TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Some quotations had blank space on a line (for a name). This is represented by _________ in this etext.

Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been placed at the end of the book.

This book uses some unusual characters. These will display on this device as
¯ (non-combining macron)
˘ (non-combining breve)
■ (black square)
☞ (right-pointing hand)

The Table of Contents was created by the Transcriber, and is placed in the public domain.

Some minor changes to the text are noted at the [end of the book.] These are indicated by a dotted gray underline.

HILAIRE BELLOC

THE AFTERMATH

or

GLEANINGS FROM A BUSY LIFE

CALLED UPON THE OUTER COVER

For Purposes of Sale

CALIBAN’S GUIDE TO LETTERS

By H. B.

NEW YORK

E. P. DUTTON & CO.

☞ FURTHER AND YET MORE WEIGHTY OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

“ ... We found it very tedious....”—The Evening German.

(The devil “we” did! “We” was once a private in a line regiment, drummed out for receiving stolen goods).

“ ... We cannot see what Dr. Caliban’s Guide is driving at.”—The Daily American.
(It is driving at you).

“ ... What? Again?...”—The Edinburgh Review.

“ ... On y retrouve a chaque page l’orgueil et la sécheresse Anglaise....”—M. Hyppolite Durand, writing in Le Journal of Paris.

“ ... O Angleterre! Ile merveilleuse! C’est donc toujours de toi que sortiront la Justice et la Vérité....”—M. Charmant Reinach, writing in the Horreur of Geneva.

“ ... Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’entrate.”—Signor Y. Ilabrimo (of Palermo), writing in the Tribuna of Rome.

“πολλὰ τὰ δεινα κὀυδεν ἀνθρώπου δεινότερον πέλει.”—M. Negridepopoulos de Worms, writing in The “τὸ δεινον” of Athens.

“!!משאל.”—The Banner of Israel.

“——!”—The Times of London.

TO

CATHERINE, MRS. CALIBAN,

BUT FOR WHOSE FRUITFUL SUGGESTION, EVER-READY SYMPATHY,
POWERS OF OBSERVATION, KINDLY CRITICISM, UNFLINCHING
COURAGE, CATHOLIC LEARNING, AND NONE THE LESS
CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE,

THIS BOOK MIGHT AS WELL NOT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN;

IT IS DEDICATED

BY

HER OBEDIENT AND GRATEFUL SERVANT AND FRIEND
IN AFFLICTION,

THE AUTHOR.

“O, Man; with what tremors as of earth-begettings hast thou not wrought, O, Man!—Yet—is it utterly indeed of thee—? Did there not toil in it also that World-Man, or haply was there not Some Other?... O, Man! knowest thou that word Some Other?”—Carlyle’s “Frederick the Great.”

Most of these sketches are reprinted from “The Speaker,” and appear in this form by the kind permission of its Editor.

ERRATA AND ADDENDA.

P. 19, line 14 (from the top), for “enteric” read “esoteric.”

P. 73, second footnote, for “Sophia, Lady Gowl,” read “Lady Sophia Gowl.”

P. 277 (line 5 from bottom), for “the charming prospect of such a bribe,” read “Bride.”

P. 456, delete all references to Black-mail, passim.

P. 510 (line 6 from top), for “Chou-fleur”, read “Chauffeur.”

Direction to Printer.—Please print hard, strong, clear, straight, neat, clean, and well. Try and avoid those little black smudges!

PREFACE.

This work needs no apology.

Its value to the English-speaking world is two-fold. It preserves for all time, in the form of a printed book, what might have been scattered in the sheets of ephemeral publications. It is so designed that these isolated monuments of prose and verse can be studied, absorbed, and, if necessary, copied by the young aspirant to literary honours.

Nothing is Good save the Useful, and it would have been sheer vanity to have published so small a selection, whatever its merit, unless it could be made to do Something, to achieve a Result in this strenuous modern world. It will not be the fault of the book, but of the reader, if no creative impulse follows its perusal, and the student will have but himself to blame if, with such standards before him, and so lucid and thorough an analysis of modern Literature and of its well-springs, he does not attain the goal to which the author would lead him.

The book will be found conveniently divided into sections representing the principal divisions of modern literary activity; each section will contain an introductory essay, which will form a practical guide to the subject with which it deals, and each will be adorned with one or more examples of the finished article, which, if the instructions be carefully followed, should soon be turned out without difficulty by any earnest and industrious scholar of average ability.

If the Work can raise the income of but one poor journalist, or produce earnings, no matter how insignificant, for but one of that great army which is now compelled to pay for the insertion of its compositions in the newspapers and magazines, the labour and organizing ability devoted to it will not have been in vain.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION.

A Grateful Sketch of the Author’s Friend (in part the
producer of this book),

James Caliban.

INTRODUCTION.

Few men have pursued more honourably, more usefully, or more successfully the career of letters than Thomas Caliban, D.D., of Winchelthorpe-on-Sea, near Portsmouth. Inheriting, as his name would imply, the grand old Huguenot strain, his father was a Merchant Taylor of the City of London, and principal manager of the Anglo-Chilian Bank; his mother the fifth daughter of K. Muller, Esq., of Brighton, a furniture dealer and reformer of note in the early forties.

The connection established between my own family and that of Dr. Caliban I purposely pass over as not germane to the ensuing pages, remarking only that the friendship, guidance, and intimacy of such a man will ever count among my chiefest treasures. Of him it may truly be written: “He maketh them to shine like Sharon; the waters are his in Ram-Shaîd, and Gilgath praiseth him.”

I could fill a volume of far greater contents than has this with the mere record of his every-day acts during the course of his long and active career. I must content myself, in this sketch, with a bare summary of his habitual deportment. He would rise in the morning, and after a simple but orderly toilet would proceed to family prayers, terminating the same with a hymn, of which he would himself read each verse in turn, to be subsequently chanted by the assembled household. To this succeeded breakfast, which commonly consisted of ham, eggs, coffee, tea, toast, jam, and whatnot—in a word, the appurtenances of a decent table.

Breakfast over, he would light a pipe (for he did not regard indulgence in the weed as immoral, still less as un-Christian: the subtle word ἐπιείκεια, which he translated “sweet reasonableness,” was painted above his study door—it might have served for the motto of his whole life), he would light a pipe, I say, and walk round his garden, or, if it rained, visit the plants in his conservatory.

Before ten he would be in his study, seated at a large mahogany bureau, formerly the property of Sir Charles Henby, of North-chapel, and noon would still find him there, writing in his regular and legible hand the notes and manuscripts which have made him famous, or poring over an encyclopædia, the more conscientiously to review some book with which he had been entrusted.

After the hours so spent, it was his habit to take a turn in the fresh air, sometimes speaking to the gardener, and making the round of the beds; at others passing by the stables to visit his pony Bluebell, or to pat upon the head his faithful dog Ponto, now advanced in years and suffering somewhat from the mange.

To this light exercise succeeded luncheon, for him the most cheerful meal of the day. It was then that his liveliest conversation was heard, his closest friends entertained: the government, the misfortunes of foreign nations, the success of our fiscal policy, our maritime supremacy, the definition of the word “gentleman,” occasionally even a little bout of theology—a thousand subjects fell into the province of his genial criticism and extensive information; to each his sound judgment and ready apprehension added some new light; nor were the ladies of the family incompetent to follow the gifted table talk of their father, husband, brother, master,[1] and host.[2]

Until the last few years the hour after lunch was occupied with a stroll upon the terrace, but latterly he would consume it before the fire in sleep, from which the servants had orders to wake him by three o’clock. At this hour he would take his hat and stick and proceed into the town, where his sunny smile and friendly salute were familiar to high and low. A visit to the L.N.C. School, a few purchases, perhaps even a call upon the vicar (for Dr. Caliban was without prejudice—the broadest of men), would be the occupation of the afternoon, from which he returned to tea in the charming drawing-room of 48, Henderson Avenue.

It was now high time to revisit his study. He was at work by six, and would write steadily till seven. Dinner, the pleasant conversation that succeeds it in our English homes, perhaps an innocent round game, occupied the evening till a gong for prayers announced the termination of the day. Dr. Caliban made it a point to remain the last up, to bolt the front door, to pour out his own whiskey, and to light his own candle before retiring. It was consonant with his exact and thoughtful nature, by the way, to have this candle of a patent sort, pierced down the middle to minimise the danger from falling grease; it was moreover surrounded by a detachable cylinder of glass.[3]

Such was the round of method which, day by day and week by week, built up the years of Dr. Caliban’s life; but life is made up of little things, and, to quote a fine phrase of his own: “It is the hourly habits of a man that build up his character.” He also said (in his address to the I. C. B. Y.): “Show me a man hour by hour in his own home, from the rising of the sun to his going down, and I will tell you what manner of man he is.” I have always remembered the epigram, and have acted upon it in the endeavour to portray the inner nature of its gifted author.

I should, however, be giving but an insufficient picture of Dr. Caliban were I to leave the reader with no further impression of his life work, or indeed of the causes which have produced this book.

His father had left him a decent competence. He lay, therefore, under no necessity to toil for his living. Nevertheless, that sense of duty, “through which the eternal heavens are fresh and strong” (Wordsworth), moved him to something more than “the consumption of the fruits of the earth” (Horace). He preached voluntarily and without remuneration for some years to the churches in Cheltenham, and having married Miss Bignor, of Winchelthorpe-on-Sea, purchased a villa in that rising southern watering-place, and received a call to the congregation, which he accepted. He laboured there till his recent calamity.

I hardly know where to begin the recital of his numerous activities in the period of thirty-five years succeeding his marriage. With the pen he was indefatigable. A man more ποικίλος—or, as he put it, many-sided—perhaps never existed. There was little he would not touch, little upon which he was not consulted, and much in which, though anonymous, he was yet a leader.

He wrote regularly, in his earlier years, for The Seventh Monarchy, The Banner, The Christian, The Free Trader, Household Words, Good Words, The Quiver, Chatterbox, The Home Circle, and The Sunday Monitor. During the last twenty years his work has continually appeared in the Daily Telegraph, the Times, the Siècle, and the Tribuna. In the last two his work was translated.

His political effect was immense, and that though he never acceded to the repeated request that he would stand upon one side or the other as a candidate for Parliament. He remained, on the contrary, to the end of his career, no more than president of a local association. It was as a speaker, writer, and preacher, that his ideas spread outwards; thousands certainly now use political phrases which they may imagine their own, but which undoubtedly sprang from his creative brain. He was perhaps not the first, but one of the first, to apply the term “Anglo-Saxon” to the English-speaking race—with which indeed he was personally connected through his relatives in New Mexico. The word “Empire” occurs in a sermon of his as early as 1869. He was contemporary with Mr. Lucas, if not before him, in the phrase, “Command of the sea”: and I find, in a letter to Mrs. Gorch, written long ago in 1873, the judgment that Protection was “no longer,” and the nationalization of land “not yet,” within “the sphere of practical politics.”

If his influence upon domestic politics was in part due to his agreement with the bulk of his fellow-citizens, his attitude in foreign affairs at least was all his own. Events have proved it wonderfully sound. A strenuous opponent of American slavery as a very young man—in 1860—he might be called, even at that age, the most prominent Abolitionist in Worcestershire, and worked indefatigably for the cause in so far as it concerned this country. A just and charitable man, he proved, after the victory of the North, one of the firmest supporters in the press of what he first termed “an Anglo-American entente.” Yet he was not for pressing matters. He would leave the “gigantic daughter of the West” to choose her hour and time, confident in the wisdom of his daughter’s judgment, and he lived to see, before his calamity fell upon him, Mr. Hanna, Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Elihu Root, and Mr. Smoot occupying the positions they still adorn.

He comprehended Europe. It was he who prophesied of the Dual Monarchy (I believe in the Contemporary Review), that “the death of Francis Joseph would be the signal for a great upheaval”; he that applied to Italy the words “clericalism is the enemy”; and he that publicly advised the withdrawal of our national investments from the debt of Spain—“a nation in active decay.” He cared not a jot when his critics pointed out that Spanish fours had risen since his advice no less than 20 per cent., while our own consols had fallen by an equal amount. “The kingdom I serve,” he finely answered, “knows nothing of the price of stock.” And indeed the greater part of his fortune was in suburban rents, saving a small sum unfortunately adventured in Shanghai Telephones.

Russia he hated as the oppressor of Finland and Poland, for oppression he loathed and combatted wherever it appeared; nor had Mr. Arthur Balfour a stronger supporter than he when that statesman, armed only in the simple manliness of an English Christian and Freeman, combatted and destroyed the terrorism that stalked through Ireland.

Of Scandinavia he knew singularly little, but that little was in its favour; and as for the German Empire, his stanzas to Prince Bismarck, and his sermon on the Emperor’s recent visit, are too well known to need any comment here. To Holland he was, until recently, attracted. Greece he despised.

Nowhere was this fine temper of unflinching courage and sterling common sense more apparent than in the great crisis of the Dreyfus case. No man stood up more boldly, or with less thought of consequence, for Truth and Justice in this country. He was not indeed the chairman of the great meeting in St. James’ Hall, but his peroration was the soul of that vast assemblage. “England will yet weather the storm....” It was a true prophecy, and in a sense a confession of Faith.

There ran through his character a vein of something steady and profound, which inspired all who came near him with a sense of quiet persistent strength. This, with an equable, unfailing pressure, restrained or controlled whatever company surrounded him. It was like the regular current of a full but silent tide, or like the consistent power of a good helmsman. It may be called his personal force. To most men and women of our circle, that force was a sustenance and a blessing; to ill-regulated or worldly men with whom he might come in contact, it acted as a salutary irritant, though rarely to so intense a degree as to give rise to scenes. I must unfortunately except the case of the Rural Dean of Bosham, whose notorious excess was the more lamentable from the fact that the Council of the S.P.C.A. is strictly non-sectarian, and whose excuse that the ink-pot was not thrown but brushed aside is, to speak plainly, a tergiversation.

The recent unhappy war in South Africa afforded an excellent opportunity for the exercise of the qualities I mean. He was still active and alert; still guiding men and maidens during its worse days. His tact was admirable. He suffered from the acute divisions of his congregation, but he suffered in powerful silence; and throughout those dark-days his sober necquid nimis[4] was like a keel and ballast for us all.

A young radical of sorts was declaiming at his table one evening against the Concentration Camp. Dr. Caliban listened patiently, and at the end of the harangue said gently, “Shall we join the ladies?” The rebuke was not lost.[5]

On another occasion, when some foreigner was reported in the papers as having doubted Mr. Brodrick’s figures relative to the numbers of the enemy remaining in the field, Dr. Caliban said with quiet dignity, “It is the first time I have heard the word of an English gentleman doubted.”

It must not be imagined from these lines that he defended the gross excesses of the London mob—especially in the matter of strong waters—or that he wholly approved of our policy. “Peace in our time, Oh, Lord!” was his constant cry, and against militarism he thundered fearlessly. I have heard him apply to it a word that never passed his lips in any other connection—the word Damnable.

On the details of the war, the policy of annexation, the advisability of frequent surrenders, the high salaries of irregulars, and the employment of national scouts, he was silent. In fine, one might have applied to him the strong and simple words of Lord Jacobs, in his Guildhall speech.[6] One main fact stood out—he hated warfare. He was a man of peace.

The tall, broad figure, inclining slightly to obesity, the clear blue northern eyes, ever roaming from point to point as though seeking for grace, the familiar soft wideawake, the long full white beard, the veined complexion and dark-gloved hands, are now, alas, removed from the sphere they so long adorned.

Dr. Caliban’s affliction was first noticed by his family at dinner on the first of last September—a date which fell by a strange and unhappy coincidence on a Sunday. For some days past Miss Goucher had remarked his increasing volubility; but on this fatal evening, in spite of all the efforts of his wife and daughters, he continued to speak, without interruption, from half-past seven to a quarter-past nine; and again, after a short interval, till midnight, when he fell into an uneasy sleep, itself full of mutterings. His talk had seemed now a sermon, now the reminiscence of some leading article, now a monologue, but the whole quite incoherent, though delivered with passionate energy; nor was it the least distressing feature of his malady that he would tolerate no reply, nay, even the gentlest assent drove him into paroxysms of fury.

Next day he began again in the manner of a debate at the local Liberal Club, soon lapsing again into a sermon, and anon admitting snatches of strange songs into the flow of his words. Towards eleven he was apparently arguing with imaginary foreigners, and shortly afterwards the terrible scene was ended by the arrival of a medical man of his own persuasion.

It is doubtful whether Dr. Caliban will ever be able to leave Dr. Charlbury’s establishment, but all that can be done for him in his present condition is lovingly and ungrudgingly afforded. There has even been provided for him at considerable expense, and after an exhaustive search, a companion whose persistent hallucination it is that he is acting as private secretary to some leader of the Opposition, and the poor wild soul is at rest.

Such was the man who continually urged upon me the necessity of compiling some such work as that which now lies before the reader. He had himself intended to produce a similar volume, and had he done so I should never have dared to enter the same field; but I feel that in his present incapacity I am, as it were, fulfilling a duty when I trace in these few pages the plan which he so constantly counselled, and with such a man counsels were commands. If I may be permitted to dwell upon the feature more especially his own in this Guide, I will point to the section “On Vivid Historical Literature in its Application to Modern Problems,” and furthermore, to the section “On the Criticism and Distinction of Works Attributed to Classical Authors.” In the latter case the examples chosen were taken from his own large collection; for it was a hobby of his to purchase as bargains manuscripts and anonymous pamphlets which seemed to him to betray the hand of some master. Though I have been compelled to differ from my friend, and cannot conscientiously attribute the specimens I have chosen to William Shakespeare or to Dean Swift, yet I am sure the reader will agree with me that the error into which Dr. Caliban fell was that of no ordinary mind.

Finally, let me offer to his family, and to his numerous circle, such apologies as may be necessary for the differences in style, and, alas, I fear, sometimes in mode of thought, between the examples which I have chosen as models for the student and those which perhaps would have more powerfully attracted the sympathies of my preceptor himself. I am well aware that such a difference is occasionally to be discovered. I can only plead in excuse that men are made in very different ways, and that the disciple cannot, even if he would, forbid himself a certain measure of self-development. Dr. Caliban’s own sound and broad ethics would surely have demanded it of no one, and I trust that this solemn reference to his charity and genial toleration will put an end to the covert attacks which some of those who should have been the strongest links between us have seen fit to make in the provincial and religious press.

DIVISION I.

REVIEWING.

REVIEWING.

The ancient and honourable art of Reviewing is, without question, the most important branch of that great calling which we term the “Career of Letters.”

As it is the most important, so also it is the first which a man of letters should learn. It is at once his shield and his weapon. A thorough knowledge of Reviewing, both theoretical and applied, will give a man more popularity or power than he could have attained by the expenditure of a corresponding energy in any one of the liberal professions, with the possible exception of Municipal politics.

It forms, moreover, the foundation upon which all other literary work may be said to repose. Involving, as it does, the reading of a vast number of volumes, and the thorough mastery of a hundred wholly different subjects; training one to rapid, conclusive judgment, and to the exercise of a kind of immediate power of survey, it vies with cricket in forming the character of an Englishman. It is interesting to know that Charles Hawbuck was for some years principally occupied in Reviewing; and to this day some of our most important men will write, nay, and sign, reviews, as the press of the country testifies upon every side.

It is true that the sums paid for this species of literary activity are not large, and it is this fact which has dissuaded some of our most famous novelists and poets of recent years from undertaking Reviewing of any kind. But the beginner will not be deterred by such a consideration, and he may look forward, by way of compensation, to the ultimate possession of a large and extremely varied library, the accumulation of the books which have been given him to review. I have myself been presented with books of which individual volumes were sometimes worth as much as forty-two shillings to buy.

Having said so much of the advantages of this initial and fundamental kind of writing, I will proceed to a more exact account of its dangers and difficulties, and of the processes inherent to its manufacture.

It is clear, in the first place, that the Reviewer must regard herself as the servant of the public, and of her employer; and service, as I need hardly remind her (or him), has nothing in it dishonourable. We were all made to work, and often the highest in the land are the hardest workers of all. This character of service, of which Mr. Ruskin has written such noble things, will often lay the Reviewer under the necessity of a sharp change of opinion, and nowhere is the art a better training in morals and application than in the habit it inculcates of rapid and exact obedience, coupled with the power of seeing every aspect of a thing, and of insisting upon that particular aspect which will give most satisfaction to the commonwealth.

It may not be uninstructive if I quote here the adventures of one of the truest of the many stout-hearted men I have known, one indeed who recently died in harness reviewing Mr. Garcke’s article on Electrical Traction in the supplementary volumes of the Encyclopædia Britannica. This gentleman was once sent a book to review; the subject, as he had received no special training in it, might have deterred one less bound by the sense of duty. This book was called The Snail: Its Habitat, Food, Customs, Virtues, Vices, and Future. It was, as its title would imply, a monograph upon snails, and there were many fine coloured prints, showing various snails occupied in feeding on the leaves proper to each species. It also contained a large number of process blocks, showing sections, plans, elevations, and portraits of snails, as well as detailed descriptions (with diagrams) of the ears, tongues, eyes, hair, and nerves of snails. It was a comprehensive and remarkable work.

My friend (whose name I suppress for family reasons) would not naturally have cared to review this book. He saw that it involved the assumption of a knowledge which he did not possess, and that some parts of the book might require very close reading. It numbered in all 1532 pages, but this was including the index and the preface.

He put his inclinations to one side, and took the book with him to the office of the newspaper from which he had received it, where he was relieved to hear the Editor inform him that it was not necessary to review the work in any great detail. “Moreover,” he added, “I don’t think you need praise it too much.”

On hearing this, the Reviewer, having noted down the price of the book and the name of the publisher, wrote the following words—which, by the way, the student will do well to cut out and pin upon his wall, as an excellent example of what a “short notice” should be:—

“The Snail: Its Habitat, &c. Adam Charles. Pschuffer. 21s. 6d.

“This is a book that will hardly add to the reputation of its author. There is evidence of detailed work, and even of conscientious research in several places, but the author has ignored or misunderstood the whole teaching of ___________ and the special discoveries of ___________ and what is even more remarkable in a man of Mr. Charles’ standing, he advances views which were already exploded in the days of ___________.”

He then took an Encyclopædia and filled up the blanks with the names of three great men who appeared, according to that work, to be the leaders in this branch of natural history. His duty thus thoroughly accomplished and his mind at rest, he posted his review, and applied himself to lighter occupations.

Next day, however, the Editor telephoned to him, to the effect that the notice upon which he had spent so much labour could not be used.

“We have just received,” said the Editor, “a page advertisement from Pschuffer. I would like a really good article, and you might use the book as a kind of peg on which to hang it. You might begin on the subject of snails, and make it something more like your ‘Oh! my lost friend,’ which has had such a success.”

On occasions such as these the beginner must remember to keep full possession of himself.

Nothing in this mortal life is permanent, and the changes that are native to the journalistic career are perhaps the most startling and frequent of all those which threaten humanity.

The Reviewer of whom I speak was as wise as he was honourable. He saw at once what was needed. He wrote another and much longer article, beginning—

“The Snail: Its Habitat, &c. Adam Charles. Pschuffer. 21s. 6d.

“There are tender days just before the Spring dares the adventure of the Channel, when our Kentish woods are prescient, as it were, of the South. It is calm ...”

and so forth, leading gradually up to snails, and bringing in the book here and there about every twentieth line.

When this long article was done, he took it back to the office, and there found the Editor in yet a third mood. He was talking into the telephone, and begged his visitor to wait until he had done. My friend, therefore, took up a copy of the Spectator, and attempted to distract his attention with the masterful irony and hard crystalline prose of that paper.

Soon the Editor turned to him and said that Pschuffer’s had just let him know by the telephone that they would not advertise after all.

It was now necessary to delete all that there might be upon snails in his article, to head the remainder “My Kentish Home,” and to send it immediately to “Life in the Open.” This done, he sat down and wrote upon a scrap of paper in the office the following revised notice, which the Editor glanced at and approved:—

“The Snail: Its Habitat, &c. Adam Charles. Pschuffer. 21s. 6d.

“This work will, perhaps, appeal to specialists. This journal does not profess any capacity of dealing with it, but a glance at its pages is sufficient to show that it would be very ill-suited to ordinary readers. The illustrations are not without merit.”

Next morning he was somewhat perturbed to be called up again upon the telephone by the Editor, who spoke to him as follows:—

“I am very sorry, but I have just learnt a most important fact. Adam Charles is standing in our interests at Biggleton. Lord Bailey will be on the platform. You must write a long and favourable review of the book before twelve to-day, and do try and say a little about the author.”

He somewhat wearily took up a sheet of paper and wrote what follows:—a passage which I must again recommend to the student as a very admirable specimen of work upon these lines.

“The Snail: Its Habitat, &c. Adam Charles. Pschuffer. 21s. 6d.

“This book comes at a most opportune moment. It is not generally known that Professor Charles was the first to point out the very great importance of the training of the mind in the education of children. It was in May, 1875, that he made this point in the presence of Mr. Gladstone, who was so impressed by the mingled enlightenment and novelty of the view, that he wrote a long and interesting postcard upon the author to a friend of the present writer. Professor Charles may be styled—nay, he styles himself—a ‘self-made man.’ Born in Huddersfield of parents who were weavers in that charming northern city, he was early fascinated by the study of natural science, and was admitted to the Alexandrovna University....”

(And so on, and so on, out of “Who’s Who.”)

“But this would not suffice for his growing genius.”

(And so on, and so on, out of the Series of Contemporary Agnostics.)

“ ... It is sometimes remarkable to men of less wide experience how such spirits find the mere time to achieve their prodigious results. Take, for example, this book on the Snail....”

And he continued in a fine spirit of praise, such as should be given to books of this weight and importance, and to men such as he who had written it. He sent it by boy-messenger to the office.

The messenger had but just left the house when the telephone rang again, and once more it was the Editor, who asked whether the review had been sent off. Knowing how dilatory are the run of journalists, my friend felt some natural pride in replying that he had indeed just despatched the article. The Editor, as luck would have it, was somewhat annoyed by this, and the reason soon appeared when he proceeded to say that the author was another Charles after all, and not the Mr. Charles who was standing for Parliament. He asked whether the original review could still be retained, in which the book, it will be remembered, had been treated with some severity.

My friend permitted himself to give a deep sigh, but was courteous enough to answer as follows:—

“I am afraid it has been destroyed, but I shall be very happy to write another, and I will make it really scathing. You shall have it by twelve.”

It was under these circumstances that the review (which many of you must have read) took this final form, which I recommend even more heartily than any of the others to those who may peruse these pages for their profit, as well as for their instruction.

“The Snail: Its Habitat, &c. Adam Charles. Pschuffer. 21s. 6d.

“We desire to have as little to do with this book as possible, and we should recommend some similar attitude to our readers. It professes to be scientific, but the harm books of this kind do is incalculable. It is certainly unfit for ordinary reading, and for our part we will confess that we have not read more than the first few words. They were quite sufficient to confirm the judgment which we have put before our readers, and they would have formed sufficient material for a lengthier treatment had we thought it our duty as Englishmen to dwell further upon the subject.”

Let me now turn from the light parenthesis of illuminating anecdote to the sterner part of my task.

We will begin at the beginning, taking the simplest form of review, and tracing the process of production through its various stages.

It is necessary first to procure a few forms, such as are sold by Messrs. Chatsworthy in Chancery Lane, and Messrs. Goldman, of the Haymarket, in which all the skeleton of a review is provided, with blanks left for those portions which must, with the best will in the world, vary according to the book and the author under consideration. There are a large number of these forms, and I would recommend the student who is as yet quite a novice in the trade to select some forty of the most conventional, such as these on page 7 of the catalogue:—

“Mr. —— has hardly seized the pure beauty of”

“We cannot agree with Mr. —— in his estimate of”

“Again, how admirable is the following:”

At the same establishments can be procured very complete lists of startling words, which lend individuality and force to the judgment of the Reviewer. Indeed I believe that Mr. Goldman was himself the original patentee of these useful little aids, and among many before me at this moment I would recommend the following to the student:—

Messrs. Malling, of Duke Street, Soho, sell a particular kind of cartridge paper and some special pins, gum, and a knife, called “The Reviewer’s Outfit.” I do not know that these are necessary, but they cost only a few pence, and are certainly of advantage in the final process: To wit:—Seizing firmly the book to be reviewed, write down the title, price, publisher, and (in books other than anonymous) the author’s name, at the top of the sheet of paper you have chosen. The book should then be taken in both hands and opened sharply, with a gesture not easily described, but acquired with very little practice. The test of success is that the book should give a loud crack and lie open of itself upon the table before one. This initial process is technically called “breaking the back” of a book, but we need not trouble ourselves yet with technical terms. One of the pages so disclosed should next be torn out and the word “extract” written in the corner, though not before such sentences have been deleted as will leave the remainder a coherent paragraph. In the case of historical and scientific work, the preface must be torn out bodily, the name of the Reviewer substituted for the word “I,” and the whole used as a description of the work in question. What remains is very simple. The forms, extracts, &c., are trimmed, pinned, and gummed in order upon the cartridge paper (in some offices brown paper), and the whole is sent to press.

I need hardly say that only the most elementary form of review can be constructed upon this model, but the simplest notice contains all the factors which enter into the most complicated and most serious of literary criticism and pronouncements.

In this, as in every other practical trade, an ounce of example is worth a ton of precept, and I have much pleasure in laying before the student one of the best examples that has ever appeared in the weekly press of how a careful, subtle, just, and yet tender review, may be written. The complexity of the situation which called it forth, and the lightness of touch required for its successful completion, may be gauged by the fact that Mr. Mayhem was the nephew of my employer, had quarrelled with him at the moment when the notice was written, but will almost certainly be on good terms with him again; he was also, as I privately knew, engaged to the daughter of a publisher who had shares in the works where the review was printed.

A YOUNG POET IN DANGER.

Mr. Mayhem’s “Pereant qui Nostra.”

We fear that in “Pereant qui Nostra,” Mr. Mayhem has hardly added to his reputation, and we might even doubt whether he was well advised to publish it at all. “Tufts in an Orchard” gave such promise, that the author of the exquisite lyrics it contained might easily have rested on the immediate fame that first effort procured him:

“Lord, look to England; England looks to you,”

and—

“Great unaffected vampires and the moon,”

are lines the Anglo-Saxon race will not readily let die.

In “Pereant qui Nostra,” Mr. Mayhem preserves and even increases his old facility of expression, but there is a terrible falling-off in verbal aptitude.

What are we to think of “The greatest general the world has seen” applied as a poetic description to Lord Kitchener? Mr. Mayhem will excuse us if we say that the whole expression is commonplace.

Commonplace thought is bad enough, though it is difficult to avoid when one tackles a great national subject, and thinks what all good patriots and men of sense think also. “Pour être poête,” as M. Yves Guyot proudly said in his receptional address to the French Academy, “Pour être poête on n’est pas forcément aliéné.” But commonplace language should always be avoidable, and it is a fault which we cannot but admit we have found throughout Mr. Mayhem’s new volume. Thus in “Laura” he compares a young goat to a “tender flower,” and in “Billings” he calls some little children “the younglings of the flock.” Again, he says of the waves at Dover in a gale that they are “horses all in rank, with manes of snow,” and tells us in “Eton College” that the Thames “runs like a silver thread amid the green.”

All these similes verge upon the commonplace, even when they do not touch it. However, there is very genuine feeling in the description of his old school, and we have no doubt that the bulk of Etonians will see more in the poem than outsiders can possibly do.

It cannot be denied that Mr. Mayhem has a powerful source of inspiration in his strong patriotism, and the sonnets addressed to Mr. Kruger, Mr. O’Brien, Dr. Clark, and General Mercier are full of vigorous denunciation. It is the more regrettable that he has missed true poetic diction and lost his subtlety in a misapprehension of planes and values.

“Vile, vile old man, and yet more vile again,”

is a line that we are sure Mr. Mayhem would reconsider in his better moments: “more vile” than what? Than himself? The expression is far too vague.

“Proud Prelate,” addressed to General Mercier, must be a misprint, and it is a pity it should have slipped in. What Mr. Mayhem probably meant was “Proud Cæsar” or “soldier,” or some other dissyllabic title. The word prelate can properly only be applied to a bishop, a mitred abbot, or a vicar apostolic.

“Babbler of Hell, importunate mad fiend, dead canker, crested worm,” are vigorous and original, but do not save the sonnet. And as to the last two lines,

“Nor seek to pierce the viewless shield of years,

For that you certainly could never do,”

Mr. Mayhem must excuse us if we say that the order of the lines make a sheer bathos.

Perhaps the faults and the excellences of Mr. Mayhem, his fruitful limitations, and his energetic inspirations, can be best appreciated if we quote the following sonnet; the exercise will also afford us the opportunity (which we are sure Mr. Mayhem will not resent in such an old friend) of pointing out the dangers into which his new tendencies may lead him.

“England, if ever it should be thy fate

By fortune’s turn or accident of chance

To fall from craven fears of being great,

And in the tourney with dishevelled lance

To topple headlong, and incur the Hate

Of Spain, America, Germany, and France,

What will you find upon that dreadful date

To check the backward move of your advance?

A little Glory; purchased not with gold

Nor yet with Frankincense (the island blood

Is incommensurate, neither bought nor sold),

But on the poops where Drake and Nelson stood

An iron hand, a stern unflinching eye

To meet the large assaults of Destiny.”

Now, here is a composition that not everyone could have written. It is inspired by a vigorous patriotism, it strikes the right note (Mr. Mayhem is a Past Seneschal of the Navy League), and it breathes throughout the motive spirit of our greatest lyrics.

It is the execution that is defective, and it is to execution that Mr. Mayhem must direct himself if he would rise to the level of his own great conceptions.

We will take the sonnet line by line, and make our meaning clear, and we do this earnestly for the sake of a young poet to whom the Anglo-Saxon race owes much, and whom it would be deplorable to see failing, as Kipling appears to be failing, and as Ganzer has failed.

Line 1 is not very striking, but might pass as an introduction; line 2 is sheer pleonasm—after using the word “fate,” you cannot use “fortune,” “accident,” “chance,” as though they were amplifications of your first thought. Moreover, the phrase “by fortune’s turn” has a familiar sound. It is rather an echo than a creation.

In line 3, “craven fears of being great” is taken from Tennyson. The action is legitimate enough. Thus, in Wordsworth’s “Excursion” are three lines taken bodily from “Paradise Lost,” in Kipling’s “Stow it” are whole phrases taken from the Police Gazette, and in Mr. Austin’s verses you may frequently find portions of a Standard leader. Nevertheless, it is a license which a young poet should be chary of. All these others were men of an established reputation before they permitted themselves this liberty.

In line 4, “dishevelled” is a false epithet for “lance”; a lance has no hair; the adjective can only properly be used of a woman, a wild beast, or domestic animal.

In line 5, “incur the hate” is a thoroughly unpoetic phrase—we say so unreservedly. In line 6, we have one of those daring experiments in metre common to our younger poets; therefore we hesitate to pronounce upon it, but (if we may presume to advise) we should give Mr. Mayhem the suggestion made by the Times to Tennyson—that he should stick to an exact metre until he felt sure of his style; and in line 8, “the backward move of your advance” seems a little strained.

It is, however, in the sextet that the chief slips of the sonnet appear, and they are so characteristic of the author’s later errors, that we cannot but note them; thus, “purchased not with gold or Frankincense” is a grievous error. It is indeed a good habit to quote Biblical phrases (a habit which has been the making of half our poets), but not to confuse them: frankincense was never used as coin—even by the Hittites. “Incommensurate” is simply meaningless. How can blood be “incommensurate”? We fear Mr. Mayhem has fallen into the error of polysyllabic effect, a modern pitfall. “Island blood” will, however, stir many a responsive thrill.

The close of the sonnet is a terrible falling off. When you say a thing is purchased, “not with this but——” the reader naturally expects an alternative, instead of which Mr. Mayhem goes right off to another subject! Also (though the allusion to Nelson and Drake is magnificent) the mention of an iron hand and an eye by themselves on a poop seems to us a very violent metaphor.

The last line is bad.

We do not write in this vein to gain any reputation for preciosity, and still less to offend. Mr. Mayhem has many qualities. He has a rare handling of penultimates, much potentiality, large framing; he has a very definite chiaroscuro, and the tones are full and objective; so are the values. We would not restrain a production in which (as a partner in a publishing firm) the present writer is directly interested. But we wish to recall Mr. Mayhem to his earlier and simpler style—to the “Cassowary,” and the superb interrupted seventh of “The Altar Ghoul.”

England cannot afford to lose that talent.

ON POLITICAL APPEALS.

POLITICAL APPEALS.

It was one of Dr. Caliban’s chief characteristics—and perhaps the main source of his power over others—that he could crystallize, or—to use the modern term—“wankle,” the thought of his generation into sharp unexpected phrases. Among others, this was constantly upon his lips:—

“We live in stirring times.”

If I may presume to add a word to the pronouncements of my revered master, I would re-write the sentence thus:—

“We live in stirring—AND CHANGEFUL—times.”

It is not only an element of adventure, it is also an element of rapid and unexpected development which marks our period, and which incidentally lends so considerable an influence to genius.

In the older and more settled order, political forces were so well known that no description or analysis of them was necessary: to this day members of our more ancient political families do not read the newspapers. Soon, perhaps, the national life will have entered a new groove, and once more literary gentlemen will but indirectly control the life of the nation.

For the moment, however, their effect is direct and immediate. A vivid prophecy, a strong attack upon this statesman or that foreign Government may determine public opinion for a space of over ten days, and matter of this sort is remunerated at the rate of from 15s. to 18s. 6d. per thousand words. When we contrast this with the 9s. paid for the translation of foreign classics, the 5s. of occasional verse, or even the 10s. of police-court reporting, it is sufficiently evident that this kind of composition is the Premier Prose of our time.

There must, indeed, be in London and Manchester, alive at the present moment, at least fifty men who can command the prices I have mentioned, and who, with reasonable industry, can earn as much as £500 a year by their decisions upon political matters. But I should be giving the student very indifferent counsel were I to recommend him for the delivery of his judgment to the beaten track of Leading Articles or to that of specially written and signed communications: the sums paid for such writing never rise beyond a modest level; the position itself is precarious. In London alone, and within a radius of 87 yards from the “Green Dragon,” no less than 53 Authors lost their livelihood upon the more respectable papers from an inability to prophecy with any kind of accuracy upon the late war, and this at a time when the majority of regular politicians were able to retain their seats in Parliament and many ministers their rank in the Cabinet.

By far the most durable, the most exalted, and the most effective kind of appeal, is that which is made in a poetic form, especially if that form be vague and symbolic in its character. Nothing is risked and everything is gained by this method, upon which have been founded so many reputations and so many considerable fortunes. The student cannot be too strongly urged to abandon the regular and daily task of set columns—signed or unsigned—for the occasional Flash of Verse if he desire to provoke great wars and to increase his income. It may not always succeed, but the proportion of failures is very small, and at the worst it is but a moment’s energy wasted.

“We are sick” says one of the most famous among those who have adopted this method, “We are sick”—he is speaking not only of himself but of others—“We are sick for a stave of the song that our fathers sang.” Turn, therefore, to the dead—who are no longer alive, and with whom no quarrel is to be feared. Make them reappear and lend weight to your contention. Their fame is achieved, and may very possibly support your own. This kind of writing introduces all the elements that most profoundly affect the public: it is mysterious, it is vague, it is authoritative; it is also eminently literary, and I can recall no first-class political appeal of the last fifteen years which has not been cast more or less upon these lines.

The subjects you may choose from are numerous and are daily increasing, but for the amateur the best, without any question, is that of Imperialism. It is a common ground upon which all meet, and upon which every race resident in the wealthier part of London is agreed. Bring forward the great ghosts of the past, let them swell what is now an all but universal chorus. Avoid the more complicated metres, hendecasyllables, and the rest; choose those which neither scan nor rhyme; or, if their subtlety baffles you, fall back upon blank verse, and you should, with the most moderate talent, lay the foundation of a permanent success.

I will append, as is my custom, a model upon which the student may shape his first efforts, though I would not have him copy too faithfully, lest certain idiosyncrasies of manner should betray the plagiarism.

THE IMPERIALIST FEAST.

[A Hall at the Grand Oriental. At a long table are seated innumerable Shades. The walls are decorated with flags of all nations, and a band of musicians in sham uniform are playing very loudly on a daïs.]

Catullus rises and makes a short speech, pointing out the advantages of Strong Men, and making several delicate allusions to Cæsar, who is too much of a gentleman to applaud. He then gives them the toast of “Imperialism,” to which there is a hearty response. Lucan replies in a few well-chosen words, and they fall to conversation.

Petronius—I would be crowned with paper flowers to-night
And scented with the rare opopanax,
Whose savour leads the Orient in, suggesting
The seas beyond Modore.
Talleyrand— Shove up, Petronius,
And let me sit as near as possible
To Mr. Bingoe’s Grand Imperial Band
With Thirty-seven Brazen Instruments
And Kettle-Drums complete: I hear the players
Discourse the music called “What Ho! She Bumps!”
Lord Chesterfield—What Ho! She Bumps! Likewise! C’est ça! There’s ’Air!
Lord Glenaltamont of Ephesus (severely)—Lord Chesterfield! Be worthy of your name.
Lord Chesterfield (angrily)—Lord Squab, be worthy of your son-in-law’s.
Henry V.—My Lords! my Lords! What do you with your swords?
I mean, what mean you by this strange demeanour
Which (had you swords and knew you how to use them)
Might ... I forget what I was going to say....
Oh! Yes——Is this the time for peers to quarrel,
When all the air is thick with Agincourt
And every other night is Crispin’s day?
The very supers bellow up and down,
Armed of rude cardboard and wide blades of tin
For England and St. George!
Richard Yea and Nay— You talk too much.
Think more. Revise. Avoid the commonplace;
And when you lack a startling word, invent it.

[Their quarrel is stopped by Thomas Jefferson rising to propose the toast of “The Anglo-Saxon Race.”]

Jefferson—If I were asked what was the noblest message
Delivered to the twentieth century,
I should reply—
(Etc., etc. While he maunders on
Antony, Cleopatra, and Cæsar begin talking
rather loud)
Cleopatra—Waiter! I want a little crème de menthe.
(The waiter pays no attention.)
Antony—Waiter! A glass of curaçao and brandy.
(Waiter still looks at Jefferson.)
Cæsar—That is the worst of these contracted dinners.
They give you quite a feed for 3s. 6d.
And have a splendid Band. I like the Band,
It stuns the soul.... But when you call the waiter
He only sneers and looks the other way.
Cleopatra (makes a moue).
Cæsar (archly)—Was that the face that launched a thousand ships
And sacked....
Antony (angrily)—Oh! Egypt! Egypt! Egypt!
Thomas Jefferson (ending, interrupts the quarrel).
... blessings
Of order, cleanliness, and business methods.
The base of Empire is a living wage.
One King ... (applause) ... (applause)
... (applause) shall always wave ... (applause)
... (loud applause) ... (applause)
The Reign of Law!
(Thunders of applause)
Napoleon (rising to reply)—I am myself a strong Imperialist.
A brochure, very recently compiled
(Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read),
Neglects the point, I think; the Anglo-Saxon ... (&c. &c.)
George III. (to Burke)—Who’s that? Eh, what?
Who’s that? Who ever’s that?
Burke—Dread sire! It is the Corsican Vampire.
George III.—Napoleon? What? I thought that he was leaner.
I thought that he was leaner. What? What? What?
Napoleon (sitting down) ... such dispositions!
Order! Tête d’Armée!
(Slight applause)
Herod (rises suddenly without being asked, crosses his
arms, glares, and shouts very loudly).
Ha! Would you have Imperial hearing? Hounds!
I am that Herod which is he that am
The lonely Lebanonian (interruption) who despaired
In Deep Marsupial Dens ... (cries of “Sit down!”)
... In dreadful hollows
To—(“Sit down!”)—tear great trees with the
teeth, and hurricanes—(“Sit down!”)—
That shook the hills of Moab!
Chorus of Dead Men—Oh! Sit down.
(He is swamped by the clamour, in the midst of which
Lucullus murmurs to himself)
Lucullus (musing)—The banquet’s done. There was a tribute drawn
Of anchovies and olives and of soup
In tins of conquered nations; subject whiting:
Saddle of mutton from the antipodes
Close on the walls of ice; Laponian pheasants;
Eggs of Canadian rebels, humbled now
To such obeisance—scrambled eggs—and butter
From Brittany enslaved, and the white bread
Hardened for heroes in the test of time,
Was California’s offering. But the cheese,
The cheese was ours.... Oh! but the glory faded
Of feasting at repletion mocks our arms
And threatens even Empire.
(Great noise of Vulgarians, a mob of people, heralds,
trumpets, flags. Enter Vitellius.)
Vitellius— I have dined!
But not with you. The master of the world
Has dined alone and at his own expense.
And oh!—I am almost too full for words—
But oh! My lieges, I have used you well!
I have commanded fifteen hundred seats
And standing room for something like a thousand
To view my triumph over Nobody
Upon the limelit stage.
Herod— Oh! rare Vitellius,
Oh! Prominent great Imperial ears! Oh! Mouth
To bellow largesse! Oh! And rolling Thunder,
And trains of smoke. And oh!...
Vitellius— Let in the vulgar
To see the master sight of their dull lives:
Great Cæsar putting on his overcoat.
And then, my loved companions, we’ll away
To see the real Herod in the Play.
(The Shades pass out in a crowd. In the street Theocritus
is heard singing in a voice that gets fainter and fainter
with distance....)
“Put me somewhere ea-heast of Su-hez,
W’ere the best is loi-hoike the worst—
W’ere there hain’ no”—(and so forth).
Finis.

It is not enough to compose such appeals as may quicken the nation to a perception of her peculiar mission; it is necessary to paint for her guidance the abominations and weakness of foreign countries. The young writer may be trusted to know his duty instinctively in this matter, but should his moral perception be blunted, a sharper argument will soon remind him of what he owes to the Common Conscience of Christians. He that cannot write, and write with zeal, upon the Balkans, or upon Finland, or upon the Clerical trouble, or upon whatever lies before us to do for righteousness, is not worthy of a place in English letters: the public and his editor will very soon convince him of what he has lost by an unmanly reticence.

His comrades, who are content to deal with such matters as they arise, will not be paid at a higher rate: but they will be paid more often. They will not infrequently be paid from several sources; they will have many opportunities for judging those financial questions which are invariably mixed up with the great battle against the Ultramontane, the Cossack and the Turk. In Cairo, Frankfort, Pretoria, Mayfair, Shanghai, their latter days confirm Dr. Caliban’s profound conclusion: “Whosoever works for Humanity works, whether he know it or not, for himself as well.”[7]

I earnestly beseech the reader of this text-book, especially if he be young, to allow no false shame to modify his zeal in judging the vileness of the Continent. We know whatever can be known; all criticism or qualification is hypocrisy; all silence is cowardice. There is work to be done. Let the writer take up his pen and write.

I had some little hesitation what model to put before the student. This book does not profess to be more than an introduction to the elements of our science; I therefore omitted what had first seemed to me of some value, the letters written on a special commission to Pondicherry during the plague and famine in that unhappy and ill-governed remnant of a falling empire. The articles on the tortures in the Phillipines were never printed, and might mislead. I have preferred to show Priestcraft and Liberty in their eternal struggle as they appeared to me in the character of Special Commissioner for Out and About during the troubles of 1901. It is clear, and I think unbiassed; it opens indeed in that light fashion which is a concession to contemporary journalism: but the half-frivolous exterior conceals a permanent missionary purpose. Its carefully collected array of facts give, I suggest, a vivid picture of one particular battlefield; that whereon there rage to-day the opposed forces which will destroy or save the French people. The beginner could not have a better introduction to his struggle against the infamies of Clericalism. Let him ask himself (as Mr. Gardy, M.P., asked in a letter to Out and About) the indignant question, “Could such things happen here in England?”

THE SHRINE OF ST. LOUP.

My excellent good Dreyfusards, anti-Dreyfusards, Baptists, Anabaptists, pre-Monstratentians, antiquaries, sterling fellows, foreign correspondents, home-readers, historians, Nestorians, philosophers, Deductionists, Inductionists, Prætorians (I forgot those), Cæsarists, Lazarists, Catholics, Protestants, Agnostics and militant atheists, as also all you Churchmen, Nonconformists, Particularists, very strong secularists, and even you, my well-beloved little brethren called The Peculiar People, give ear attentively and listen to what is to follow, and you shall learn more of a matter that has wofully disturbed you than ever you would get from the Daily Mail or from Mynheer van Damm, or even from Dr. Biggies’ Walks and Talks in France.

In an upper valley of the Dauphiné there is a village called Lagarde. From this village, at about half-past four o’clock of a pleasant June morning, there walked out with his herd one Jean Rigors, a herdsman and half-wit. He had not proceeded very far towards the pastures above the village, and the sun was barely showing above the peak profanely called The Three Bishops, when he had the fortune to meet the Blessed St. Loup, or Lupus, formerly a hermit in that valley, who had died some fourteen hundred years ago, but whose name, astonishing as it may seem to the author of The Justification of Fame, is still remembered among the populace. The Blessed Lupus admonished the peasant, recalling the neglect into which public worship had fallen, reluctantly promised a sign whereby it might be re-created among the faithful, and pointed out a nasty stream of muddy water, one out of fifty that trickled from the moss of the Alps. He then struck M. Rigors a slight, or, as some accounts have it, a heavy, blow with his staff, and disappeared in glory.

Jean Rigors, who could not read or write, being a man over thirty, and having therefore forgotten the excellent free lessons provided by the Republic in primary schools, was not a little astonished at the apparition. Having a care to tether a certain calf whom he knew to be light-headed, he left the rest of the herd to its own unerring instincts, and ran back to the village to inform the parish priest of the very remarkable occurrence of which he had been the witness or victim. He found upon his return that the morning Mass, from which he had been absent off and on for some seven years, was already at the Gospel, and attended to it with quite singular devotion, until in the space of some seventeen minutes he was able to meet the priest in the sacristy and inform him of what had happened.

The priest, who had heard of such miraculous appearances in other villages, but (being a humble man, unfitted for worldly success and idiotic in business matters) had never dared to hope that one would be vouchsafed to his own cure, proceeded at once to the source of the muddy streamlet, and (unhistorical as the detail may seem to the author of Our Old Europe, Whence and Whither?) neglected to reward the hind, who, indeed, did not expect pecuniary remuneration, for these two excellent reasons:—First, that he knew the priest to be by far the poorest man in the parish; secondly, that he thought a revelation from the other world incommensurate with money payments even to the extent of a five-franc piece. The next Sunday (that is, three days afterwards) the priest, who had previously informed his brethren throughout the Canton, preached a sermon upon the decay of religion and the growing agnosticism of the modern world—a theme which, as they had heard it publicly since the Christian religion had been established by Constantine in those parts and privately for one hundred and twenty-five years before, his congregation received with some legitimate languor. When, however, he came to what was the very gist of his remarks, the benighted foreigners pricked up their ears (a physical atavism impossible to our own more enlightened community), and Le Sieur Rigors, who could still remember the greater part of the services of the Church, was filled with a mixture of nervousness and pride, while the good priest informed his hearers, in language that would have been eloquent had he not been trained in the little seminary, that the great St. Lupus himself had appeared to a devout member of his parish and had pointed out to him a miraculous spring, for the proper enshrinement of which he requested—nay, he demanded—the contributions of the faithful.

At that one sitting the excellent hierarch received no less a sum than 1053 francs and 67 centimes; the odd two-centimes (a coin that has disappeared from the greater part of France) being contributed by a road-mender, who was well paid by the State, but who was in the custom of receiving charity from tourists; the said tourists being under the erroneous impression that he was a beggar. He also, by the way, would entertain the more Anglo-Saxon of these with the folk-lore of the district, in which his fertile imagination was never at fault.

It will seem astonishing to the author of Village Communities in Western Europe to hear of so large a sum as £40 being subscribed by the congregation of this remote village, and it would seem still more astonishing to him could he see the very large chapel erected over the spring of St. Loup. I do not say that he would understand the phenomenon, but I do say that he would become a more perturbed and therefore a wiser man did he know the following four facts:—(1) That the freehold value of the village and its communal land, amounting to the sum of a poor £20,000, was not in the possession of a landlord, but in that of these wretched peasants. (2) That the one rich man of the neighbourhood, a retired glove-maker, being also a fanatic, presented his subscriptions in such a manner that they were never heard of. He had, moreover, an abhorrence for the regulation of charity. (3) That the master mason in the neighbouring town had in his youth been guilty of several mortal sins, and was so weak as to imagine that a special tender would in such a case make a kind of reparation; and (4) that the labourers employed were too ignorant to cheat and too illiterate to combine.

The new shrine waxed and prospered exceedingly, and on the Thursday following its dedication an epileptic, having made use of the water, was restored to a normal, and even commonplace, state of mind. On the Friday a girl, who said that she had been haunted by devils (though until then no one had heard of the matter), declared, upon drinking a cup from the spring of St. Loup, that she was now haunted by angels—a very much pleasanter condition of affairs. The Sunday following, the village usurer, who called himself Bertollin, but who was known to be a wicked foreigner from beyond the Alps, of the true name of Bertolino, ran into the inn like one demented, and threw down the total of his ill-gotten gains for the benefit of the shrine. They amounted, indeed, to but a hundred francs, but then his clientèle were close and skin-flint, as peasant proprietors and free men generally are the world over; and it was well known that the cobbler, who had himself borrowed a small sum for a month, and quadrupled it in setting up lodgings for artists, had been unable to recover from the usurer the mending of his boots.

By this time the Bishop had got wind of the new shrine, and wrote to the Curé of Lagarde a very strong letter, in which, after reciting the terms of the Concordat, Clause 714 of the Constitution and the decree of May 29th, 1854, he pointed out that by all these and other fundamental or organic laws of the Republic, he was master in his own diocese. He rebuked the curé for the superstitious practice which had crept into his cure, ordered the chapel to be used for none but ordinary purposes, and issued a pastoral letter upon the evils of local superstitions. This pastoral letter was read with unction and holy mirth in the neighbouring monastery of Bernion (founded in defiance of the law by the widow of a President of the Republic), but with sorrow and without comment in the little church of Lagarde.

The Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Public Worship, each in his separate way, proceeded to stamp out this survival of the barbaric period of Europe. The first by telling the Prefect to tell the sub-Prefect to tell the Mayor that any attempt to levy taxes in favour of the shrine would be administratively punished: the second by writing a sharp official note to the Bishop for not having acted on the very day that St. Loup appeared to the benighted herdsman. The sub-Prefect came from the horrible town of La Rochegayere and lunched with the Mayor, who was the donor of the new stained-glass window in the church, and they talked about the advantages of forcing the Government to construct a road through the valley to accommodate the now numerous pilgrims; a subject which the sub-Prefect, who was about to be promoted, approached with official nonchalance, but the Mayor (who owned the principal inn) with pertinacity and fervour. They then went out, the Mayor in his tricolour scarf to lock up the gate in front of the holy well, the sub-Prefect to escort his young wife to the presbytery, where she left a gift of 500 francs: the sub-Prefect thought it improper for a lady to walk alone.

Upon the closure of the shrine a local paper (joint property of the Bishop and a railway contractor) attacked the atheism of the Government. A local duchess, who was ignorant of the very terminology of religion, sent a donation of five thousand francs to the curé; with this the excellent man built a fine approach to the new chapel, “which,” as he sorrowfully and justly observed, “the faithful may approach, though an atheistic Government forbids the use of the shrine.” That same week, by an astonishing accident, the Ministry was overturned; the Minister of the Interior was compelled to retire into private life, and lived dependent upon his uncle (a Canon of Rheims). The Minister of Public Worship (who had become increasingly unpopular through the growth of anti-Semitic feeling) took up his father’s money-lending business at Antwerp.

Next week the lock and seals were discovered to have been in some inexplicable way removed from the gate of the well and (by Article 893 of the Administrative Code) before they could be replaced an action was necessary at the assize-town of Grenoble. This action (by the Order of 1875 on Law Terms) could not take place for six months; and in that interval an astonishing number of things happened at Lagarde.

An old Sapper General, who had devised the special obturator for light quick-firing guns, and who was attached to the most backward superstitions, came in full uniform to the Chapel and gave the shrine 10,000 francs: a mysteriously large endowment, as this sum was nearly half his income, and he had suffered imprisonment in youth for his Republican opinions. He said it was for the good of his soul, but the editor of the Horreur knew better, and denounced him. He was promptly retired upon a pension about a third greater than that to which he was legally entitled, and received by special secret messenger from the Minister of War an earnest request to furnish a memorandum on the fortifications of the Isère and to consider himself inspector, upon mobilisation, of that important line of defence.

Two monks, who had walked all the way from Spain, settled in a house near the well. A pilgrim, who had also evidently come from a prodigious distance on foot, but gave false information as to his movements, was arrested by the police and subsequently released. The arrest was telegraphed to the Times and much commented upon, but the suicide of a prominent London solicitor and other important news prevented any mention of his release.

A writer of great eminence, who had been a leading sceptic all his life, stayed at Lagarde for a month and became a raving devotee. His publishers (MM. Hermann Khan) punished him by refusing to receive his book upon the subject; but by some occult influence, probably that of the Jesuits, he was paid several hundreds for it by the firm of Zadoc et Cie; ten years afterwards he died of a congested liver, a catastrophe which some ascribed to a Jewish plot, and others treated as a proof that his intellect had long been failing.

A common peasant fellow, that had been paralysed for ten years, bathed in the water and walked away in a sprightly fashion afterwards. This was very likely due to his ignorance, for a doctor who narrowly watched the whole business has proved that he did not know the simplest rudiments of arithmetic or history, and how should such a fellow understand so difficult a disease as paralysis of the Taric nerve—especially if it were (as the doctor thought quite evident) complicated by a stricture of the Upper Dalmoid?

Two deaf women were, as is very commonly the case with enthusiasts of this kind, restored to their hearing; for how long we do not know, as their subsequent history was not traced for more than five years.

A dumb boy talked, but in a very broken fashion, and as he had a brother a priest and another brother in the army, trickery was suspected.

An English merchant, who had some trouble with his eyes, bathed in the water at the instance of a sister who desired to convert him. He could soon see so well that he was able to write to the Freethinker an account of his healing, called “The Medicinal Springs of Lagarde,” but, as he has subsequently gone totally blind, the momentary repute against ophthalmia which the water might have obtained was nipped in the bud.

What was most extraordinary of all, a very respectable director of a railway came to the village quietly, under an assumed name, and, after drinking the water, made a public confession of the most incredible kind and has since become a monk. His son, to whom he made over his whole fortune, had previously instituted a demand at law to be made guardian of his estates; but, on hearing of his father’s determination to embrace religion, he was too tolerant to pursue the matter further.

To cut a long story short, as Homer said when he abruptly closed the Odyssey, some 740 cases of miraculous cures occurred between the mysterious opening of the gates and the date for the trial at Grenoble. In that period a second and much larger series of buildings had begun to arise; the total property involved in the case amounted to 750,000 francs, and (by clause 61 of the Regulation on Civil Tribunals) the local court of assize was no longer competent. Before, however, the case could be removed to Paris, the assent of the Grenoble bench had to be formally obtained, and this, by the singularly Republican rule of “Non-avant” (instituted by Louis XI.), took just two years. By that time the new buildings were finished, eight priests were attached to the Church, a monastery of seventy-two monks, five hotels, a golf links, and a club were in existence. The total taxes paid by Lagarde to the Treasury amounted to half-a-million francs a year.

The Government had become willing (under the “Compromise of ’49,” which concerns Departments v. the State in the matter of internal communications) to build a fine, great road up to Lagarde. There was also a railway, a Custom House, and a project of sub-prefecture. Moreover, in some underhand way or other, several hundred people a month were cured of various ailments, from the purely subjective (such as buzzing in the ears) to those verging upon the truly objective (such as fracture of the knee-pan or the loss of an eye).

The Government is that of a practical and commonsense people. It will guide or protect, but it cannot pretend to coerce. Lagarde therefore flourishes, the Bishop is venerated, the monastery grumbles in silence, and there is some talk of an Hungarian journalist, born in Constantinople, whose father did time for cheating in the Russian Army, writing one of his fascinating anti-religious romances in nine hundred pages upon the subject. You will learn far more from such a book than you can possibly learn from the narrow limits of the above.

THE SHORT STORY.

THE SHORT STORY.

The short story is the simplest of all forms of literary composition. It is at the same time by far the most lucrative. It has become (to use one of Dr. Caliban’s most striking phrases) “part of the atmosphere of our lives.” In a modified form, it permeates our private correspondence, our late Baron Reuter’s telegraphic messages, the replies of our cabinet ministers, the rulings of our judges; and it has become inseparable from affirmations upon oath before Magistrates, Registrars, Coroners, Courts of Common Jurisdiction, Official Receivers, and all others qualified under 17 Vic. 21, Caps. 2 and 14; sub-section III.

To return to the short story. Its very reason for being (raison d’être) is simplicity. It suits our strenuous, active race; nor would I waste the student’s time by recalling the fact that, in the stagnant civilization of China, a novel or play deals with the whole of the hero’s life, in its minutest details, through seventy years. The contrast conveys an awful lesson!

Let us confine ourselves, however, to the purpose of these lines, and consider the short story; for it is the business of every true man to do what lies straight before him as honestly and directly as he can.

The Short Story, on account of its simplicity, coupled with the high rates of pay attached to it, attracts at the outset the great mass of writers. Several are successful, and in their eager rapture (I have but to mention John and Mary Hitherspoon) produce such numerous examples of this form of art, that the student may ask what more I have to teach him? In presenting a model for his guidance, and reproducing the great skeleton lines upon which the Short Story is built up, I would remind my reader that it is my function to instruct and his to learn; and I would warn him that even in so elementary a branch of letters as is this, “pride will have a fall.”

It is not necessary to dwell further upon this unpleasant aspect of my duty.

Let us first consider where the writer of the Short Story stands before the Law. What is her Legal Position as to (a) the length, (b) the plot of a short story which she may have contracted to deliver on a certain date to a particular publisher, editor, agent, or creditor? The following two decisions apply:—

Mabworthy
v. Crawley.

Mabworthy v. Crawley.—Mrs. Mabworthy brought an action against Crawley & Co. to recover payment due for a short story ordered of her by defendant. Defendant pleaded lack of specific performance, as story dealt with gradual change of spiritual outlook, during forty years, of maiden lady inhabiting Ealing. It was held by Mr. Justice Pake that the subject so treated was not of “ordinary length.” Judgment for the defendant. Mrs. Mabworthy, prompted by her sex, fortune, and solicitor to appeal, the matter was brought before the Court of Appeal, which decided that the word “ordinary” was equivalent to the word “reasonable.” Judgment for the defendant, with costs. Mrs. Mabworthy, at the instigation of the Devil, sold a reversion and carried the matter to the House of Lords, where it was laid down that “a Short Story should be of such length as would be found tolerable by any man of ordinary firmness and courage.” Judgment for the defendant.

The next case is the case of—

Gibson v.
Acle.

Gibson v. Acle.—In this case, Mr. Phillip Gibson, the well-known publisher, brought an action for the recovery of a sum of £3. 10s., advanced to Miss Acle, of “The Wolfcote,” Croydon, in consideration of her contracting to supply a short story, with regard to the manuscript of which he maintained, upon receiving it, that (1) it was not a story, and (2) it was not technically “short,” as it filled but eighteen lines in the very large type known as grand pica. Three very important points were decided in this case; for the Judge (Mr. Justice Veale, brother of Lord Burpham) maintained, with sturdy common sense, that if a publisher bought a manuscript, no matter what, so long as it did not offend common morals or the public security of the realm, he was bound to “print, comfort, cherish, defend, enforce, push, maintain, advertize, circulate, and make public the same”; and he was supported in the Court of Crown Cases Reserved in his decision that:

First: the word “short” was plainly the more applicable the less lengthy were the matter delivered: and

Secondly: the word “story” would hold as a definition for any concoction of words whatsoever, of which it could be proved that it was built up of separate sentences, such sentences each to consist of at least one predicate and one verb, real or imaginary.

Both these decisions are quite recent, and may be regarded as the present state of the law on the matter.

Once the legal position of the author is grasped, it is necessary to acquire the five simple rules which govern the Short Story.

1st. It should, as a practical matter apart from the law, contain some incident.

2nd. That incident should take place on the sea, or in brackish, or at least tidal, waters.

3rd. The hero should be English-speaking, white or black.

4th. His adventures should be horrible; but no kind of moral should be drawn from them, unless it be desired to exalt the patriotism of the reader.

5th. Every short story should be divided by a “Cæsura”: that is, it should break off sharp in the middle, and you have then the choice of three distinct courses:

(a). To stop altogether—as is often done by people who die, and whose remains are published.

(b). To go on with a totally different subject. This method is not to be commended to the beginner. It is common to rich or popular writers; and even they have commonly the decency to put in asterisks.

(c). To go on with your story where it left off, as I have done in the model which follows.

That model was constructed especially with the view to guide the beginner. Its hero is a fellow subject, white—indeed, an Englishman. The scene is laid in water, not perhaps salt, but at least brackish. The adventure preys upon the mind. The moral is doubtful: the Cæsura marked and obvious. Moreover, it begins in the middle, which (as I omitted to state above) is the very hall-mark of the Vivid Manner.

THE ACCIDENT TO MR. THORPE.

When Mr. Thorpe, drysalter, of St. Mary Axe, E.C., fell into the water, it was the opinion of those who knew him best that he would be drowned. I say “those who knew him best” because, in the crowd that immediately gathered upon the embankment, there were present not a few of his friends. They had been walking home together on this fine evening along the river side, and now that Mr. Thorpe was in such peril, not one could be got to do more than lean upon the parapet shouting for the police, though they should have known how useless was that body of men in any other than its native element. Alas! how frail a thing is human friendship, and how terribly does misfortune bring it to the test.

How had Mr. Thorpe fallen into the water? I am not surprised at your asking that question. It argues a very observant, critical, and accurate mind; a love of truth; a habit of weighing evidence; and altogether a robust, sturdy, practical, Anglo-Saxon kind of an attitude, that does you credit. You will not take things on hearsay, and there is no monkish credulity about you. I congratulate you. You say (and rightly) that Honest Merchants do not fall into the Thames for nothing, the thing is unusual; you want (very properly) to know how it happened, or, as you call it, “occurred.” I cannot tell you. I was not there at the time. All I know is, that he did fall in, and that, as matter of plain fact (and you are there to judge fact, remember, not law), Mr. Thorpe was at 6.15 in the evening of June 7th, 1892, floundering about in the water a little above Cleopatra’s Needle; and there are a cloud of witnesses.

It now behoves me to detail with great accuracy the circumstances surrounding his immersion, the degree of danger that he ran, and how he was saved. In the first place, Mr. Thorpe fell in at the last of the ebb, so that there was no tide to sweep him out to sea; in the second place, the depth of water at that spot was exactly five feet two inches, so that he could—had he but known it—have walked ashore (for he was, of course, over six feet in height); in the third place, the river has here a good gravelly bed, as you ought to know, for the clay doesn’t begin till you get beyond Battersea Bridge—and, by the way, this gravel accounts for the otherwise inexplicable phenomenon of the little boys that will dive for pennies at low tide opposite the shot tower; in the fourth place, the water, as one might have imagined at that season of the year, was warm and comfortable; in the fifth place, there lay but a few yards from him a Police Pier, crowded with lines, lifebuoys, boats, cork-jackets, and whatnot, and decorated, as to its Main Room, with a large placard entitled “First help to the drowning,” the same being illustrated with cuts, showing a man of commonplace features fallen into the hands of his religious opponents and undergoing the torture. Therefore it is easy to see that he could have either saved himself or have been saved by others without difficulty. Indeed, for Mr. Thorpe to have drowned, it would have been necessary for him to have exercised the most determined self-control, and to have thought out the most elaborate of suicidal plans; and, as a fact, he was within forty-three seconds of his falling in pulled out again by a boat-hook, which was passed through the back of his frock coat: and that is a lesson in favour of keeping one’s coat buttoned up like a gentleman, and not letting it flap open like an artist or an anarchist, or a fellow that writes for the papers. But I digress. The point is, that Mr. Thorpe was immediately saved, and there (you might think) was an end of the matter. Indeed, the thing seems to come to a conclusion of its own, and to be a kind of epic, for it has a beginning where Mr. Thorpe falls into the water (and, note you, the beginning of all epics is, or should be, out of the text); it has a middle or “action,” where Mr. Thorpe is floundering about like a sea monster, and an end, where he is pulled out again. They are of larger scope than this little story, and written in a pompous manner, yet the Iliad, the Æneid, Abbo’s Siege of Paris, the Chanson de Roland, Orlando Furioso, Thalaba the Destroyer, and Mr. Davidson’s shorter lyrics have no better claim to be epics in their essentials than has this relation of The Accident to Mr. Thorpe. So, then (you say), that is the end; thank you for the story; we are much obliged. If ever you have another simple little story to tell, pray publish it at large, and do not keep it for the exquisite delight of your private circle. We thank you again a thousand times. Good morrow.

Softly, softly. I beg that there may be no undue haste or sharp conclusions; there is something more to come. Sit you down and listen patiently. Was there ever an epic that was not continued? Did not the Rhapsodists of Cos piece together the Odyssey after their successful Iliad? Did not Dionysius Paracelsus write a tail to the Æneid? Was not the Chanson de Roland followed by the Four Sons of Aymon? Could Southey have been content with Thalaba had he not proceeded to write the adventures in America of William ap Williams, or some other Welshman whose name I forget? Eh? Well, in precisely the same manner, I propose to add a second and completing narrative to this of Mr. Thorpe’s accident; so let us have no grumbling.

And to understand what kind of thing followed his fall into the water, I must explain to you that nothing had ever happened to Mr. Thorpe before; he had never sailed a boat, never ridden a horse, never had a fight, never written a book, never climbed a mountain—indeed, I might have set out in a long litany, covering several pages, the startling, adventurous, and dare-devil things that Mr. Thorpe had never done; and were I to space out my work so, I should be well in the fashion, for does not the immortal Kipling (who is paid by the line) repeat his own lines half-a-dozen times over, and use in profusion the lines of well-known ballads? He does; and so have I therefore the right to space and stretch my work in whatever fashion will spin out the space most fully; and if I do not do so, it is because I am as eager as you can possibly be to get to the end of this chronicle.

Well then, nothing had ever happened to Mr. Thorpe before, and what was the result? Why that this aqueous adventure of his began to grow and possess him as you and I are possessed by our more important feats, by our different distant journeys, our bold speculations, our meeting with grand acquaintances, our outwitting of the law; and I am sorry to say that Mr. Thorpe in a very short time began to lie prodigiously. The symptoms of this perversion first appeared a few days after the accident, at a lunch which he attended (with the other directors of the Marine Glue Company) in the City. The company was in process of negotiating a very difficult piece of business, that required all the attention of the directors, and, as is usual under such circumstances, they fell to telling amusing tales to one another. One of them had just finished his story of how a nephew of his narrowly escaped lynching at Leadville, Colorado, when Mr. Thorpe, who had been making ponderous jokes all the morning, was suddenly observed to grow thoughtful, and (after first ascertaining with some care that there was no one present who had seen him fall in) he astonished the company by saying: “I cannot hear of such escapes from death without awe. It was but the other day that I was saved as by a miracle from drowning.” Then he added, after a little pause, “My whole life seemed to pass before me in a moment.”

Now this was not true. Mr. Thorpe’s mind at the moment he referred to had been wholly engrossed by the peculiar sensation that follows the drinking of a gallon of water suddenly when one is not in the least thirsty; but he had already told the tale so often, that he was fully persuaded of it, and, by this time, believed that his excellent and uneventful life had been presented to him as it is to the drowning people in books.

His fall was rapid. He grew in some vague way to associate his adventure with the perils of the sea. Whenever he crossed the Channel he would draw some fellow passenger into a conversation, and, having cunningly led it on to the subject of shipwreck, would describe the awful agony of battling with the waves, and the outburst of relief on being saved. At first he did not actually say that he had himself struggled in the vast and shoreless seas of the world, but bit by bit the last shreds of accuracy left him, and he took to painting with minute detail in his conversations the various scenes of his danger and salvation. Sometimes it was in the “steep water off the Banks;” sometimes in “the glassy steaming seas and on the feverish coast of the Bight;” sometimes it was “a point or two norr’ard of the Owers light”—but it was always terrible, graphic, and a lie.

This habit, as it became his unique preoccupation, cost him not a little. He lost his old friends who had seen his slight adventure, and he wasted much time in spinning these yarns, and much money in buying books of derring-do and wild ’scapes at sea. He loved those who believed his stories to be true, and shocked the rare minds that seemed to catch in them a suspicion of exaggeration. He could not long frequent the same society, and he strained his mind a little out of shape by the perpetual necessity of creative effort. None the less, I think that, on the whole, he gained. It made him an artist: he saw great visions of heaving waters at night; he really had, in fancy, faced death in a terrible form, and this gave him a singular courage in his last moments. He said to the doctor, with a slight calm smile, “Tell me the worst; I have been through things far more terrifying than this;” and when he was offered consolation by his weeping friends, he told them that “no petty phrases of ritual devotion were needed to soothe a man who had been face to face with Nature in her wildest moods.” So he died, comforted by his illusion, and for some days after the funeral his sister would hold him up to his only and favourite nephew as an example of a high and strenuous life lived with courage, and ended in heroic quiet. Then they all went to hear the will read.

But the will was the greatest surprise of all. For it opened with these words:—

“Having some experience of the perils they suffer that go down to the sea in ships, and of the blessedness of unexpected relief and rescue, I, John Curtall Thorpe, humbly and gratefully reminiscent of my own wonderful and miraculous snatching from the jaws of death ...”

And it went on to leave the whole property (including the little place in Surrey), in all (after Sir William Vernon Harcourt’s death duties had been paid) some £69,337. 6s. 3d. to the Lifeboat Fund, which badly needed it. Nor was there any modifying codicil but one, whereby the sum of £1000, free of duty, was left to Sylvester Sarassin, a poetic and long-haired young man, who had for years attended to his tales with reverent attention, and who had, indeed, drawn up, or “Englished” (as he called it), the remarkable will of the testator.

Many other things that followed this, the law-suit, the quarrel of the nephew with Sarassin, and so forth, I would relate had I the space or you the patience. But it grows late; the oil in the bulb is exhausted. The stars, which (in the beautiful words of Theocritus) “tremble and always follow the quiet wheels of the night,” warn me that it is morning. Farewell.

THE SHORT LYRIC.

THE SHORT LYRIC.