of playing children, and bespattered not with blood, but with wine.

And yet France laughs at those who speak to her of Peace, and the trumpet calls from the empty fields those whose labor it should be to make fruitful this fertile desert-calls them to useless destruction before the altar of that national vanity which is miscalled Glory. "La France-la Gloire-le Drapeau!" They are fine words these. But to that Blackwood's Magazine.

gray old woman left alone upon her hillside, France is only a dim, terrible thing, to which her children have been sacrificed in vain. Glory is but another name for Death, and the flag is that battered tricolor before the café door, which has lain like a sad, unspoken epitaph, above the wreck of all her simple hopes, and the ruin of a broken life.

Nellie K. Blissett.

Americans should read with careful attention the article from the Listok of Odessa, translated in the Times of Monday, May 14th. They do not usually count Russia among their foes, but that article, which is evidently written by a thoughtful Russian, probably a diplomatist, and which has passed the Censor, will show them that the dislike and suspicion of their policy is now nearly universal on the Continent. That dislike has been growing among the peoples for years, envy being among all but the English-speaking races the master passion, and it has now extended to the Governments. The main cause of it, no doubt, is fear, a positive dread of the enormous resources of the United States, and of the willingness of their people, revealed, as the Listok affirms, in the Spanish War, to use them for the forcible expansion of their trade and territory. The statesmen of Europe, themselves devoted to the enrichment of their States through transmarine acquisitions, do not know exactly what course America will pursue in her new greatness, and besides recognizing clearly that she is stronger than any single State of the Continent, doubt in their hearts whether, if all who speak

English stood together, it would be possible for any coalition, even if it covered all other civilized States, to raise up any sufficient obstacles to American designs. They cannot conceive that such a mass of power can be used for any but selfish ends, and are, therefore, genuinely alarmed. France cannot forget the terrible blow recently given to a Latin people of whom she thinks herself protectress; Germany sees the pathway to the great colonies of which she dreams blocked by the Monroe doctrine; Italy is always raging at the treatment of her Neapolitan emigrants; the Vatican, which counts among the Powers, is furious at the overthrow of Spain; and Russia most seriously dreads, as the Listok admits, interference with her great plans for controlling China and seating herself forever on the shore of the North Pacific. Those plans, which are really able, and which will convert the vast Asiatic dominions of the Czar, now only a burden on the Empire, into most valuable possessions, have taken as strong a hold of the governing classes of Russia as their old dream of inheriting Turkey, and they watch both America and England, as potential obstacles in the Far East, with a jealousy and spite which renders

it difficult to obtain a hearing in St. Petersburg for the wisest plans of compromise. The Listok, as Americans will see, actually speaks of a combination of Europe-that is, of the Continent, for our interest is identical with that of America-to resist them in China alone, and every new assertion by Washington of its right to protect its interests everywhere deepens the latent hostility. There is a note of positive anger, as well as surprise, that the Union should "venture to threaten a European Power" like Turkey in order to enforce a pecuniary obligation, and a menace is addressed to her which, if England joined in it, would be of the gravest kind, but which, as England does not join in it, only betrays the bitterest annoyance. "It is highly improbable," says the Listok, "that the thing will go so far as a naval demonstration, for there are Powers in Europe, with Russia in the van, who will lose no time in reminding the United States that the European Concert has, in the past, made sacrifices on far too extensive a scale in the settlement of the question of free passage through the Straits to think of allowing the United States now to nullify at a stroke agreements which have cost so much blood in working out." That menace has, at least, the merit of definiteness. However much Turkey may wrong the United States, American ships are not to pass the Straits in order to exact redress from Constantinople, under penalty of being blown by Russian, German and Austrian ships out of the water.

tion; but it is difficult to get rid of a prepossession, and they were prepossessed with the notion that as America professed indifference to everything outside the Western Hemisphere, she would, under all circumstances, leave the Eastern one alone. "With words," says Disraeli, "we govern men," and certainly words do sometimes seem to have all the force of realities. That illusion has been dispelled, a new world-Power insists on recognition, and, just to begin with, without much effort strikes an ancient European Monarchy to its knees. To men embedded in traditions that event is most disturbing. The Continental Governments have many arrangements among themselves-some still secret-to meet various contingencies, and with this new ship drifting in they are not sure of their anchors. America in the Philippines, America in China, America in Turkey,-what does it all mean, and how are our combinations affected? The Governments feel as the managers of a great Trust feel when another Trust invades their peculium, and they have not thought out either the means of resistance or of bargaining. They grow quite savage, and may, perhaps, in the end, commit themselves to some imprudent line of action. They are not quite sure of the obstinacy of the intruder, though they fear it is very great; they are not quite certain that she has strong backing, and they may fancy that the case is one for trying a little bluff, and so produce a very serious situation indeed. This is the more probable from the second of the two causes, which Americans scarcely perceive. The professional diplomatists of the Continent hate the representatives of the Union, and would like any opportunity of giving them a sharp set-down. They detest the American habit-which is, no doubt, sometimes inconvenient-of using amateurs as Ambassadors and Ministers, men who use a non-profes

sional phraseology, who never know how to distinguish between feint and earnest, and who press any demands they are sent to make with a sort of conviction that they must, in the end, be granted. "You see, our people," remarks an American, quite unconscious that his attitude is that of a master, "will not have your tariff." The frankness of the American agents strikes the old aristocrats of European Chancelleries as boorishness, their lawyer-like arguments as pettifogging, and their cool persistence as distinctly overbearing.

American agents, we fancy, do sometimes use final arguments, the word "unfriendly," for instance, a little too soon, and their interlocutors get as angry as Palmerston was when he rebuked Walewski for using the word war, "a word which should never be employed between diplomatists." They do not think Americans respectful enough in their mention of the great, they fret at their ignorance of comparaThe Spectator.

tive rank, and they are as shocked as great solicitors at their impatience of long delays. Every trained diplomatist has in him a trace of the great ecclesi- . astic, who thinks that, as time is nothing to God, it should be nothing to the Church, either. Altogether, they find the American diplomatists an irritating element in the family, and would like very much an opportunity of displaying their real sentiments towards them. We do not know that this temper in ordinary times matters much, but when grave issues are at stake the hostile humor of an entire profession does not tend to pacification. When one's lawyers feel hurt by their adversary's lawyers, negotiations are very apt to end in Court instead of in a compromise. Anyhow, the Americans will do well to think over the arguments from the Listok, and decide in their own minds whether they think they indicate Continental love or not.

There is a magic in all remembrance of one age by another. The past within a past-how remote, how vivid it seems! How we warm to Cicero, and feel his antiquity in a flash, when we find him remembering the figures that moved about Rome in his boyhood.

There was old Caius Duilius, Marcus's son, he that gave the first blow to the pride of Carthage by sea. Many a time, when I was a youngster, have I stood to look upon him as he was inarching home after supper, with a wax-taper to light him, and a violin playing before him. That was always his humor, and the great reputation of the man easily justified the levity.

How that figure engages itself to live in the mind, and gives the sense of immemorial distance. And why? Because it is recollected by Cicero, not related by Mommsen. It would be easy to collect such passages. One we will quote for its beauty. It seems more than probable that Defoe described his own boyish curiosity and insatiable love of a story when he wrote this passage about his boy hero, Captain Jack-a passage which no Englishman can read without a thrill.

In this way of talk, I was always upon the inquiry, asking questions of things done in public, as well as in pri

vate; particularly, I loved to talk with seamen and soldiers about the war, and about the great seafights, or battles on shore, that any of them had been in; and, as I never forgot anything they told me, I could soon, that is to say, in a few years, give almost as good an account of the Dutch war, and of the fights at sea, the battles in Flanders, the taking of Maestricht, and the like, as any of those that had been there; and this made those old soldiers and tars love to talk with me too, and to tell me all the stories they could think of, and that not only of the wars then going on, but also of the wars in Oliver's time, the death of King Charles I and the like.

Nor does the power of reminiscence end soon. While it enlarges and flatters our grasp of life, it is all the time making that grasp more sane, more deliberate, less childishly tight; it is preparing us to let all go. We see how men were witty, were fed, were in love, were powerful, were eccentric, were envied-but how they, who differed so widely and piquantly in life, were huddled into Charon's boat together. There is a page of Hazlitt that is something to the point. Calling on Northcote one day, he found the painter half regretting that he had just sold a whole-length portrait of an Italian girl, which had become an old friend. The purchaser had said to him: "You may at least depend upon it that it will not be sold again for many generations." The picture was still in the studio, and Northcote showed it to Hazlitt.

On my expressing my admiration of the portrait of the Italian lady, he said she was the mother of Mme. Bellochi, and was still living; that he had painted it at Rome about the year 1780; that her family was originally Greek; and that he had known her, her daughter, her mother and grandmother. She and a sister, who was with her, were at

that time full of the most charming gaiety and innocence. The old woman used to sit upon the ground without moving or speaking, with her arm over her head, and exactly like a bundle of old clothes. Alas! thought I, what are we but a heap of clay resting upon the earth, and ready to crumble into dust and ashes.

However careless, "genial" and superficially chatty recollections may be, they are, at least, a personal record of the world when it was preparing itself for your own distinguished advent; and out of that adjacent past, and out of the crowd of men so nearly your contemporaries, who might have been your uncles, there issues many a sharp analogy, many a conversation one would like to have carried further, many a stray shot at the conscience which the reader must ward off as he

can.

To-day the flow of reminiscences is a torrent without precedent, but not without proportion or explanation. For there was never an age in which writing was so fashionable or recollection so rich. An old man who has never dreamed to distinguish himself as an author, through all the years of his strength, may do so if he will only sit down and dictate to the phonograph what he remembers of the tinder-box. Is it strange that many do it?

So wonderfully has the social life of England changed in the Queen's reign that the personal identity of the nation has almost wanted proof; and this proof the reminiscence writers have furnished. It may be found in infinite witness-box variety, in the published recollections of Mr. Justin McCarthy, Henry Vizetelly, Sir Algernon West, Sir Edward Russell, Dr. B. W. Richardson, the Right Hon. Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff, Mr. W. J. Linton, Fanny Kemble, Mrs. Anne Thackeray Ritchie, Sir Harry Keppel, Mr. A. J. C. Hare, Stacey Marks, Dr. Newman Hall,

Frederick Locker, Mr. Joseph Arch, Miss Betham-Edwards, Mr. G. W. E. Russell, Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, Admiral Sir John C. Dalrymple Hay, Mr. James Payn, Mr. T. A. Trollope, Mrs. M. C. M. Simpson, Prof. Max Müller, Walter White, Mrs. Oliphant, Mr. Baring-Gould. If this list, written down from memory, seems wearisome, consider its utter incompleteness! We will add to it only the name of Mr. Sutherland Edwards, who has just published his "Personal Recollections," through Messrs. Cassell. His anecdotage, which is gay and tragic, and wholly readable, begins at a time when Fleet Street was paved with cobbles, and when no omnibus charged less than sixpence to carry a Londoner the length of the Strand.

Those who had business to transact in the City went there in cabs; but there was little communication between the two extremities. . . . Ladies did not use these cabs. They were out of everything. No lady was admitted into a restaurant, nor into the coffee-room of an hotel, nor into an hotel at all if travelling by herself. Ladies who, in the middle of the day, were kept from home by the pleasures and pains of shopping, went for lunch to pastry cooks' shops, where they got indigestion by eating raspberry tarts. . . . In families where no carriage was kept, ladies going out for the evening had to take what was called a "glass coach." . . . A lady living alone in apartments could not in those days receive a visit from a gentleman; still less could a gentleman living alone receive a lady in his rooms. . . . It was scarcely fashionable to go to the play, and few persons went there in evening dress. The theatrical saloon, whose abominations were put an end to by Macready, was a disgusting place. . . . Very little money was spent on stage production. Painted calico did duty for silk and satin, spangles for jewelery; it was held and believed that for stage purposes imitation was better than the real thing.

The Academy.

This is the world which Mr. Edwards peoples with men like the seven Mahews, the three Salas, Macready and Hans von Bülow, Douglas Jerrold and Shirley Brooks, Gavarni and Albert Smith, Edward Tinsley, the publisher, and E. S. F. Pigott, the Censor of Plays-Thackeray and Browning and Rubenstein lending their distinction. The same world has been described very, very often, but apparently people do not tire of hearing of these men and their times. A faint odor of palled punch and stale tobacco is wafted from the pages, and strange tints of old play-bills are flashed on one's vision, and kind things are said of good fellows who went to the wall in the fifties by the methods then in vogue, and skits, and "witty" articles and "agreeable" satires are quoted, and it is all amazingly ancient-modern. This vein. of early and mid-Victorian anecdote will be worked out presently; and then? Will our own day have its small chroniclers? Will men write quaint and much quoted pages about the first cinematograph shown in London, and the Vagabonds' Club, and the late Mr. Aubrey Beardsley, and the supremacy of the novel, and the automatic scent sprinkler, and the motor omnibuses, and the Aerated Bread Company and the "Souls"? And will Mr. Bernard Shaw, and Mr. Andrew Lang, and Mr. John Kensit, and Mr. W. B. Yeats and Bugler Dunne shine as stars in the anecdotal firmament of 1950? Doubtless. But the present fervor of reminiscence must, we think, pass away. It is natural that the Victorian era and the Nineteenth Century should put their papers in order. It is between those two worlds of Matthew Arnold, the one worn out, the other not ready to be born, that the cataracts of reminiscence have been heard all day long. It will be under similar conditions that the next wave of Reminiscence will arrive.