner, where I make tea in the silver samovar the Club girls gave me. They are clever fellows; not quite like Jack. Sometimes, after they have gone, Jack comes over to me, saying, When I look at you across the room, and think that I am going to have you all the time Yes, it is all the time; we two, and the multitude. So the months pass. 114 Afot her. I dream dreams all day long now, but not for myself alone. Life is so full, now that I am looking forward to my childs birth. I wrote a long letter to Mother, and she has written to tell me not to overdo, and that she is glad I am expecting. Dear Mother, how shocked she must have been at my more open speech! Here I am glorying in the laws of life that are my wings, and all she can find to say to me is that hushed, diffident little phrase which has come down from a half-developed generation. Why will parents be conventional with their children? It is truth they want. Jack is painting Mrs. Deshas por- trait, and it ought to make him immor- tal. She sits to him in a wonderful pinky-pearl velvet, with lace like hoar- frost, and pale roses that melt into the tints of her skin. Once she forgot them when she went. I told Jack it was Beauty laying an offering at the shrine of Genius; he grinned. She is one of those women who must needs strike the personal note with any man worth speak- ing to. It is not enough to please; they must influence. Her manner to me is gracious, self - assured. I am that clever young artists wife, and she sends me cards to her (next largest) teas. Why did she give me that pity- ing glance, this morning? Oh, I know. Does she think I mind that? My dear woman, those are fascinating ways you have, and if I were Jack I might for- get for a moment that I had a wife in the next room; but when you go any deeper, you strike something made up of the thousand supple fibres of a com- mon experience and a common hope; and if you do not know how strong it is, it is because you have never proved it yourself. I told Jack this, looking over his shoulder. She is a stunning crea- ture ! ~ he exclaimed. Did you no- tice that droop to her eyelids? He drew them. She has a sensuous mouth with a scornful curve. He drew it. Women of that type want mental ex- citement; they like to dabble in emo- tions, to exploit men. Let her try her wiles on me; it gives me more chance to study her. You know too much about women! said I. Jack went on drawing. When a man makes it his business to study the human face, he is likely to learn a good deal of the soul, he answered. Now here is a different type, look. It was my own face, in his memory like that. Broad forehead, mouth with a firm little line at the corner, eyes too deep for soundings, that s your soul! Then if my soul did nt have that face, you would nt care for me? It cant help having that face. But if I were ugly? You might start out with an ugly face, but you would make it plastic to you in the end. Jack has such dear, funny little theories. My wee bit laddie is four weeks old. I wandered a day and a night in a far- off world of pain. For myself I would not have struggled any longer, but it was for my child, I had to live. Peace wrapped me round at last. I saw Jacks face through a wreath of mist; it was white. His lips brushed mine as gently as a butterflys wing. Little mother! he whispered. I suppose men take it as a matter of course that their children shall be horn. I asked for my child, and they brought him to me. His soft baby hand was warm, alive. I went to sleep holding it. When they told me I was. not strong enough to nurse him, I turned my face to the pillow. It has often repelled me, the gloating way some women have with their children. It seemed too physical, too instinctive; it reminded me of Ame- lia in Vanity Fair. I always thought her a low type of motherhood. I do still, only Allot her. 115 Only it s the same tincture in us all, thank Heaven! I am linked with the race. Mothers letters are under my pillow. She says it is so strange to think of her little girl with a baby. Mother cannot realize that I am a grown woman, twenty-six years old. She was very anxious. She would have come to me, only it makes her ill to travel. Jack got a lecture from her for not mention- ing the color of Laddies eyes. They dont have much color until they re old- er, do they? he asked. Yes, said I; they are clear light brown, like yours, look! (We are just like other parients; is nt it amusing?) He squints so, I cant see. Come here, my son. To see Laddie in his fathers arms makes my heart swell. I m going to have your confidence, my boy, do you hear? I m going to grow for your sake. Jack is making a picture of Laddie and me. He works as if he were in- spired. I wear a gown of old blue that he loves. This morning he was in such a hurry to have me sit for bim that he came to get Laddie himself. You ye put him on my right arm, said I. What difference does it make? No difference when I am sitting, but I carry him in the left arm, to have the right one free to protect him. Did nt you know that, you painter of human- ity? Look at your old Madonnas! Never thought of it before. The Sistine Madonna is nt so. No; Raphael was childless, or he would not have given his Granduca Ma- donna that self-absorbed expression, and no grip in her limp hands. Dagnan- Bouveret knew better. I must tell that to Thurston. He raves about you. He thinks you are a sort of Madonna yourself, you know. What nonsense! said I, coloring up to the roots of my hair. Well, I think so, too, said Jack; and putting his lips out toward me he kissed the air. Men worship women easily, dont they? This is a queer world. Laddie acted less playful than usual to-day. Perhaps it is the smell of the paint. The heat tries him. Jack want- ed to send us into the country, but we cannot afford it. We called Dr. Ames in again to see Laddie, to-day. The little fellow is not well. The doctor asked about his food; he said he was not well nourished. He might as well have told us we were starv- ing him, starving him, my poor little boy! Jack rushed out for the other food, and watched him take it. He likes it better, does nt he ? he asked, with a long breath of relief. He is a very frail baby, but if I can only get him through the summer Laddie has meningitis. I know that the doctor has no hope of saving him, but I have not told Jack. The heat outside is like a blast from an oven, and men are prostrated every day. I cannot feel for them; my thoughts are bound up in the poor little life that is ebbing away. Each morning I darken the stu- dio, and Jack sits in his shirt sleeves by the window, holding Laddie until his arm is numb, while I fan them. His playful ways are all hushed; his eyes look so old, so piteous! His feeble cry pierces me. I hope it may end soon. Laddie tried 4o smile at me, this morn- ing. Laddie died in Jacks arms four nights ago. He was too sick to heed us; his life went out with only a flutter of his eyelids. Death is such a solitary thing! It is over, I said. Jack laid him down, and turned to me. Cry, dear. 116 Afother. I dont want to cry. I am glad he is dead. Jack did not understand. I went about the house, putting all in order. A light breeze had sprung up, too late. When I went back, Jack was on the floor by the bed, with his face buried in Laddies dress. I knelt beside him, and he turned his head to my shoulder, just as Laddie does did, I mean. His hands were hot and damp. I felt years older than he. God has been very merciful to him, I said. He will never have any more pain. I am glad if you can take it that way! said Jack, with a great sob. I held him until he was quiet. I led him into the studio and made him lie down on the sofa, how flippant those stage properties of ours looked! He asked me to kiss him. When I looked back from the door he was lying very still, with his hand over his eyes. I left him there, my other child. Then I sat in the dark by my little laddie, and smoothed his cold hand, and asked him to forgive me. It seemed as if he must have heard me. Had nt God children enough without taking my firstborn? But I have no right to complain; if I had taken better care of him, he might have lived. The gray dawn turned bright in the ~east before I went into the kitchen soft- ly, not to wake Jack, and lighted the gas stove. The bakers boy brought up the rolls, whistling. Nice morning; going to be cooler, he said. Yes, it s a nice morning, I an- swered. Jack said he was not hungry; but I made his coffee strong, as he liked it in Paris, and it did him good. He tied an apron around his neck, to help me af- terward. He laughed over it, and then turned his face away. By and by I found him looking out of the studio window listlessly. Jack, do you think you could make a sketch of Laddie? We should be glad to have it in future. I dont know whether I have the heart for it. Do you want me to do it? If you feel able. I have dressed him, and lie looks very sweet. I let in more light as he wanted it. In spite of himself he became interest- ed. He brought me the sketch to see if I was pleased. There are no affected mannerisms in his brushwork. He had caught the way the tip of the thumb was bent back from the fingers. I used to think Laddie would be an artist, too, some day, his thumb had so much in- dividuality. It is a beautiful draw- ing, dear; thank you. There was a cool lake breeze next day. Laddie would have felt a little better, if he had lived. Dr. Burroughs was away, and Jack had to hunt up a stranger. He was a young man. He looked surprised to see only us two. I should have known he had children by the way lie put his hand out on the cof- fin as he spoke. I do not remember what he said. We locked the door, and went down in the lift together. The minister came in the carriage with us. He seemed like an old friend. Jacks eyes regarded me with remote tenderness. Jack! pre- cious father! with your little dead boy on your knees and your arm over him, I love you so! It was all sweet and quiet, just as I would have had it. We sat in the dark, that evening. I laid my face against Jacks arm, and lie held my hands. It was so good to have him! After all, it was a terrible tussle for the poor little chap, he said. It is beginiiing to be after with Jack. Four days ago, and I have not heard from Mother yet. It takes nearly two days to go, and two to come. I know she would write as soon as she could. The letter came the evening after. Mothers hand shook when she wrote. The bottom of the page was blotted. Dear little daughter I am so grieved J%iliot her. 117 I cant write any more. Mother has lost children, too. I am sorry, sorry. I overheard Jack say to Dr. Ames that I had borne it better than he was afraid I would. I do not tell him that I wake every night at the same time, and put my hand out before I remember, to see if Laddie is warm and he is not there. It is a piece of myself that has gone from me. I want it, -~. I want him! It seems as if my struggle would disturb Jack. No, he does not wake. Jack is dear and kind, but he does not know unless I tell him. He works very hard, these days; we are short of money. A fine line comes out on his forehead at times. I am cheerful with him; and when he quotes poetry to me I try not to wince, but everything jars on me. One day he asked me if I would like to walk along the lake shore. I saw that he wanted me to go. I put on the black gown I had altered by taking out the pale gold-colored front he called so artistic. He said it brought out the un- dertints of gold in my hair. It is not because I wish to look sombre that I tie a thick veil over my hat. I need some- thing that I can get behind. I see so many children everywhere. Jack ran after one little fellow, and tossed him up to his shoulder. The boy squealed with delight. You re fond of chil- dren, sir? said a woman standing by. Very, answered Jack, raising his hat and walking on quickly. I saw the hurt quiver under his mustache. No, Jack has not forgotten. When I went into the studio, a week ago, Jack was looking at the picture he had made of Laddie and me. He turned it to the wall quickly. You need nt do that, said I. I did nt know but perhaps He replaced it on the easel, and stepped back. It is one of the best things I have ever done. Why dont you finish it? It is nearly finished, is it not? The face is. The background and draperies need a few hours work. I will sit for you, if you like. Do you care to do it? I dont want you to tire yourself. I am not tired. His eyes brightened as I returned in the blue gown. He hates gloomy things; he loves warmth and color. He got on the floor to arrange the folds of my skirt. Bending his head, he kissed my knee. You are so beautiful! lie said. We had the afternoon to ourselves. Jack whistled at his work. I am progressing famously, he declared. Bring your hand around a bit more, please. I dont get those folds quite right, with nothing in your lap I was on my feet in the middle of the room. I think I struck my breast with my hand. The hot blood rushed to my face and ears. I felt flooded, suffo- cated. Dont! Dont! I gasped. I cant bear it, it is killing me He sprang toward me, and I pressed my face against him. What a brute I am! he exclaimed. I would nt have said one word I ought not to have let you sit so long. Ames told me to look out for your health, but you said you were perfectly well. Jack, I want Mother! Take me home to Mother! He looked troubled. The fine line came out on his forehead. I wish I could, but I dont see how to manage it. We have had so many extras Then let me go by myself. I must see Mother! You are dear and kind, but you are a man, and you do not un- derstand. He left the room silently. I knelt beside his chair, and laid my head on my arms. 0 God, my hands are so empty! I cried. I hear him crying in the night, and it wakes me! What dost Thou know of these throes of the flesh? By and by I raised my head, and the 118 iJiot her. picture confronted me on the easel. It looked so beautiful, so radiant with life, that it smote me. Was that I? I thought. Jack laid a check for forty-five dol- lars in my lap, when be returned. Too late to cash it to-day, he said. From Mr. Cowles? Has he bought that little figure study? I thought you said you would not let it go for less than a hundred. I offered it to him at his own price. He would have screwed me down more, if he could, because he saw my need, but I held out. It hurts him to haggle for money. I felt as if he had bought that check with his blood. I walked up from the station, carry- ing my hand bag. I did not care to leave it with the expressman. The streets were quiet. It seemed for a mo- ment as if it were all a dream, and I was coming home from an afternoon call. The.screen door was unlocked. I stepped in softly. Mother stood before the sitting - room fireplace, her sewing hanging from one hand. Jacks picture and mine were on the mantel. I set down my bag. M9ther looked around. She gave a great start, and ran to me. Oh, Mother! I said, arid put my hands up to my face. Mothers arms went right around me; her cheek was wet. My poor little girl ! she said, my poor, brave little girl ! She s come home to Mother! Mother knows all about it! It s six weeks and two days, Mo- ther! I said, crying. I know. Six weeks to-day since I got the letter. She took off my hat, and led me across the room, for I could not see. I held her hands. Mothers hands are bent with rheumatism, but they are as soft as roseleaves inside. I told her everything. I used to wonder why peo- ple wanted to talk it over. I thought it showed lack of self-control. I did not know then what it meant to lead a stifled life for anothers sake. Mother made me lie down on the sofa. Dont take so many steps for me, you troublesome woman, said I. She only looked about for another cushion. Never mind my steps, she said; I 11 do what I like, now I have my little girlie home. Jack looks up to me lately, and it makes me feel quite old; but to Mother I am just her little girlie, home from school again with a headache. The room was the same as ever; only that wretched hand - painted lamp shade aunt Caroline sent us was gone. I had a quarrel once with Mother about keeping it, and she said she wanted some things as she liked. The picture over the mantel hung half an inch out of the true. Hannah always had a crooked eye. I meant to get up and straighten it in a minute I think I must have slept, for I did not know Mother had come in until I felt her hand on my forehead. She gave me my tea in the Royal Worcester cup I bought when I began to care for pretty china. She had made the bis- cuit herself. It gave me a sick pang to see my room, to-night. All was the same: it is only I who have changed. People always said my room looked just like me. I had so many notions when I was a girl. The smell of dried lemon ver- bena in the linen was home. You are lovely to me, Mother, and I was such a trying girl! Hush! answered Mother. You were the best child that ever was. I miss you every day. Well, if I had a daughter, I should miss her, too. I made Mother sit down in my easy- chair. I knelt beside her, and opened my bag. You never saw his little things, I said. I have brought some of them to show you, and I wish you Recent Astronomical Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere. 119 would keep them for me in the drawer where I kept my party things. Marion made this sack; was nt it sweet of her? She does beautiful work. This was his first short dress, and these are the last socks he wore. They slipped off from his poor, wasted feet. Oh, he suffered so, he suffered so! I shall never get over it. Mothers eyes were full. No, you never will. Mother understands. It is a September evening, and some young people are going home in the moonlight. They must have been hav- ing a doorstep party somewhere, for one of the men is carrying a mandolin. Their voices sound gay. I can see the white birch on the lawn, and the great pine beyond. Those two trees are a part of my life. How many times I have looked out at them, and thought my long, long thoughts! I used to think I should like to be a grande dame in society, but I did not really care for it. What I wanted was to learn the mean- ing of life. Somewhere in a light as pure as that my little laddie is happy. God may have him to take care of for a time, but he will always be my child. Jack, dear heart, it was selfish in me to make you sacrifice your picture, and then come home and leave you; but I had to do it, I had to see my mother. Mother knows. Margaret L. Knapp. RECENT ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE. AN important part of Dr. Goulds labors at Cordoba, to which I did not allude in the paper in the Atlantic for May, 1898, consisted in~ training the as- tronomers who were to be his intellectual successors, the scientific heirs to whom he bequeathed the legacy of the contin- ued exploration of the southern heavens. In addition to catalogning the stars he accomplished this educational work, and, fortunately for astronomy, Dr. John M. Thome, who had served under Dr. Gould for many years in the execution of the great Argentine catalogues, was de- stined to be the second director of the National Observatory at Cordoba, and to add new lustre to an observatory already famous beyond the dreams of its early promoters. Dr. Thome and Mr. Tucker, now of the Lick Observatory, continued Goulds work in a manner analogous to the extension of Bessels zones by Arge- lander, and of the latters more exten- sive star census by Scht~nfeldt. Arge lander at Bonn, on the Rhine, had cata- logued the principal stars between the north pole and two degrees south decli- nation; and when this work was conclud- ed, his students and successors executed a survey from the zone where their mas- ter left off to twenty-three degrees south declination, including some stars as faint as the tenth magnitude. In this way the Bonn census of stars assigns the po- sitions and magnitudes of 325,000 ob- jects. From 1885 to the present time the work of the analogous Cordoba census of the southern hemisphere has been steadily advanced, and is already com- pleted over the whole of the zone from twenty-two to forty-two degrees south declination. This vast survey of Thonie and Tucker is based upon the foundation laid by Gould, and the part already pub- lished includes the positions of 339,215 fixed stars. The two imposing volumes which have appeared are accompanied by accurate charts of that region of the

Recent Astronomical Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere. 119 would keep them for me in the drawer where I kept my party things. Marion made this sack; was nt it sweet of her? She does beautiful work. This was his first short dress, and these are the last socks he wore. They slipped off from his poor, wasted feet. Oh, he suffered so, he suffered so! I shall never get over it. Mothers eyes were full. No, you never will. Mother understands. It is a September evening, and some young people are going home in the moonlight. They must have been hav- ing a doorstep party somewhere, for one of the men is carrying a mandolin. Their voices sound gay. I can see the white birch on the lawn, and the great pine beyond. Those two trees are a part of my life. How many times I have looked out at them, and thought my long, long thoughts! I used to think I should like to be a grande dame in society, but I did not really care for it. What I wanted was to learn the mean- ing of life. Somewhere in a light as pure as that my little laddie is happy. God may have him to take care of for a time, but he will always be my child. Jack, dear heart, it was selfish in me to make you sacrifice your picture, and then come home and leave you; but I had to do it, I had to see my mother. Mother knows. Margaret L. Knapp. RECENT ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE. AN important part of Dr. Goulds labors at Cordoba, to which I did not allude in the paper in the Atlantic for May, 1898, consisted in~ training the as- tronomers who were to be his intellectual successors, the scientific heirs to whom he bequeathed the legacy of the contin- ued exploration of the southern heavens. In addition to catalogning the stars he accomplished this educational work, and, fortunately for astronomy, Dr. John M. Thome, who had served under Dr. Gould for many years in the execution of the great Argentine catalogues, was de- stined to be the second director of the National Observatory at Cordoba, and to add new lustre to an observatory already famous beyond the dreams of its early promoters. Dr. Thome and Mr. Tucker, now of the Lick Observatory, continued Goulds work in a manner analogous to the extension of Bessels zones by Arge- lander, and of the latters more exten- sive star census by Scht~nfeldt. Arge lander at Bonn, on the Rhine, had cata- logued the principal stars between the north pole and two degrees south decli- nation; and when this work was conclud- ed, his students and successors executed a survey from the zone where their mas- ter left off to twenty-three degrees south declination, including some stars as faint as the tenth magnitude. In this way the Bonn census of stars assigns the po- sitions and magnitudes of 325,000 ob- jects. From 1885 to the present time the work of the analogous Cordoba census of the southern hemisphere has been steadily advanced, and is already com- pleted over the whole of the zone from twenty-two to forty-two degrees south declination. This vast survey of Thonie and Tucker is based upon the foundation laid by Gould, and the part already pub- lished includes the positions of 339,215 fixed stars. The two imposing volumes which have appeared are accompanied by accurate charts of that region of the 120 Recent Astronomical Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere. heavens. An examination of these du- plicate pictures of the sky must impress every beholder with the infinitude of the stellar points diffused in space, and the comparative insignificance of everything upon the terrestrial globe. When this survey of Thome is carried to the south pole, the southern heavens will be better known than our own skies which have occupied the attention of ob- servers from the earliest ages of astro- nomy. Nearly all this immense enter- prise on the more inaccessible of the two celestial hemispheres has been executed in the last quarter of the present century, and entirely by American astronomers. The work of Gould and Thome must be credited to American genius and to the enterprise and liberality of Argentina, and it is needless to add that the achieve- ment is sufficiently imposing to do honor to any age. Yet it happens that, during the same period, Dr. David Gill, her Ma- jestys astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope, has been most active, and has al- ready published a photographic star cen- sus of a large zone of the southern heavens. This far-reaching undertaking, carried out under Dr. Gills direction, consisted in taking photographs of areas of the heavens so apportioned that each gela- tine plate showed some stars whose po- sition is given by the earlier observations at the Cape or at Cordoba; so that when the plates are developed it is possible to measure, with a fine machine, the place of each luminous point with respect to known stars. In this way the places of all the stars photographed are determined absolutely, and with extreme rapidity and accuracy. The plates were taken at the Cape of Good Hope, but the work of discussing the results and reducing the catalogue was done chiefly at Groningen, Holland, under the direction of Profes- sor Kapetyn. While this photographic survey is of very high importance as a supplement to the Cordoba census, it cannot be said to supplant it. In recent years, American readers have become so much accustomed to reports of large telescopes that the impression seems to prevail widely that such instru- mnents are the only conditions necessary for great discoveries. Need I point out to any thoughtful person that this strange impression is not justified? Is it not equally important that the telescope should be located in an atmosphere which is quiescent and steady as well as free from clouds and fog? In addition to good instruments and favorable climate, there must of course be an astronomer at the little end of the telescope capable of obtaining the best results which his instruments and conditions afford. Unfortunately, it is only very recent- ly that astronomers have realized the value of a good atmosphere, and though this achievement seems anything but striking, it has led to results of the most far-reaching character. Optical instru- ments have reached practical perfection in the last thirty years, but no atmo- sphere yet found is even approximately perfect: hence it is clear that the way to increase telescopic power is to im- prove the atmospheres through which our observing is done. In the modern search for good atmosphere, Professor W. H. Pickering, of the Harvard Observatory, made the first important step, and the work has since been especially prosecut- ed by the Lowell Observatory. The re- sult of this search for climates which afford good seeing has been a rich har- vest of discoveries which no one unfa- miliar with the problems to be solved could have anticipated. In 1887, the fund left to the Harvard Observatory by Mr. Boyden, of Boston, for the prosecution of astronomical re- search in a mountainous region as free as possible from the impediments due to the atmosphere, became available, and an expedition was sent to Colorado to test the seeing on Pikes Peak and other high mountains of that region. The obser- vers afterward experimented on Mount Wilson, in California, and the outcome Recent Astronomical Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere. 121 was the conclusion that other conditions besides mere elevation must be taken into account, and that dryness of the atmosphere, above all, is of the highest importance. As the ultimate aini of the movement was to explore the southern stars, an expedition was dispatched be- yond the equator to test the atmospheric conditions in the Andes of Peru and Chile. Experiments were eventually made at a number of points along the Chilean and Peruvian coasts, and at various ele- vations in the desert of Atacama, as well as in the high mountains between Lima and Arequipa, Peru, and Lake Titicaca, Bolivia. The conclusion arrived at was that the best seeing is afforded in a dry region from six to ten thousand feet above the level of the sea, where the movement of the atmosphere is reduced to a mini- mum. Though very good conditions were found at Mount Harvard, near Chosica, Peru, and at Copiapo, in the Atacama desert, it was finally decided that the city of Arequipa offered the most favor- able conditions, when all the needs of the observatory were considered. Situated in an excessively dry region, where the sky is seldom obscured by clouds, the site selected stands 8060 feet above the level of the sea, and overlooks an immense gorge which drains the great mountains of El Misti and Chichani above and some fifteen miles away. This site has proved a happy one, and already the observatory has become celebrated by discoveries made there in the last nine years. As this station was selected for the clear sky and good seeing it would afford, it was particularly well adapted to the investigation of the brightness of the southern stars; and accordingly, the ear- liest opportunity was utilized for making a photometry of the southern heavens. A part of this work had already been done at Mount Harvard. Altogether this included the critical study of 7922 stars, and led to the detection of a num- ber of variables. Being a continuation of a similar system of work extending over forty thousand stars of the northern heavens, and based upon hundreds of thousands of observations made at Cam- bridge, the high importance of the south- ern photometry is at once apparent. In the programme of the new south- ern station the developments of photo- graphy were given a prominent place, and it was not long before impressions were made of the whole region invisible in Cambridge. Besides general photo- graphic reproductions of the whole south- ern sky, a detailed investigation was made of particular portions. Thus long exposure of plates on the Magellanic Clouds revealed the amazing variety of phenomena in those luminous patches; and photographs of great clusters, such as Omega Centauri and 47 Toucana~, showed in durable form their infinite complexity, previously discernible only with great telescopes. Omega Centauri was found, by the plates taken at Are- quipa, to contain over seven thousand stars, all packed within a space smaller than the moon. To the naked eye it is a luminous patch resembling a faint cloud or nebula. Continued examina- tion of these cluster photographs led Professor Baily to detect in some of the masses of stars a large number of objects which are variable. In Omega Centauri alone he found one hundred and twen- ty, and in the cluster Messier Five about eighty - five fluctuating points of light formerly assumed to be of constant bril- liancy. This discovery is of very high importance, because previously only a few cases of variables in clusters were certainly known; and this rich find is likely to throw light upon the cause of the light changes, if the observations are continued with system and regular- ity. It may not seem strange that a star should increase or decrease in brilliancy; but when we remember that a variation of five niagnitudes, which occasionally occurs, means an increase and then a 122 Recent Astronomical Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere. decrease in brightness of a hundredfold, we may indeed wonder at the causes which could produce such amazing pul- sations in brightness. In some instances the causes of these changes are known, as in the case of Algol and other stars of that type, where the bright star is eclipsed by a dark satellite moving in an orbit situated in the plane of vision, so that at regular intervals the lucid star fades or diminishes in brightness when the dark body intercepts its light, and then as regularly shows forth in full splendor. But in the great majority of cases, though many temporary hypothe- ses have been put forward, no accept- able explanation has yet been made. Besides the cluster variables found by Baily, some three hundred individual and tested variables, often bright stars, are given in well-known recent catalogues. In many cases the law of the light vari- ation is known accurately, though in gen- eral the cause is wholly obscure. For different cases the curves which repre- sent the brightness are of very different character; some exhibiting one sharp or round maximum or minimum, others a double maximum and minimum, as in the case of the celebrated northern va- riable Beta Lyra~. If the light varia- tions of the Algol stars arise from the occultation of dark bodies, it is natu- ral to suppose that other variations are in some way connected with attendant bodies, either by way of occultations of dark or partially dark bodies, or by tidal action due to masses wholly invisible in our telescopes. In view of this prob- able dependence of variables on other bodies, Bailys discovery of so many va- riables in clusters, where all necessarily are connected in one immense system, opens up far-reaching suggestions, though such complicated phenomena will be dif- ficult to unravel. It is to be hoped that the Harvard Observatory may be able to continue to watch the objects it has discovered; and in due time, no doubt, we shall have the law of the light fiuctu ation for each of the handsome group of new variables it has announced. One other object which has long en- gaged the attention of the Harvard Ob- servatory is the extensive photography of stellar spectra, and this has recently been extended to the southern hemi- sphere. Many years ago Professor E. C. Pickering revived the plan, originally used by Fraunhofer, of putting a large glass prism in front of the objective of a telescope, so that the light of a star en- tering the lens is no longer a bundle of white rays, but a spectrum in which all colors are spread out; and the result is that, instead of an image, the eye per- ceives a spectrum. Replacing the eye by a sensitive photographic plate, these spectra may be photographed in large numbers, as many of them appearing on a plate as there are stars in the field of the telescope. By designing an instru- ment which has a large angular aperture, or short focus, so that the field of view is extensive, it is possible to take on a single piece of glass the spectra of a great many stars. By this means the spectra of more than ten thousand stars have been photographed in the northern heavens, the results composing the cele- brated Draper Catalogue of stellar spec- tra. In the course of this work, each plate was carefully examined to find the type to which the spectrum belongs; and it was soon ascertained that a few peculiar objects do not belong to any of the spec- tral types recognized by Huggins, Vogel, Rutherford, Seechi, Lockyer, or Picker- ing. Some of the spectra are found to be crossed by bright lines, like a few stars in Cygnus recognized by the French astronomers Wolf and Rayet in 1867. Professor Pickering, who took up this work in memory of the lamented Henry Draper, has now noted in the northern heavens more than sixty such objects, where only a few were known before. In the more recent study of the southern heavens other bright-line stars have been encountered, and the Harvard Observa Recent Astronomical Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere. 123 tory has the honor of finding the only ones known in that extensive region. This considerable list of bright-line stars, besides two new or temporary stars de- tected in the constellations Norma and Carina, constitutes a unique and some- what unexpected contribution made in the course of regular work on stellar spectra provided for by the Henry Dra- per Memorial. The full import of these new bright-line stars cannot yet be made out, but it is assumed that they are close- ly related to nebuke, which have in their spectra bright lines of a different type, and are known to be self-luminous amasses of gas of which hydrogen is the only element heretofore recognized. It turns out that all these new bright-line stars are situated in or near the plane of the Milky Way or in the Magellanic Clouds, which thus disclose more directly their connection with the Galaxy. Some of the most important discov- eries made at the Arequipa station of the Harvard Observatory relate to what are known as spectroscopic binaries, or binary stars so close together that they cannot be resolved in any existing tele- scope, and must be inferred to exist from certain phenomena of their spectra. The spectra of most stars usually consist of certain dark lines projected on a lumi- nous background; the positions of these lines are determined by the wave lengths of the light emitted; and as characteris- tic wave lengths are emitted by particu- lar chemical elements, these lines indi- cate the presence of certain elements in the atmospheres of the stars. Thus one series of lines will arise from the pre- sence of iron, another from that of cad- mium, still another from that of sodium. Hydrogen mind carbon are very abun- dantly diffused throughout nature, and of course each gives a characteristic series of lines, though it is not yet settled that we are familiar with these lines under all conditions. Th~re is another principle of great interest in connection with stellar spec- tra. It was pointed out from theoret- ical grounds by Christian Doeppler, of Prague, in 1842, that a star moving to- ward the eye would transmit more, and conversely a star receding from us send fewer, light waves per second than an object at rest. By one of those singular oversights which not infrequently occur in the history of thought, this natural inference from the undulatory theory of light remained more or less barren of results till 1868, when Sir William Huggins applied it to the motion of stars in the line of sight, by means of the spectroscope, in which the chemical ele- ments known upon the earth were made to supply the light corresponding to the ideal body at rest. The outcome of this fruitful line of inquiry has been an en- tirely new development of astronomy, now generally called astro-physics. By the most modern appliances, motion of stars toward or from the earth, amount- ing to one mile per second, may be ac- curately measured. The investigation of these phenomena now occupies the attention of some of our foremost observatories, and the mo- tions of a considerable number of stars have already been determined. In 1889 Professor Pickering detected at Cam- bridge two stars in the northern heavens, Zeta Urs~ Majoris and Beta Aurigme, in which the spectral lines were not sin- gle, as is usually the case, but sometimes appeared as broad bands, and at other times as two closely adjacent lines dis- tinctly separated. The natural interpre- tation of this broadening and doubling of the spectral lines, which were found to recur with moderate regularity, is that the objects are not single stars, but close binary systems, revolving so rapidly that the motion of the two components, one toward and the other from the earth, causes the separate spectra to be relative- ly displaced, and thus apparently dou- bled. These so-called spectroscopic bina- ries (no one of them has yet been seen double in any telescope) have been aug~ 124 Recent Astronomical Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere. mented recently by three similar dis- coveries in the southern heavens, Zeta Scorpii, Gould 10534, and Beta Lupi.1 It ought to be said that a little doubt still attaches to the received interpreta- tion of these phenomena. As no one of these stars appears double in the largest telescopes, our conclusion that they are double must be based wholly upon the evidence of the spectroscope. Now, un- fortunately, our argument that these ob- jects are double stars is not conclusive. We can show that a binary system such as we imagine would produce just the phe- nomena of spectral doubling observed, but we are not able to show that no other suitable explanation can be found. In fact, there is another explanation, lately developed, which is not improbable. Dr. Zeeman, a noted Dutch physicist, has found that when the radiating body is placed in a strong magnetic field, the lines of certain elements broaden and become double, not unlike the doubling observed in the spectra of certain stars. This, however, does not account for the periodic character of the dou