_Vivats_ of the mob. Alas! it was only a respite that the brave deed had
gained for the beloved old man. He died by those same blood‐stained hands
before the year was out. At the abbey a picture of rest and calm is to be
seen: “Towards _seven_ on Sunday night, we saw two men enter, their hands
bloody, and armed with sabres. A turnkey with a torch lighted them; he
points to the bed of the unfortunate Swiss, Reding. Reding was dying. One
of the men paused; but the other said: _Allons donc!_ (come along!) and
lifted the dying man, and carried him on his back out to the street. He
was massacred there. We looked at one another in silence; we clasped each
other’s hands; we gazed on the pavement of our prison, on which lay the
moonlight, checkered with shadows.... At _three in the morning_ we heard
them breaking in one of the prison‐doors. We thought they were coming to
kill us.... The Abbé Lenfant and the Abbé de Chapt‐Rastignac appeared in
the pulpit of the chapel, which was our prison. They had got in by a door
from the stairs. They said to us that our end was at hand; that we must
compose ourselves and receive their last blessing. An electric movement,
not to be described, threw us all on our knees, and we received it. These
two white‐haired old men blessing us from their place above, death
hovering over our heads—the moment is never to be forgotten.”(118) Half an
hour later the two priests were dragged out and massacred, those whom they
had strengthened with their last words to meet a like fate listening to
their cries.
The massacres began on the 2d and lasted till the 6th, when Robespierre
and Danton were elected to that legislative body called the Deputation of
Paris, composed of twenty‐four members, the first name on the list being
Robespierre, the last Philippe Egalité. It was on this occasion that the
future regicide adopted the surname of Egalité, he being compelled to
choose some appellation not obnoxious to the people.
The great struggle now began between the Jacobins and the Girondists, or
virtually between the leaders of the two factions, the old rivals,
Robespierre and Brissot. All the ultra‐republicans, who were represented
by the Deputation of Paris, grouped themselves on the top benches of the
convention to the left of the president, and were called the Mountain—a
name henceforth identified with its prophet, Robespierre. The question
still was, What was to be done with the king? The Jacobins were for
killing him, the Girondists for putting him aside. The wretched weakness,
vacillation, and cowardliness of the Girondists make them objects of
contempt, without exciting in us the kind of horrified awe inspired by the
monstrous feats of those Titanic fiends, the Jacobins. By what fatality is
it in France that the honest‐meaning party is always the cowardly one that
dares not assert itself, but bows down, cowed by the cynical audacity of
the anarchists? The Girondists might have turned the scales, even at this
crisis, if they had had the courage of their consciences; but they were
cowards. Their policy was to run with the hare and cry with the hounds,
and it met with the fate it deserved. But we must not anticipate. The
Mountain, on the other hand, did not lack the courage of its creed; it
out‐heroded Herod in its fury against the king and all appertaining to the
old order which he represented. Roman history was its Bible, and the
examples there recorded were for ever on its lips. All citizens were
heroes, Cincinnatuses, Catos, Ciceros, etc.; all sovereigns were Neros and
Caligulas. The Girondists turned these fine texts against their rivals by
accusing them of plotting to set up a triumvirate, to be composed of
Robespierre, Marat, and Danton. This was only three weeks after the orgy
of blood which ushered in the reign of Robespierre and of Terror. Danton
mounted the tribune, and made an eloquent defence of Robespierre, who
never spoke impromptu when he could avoid it. Marat then rose—for the
first time in the convention—and was hooted down; but he persisted, and
made them listen while he exposed his revolting doctrines of wholesale
murder and anarchical rule.
So the days passed, in boisterous invective, idle perorations, and savage
threats of one party against another. The Girondists, however, were
worsted in the fight, and the strength of the position remained with
Robespierre and his more bloody and unscrupulous faction, who had from the
starting traced out his plan, and adhered to it without flinching. The
king was foredoomed to the scaffold, but some semblance of legality should
accompany the decree. So strong was the Jacobin influence at this crisis
that those who did not share the murderous design were terrified into
seeming to do so, and, while looking with horror at the regicide in
preparation, were cowed into silent acquiescence. M. Thiers, in his
_History of the Revolution_, says: “Many of the deputies who had come down
with the intention of voting for the king were frightened at the fury of
the people, and, though much touched by the fate of Louis XVI., they were
terrified at the consequences of an acquittal. This fear was greatly
increased at the sight of the Assembly and of the scene it presented. That
scene, dark and terrible, had shaken the hearts of all, and changed the
resolution of Lecointre of Versailles, whose personal bravery cannot be
doubted, and who had not ceased to return to the galleries the menacing
gestures with which they were intimidating the Assembly. Even he, when it
came to the point, hesitated, and dropped from his mouth the terrible and
unexpected word, ‘death.’ Vergniaud, who had appeared most deeply touched
by the fate of the king, and who had declared that ‘nothing could ever
induce him to condemn the unhappy prince’—Vergniaud, at the sight of that
tumultuous scene, pronounced the sentence of death.” It must truly have
been an appalling spectacle, the like of which the civilized world had
never before beheld. Mercier, in his _Sketches of the Revolution_, gives
us an animated and glowing picture of the court during the trial: “The
famous sitting which decided the fate of Louis lasted seventy‐two hours.
One would naturally suppose that the Assembly was a scene of meditation,
silence, and a sort of religious terror. Not at all. The end of the hall
was transformed into a kind of opera‐box, where ladies in _négligée_ were
eating ices and oranges, drinking _liqueurs_, and receiving the
compliments and salutations of comers and goers. The _huissiers_
(bailiffs) on the side of the Mountain acted the part of the openers of
the opera‐boxes. They were employed every instant in turning the key in
the doors of the side galleries, and gallantly escorting the mistresses of
the Duke of Orleans, caparisoned with tri‐colored ribbons. Although every
mark of applause or disapprobation was forbidden, nevertheless, on the
side of the Mountain, the Duchess Dowager,(119) the amazon of the Jacobin
bands, made long ‘ha‐a‐has!’ when she heard the word ‘death’ strongly
twang in her ears.
“The lofty galleries, destined for the people during the days which
preceded this famous trial, were never empty of strangers and people of
every class, who there drank wine and brandy as if it had been a tavern.
Bets were open at all the neighboring coffee‐houses. Listlessness,
impatience, fatigue, were marked on almost every countenance. Each deputy
mounted the tribune in his turn, and every one was asking when his turn
came. Some deputy came, I know not who, sick, and in his morning‐gown and
night‐cap. This phantom caused a great deal of diversion in the Assembly.
The countenances of those who went to the tribune, rendered more funereal
from the pale gleams of the lights, when in a slow and sepulchral voice
they pronounced the word ‘death!’—all these physiognomies which succeeded
one another, their tones, their different keys; d’Orleans hissing and
groaning when he voted the death of his relative; some calculating if they
should have time to dine before they gave their vote; women with pins
pricking cards to count the votes; deputies who had fallen asleep and were
waked up in order to vote; Manuel, the secretary, sliding away a few
votes, in order to save the unhappy king, and on the point of being put to
death in the corridors for his infidelity—these sights can never be
described as they passed. It is impossible to picture what they were, nor
will history be able to reach them.”
Amongst the timid Girondists who dared not vote for acquittal, and shrank
from decreeing the king to death, many hit upon a half‐measure, which was
that of coupling their vote—for death with conditions that practically
negatived it. This cowardly transaction is said to have given rise to some
trickery in the counting of the votes, which enabled the scrutineers to
make the majority of _one_ voice by which the sentence of death was
carried. It was this sham proceeding which prompted Sièyes to say when
recording his vote, “Death—without palaver!”
Robespierre’s figure stands out with vivid and terrible brilliancy against
the background of this picture. He dismissed the question of the king’s
innocence or guilt—that had, he knew right well, nothing whatever to do
with the issue—and proceeded to demand his death on the grounds of urgent
political expediency. “The death of the king was not a question of law,
but of state policy, which, without quibbling about his guilt or
innocence, required his death; the life of one man, if ever so innocent,
must be sacrificed to preserve the lives of millions.” There was honesty
at any rate in this plain speaking, and so it was better than the odious
hypocrisy displayed by the other actors in the tragic farce. On
Robespierre’s descending from the tribune, his brother Augustin, rose and
demanded in the name of the people “that Louis Capet shall be brought to
the bar, to declare his original accomplices, to hear sentence of death
pronounced on him, and to be forthwith conducted to execution.” Wild
confusion covered this extravagant motion, but no notice was taken of it.
The 21st of January was near at hand; even the Mountain could afford to
wait so long.
On the 10th of March, the Revolutionary Tribunal was decreed. A month
later there broke out a violent altercation between Robespierre and some
of the Girondists in the Convention; numbers clamored for the “expulsion
of the twenty‐two” obstreperous Girondists; they were arraigned before the
bar where the king whom they so basely betrayed had lately stood; the
trial lasted four days; even that tribunal, used to dispense with all
proof of guilt in its victims, could not decide on condemning twenty‐two
men at one fell swoop without some shadow of reason, and there was none to
be found. But Robespierre was not going to lose his opportunity for a
quibble; impatient of the delay, he drew up a decree that “whenever any
trial should have lasted three days, the tribunal might declare itself
satisfied with the guilt of the prisoners, might stop the defence, close
the discussions, and send the accused to death!” This abominable document
was read and inscribed on the register of the tribunal the same evening,
the Girondists were at once condemned, and sent to the scaffold next
morning.
To Be Concluded Next Month.
The Better Christmas.
“’Tis not the feast that changes with the ever‐changing times,
But these that lightly vote away the glories of the past—
The joys that dream‐like haunt me with the merry matin chimes
I loved so in my boyhood, and shall doat on to the last.
“There still is much of laughter, and a measure of old cheer:
The ivy wreaths, if scanty, are as verdant as of yore:
And still the same kind greeting for the universal ear:
But, to me, for all their wishing, ’tis a ‘merry’ feast no more!”
I said: and came an answer from the stars to which I sighed—
Those stars that lit the vigil of the favor’d shepherd band.
And ’twas as if again the heavens open’d deep and wide,
And the carol of the angel‐choir new‐flooded all the land
“Good tidings still we bring to all who still have ears to hear;
To all who love His coming—the elect that cannot cease;
And louder rings our anthem, to these watchers, year by year,
Its earnest of the perfect joy—the everlasting peace.
“Art thou, then, of these watchers, if thou canst not read the sign?
The world was at its darkest when the blessed Day‐star(120) shone.
Again ’tis blacker to her beam: and thou must needs repine,
And sicken, so near sunrise, for the moonlight that is gone!”
English And Scotch Scenes.
The home life of England has ever been a favorite topic with American
writers. The first thing that strikes an American travelling through
England is the age of everything he sees, the roots by which every
existing institution, custom, or pleasure is intimately connected with its
real, tangible prototype in the past. He sees, too, how the people live a
thoroughly characteristic life—that which consists in identification with
everything that is national. No one is so unadaptive as the pure‐bred
Briton, and it has truly been said that an Englishman carries his country
with him wherever he goes. You never see an Englishman to advantage except
at home; but, once enthroned amid his local surroundings, there is a
sturdy native dignity in him which none can help admiring. He is no
politician in the mercenary, personal, business‐like sense of the word,
but he takes a pride in following the course of his country’s progress, in
bearing a hand in all reforms, in exercising his right of censure—or, as
some foreigners plainly call it, “grumbling”—and especially in watching
closely over the well‐being of his own county and neighborhood. By this
minute division of labor every county becomes, as it were, a self‐governed
little nation, jealous and tenacious of its rights, keenly alive to its
interests, intensely vigorous, and occasionally aggressive. Political and
social life are closely intermingled, and personal disinterestedness is
almost everywhere the rule. The varied traditions of different
neighborhoods and the strong individuality shown by the different sections
of the country, contribute a picturesque element to modern life, and often
make the most inherently prosaic actions take on a mask of romance.
Elections to Parliament afford a multiplicity of such scenes, and form one
of the greatest periodical excitements that stir up country towns. The
candidate is generally one of the sons of some family well known in the
county, or sometimes the chief proprietor of the neighborhood, if he be
still under fifty. The county constituencies almost always return a member
of this class; the commercial representatives come from the great
manufacturing towns, where they have slowly toiled to make their fortunes,
and risen, by earnest application to business, from the rank of a
vestryman to that of lord mayor. The country town in which the hustings
and polling‐booths are erected is as animated as it would have been at a
great fair of the middle ages or an extraordinary sale of wool, which in
Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, and Worcestershire was a great article of
trade in the XIVth century. Everything in the shape of bunting,
evergreens, allegorical pictures, flaming posters, and unlimited ale has
been done by both sides to enhance their popularity with the electors and
non‐electors. Indeed, the latter are quite as important as the former, for
from their ranks are recruited the bands of music and the array of
stalwart supporters, ready to fight, if required, and to shout at the top
of their lungs, so as to bewilder the voters and claim or surprise their
votes. The canvassing that goes before an English election is neither a
pleasant nor a creditable thing to dwell on; when subjected to the
analysis of uncompromising morality, it resolves itself into deliberate
and organized “humbug”; for it includes every species of flattery under
the sun, not to speak of direct bribery. Very funny incidents sometimes
occur to break the monotony of the usual routine. For instance, in
canvassing a large seaport town, the Liberal candidate bethinks himself of
his yacht—a gem in every way—and organizes a large party, to which are
invited the voting citizens and their wives and daughters. A splendid
luncheon is provided, and each dame and damsel goes home with the
conviction that her smiles have won the heart of the candidate, and that
he has sworn them by a tacit but flattering contract to further his claims
with their all‐powerful husbands and fathers. “_Honi soit qui mal y
pense._” The latter are as proud of the expectant M.P.’s notice of the
female members of their households as the ladies themselves, and the issue
is trembling in the balance, when an announcement goes forth that the
Conservative candidate has had his drag and four horses sent down from
London, and proposes parading the young ladies and the more fearless
married women on the roof of this ultra‐fashionable vehicle. The
invitations are of course more limited than those for the yacht, but
promises of repeating them, until all the free electors’ families have
been included, cheer up the spirits of those not asked the first day. The
Liberal pits his yacht against his rival’s drag, and invites the maids and
matrons to another sail. Apparently, Neptune does not intend to vote for
him, for a slight breeze arises, and the waves roll more than landsmen
find pleasant. The cabin fills rapidly, and faces once rosy and saucy,
turn pale and shrunken; the return against wind and tide is a wretched
journey. The poor candidate, in despair, tries to become nurse and doctor,
as well as consoler; but he, too, feels his cheeks blanch, not at the
lurching of the vessel, but at the fear of the effect of this accident
upon the votes which he was already reckoning up so confidently. As the
forlorn party lands, the drag sweeps by, drawn by its four fiery horses,
the whip cracking, the smart grooms grinning at the windows (in these
carriages, made like a mail‐coach, the servants sit _inside_ and the
master drives, while his guests are packed on the outside seats at the
top), the women huddling under cloaks and umbrellas, but all giggling with
delight at the adventure, neither damped nor dismayed by water that cannot
drown them, and wind that cannot make them sea‐sick. The next day those
who have recovered from their marine excursion are invited to try the
drag, and the Liberal candidate’s chances fall as visibly as the barometer
did yesterday. When the great day comes, the drag has done its work, and
the Conservative is returned by a triumphant majority.
To return to our country town in its holiday attire. No great arts are
resorted to here; the common kind of canvassing will do for these quiet,
agricultural people, and the only day that is worth mentioning is that of
the election itself. The festive look of the place does not portend any
very desperate contest, although there is a free display of the two
opposite colors—blue (Conservative) and yellow (Liberal). The rivals come
down from their neighboring seats in gay carriages full of the ladies of
their families, wearing their respective colors. The horses and postilions
wear bunches of blue or yellow ribbon; even the whip has its conspicuous
knot of color. Brass bands clash forth a whole host of discords; the hired
partisans good‐humoredly shout for one or the other party; an air of great
good‐will prevails. The whole thing looks more like the welcoming home of
a bride than a serious political gathering. The candidates ascend the
hustings, or platform for speeches, and cordially shake hands with one
another. They think it fun to be opposed to each other in public, whereas
in private they are friends, companions, and neighbors; they have had the
same training, the same education, the same associations, the same local
interests, and the question that will decide their election will more
likely be their reputation as farmers and their popularity as landlords
than their political opinions as to the affairs of the nation at large.
Talking of bribery and undue influence in elections, there is a law yet in
force (though, of course, its effect is merely nominal) which forbids any
peer to be present at an election. His presence is, by a legal fiction,
supposed to hamper the freedom of the voters, and the law thus provides
against the appearance of coercion or intimidation. The candidates for the
counties are almost invariably the sons, brothers, or nephews of peers;
but, however near the relationship, no member of the House of Lords is
allowed to infringe on this rule. A contested election, one in which party
spirit runs high and the passions of the people are artfully fanned and
excited on both sides, is a scene worth witnessing once; but the
excitement is of too rough a sort to make one wish for a second edition of
it. A foreigner once said that the two best sights which England had to
offer to a stranger were an Oxford “commemoration” and a contested
election. The latter seldom takes place in the peaceful neighborhoods of
the midland counties, and the only other species of elections, as
distinguished from the festive one which we have just sketched, is, as a
remnant of old‐time indifferentism, a curiosity in its way. There are no
longer what were called “rotten boroughs” and “pocket boroughs,” the
former representing what had once been a populous town or large village,
now reduced to half a dozen ruinous tenements and an old, disused parish
church, but still retaining the right to return one or more members to
Parliament; the second being a village still worthy of the name, but from
time immemorial voting strictly in accordance with the wishes of the “lord
of the manor,” whether peer or commoner. These were also called “close
boroughs.” The Reform Bill of 1830 did away with all such transparent
abuses, but family influence, exerted in a milder form, still remains an
important element in all agricultural counties; and it sometimes happens
that for a whole generation, no one will think it worth his while to
oppose a candidate whose good working qualities are recognized by friend
and foe, and whose personal popularity, joined with his powerful
connections, makes his success almost absolutely certain. Such was the
case in the election at O——, for which the same member has run unopposed
for at least a quarter of a century. The nomination was made by the high
sheriff and the magistrates of the county, assembled in the town‐hall.
This is a portion of a ruined castle or abbey, the Norman windows of which
still assert their identity, though they have been shamefully mutilated
and forced to conform to the ugly, shallow openings called windows in our
days. The inside showed no signs of beauty. It was a huge barn, with grim‐
looking benches or pews at one end, towering amphitheatre‐wise one above
the other. Public business of all kinds was transacted there. The
decoration of the hall is somewhat peculiar, consisting of nothing but
horse‐shoes. From time immemorial the custom of the county has been that
every peer setting foot within the little town should put up a horse‐shoe
in this hall, or give an equivalent in money, which is spent by authority
of the town council in buying a horse‐shoe in his name. There is some
dispute as to when and how the custom originated. The common belief is
that Queen Elizabeth, passing through O——, stopped to get one of her
horses shod, and, in perpetual memory of her royal visit, gave the town
the privilege of exacting the tribute of a horse‐shoe from every peer
setting foot within the county. By an anachronism, which at any rate does
honor to O——’s public spirit, there are horse‐shoes bearing dates far more
remote than the XVIth century, and some one has actually put the Conqueror
himself under contribution, and unblushingly labelled a very antique shoe
with his mighty name and the eventful date, 1066. During the last three
hundred years genuine historical horse‐shoes have abounded; some plain as
the real thing, some gold or silvered, some painted with heraldic devices,
some immense as children’s hoops, some minute as the shoe of a Shetland
pony. Whether the thousand‐year‐old superstition of the connection between
luck and a horse‐shoe, and the belief in the power of the latter against
witches, has anything to do with the custom, we do not know for certain,
but it is not unlikely.
In this remarkable town‐hall were assembled the electors and magistrates
one November morning. All the prominent country “gentlemen” and many
farmers and tradesmen were present, besides a few ladies, come to see the
proceedings. The member who had been re‐elected every time that an
election took place for the previous twenty years was the brother of one
of the great land‐owners of the neighborhood, and a Conservative. No one
thought of opposing him. His friends and constituents mostly appeared in
riding‐boots, some in “pink.”(121) One young magistrate got up and
proposed him formally to the electors in a girlish, awkward speech;
another seconded him in a still briefer address, and the question was
asked: “Has any one any objections to make or any candidate to oppose?” A
squeaky voice at the end of the hall propounded a query in this form:
“Would the honorable member vote for universal suffrage and cry down
church rates?”
A laugh ran through the crowd, and an impatient movement stirred the knot
of magistrates. Year after year some wag of this kind mounted the Radical
hobby, and rode it in this unoffending fashion at the steady‐going
“churchman” and loyal upholder of the constitution who represented the
county in Parliament. The uneasy movement continues, and horses are heard
neighing and pawing outside. Men in red coats take out their watches and
put on long faces. It is nearly twelve o’clock, and the business of the
nation is delaying the “meet.” The hounds are waiting not far off, and
candidate, sheriff, magistrates, and electors are all alike anxious to be
off. The hall is soon cleared and the election quietly over—a very
secondary matter in the consideration of those who have been kept from
kennel and field for two long hours. They rush out with all the zest of
school‐boys let loose to play, and the hunt that day has twice its
ordinary success, or at least its members think so, because the beloved
sport has been intermitted, and requires extra enthusiasm as a peace‐
offering at their hands. So with redoubled vigor the search after foxes
goes on, and not till long after sundown will the candidate, magistrates,
and constituents return to their homes.
Very different are those elections whose surroundings remind us rather of
a clan gathering to the standard of their chief than a modern constituency
crowding to the polling‐booths. The mere description of these election
scenes through Great Britain and Ireland would form an interesting chapter
in contemporaneous history. The political differences need not even be
alluded to; the contrast of outer circumstances is suggestive enough. In
an agricultural neighborhood, such as that round the town of O——, a
certain kind of torpidity exists among the prosperous and contented
farmers. Not a hundred miles from the palace of the people at Westminster
the interest in politics is subordinate to that excited by a cattle‐show
or the prospect of a drought; in a word, there is so little local change
called for which could be beneficial to the county that the passive but
deep‐rooted clinging to old traditions, which is so characteristic of the
genuine Englishman, is in this case rather a matter of course than a
virtue or a meritorious turning away from temptation.
Life is hard to the masses in a city. Sharp ills require sharp remedies,
say the demagogues; and straightway the voters adopt the extremest
doctrine they can find, and fancy it a panacea for all ills. An English
paper recently defined this kind of voter as the man “who has just learned
sufficient to be sure that there can only be one side to a question.” The
Irish elections, proverbial for their storminess, are of another nature;
appealing to our sympathy by the wild earnestness of the voters, and
governed by feelings which, though often misdirected, are yet noble in
their origin. Religion and patriotism are the prime movers of the passions
of Irish constituents; they often look upon their exercise of the
franchise as a protest against tyranny and a confession of faith. And
indeed the “tyranny” is no mere political scarecrow to them. It is very
tangible; it strikes home to them, for its immediate result may be
eviction and starvation. The wild, humorous individuality of the people of
the western baronies of Ireland redeems much that is reprehensible from
vulgarity in the faction fight—a not infrequent concomitant of the
election. There is a rough romance left in these fights, making them the
direct counterparts of the sudden encounters between the clans of the
various kings of Celtic history; and what is best and most palliative is
this: that sordid considerations are almost wholly absent from the voters’
minds. If men must fight, let them do it for anything rather than money;
and, to do these electors justice, we will say that there is less bribery
in all the Irish country districts put together than in one English
manufacturing town. You will say there is intimidation instead; but, even
that is better than bribery, for it is less degrading to a human being to
barter away his vote, in view of the threats of his landlord to turn his
wife and children out of doors, than to sell it for money. But there are
other elections to speak of—those in the Highlands of Scotland.
Education is more universal among the humbler classes in Scotland than in
either of the sister countries, and by nature the Scotchman is more
reflective than the Englishman or Irishman. There is less of collective
life in his country; the land is poor and barren, the northern parts are
broken up by lochs and treacherous estuaries, and many counties include
rocky islands among the billows of the Atlantic. In Inverness‐shire the
elector is far removed from all common external influence. He thinks
slowly and seriously, working out his own problems, answering his own
questions by the aid of his strong native sense. He and many of his
fellow‐voters are shepherds or “keepers.” They inhabit an isolated cottage
in some remote glen—a cottage that is only approached by some faint sheep‐
track. Australia or the Territories of the United States are hardly less
solitary; but, on the other hand, the Scottish Highlands, if solitary, are
not barbarous. In newly‐settled countries, where the population is only
gradually fusing into a national _people_, there is lawlessness to contend
with; the school and the church are yet open to the attack of ruffianly
bands, and dependent on a few respectable though equally rough settlers to
stop the brigandage of their unruly neighbors. An old country, however
sparsely peopled, has the past to guide it; its hermit settlers are the
heirs, not the founders, of a state and a history. So it is with ancient
Scottish shires, and thus you will find their electors sober, silent,
reflective men, conscious of their dignity as clansmen of the old families
whose names are in the records of Scotland from the VIIIth and IXth
centuries; and perfectly aware of their personal, political value as
present electors to the joint Parliament of a great empire. In England
there were serfs, but in Scotland (and in Ireland also) there were
_clansmen_—not slaves, but sons by adoption; freemen with the right to
bear arms; protected, not owned, by the great chiefs of the North. They
were used to a certain degree of power and responsibility, and their
descendants were not intoxicated by a sudden rise to independence, as were
the corresponding classes in England when the franchise was extended to
them.
To continue our description of the local surroundings of the Inverness‐
shire voters—men removed from the ordinary circumstances which make most
elections pretty much the same dull, time‐worn, vulgarized sight—we quote
from a recent article in an English publication: “The nearest neighbors on
one side are beyond a great mountain‐range, while for miles upon miles on
the other there stretch the unpeopled solitudes of a deer‐forest. The
nearest carriage‐road is eight miles off, and that is travelled only three
days in the week by a mail‐cart that carries passengers. The church and
school are at twice the distance; so the children must trust to the
parents for their education, and the father can only occasionally join in
the Sunday gossip, in the parish churchyard, that expands the ideas of
some of his fellow‐parishioners. His cottage is ten miles from the nearest
hovel where they sell whiskey. His work is arduous; he is afoot among his
sheep from the early morning until dusk. In the best of times and in the
height of summer it is but seldom that a stray copy of the county paper
finds its way to the head of the glen. He is thoughtful by nature, as you
may see in his face, which has much the same puzzled expression of
intelligence that you remark in the venerable rams of his flock. No doubt
he thinks much, after a fashion of his own, as he goes ‘daundering’ about
after his straggling sheep, or stretches himself to bask in the hot
sunshine, while he leaves his collies (sheep‐dogs) to look after his
charge.”
This is a very true picture. Of course, in such a situation, it is
impossible for the Highland shepherd to follow the questions that affect
the fate of ministries. He can know nothing of foreign affairs, probably
never heard of the _Alabama_, and would be at sea on the subject of the
Franco‐Prussian war. Mr. Gladstone’s financial schemes are not only
puzzles but _terra incognita_ to his mind. He knows nothing of the
extension of the suffrage in counties, and even local rates are
indifferent to him, as the only one that concerns him is the dog
tax—_concerns_ him, but does not _affect_ him; for his master pays the
tax, and he himself is more or less exempted from extra trouble, according
to the number of sheep‐dogs for which that master chooses to pay. His
interest in the man who represents him in Parliament is therefore either
purely theoretical or, what happens oftener, purely personal. There are
country gentlemen everywhere who, though no newspaper may blow the trumpet
of their fame, are nevertheless known throughout a wide expanse as good
men and true, kind yet just landlords, upright magistrates, and sound
economists. Their names are household words; their memory is always
associated with some generous deed; they are looked up to and honored in
the county. They are generally scions of the old historical families of
the land—of those families to which the Scotchman clings with a proud
affection, and which have been perpetuated by the very institutions that
some coiners of new political creeds find so deleterious to the human
race. The shepherd probably turns his mind to some such man of whom
nothing but good has ever been recorded, and willingly entrusts to his
safe‐keeping the interests of himself, his clan, and his country. Judging
from the particular to the general, he concludes that, since this
candidate has always been a kind master and a good landlord to his own
folks, he is likely to be a conscientious law‐maker and an earnest
protector of the nation’s liberties. Questions of detail may fairly be
trusted to him; the main thing is that no widow or orphan has ever had any
complaint to make of him.
This is the aspect on the voter’s side. Let us see what it is on that of
the candidate. There is no question here of bill‐sticking, of distributing
cockades, or of having bands of music and hired groups of partisans in
your wake. Canvassing means “posting long distances in dog‐carts, seeking
relays at widely‐separated inns, where the stable establishments are kept
on a peace footing, except during the tourist season. In winter the roads
are carried across formidable ferries, where, if you bribe the boatman to
imprudence, your business being urgent, you are not unlikely to meet the
fate of Lord Ullin’s daughter.” But this is not all; for when you have
braved the floods, and arrive famished and half‐frozen at some out‐of‐the‐
way hamlet whence the scattered cottages may be gained, there is yet the
ordeal of the interviews before you. The Scottish hermit can hardly be
expected to forego or shorten such a rare opportunity of contact with the
outside world. He will tax your ingenuity with the shrewdest, perhaps
politically inconvenient, questions; and never doing anything in a hurry
himself, he will resent his visitor’s seeming to be pressed for time. No
hasty and transparent condescensions will do for him. He will not be
satisfied, like the comfortable trader of the towns, with the candidate’s
kissing his youngest born and promising his eldest son a rocking‐horse.
Smiles and hand‐shakings are cheap gifts; but he wants no gifts, only
pledges. He wishes to be met as an intelligent being, a man who, if worth
winning, must be worth convincing. He expects a straightforward, if short,
explanation of your general opinions; and though the sense of his own
dignity as a voter is great, he does not forget that political does not
entail social equality. Grave and earnest, he will resent flippancy as an
insult to his understanding; and a joke that would win over a dozen votes
in a small commercial town will very probably lose you _his_ vote, and his
good opinion too.
But there are also other constituents to be called upon. The numerous
islands on the east coast of Scotland afford a still larger field for the
danger and romance of canvassing. The islanders are very sensitive, and
feel terribly hurt at the insinuation that their home lies out of the
world. If their votes are necessary, is the courtesy to ask for them
superfluous? They lead hazardous, daring lives themselves, and do not
understand how any man can shrink from the danger that may be incurred in
nearing their rocky island. If he does, what is he worth? they will argue;
for the natural man readily judges of his fellow‐man’s mental qualities by
his physical endurance. Then (we quote again the graphic sketch above
referred to), “that island canvass means chartering some crank little
screw, beating out into the fogs among the swells and the breakers, taking
flying shots at low reefs of inhabited rock, enveloped in mists and
unprovided with lighthouses. Landing‐places are almost as scarce as light‐
towers, and you may have to bob about under the ‘lee of the land’ in
impatient expectation of establishing communications with it. When you do
get to shore, you must be hospitably _fêted_ by the minister and the
schoolmaster, the doctor and the principal tacksmen, until what with sea‐
squeamishness and the strong spirits, it becomes simply heroic to preserve
the charm of your manners. Moreover, you had better not make your visit at
all than cut it uncivilly short. Our friend the shepherd may have made up
his mind to support you; but you may rely upon it that he will promise
nothing until you have set yourself down for a solemn ‘crack’ with him.”
The day of the election itself is a suitable ending to this romantic
episode in the life of an ordinary, drudging M.P. When a Highlander sets
about a thing, he never gives in before it is accomplished. Honor binds
him to redeem a promise, whether made to another or to himself; pride
compels him to prove himself superior to circumstances, almost to nature
herself; and he doggedly goes on his way, undeterred by any wayside
temptation to turn into smoother and pleasanter paths. So the voters
“climb over mountains and plod over snow‐fields, wade mountain streams,
navigate lochs in crank cobles, and cross raging estuaries in rickety,
flat‐bottomed ferry‐boats; so that, should the winds and the weather
interfere too seriously with the exercise of the electors’ political
rights, the polling of a great Highland constituency may possibly have a
gloomily dramatic finale.”(122)
While we are on the subject of Scotland, we may mention the various
occasions on which national gatherings draw together thousands of
picturesquely‐clad men and women. The games are the most characteristic of
these meetings. They take place in various places, mostly during the
months of August and September. They are generally held under the
patronage and supervision of some great family of the neighborhood.
Something of old clan feeling is revived. The men often march in in
bodies, preceded by their pipers, and wearing their individual tartan,
with distinctive badges. The villages for fifty miles around send their
group of representatives and their athletes and champions in the games.
Vehicles of primitive build with rough, wiry little ponies bring in their
load of farmers and petty freeholders. The country‐houses and shooting‐
boxes fill with guests from England; and in the neighborhood of Balmoral,
to which we more particularly allude, there is of course the additional
attraction of royal countenance and patronage. The queen and the royal
family sometimes become the guests of their subjects on these occasions,
and an almost German simplicity reigns for a few days among those to whom
etiquette must be so sore a chain. The princes wear the Highland dress,
and the queen (that is, before her widowhood) something of tartan in her
plain toilet. The national sports, such as throwing the hammer, lifting
heavy weights and supporting them on the outstretched hand, etc., require
both strength and dexterity, and the champions who contend in these games
are generally “professionals.” Sometimes, however, some village athlete
ambitiously enters the lists against the trained champions, and
occasionally bears off a prize. A competition of pipers is often a feature
of the day, and these worthies make a brave appearance in their velvet
jackets covered with a breast‐plate of medals, severally won in various
contests. The shrill, clarion‐like tones of the bagpipes are not agreeable
to the untrained ear, but to the Highlanders, whose national associations
are proudly entwined with this wild, primitive music of the hills, they
are naturally sweeter than the most sublime strains of the old masters. No
one, even though not Highland‐bred, can listen to the pipes, playing a
pibroch among the echoes of the mountains, without feeling that the soul
of the people is in it; that the spirits of “the Flood and the Fell” which
Walter Scott so graphically introduces in his _Lay of the Last Minstrel_
might have used just such tones for their fateful, wailing speech; and no
one having more than common ties binding him to Scottish traditions and
Scottish homes can think of the wild dirges or stirring war‐calls of the
pipes without sympathy and loving regret. Not quite so inspiring, however,
is this music when the piper marches round a small dining‐room, and plays
the distinctive tune of the host’s clan to the guests assembled over their
wine and dessert. The narrow space makes the music harsh and grating, just
as a confined room takes from the Tyrolese _jodel_ all its romance, and
turns the sounds into the caricature of a loud roulade. The games often
last for three days, and a sort of encampment springs up by magic to
supply the deficiencies of the crowded inns of the neighborhood. At the
end of that time there is a ball given at one of the principal country‐
seats, and a torch‐light dance for the people. The queen and the royal
family accompany their host and hostess, and are content with a hasty
dinner, served with a delightful relaxation from etiquette; for this is
their holiday from political anxieties and social duties, and the more
informal this assembly, the better it pleases them. The ball‐room is not
very large, and its simple decorations are in keeping with the character
of the feast and the style of the lodge or cottage in which it is given.
There are flowers in abundance, flags and evergreen garlands, Highland
badges and emblems, and stags’ heads with branching antlers—the trophies
of the host’s skill in stalking the red deer. Outside the house is a wide
space, destined for the torch‐light dance. Great iron holders and pans
lifted on rude tripods contain the torches and the resinous fluid which,
when set on fire, burns steadily for many hours. To and fro flit the
kilted Highlanders, with their jewelled dirks or daggers, and their hairy
sporrans decorated with silver plates the size of large coins. The
champions of the games are there, the rival pipers, the mountain
shepherds, the gillies or game‐keepers, all the household servants and
those of the guests; the women wearing tartan ribbons of different clans,
and Scotch flowers, blue‐bell, heather or bog‐myrtle, in their caps or
bodices. The pipes strike up the music of the sword‐dance; a noted dancer
comes forward, and lays two naked swords of ordinary length on the ground,
crossing them at right angles. Within the four narrow spaces between the
points of this cross he then begins a series of marvellous steps, leaping
high in the air, shuffling, crossing his feet, and invariably alighting in
the right spot, within a few inches of the swords, always in these four
interstices, but never touching nor even grazing the blades. If he were to
touch one ever so lightly, and but for an instant, his reputation would be
gone. Another succeeds him, and so on, till all the famous dancers have
exhibited their skill. No novice appears; they take care never to dance in
public till they are perfect in this feat. Scotch reels for the most part
take up the rest of the night, and are danced by four people, two men and
two women, the former standing back to back, and their partners opposite.
Various figures follow each other, the figure eight being the most
frequent. This is managed by the four dancers locking arms and giving a
swing round, then passing on to the next person; arms are locked again,
and another turn given, and so on till the four have changed places, and
in doing so have described the figure eight. Of course, in this dance, it
is the men who show to most advantage, as they perform a series of regular
steps, snapping their fingers meanwhile, and, as soon as they get excited
and enter into the spirit of the national dance, uttering a peculiar sort
of cry. The women mostly walk and jump through their evolutions. The less
characteristic dancing in the ball‐room, but in which reels are also
mingled with quadrille and waltz, ceases about two o’clock in the morning,
and the musicians are at liberty to join the fun outside. The Highlanders
sometimes take possession of the deserted ball‐room, and continue their
own revels there till daybreak, when the torches flicker out and the spell
is broken. Another national dance is the strathspey, which we never had
the good fortune to see performed.
In winter curling is the favorite game; it is played on the ice with heavy
round stones, about eight or nine inches in diameter, and three to three
and a half inches thick. These stones are neither rolled nor thrown at the
line and mark, but propelled, by the strength of wrist of the player,
along the surface of the ice, and aimed to displace the stones already set
up by the opposite side. Whichever side, at the end of the game, has most
stones near the line which serves as a mark, is declared by the umpire to
be the winner. Miniature curling‐boards are very common in Scotch country‐
houses, with stones two or three inches in diameter; it is an amusing game
on a rainy day, and, though so small, no little skill is required to guide
these stones aright.
The same house to which we have taken the reader to be present at the
torch‐light dance is a very pretty specimen of Scotch hunting‐lodges.
Built at various times, it consists of several cottages, once detached,
but now irregularly connected by picturesque galleries, verandas, and
staircases. One part has much the appearance of a Swiss _châlet_; another
that of a river‐side villa on the Thames, with its glass doors opening on
to a lawn, and its rustic porch smothered in climbing roses. Though so
straggling, it is a very comfortable house. Nothing is wanting—billiard‐
room, smoking‐room, boudoir, and innumerable pigeonholes for guests—a
charming house for persons of sporting tastes; the halls carpeted with
deer‐skins, and the walls hung with antlers, bearing each the date of the
death of the stag to which they belonged; equally charming to the delicate
London beauty wearied with her social triumphs, for here she finds the
thousand elegances of a _rococo_ drawing‐room, the luxurious arm‐chairs,
the rare china, the velvet screen hung with miniatures, and little gilt
brackets, each supporting a tiny cup or a porcelain shepherdess—in a word,
every pretty refinement of the latest fashion. The neighborhood is famous
for stalking—that is, following the red deer through moor and forest
alone, with your rifle and your slight bag containing some biscuits and a
pocket‐flask. You may have to trudge over miles and miles of heather,
watching every turn of the breeze, lest it betray your whereabouts to your
beautiful victim; making immense _détours_ to reach him from some
convenient cover; creeping along on all fours, or even flat on the ground;
often taking a long, cold bath in the mountain burn (stream), wading
through it, or waiting in it, so as not to let him scent your trail. If
for no other reason, this sport is superior to any because it demands
solitude; though it is hard to discover why one should not be privileged
to take a twelve hours’ walk or saunter without the pretext of the rifle
slung at one’s back, and also without incurring the charge of
eccentricity. A forest in Scotland is treeless; the term is applied to a
wide expanse of mountain, covered knee‐deep with heather, and perhaps here
and there with a few stunted bushes or clumps of graceful birches. Here
the red deer feeds in herds, and you sometimes come across six or seven of
these “monarchs of the glen.” The sportsman, however, seldom pursues or
kills more than one in a day. A moor is much the same in appearance as a
forest, but that term is reserved for those tracts of heather‐land where
the grouse and the black‐cock abide. These are often rented to Englishmen,
the forests seldom; so that the Southron, if he have a taste for deer‐
stalking, generally depends for his chance of indulging it on the
hospitality of some Scottish friend.
This neighborhood is full of romantic glens and hollows where mountain
streams gurgle through narrow channels of rock, where tiny waterfalls
splash under bridges mossy with old age, and where real forests of pine
and birch and rowan, or mountain ash, make a variegated network across the
blue horizon. In one little gorge tradition says that a hunted partisan of
Charles Edward took refuge after the fatal battle of Culloden, in 1745,
and lived there concealed for several weeks. The particular place where he
hid was under a projecting ledge or table of rock, overhanging the brown,
foaming waters of the mimic torrent, which, though not large in volume,
might yet have strength enough to dash you in pieces, if you fell into the
narrow bed bristling with sharp, rocky points and irregular boulders,
round which the water boils and hisses, as if chafing at its imprisonment.
The rocks incline their jagged sides so far forward over the stream as
almost to meet in an arch above it, and the chasm can be easily, almost
safely, leaped. Indeed, the rift is invisible from the road, which passes
within a few yards of it. Its sides are fringed with heather, and are
undistinguishable, except when one is standing close upon them.
The North of England, with its mountains and its lakes, its solitary tarns
(pools or smaller lakes) and its becks, has a family likeness to Scotch
scenery. Its people, too, are akin to the Lowland Scotch in their
taciturnity, their hardy, physical nature, and their language; yet to
those who know both well the difference is very perceptible. In olden
times Lancashire and Yorkshire, lying to the west of the Lake country,
were emphatically the land of the church, one vast net‐work of beautiful
abbeys with their immense possessions. Even after the Reformation these
two counties remained the stronghold of Catholicity, and to this day they
contain more Catholics (exclusive of the large modern towns and their
population) than any other part of England. The favorite sport of
Lancashire is otter‐hunting.
A certain breed of hounds, having very long bodies and short legs, is kept
for the purpose; the streams abound in otters, and the hunt is very
exciting. The gentlemen wear preternaturally thick boots, covering even
the thighs, as they often have to wade in after the otter, whose teeth are
so sharp that they can take off a hound’s leg at one bite. These animals
dive dexterously under the banks, and generally lead the hunt a pretty
chase; but, never having seen this sport ourselves, it is difficult to
describe it graphically. The dialect of this part of the country is almost
as much a language as Provençal; the people have their own literature, and
one of their poets (a humorous one) has been styled, _par excellence_, the
“Lancashire Poet.” Lancashire people are desperately clannish, quite
despise the southern English, and obstinately adhere to their own customs,
as something immeasurably more dignified than the finical fashions of the
Southron. The gentlemen all talk the dialect when speaking with their
farmers, game‐keepers, or servants, and speak it with genuine gusto too. A
Lancashire kitchen is a heart‐warming sight; it is emphatically _the_ room
of a farm, an inn, or any middle‐class dwelling. The fire blazes in the
depths of a cavernous chimney, with settles on each side, on which two men
can sit abreast, while from the low roof hang endless strings of fine
onions and dozens of hams and flitches of bacon. At another part of the
ceiling is fixed an immense rack, over which hangs the oatmeal cake in
large sheets, of which any one is at liberty to break off a piece for his
supper unrebuked and without question of repayment. Hospitality is a
cardinal virtue here, but it is not that voluble, fussy hospitality which
worries its recipient and makes him feel the obligation; you are welcome
to go in and sit down, eat and drink, warm and dry yourself at the hearth,
and go out again, without being assailed by impertinent questions or bored
by long domestic revelations. A Lancashire host respects your mind while
he refreshes your body, and silently makes you at home. Those kitchens of
the north are the very type of comfort, with their vast corner‐cupboards,
their cleanliness—you might literally eat off the brick floors; they are
always paved with brick—their long oat‐cake racks and tempting meat, all
home‐cured, hung from the ceiling. The temptation may be too great for you
some night, if you happen to return to your lodgings, very hungry, at the
late hour of twelve—that is dissipation in Lancashire—for you may wander
in, and see no harm in hunting in the cupboard for eggs and flour, and in
slicing off whatever will conveniently detach itself from a hanging
flitch, in order to flavor some appetizing sauce of which you possess the
secret. Perhaps the midnight raid ends fatally, and you stumble over the
pots and pans, or find the embers hardly hot enough to cook the sauce, or
give it up at last in despair, with a ridiculous foreboding of what the
landlady will say to‐morrow morning when she contemplates the ragged
appearance of the best flitch! Let us hope that you will honestly own your
delinquencies, and not affirm that “it must have been the mice, ma’am!” It
will be the easier as you happen to know the house well, and its inmates
long ago agreed to overlook your little eccentricities with regard to
sauces!
Among the principal country festivities which draw large parties to the
neighboring houses in many parts of England, are the local cattle‐shows.
The breeding of cattle is a topic of almost as universal interest in
England as fox‐hunting, especially among country gentlemen. The secret of
this apparent interest lies rather in the intense pride with which they
naturally regard everything connected with their homes, than in downright
personal liking for fat oxen and prize pigs. Not even the farmers who
exhibit the cattle can outmatch the ladies of the neighborhood in their
solicitude for the honor of the county, and, besides this, the gentlemen
themselves sometimes enter the lists, and exhibit some choice specimen,
thus giving their households special reasons for pride and anxiety. Most
of the houses fill with guests for the occasion, and, despite the lateness
of the season (the shows are generally late in the autumn, the one to
which we refer taking place in November), the weather is usually
propitious. Let us take a peep in at the window of yonder large Tudor
house, with its cedars, sentinel‐like, guarding the approaches to the
hall‐door, and an old gabled, ivied ruin overlooking the gay mosaic of the
_parterre_. There is plenty of water here—ponds where huge old beeches
droop over the banks and moor‐fowl _swish_ through the rushes on the
margin, and ponds fringed with late roses, and lifting up in their midst
islands with rustic arbors and a wilderness of creeping plants. Within the
house is the usual amount of family portraits and antique carved
furniture, with a more than ordinary display of hot‐house flowers. A
little earlier in the season you would find in the drawing‐room two
immense marble vases, in each of which blossoms a queenly azalea, snowy or
ruddy, as the case may be. On the tables lie islands of moss, relieving
and framing three or four star‐shaped, blood‐red cactus‐blooms. Round the
high chimney‐piece, where a wood‐fire burns merrily (a luxury in England),
is assembled a family party, neither stiff nor yet free, and picturesque,
if nothing else; for the girls are dressed in the square‐cut bodices and
pale‐hued, brocaded overskirts of a more picturesque age. Perhaps they are
discussing art matters or weaving personal romances.... No, for here, as
elsewhere, you cannot take the bit in your mouth; it is the only penalty
of decorous country life in old England. They are talking of to‐morrow’s
agricultural fair, the annual cattle show, which takes place in the
country town. There is a large party in the house for it; it is the event
of the week. Most country ladies pretend to be, and some are, poultry
fanciers; so there is an additional department allotted to the prize
poultry. The carriages draw up in a wide field near the tents and sheds,
where a view of the race‐course can be had. The men circulate among the
cattle; the “judges” sit in a tribune provided for them. It is difficult
to get up any enthusiasm about this kind of thing, but the adjuncts are
quite as enjoyable as are most outdoor pleasures that you cannot enjoy
alone. The last day of the fair closes with a dinner, when the prize
beasts and their owners are commented upon and the general political
situation discussed. One of the farmers is a born orator; at least he
delights in the sound of his own flowery periods. He quotes Shakespeare
and Tennyson, and feels sure he has made a hit. As all professions are
represented, there is room for all kinds of toasts, and under the veil of
sociability the opportunities for speaking home‐truths are not neglected.
Around the hall are galleries that serve for spectators, both male and
female, and from this point many a ludicrous incident is revealed to you
that escapes the “grave and reverend seigniors” below. This is what a
spectator once saw: The dinner takes place once a year, and it is
impossible to have nothing but trained waiters. Many of the gentlemen on
this occasion brought their own servants with them; but even this was not
sufficient, and the supplementary waiters were “legion.” The dinner was
not as orderly as it might be. There was a great deal of hurrying and
skurrying, orders angrily given and awkwardly executed, wine liberally
spilt before reaching its destination, etc. Suddenly some one gave an
order from the far end of the hall, and an unlucky bumpkin, eager to show
his agility, made a dart forward, but came to an abrupt stand‐still in the
middle of a lake of soup that spread warm and moist about his feet. In his
haste he had stepped into the soup‐tureen, which another waiter, in clumsy
hurry, had momentarily deposited in this conspicuous place. The braying of
the band, whose conductor was naturally not a little exhilarated by the
copious “refreshment” distributed during the day, drowned these “asides”;
but we cannot help thinking that the position of a spectator, alive to
these incidents behind the scenes, was preferable to that of the unhappy
actors and speakers, nailed for four or five hours to the table, and
condemned to drink the execrable wine usually furnished on such occasions.
With this we will close this somewhat lengthy sketch of some of the
incidents of rural life in the old mother‐country—a subject so dear to
Washington Irving, so attractive to Longfellow, and so heart‐stirring to
many who, on this side of the Atlantic, have not yet lost in the turmoil
of business or the hurry of politics the fond, poetic remembrance of the
land of their forefathers. It is a restful picture; the soul grows young
again in the contemplation of that healthy, even placid home‐life,
diversified by so many local interests, and disturbed by so few dangerous
excitements. In such an atmosphere it is no wonder if scholars, poets, and
gentlemen develop quietly, as the fruit ripens on the sunny garden wall;
nor is it strange to find these men, so accomplished and so learned,
filling the unobtrusive and secluded walks of life, as well as the
councils of the nation, the cabinet, the bar, and the Parliament. Happy is
the nation that attains to a green old age; happy the country that keeps
all that is poetic in the past, without relinquishing the practical and
the useful in the present. It is a good thing to be able to look back
proudly on a long line of doughty forefathers, but better still to be able
to look forward as proudly to a goodly line of worthy descendants.
The Future Of The Russian Church.
By The Rev. Cæsarius Tondini, Barnabite.