"'Things don't come out as we plan,' she said. 'I was going to be a

lady, but I forgot that anybody had anything to do with it but myself.

An' now I can't go to any decent place, an' Charley doesn't want me any

longer. See how nice it all looks here, Maria. I've fixed it myself, an'

I've always been so glad that after the play was over I could come

_home_--not to somebody else's room, but my own place--an' I never

thought there was any reason why it wouldn't always be my place. Men

aren't like women. I was true to Charley, and I'll never think of

anybody else; but he says I must get out of this.'

"Well, I wanted her to understand that I knew plenty would help her, an'

I tried to tell her she could begin a different life; but she just

opened her eyes, astonished at me.

"'You think I'd go to one of those Homes?' she said. 'You're crazy. I

can make my livin' easy enough at the theatre, even if I'm not so strong

as I was. What have I done more than anybody, after all? Do you think

I'd be pointed at an' talked over the way those women are? I'd throw

myself in the river first! I've learned enough these years. I go to

church sometimes, an' hear men in the pulpit talk about things I know

better than they do. I've found out what the good people, the

respectable people, are like. I've found out, too, what I might have

been, an' that if I live a thousand years I never can be it in this

world; an' that's one reason I thought Charley might be willing to marry

me. But I shall never say anything more now, for, you see, it isn't

goin' to make so very much matter. I had a bad cold in the spring, an'

the doctor said then I must be very careful or I should go with

consumption. See my arm? They said the other day I'd have to do

something to plump up, but I never shall: I'm goin', an' I'm glad of

it.'

"'Then, if that's got to be, let it be goin' home,' I said. 'Nan,

there's everything waitin' for you if you'll only take it. Come down to

one of the meetin's an' you'll hear. Won't you?'

"'I don't understand it,' she said. 'Everything's in a twist. Years an'

years and never hear of God, an' not a soul come near you to tell about

Him, an' all at once they say He loves you, and always has. Bah! If He

loved, an' people think about it as they pretend, how dare they let

there be such places for us to come up in? If God is what they say, He

ought to strike the people dead that keep Him to themselves till it is

too late for us ever to be helped. There! I won't talk about it. I don't

care: all I want is quiet, an' I'll have it soon.'

"I saw there was no use then, an' I made up my mind. I'd seen this Mrs.

Simpson, for Nan had told me when it all happened, an' I'd gone to the

store on purpose; an' I went straight there. 'I've come from Nan,' I

said, 'but she doesn't know it. She's a dyin' girl, an' as you helped

the father I want you to help the daughter. You're a Christian woman,

an' the only soul belongin' to her, an' the time's come to do

something.'

"'The father was decent,' she said: 'I've nothing to do with

street-women.'

"'It's through your own son that she grew up to know no better,' I said,

for I knew the whole story then, though nobody did when she was down

there. 'It's for you to give her your hand now, an' not throw it up to

her, any more'n the Lord when he said, "Go, and sin no more." She's in

trouble an' sick, and doesn't know what way to turn, an' sore-hearted;

an' if you would go to her in the right way you might save a soul, for

then she'd believe people meant what they said.'

"'She's the same to me as dead,' she said. 'I mourned her sharp enough,

but it ain't in nature to take one again after they've been thought

dead; an' you know they're straight from corruption itself. There's

places for her to go if she's tired of wickedness, but I don't want to

see her bold face, an' her head high, as if she was respectable. An' I

don't want to be plagued no more. I don't deny I lotted on her before

she was took away, but I never want to think about her again; so you

needn't come nor send. I've said my say, an' I hope the Lord will save

her.'

"'It's good He's more merciful than His creatures,' I said; an' I went

away more angry than I ever want to get. I couldn't quite make it out--I

can't to this day--how she could mourn so over the child, an' yet never

have a thought for all the years she'd had to suffer.

"There came a month that everything crowded. I thought of Nan, but

couldn't go up, till one day Tom Owens came in--you know him--an' he

said, 'It's all up with Charley Calkins.'

"'How?' I said.

"'Smallpox,' he said, 'an' Nan's dropped everything to nurse him. She'd

left there, they said, an' the woman he brought in to take her place

cut the minute she found he had the smallpox. He won't live, they say.'

"This was before they were so particular about carrying them off to

hospital. The house was cleared an' the saloon shut up, but Nan was

allowed to stay because she'd been exposed anyway, an' it was no use to

send her off. He had it the worst way, an' he'd scream an' swear he

wouldn't die, an' strike out at her, though he couldn't see, his face

and eyes bein' all closed up. It didn't last but a week, and then he

died, but Nan hadn't taken off her clothes or hardly slept one instant.

He was stupid at the last, an' when she saw he was gone she fell on the

floor in a faint; an' when she come to the blood poured from her mouth,

an' all they could do was to take her off to the hospital. She didn't

take the smallpox, but it was a good while before she could be let to

see anybody. When they thought it was safe she sent for me, but it was

hard to think it could be the same Nan I'd known. Every breath come with

pain, and she was wasted to a shadow, but she smiled at me an' drew me

down to kiss her. 'You see, I sha'n't be troubled or make trouble much

longer,' she said, 'but oh, if I only could rest!'

"Poor soul! She couldn't breathe lyin' down, nor sleep but a bit at a

time, an' it was awful to have her goin' so, an' she not twenty.

"I knelt down by her. She had a little room to herself, for she had some

money yet, and I prayed till I couldn't speak for crying. 'Nan, Nan!' I

said, 'you're goin' straight to the next world, an' you've got to be

judged. What will you do without a Saviour? Try to think about it.'

"She patted my hand as if I were the one to be quieted. 'Don't bother,'

she said: 'I don't mind, an' you mustn't. If He's as good as you say

He'll see that it's all right. I'm too tired to care: I only want to get

through. There's nothing to live for, an' I'm glad it's 'most over. I

want you to come every day, for it won't be long.'

"'Let me bring Jerry,' I said, but she only laughed. She'd known him at

his hardest, an' couldn't realize he might be different; but after a

week or two she let him come, an' she'd lie an' listen with a sort of

wonder as she watched him. But nothing seemed to take hold of her. She

looked like a flower lyin' there, an' you'd think her only a child, for

they'd cut her hair, and it lay in little rings all over her head; an'

Jerry just cried over her, to think that unless she hearkened she was

lost. She liked to be read to, but you couldn't make her believe,

somehow, that any of it was real. 'I'd believe it if I could,' she said,

'but why should I? I don't see why you do. It sounds good, but it

doesn't seem to mean anything. Why hasn't anybody ever told me before?'

"'Try to believe, only try!' I'd say. 'Ask God to make you. He can, and

He will if you only ask;' but all she'd say was, 'I don't seem to care

enough. How can I? If it is true He will see about it.'

"That was only a day or two before the end. The opium, maybe, hindered

her thinkin', but she looked quiet an' no sign of trouble between the

coughing-times. The last night of all I stayed with her. They said she

would go at daybreak, an' I sat an' watched an' prayed, beggin' for one

word or sign that the Lord heard us. It never came, though. She opened

her eyes suddenly from a half sleep, and threw out her hands. I took

one, but she did not know me. She looked toward the east and smiled.

'Why! are you coming for me?' she said, and then fell back, but that

look stayed--a smile as sweet as was ever on a mortal face. An' that's

why I never can help sayin', 'Lord have mercy on her!' and do you wonder

even when I know better? But--"

HELEN CAMPBELL.

MY TREASURE.

Under the sea my treasure lies--

Only a pair of starry eyes,

That looked out from their azure skies

With innocent wonder, sweet surprise,

That they should have strayed from Paradise.

Under the sea lies my treasure low--

Little white hands like flakes of snow,

Once soft and warm; and I loved them so!

Ah! the tide will come and the tide will go,

But their tender touch I shall never know.

Under the sea--oh, wealth most rare!--

Are silken tresses of golden hair,

Each amber thread, each lock so fair,

Gleaming out from the darkness there,

With the same soft light they used to wear.

Under the sea--oh, treasure sweet!--

Lies a curl-crowned head and tiny feet

That in days gone by, when the shadows fleet

Were growing long in the darkening street,

Came bounding forth their love to meet.

And I sometimes think, as down by the sea

I sit and dream, that there comes to me

From my darling a message that none may see,

Save those who can read love's mystery

By Nature written on leaf and tree.

Strange things to my spirit-eyes lie bare

In the azure depths of the summer air:

Through the snowy leaves of the lily fair

Gleams her pure white soul, and I compare

Its golden heart to her sunny hair.

The perfume nestling among the leaves,

Or blown on the wind from the autumn sheaves,

Is her spirit of love, my soul believes;

And while my stricken heart still grieves

That gentle presence its pang relieves.

A shell is cast by the waves at my feet,

With its wondrous music low and sweet;

And in its murmuring tones I greet

The voice of my love, while its crimson flush

From her fair young cheek has stolen the blush.

Mid white foam, tossed on the pebbly strand,

I catch a glimpse of a waving hand:

'Tis a greeting that well _I_ understand;

But to those who see not the soul of things

'Tis only the spray which the wild wave flings.

The pearl's rare whiteness, the coral's red,

From the brow and the lip of my beautiful dead

Their soft tints stole when her spirit fled;

And it seems to me that sweet words, unsaid

By my darling, gleam through the light they shed.

Thus down by the sea, in the white sunshine,

While the winds and the waves their sighs combine,

I sit, and wait from my love a sign;

And a message comes to my waiting eyes

From under the sea where my treasure lies.

H. L. LEONARD.

ON SPELLING REFORM.

The agitation for "reform" in English spelling continues, but, so far,

without involving anything that can be properly called discussion.

Discussion implies argument on both sides--a striking by twos. Most of

the appeals to the public on this subject, whether through the

newspapers and magazines or on the platform, have been made by the

advocates of the movement. The other side, if another side there be, has

been comparatively silent, uttering occasionally only words of dissent.

I presume this follows a law of Nature: those who favor movement move,

and those who desire peace keep it and are still. But it ought not to be

inferred that the noise made by the "spelling reformers" is

representative of the scholarship of the country, or that the silence of

the conservatives indicates acquiescence in all the propositions

suggested and urged by the radicals. There is much that can be said that

has not been said. Some late announcements on the part of those who

advocate the evisceration of the English language and literature are of

a kind to call for some reply. I have no desire, at present, to enter

into an elaborate discussion of the merits or demerits of the new

departure in literature. The present agitation is only a skirmish, and

ought not to be dignified by the title of a battle: whether we shall

have a battle on this skirmish-line remains to be seen.

In the January number of the _Princeton Review_ there appeared a paper

from the pen of Professor Francis A. March in commendation of the

"reform." The professor is one of the most active as well as able of

those who have spoken on that side, and, while he incidentally and

modestly crowns Mr. George P. Marsh as chief of the movement, his

fellow-soldiers, if they are wise, will bestow the crown upon him. In

the article referred to the professor emphasizes his earnestness by

securing the printing of his admirable paper in the peculiar orthography

he advocates. This orthography is practically the same as that advocated

and contended for by the American Philological Association and the

Spelling-Reform Association. Any criticism, therefore, of the peculiar

orthography of the professor's paper is a criticism of the adopted

orthography of the whole body of "reformers," so far as they are agreed,

for in some details they still disagree.

The readers of the professor's paper will notice that in a large number

of words the usual terminal _ed_ is changed to _t_. This is in

accordance with one of the rules recommended by the Spelling-Reform

Association and laid down authoritatively by the American Philological

Association. The phraseology of the rule is to make the substitution

where-ever the final _ed_ "has the sound of _t_." It is to the

professor's application of this rule that I now desire to call the

attention of the reader. The "reformers" write _broacht, ceast,

distinguisht, establisht, introduct, past, prejudict, pronounct, rankt,

pluckt, learnt, reduct, spelt, trickt, uneartht_, and assert that they

write the words as they pronounce them. In the rule given by the A.P.A.

for the substitution of _ed_ for _t_, _lasht_ and _imprest_ are given as

examples.

All of us are undoubtedly aware of the ease with which the sound

represented by _ed_ can be reduced to a _t_-sound in vocalization. But

even if the sound of _t_ is given at the termination of the words named,

not much is gained by the "reform" in the actual use of the words. On

the contrary, it adds another tangle in the skein which children at

school must untangle. It either forms another class of regular verbs, or

swells the already almost unmanageable list of irregular verbs. In

either case it is shifting the burden from the shoulders of adults to

those of children, already, as the reformers tell us, overburdened and

overworked. When a man really and sincerely asks himself the question,

"Do I pronounce _lashed_ as though written _lasht_?" and tests his own

practice in that respect, it will not take him long to determine that he

does not know. It requires a very delicate ear to make the

determination. This may also be said of most of the words quoted above.

The terminal _ed_ means something: it means what it purports to mean

when used. The _t_ may have a meaning, but that meaning cannot accompany

it when it acts as a substitute for _ed_. The common-sense view would

be, in cases of doubt, to use letters with a significance you desire to

convey by their use.

In the paper to which I have referred Professor March informs us that

"what _the scholars_ want for historical spelling is a simple and

uniform fonetic system, which shall record the current pronunciation."

This assumption is not accidental, I think, nor is the spirit of the

Pharisee confined to Professor March. Nearly all of the advocates of

this special "reform" assume the prerogative of determining who are and

who are not "scholars." In the same paper the professor says: "The

_scholars proper_ have, in truth, lost all patience with the

etymological objection. 'Save us from such champions!' says Professor

Whitney: 'they may be allowed to speak for themselves, since they know

best their own infirmity of back and need of braces: the rest of the

guild, however, will thank them for nothing.'" Again: "In conclusion, it

may be observed that it is mainly among _half-taught dabblers_ in

filology that etymological spelling has found its supporters. _All true

filologists_ and filological bodies have uniformly denounct it as a

monstrous absurdity, both from a practical and a scientific point of

view." The professor also quotes approvingly Professor Lounsbury as

saying that the "spelling reform numbers among its advocates _every

linguistic scholar_ of any eminence whatever." Of course, these

statements, whether made by Professor March or by the distinguished

scholars whom he cites, are strong arguments. That the professor so

considers them is attested by the logical conclusion drawn from them in

the very next paragraph after the one in which they are given. There he

says: "It may be taken, then, as certain, and agreed by all whose

judgment is entitled to consideration, that there are no sound arguments

against fonetic spelling to be drawn from scientific and historical

considerations."

We always forgive something to enthusiasts and reformers. They are

expected to effervesce once in a while, and when they indulge in gush

and self-appreciation it is taken as a matter of course. Whether or not

it strengthens or weakens their arguments is yet to be determined. At

any rate, the exhibit that is made of them and of their intemperance is

furnished by themselves.

There is an illogical argument for the new spelling drawn from the

published facts of illiteracy. We are told that the last national census

reports 5,658,144 persons, ten years of age and over, who cannot read

and write, and this number is said to be "one-fifth of the whole

population." The census of 1870 reports a total population of

38,558,371, and a total of illiterates, ten years of age and over, of

5,660,074, which is only 14-1/2 per cent. of the total population. This

is nearer one-seventh than one-fifth. This "one-fifth" the professor

compares with the number of illiterates in other countries in order to

bring discredit upon the English language, showing by the comparison

that there is a larger percentage of illiterates where the English

language is spoken and written than in non-English Protestant countries.

He reports illiterates in England at 33 per cent. of the population. "In

other Protestant countries of Europe they are comparatively few. In

Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway there are none to speak of; in

Germany, as a whole, they count 12 per cent., but some of the states

have none." Professor March asserts that "one of the causes of the

excessive illiteracy among the English-speaking people is the difficulty

of the English spelling;" and his argument proceeds on the assumption

that this is in fact the main cause.

Even if assent be given to the statement that the difficulty attendant

upon the acquisition of correctness in English orthography is one of the

causes of English and American illiteracy, the next step is to determine

the force and efficiency of the cause in that direction; and this

determination cannot be had on the basis of bald, unguarded and

extravagant statements such as I have cited. The illiteracy of the

American people must not be judged by the bare figures given above. The

census returns furnish data for a more just discrimination. The

statistician must not forget the item of 777,864 illiterates of foreign

birth going to swell the grand total. This leaves 4,882,210 native-born

illiterates--a percentage of less than 13. Of the native-born

illiterates reported by the census returns, there are 2,763,991 reported

as colored. This number is more than one-half the colored population,

and also over one-half of the whole number of reported native

illiterates. I think none of the reformers would insist that the

illiteracy of the colored population ought to be charged to "the

difficulties of English spelling "--I hardly need to state why: the

reason will readily suggest itself to all.

Eliminating from the problem the foreign and colored factors, we find a

native white population in 1870 of 28,121,816, and native white

illiterates, of ten years of age and over, to the number of

2,102,670--less than 7-1/2 per cent. Of this number of native white

illiterates, 1,443,956--two-thirds of the whole--are reported from the

States lately known as Slave States. In these States, as is well known,

there are peculiar reasons for the illiteracy of the white as well as of

the colored native, outside of any consideration of the difficulty of

mastering English orthography. This survey takes no account of the

native children with foreign parents, as it would not materially disturb

the percentage, nor of the populations of New Mexico, Arizona, Southern

California and Colorado, all largely settled by Mexicans and Spaniards,

among whom there is doubtless a larger percentage of illiterates than

among the same number of native whites in the Northern States. If

account be taken of all these elements, I think the percentage of

illiterates proper to be charged up to the English language and American

institutions would be reduced to about 3-1/4 per cent.

The next consideration is as to the cause of this large percentage of

illiterates among the native white population of the United States.

Professor March ascribes it in part to "the difficulties of the English

spelling," and he adds: "We ar now having ernest testimony to this fact

from scholars and educators in England." He names Max Mueller and "Dr.

Morell, one of Her Majesty's inspectors of schools," and quotes from

both of them. Dr. Morell states that in some examinations for the civil

service, out of 1972 failures, "1866 candidates were pluckt for

spelling; that is, eighteen out of every nineteen who faild, faild in

spelling." Max Mueller, as quoted, bears testimony to the fact that in

the public schools of England 90 per cent. fail "to read with tolerable

ease and expression a passage from a newspaper, and spell the same with

tolerable accuracy." This is the substance of the "ernest testimony"

from "scholars and educators in England." All this testimony has been

previously given by the same "reformer" and by others without variation

or corroboration. The facts stated seem to be isolated ones, as well as

"grand, gloomy and peculiar." One swallow does not make a summer, nor do

one eminent philologist and one uneminent educator make "scholars and

educators." But when the testimony is carefully viewed, what does it

amount to? Some of the very elements necessary in the consideration of

the testimony are wanting. What was the extent of the failures by the

candidates for civil service? Did they miss one word or more? Were they

more deficient in spelling than in other branches? Of the 90 per cent.

of the public-school pupils who failed, what is the class composing

those pupils? Were they as deficient in other branches as in spelling?

What were the newspaper passages selected for trial? What is meant by

"tolerable ease and expression" and "tolerable accuracy"? According to

the testimony itself, the reference of Max Mueller is to the "new

schools" established since the late extension of education in England.

Confessedly, then, this applies to classes of pupils who had formerly

been deprived of educational advantages and privileges. It is a wonder

that 10 per cent. were successful. The testimony furnished is more

"ernest" than valuable.

The state of education in Protestant countries where other languages

than the English are spoken is taken as a conclusive argument for the

efficiency of phonetic orthography. Denmark, Norway, Sweden and

Switzerland are named as shining exemplars in this regard. It is because

the languages of those countries are orthographic models that the people

are so highly educated. The general fact is incontrovertible that among

those people there is less illiteracy than among those who speak the

English language. As Switzerland has no national language, the Swiss

people should not have been named except in company with those others

whose languages they use. But the bare fact of the smaller percentage of

illiteracy among the people above named is not conclusive as to the

retarding and depressing influence which the "difficulties of English

spelling" have upon the spread of education among the American people.

In Denmark attendance upon school for seven years by every child of

school age is compulsory. The number of children of school age for 1876

was 200,761, while the number in attendance upon the public schools was

194,198, the attendance being 96 per cent. of the whole number of

children of school age. In addition to the attendance upon the public

schools, there were 13,994 in attendance upon private schools: some of

these evidently were above or below school age. We thus see how

efficiently the compulsory system is enforced. This system is not new to

that country, but has been in existence for many years, and the results

seem to justify the statement in the _Report of the Commissioner of

Education for 1871_, that "even among the lower classes a remarkable

knowledge of general history and geography, but more especially of

Scandinavian literature and history," is found.

In Norway, as in Denmark, from the eighth to the fifteenth year

attendance upon school is obligatory. In 1866, of a total of 212,137

country children of school age, 206,623, or more than 97 per cent. of

the whole, were in attendance at school. In the towns and cities less

than 1 per cent. failed to attend school. In Sweden compulsory

attendance upon school is the rule. In 1868, of the whole number of

children of school age, the average attendance amounted to 97 per cent.

There is no general or national system of common-school instruction in

Switzerland. Each canton regulates its own schools. There, as in

Denmark, Norway and Sweden, attendance upon schools is made compulsory.

In 1870 the attendance of children between six and thirteen years of age

was between 95 and 96 per cent. of the whole school population.

Now, what kind of a school system have we in the United States? Here, as

in Switzerland, there is no general or national system of school

instruction. Each State regulates its own schools in all details. In

1870 the total school population, excluding the Territories, in the

United States was 14,093,778; the number actually enrolled in the public

schools was 8,881,848, or 63 per cent. of the whole; and the average

daily attendance upon the public schools was 4,886,289, or a little over

34-1/2 per cent. of the school population. An inclusion of the

Territories in the computation does not vary the percentage in any

appreciable degree. In the Northern States only, excluding the

Territories, and excluding also Minnesota and Wisconsin, whose returns I

have not at hand, there were 8,364,841 school population, while the

average daily attendance was only 3,720,133, a trifle over 44 per cent.

In the United States there is practically no compulsory attendance upon

school. Schools are provided by the State, and the children attend or

refrain from attendance as suits the convenience or wish of the pupils

or their parents. That compulsory attendance upon school is productive

of a wider and more thorough diffusion of knowledge is probably conceded

by all. At least, educators so urge. What would Professor March have?

Does he expect to find education as thorough and general among a people

of whose school population less than one-half are in usual attendance at

school, and less than two-thirds even enrolled as occasional attendants

at school, as among a people with whom over 95 per cent. of the school

population are in constant and habitual attendance? When we consider the

published school statistics of this nation, it is no wonder that about

one-seventh of the whole are unable to read and write. Shall we give no

credit to compulsory systems of education, and still insist that the

illiteracy of the United States is caused in any appreciable degree by

the "difficulties of English spelling"?

Early in 1879, Professor Edward North assured us that the Italians and

Spaniards have discarded _ph_ for _f_ in _philosophy_ and its fellows.

Professor March gleefully records that "the Italians, like the

Spaniards, have returned to _f_. They write and print _filosofia_" for

_philosophia_, and _tisica_ for _phthisica_. Professor Lounsbury, in his

elaborate articles in _Scribner_ lately, commends the Italians for

writing _tisico_ and the Spaniards for writing _tisica_. These of course

are commendations of those peoples for the simplicity of their

orthography, and they are mentioned as worthy examples for us. Yet we

are not advised by either of the three professors named that the

Italians and Spaniards are for that reason gaining upon the English

people in intelligence, educational progress and culture. No statistics

are advanced disclosing the narrow percentage of illiteracy found in

Italy and Spain, and a comparison made between that narrow percentage

and the wide percentage already advertised as existing in

English-speaking states. If "the difficulties of English spelling" be a

serious cause of illiteracy in England and the United States, the

simplicity of the Italian and Spanish spelling ought to be a cause of

high proficiency in literary and educational attainments among the

people of Italy and Spain. A commendation of those two nations for their

taste in discarding "Greek orthography" to be effective ought to be

supplemented with some evidence of the usefulness of that operation.

Unless so supplemented, the commendation can have no weight as an

argument. The Anglo-Saxon race has not been accustomed to follow the

Latins in literary and educational matters. The past and present

condition of those two countries affords no guarantee that their

adoption of the so-called simpler spelling is commendable. There are

persons whose corroboration of a statement adds no weight to it with

their neighbors. It adds no force to the arguments of the "reformers"

that the Italians and Spaniards endorse them.

The demand for "spelling reform" is based upon the assumption that the

pronunciation constitutes the word--in other words, that the real word

is the breath by means of which it is uttered. In the word _wished_

philologists assure us that the letters _e d_ are remains of _did_, as

if it were written _did wish_; and it certainly has that sense. It is

proposed to substitute _t_ for the _ed_, because, we are told by the

"reformers," the _t_ represents the sound given to those two letters. Of

course the _t_ stands for nothing: it does not represent any idea. It is

only a character, and its pronunciation only a breath, without any

significance. The new word cannot mean _did wish_. The "reformers" must

contend that _wisht_ is the real word, or their position cannot be

maintained for an instant. If the word still remains _wished_--"_did

wish_"--though pronounced _wisht_, their proposition to conform the

spelling to the pronunciation is laughable. There can be no conformation

and the old words remain. Whenever a change is made in a single letter

of a word, the word is broken: it is no longer the same word. The new

form becomes a new word, and there can be no objection to any one giving

to it any significance he chooses. In a certain sense, and also to a

certain extent, letters are representative, and are not the real words.

Before the arts of writing and printing were invented the sound of

course constituted the representative of the idea sought to be conveyed.

The invention of the arts of writing and printing brought into use other

representatives of ideas. The cuneiform characters and the

hieroglyphics were representatives of ideas, though there could be no

pronunciation of them. Letters came into use as representatives merely.

In an age of printing it is hardly correct to say that they are only

used to signify sounds. They are now more than that: they have become

more important than the sounds even. They are now representatives of

ideas, and not of sound. Modifications of pronunciation are taking

place, and there are variations in the pronunciation of many words, but

the word as written and printed is the arbiter.

In the Sanscrit we find the verb _kan_ to see, and the later word _gna_,

to know, as the result of seeing. The words are practically spelled

alike, each beginning with a guttural sound. The latter could only have,

at first, the idea of acquiring or possessing knowledge by sight. It is

evident that the Greek [Greek: gignoscho] and the Latin _gnosco_ came

directly from the Sanscrit _gna_, after the vowel between the guttural

_g_, or _k_ and _n_, had been eliminated; and it is also evident that

the _g_, or guttural sound, with which _gna_ and its Greek and Latin

children began, was vocalized. The other branch of the Aryan family

retained the vowel between the guttural sound and the terminal _n_.

Hence we have the Gothic _kunnan, kaenna_, Anglo-Saxon _cunnan_, German

_kennen_, to examine, to know. Hence, also, our _can_, to know, to be

able; _cunning_, knowing, skilful; and _know_, to perceive, to have

knowledge of. While we pronounce _know_ without the guttural sound, the

word itself and the significance it embodies necessitate the continued

use of the _k_. The sound of _know_, as we use it, gives no idea of

sight or of knowledge or of ability. When we hear it articulated, and we

understand that _know_ is the word meant, we then recognize the sense

intended to be conveyed. We are able to do this because of our ability

to construct and give arbitrary significance to new words, and to

transfer the sense of an old word to one newly formed. When any word is

used in speech of which the pronunciation does not correspond with the

letters with which the word is written, we instinctively image the

written or printed word in the mind, and others apprehend the sense

intended. I am aware of a certain answer that may be made to

this--namely, that illiterate persons are able to understand a word only

from its sound as it falls on their ears; but I am speaking now of a

civilized language as used by a civilized people, and illiterates and

their language do not come under this purview.

The movement inaugurated by Professor March and his associates

contemplates the displacement of the _k_ or guttural sound from _know_

and _knowledge_, both in writing and speaking. They say, in effect, if

not in so many words, that because there is no guttural sound in the

pronunciation, therefore there is none in the word. Some people say

_again_, pronouncing the word as it is spelled: others say _agen_, as, I

believe, Professor March does. These two classes mean the same thing,

but it is quite evident that they do not say the same thing. _Ai_ cannot

be the equivalent of _e_. To so hold would be to make "confusion worse

confounded" in English orthography. By one class of literary people

_neither_ is pronounced as though the _e_ were absent, and by another

class as though the _i_ were not present. No one, I think, will contend

for the identity, or even equivalence, of _i_ and _e_. If not identical

or equivalent, they must be different. If _ai_ is different from _e_,

then _again_ and _agen_ cannot be the same word, and if _i_ and _e_ are

neither identical nor equivalent, _nither_ and _neether_ are two

different words. The logic of the "reformers" would bring the utmost

confusion into the language. It would make two separate words identical

in significance. It would make into one word with four different

meanings the four words _right, rite, write, wright._ The words _signet_

and _signature_ are formed from the stem _sign_, and yet the stem when

standing alone has a different vocalization from what it has when used

in the derivative words. By the logic of the "reformers" the word _sign_

when used alone is not the same as the same letters, arranged in the

same order, when used in _signature, signet, resignation_ and the like.

The word is changed, but the original significance remains. When a

person responds, even in writing, "It is me," grammarians say he is

incorrect--that he ought to say "I." But he means the person and thing

he would mean if he said "I." He simply spells "I" in a different way.

Is he not just as correct as he who writes _no_ when he means _know_? or

he who writes _filosofer_ when he means _philosopher_?

But Professor March dogmatically says that "fonetic spelling does not

mean that every one is to write as he pronounces or as he thinks he

pronounces. There ar all sorts of people. We must hav something else

written than 'confessions of provincials.'" This may be understood as

modifying the idea expressed earlier in the same paper, that the proper

function of writing "is truthfully to represent the present speech." But

the difficulties to be encountered in an effort to make the present

speech homogeneous will baffle the wisdom of the reformers. I will not

answer the question now--I will only ask it: What is the present speech?

Who is to determine that? "The scholars formally recognize that there is

and ought to be a standard speech and standard writing." I do not quite

seize the idea embodied in the above-quoted sentences about writing as

we think we pronounce and about "confessions of provincials." We may

agree that there ought to be, probably, a standard speech, both spoken

and written. That we have the standard written speech must be confessed,

or did have until Professor March and his colaborers began the

publication of their ideas in "bad spelling." The spoken speech is far

from homogeneity. Some of the most pretentious scholars assume that we

have a standard of pronunciation. That the standard is not adhered to,

and is therefore, to all intents and purposes, no standard at all, is

evident. The learned or college-bred use one pronunciation, and for that

class that is the standard. Those who are deficient in education do not

follow that standard. As the educated seem to drift naturally to centres

of population, there is assumed to be a city standard and a country

standard of pronunciation. The professor tells us that the country

standard must be abolished, the city standard adopted, and then the new

era will open out in beauty. Or does he mean, as his words are open to

this meaning, that a spoken word is not _the_ word unless it is spoken

in accordance with the city or college-bred standard? But sound is

sound, by whomsoever uttered, and if the word is mere sound a provincial

can make words as well as any one else. The proposition is, _the_ word

is the word spoken and not the word written, unless the word is spoken

by a provincial. To be _the_ word, it must be intoned and articulated in

accordance with the intonation and articulation of the _literati_. If

this is the logical outcome of the position taken by the "spelling

reformers," then we know our soundings.

We speak of _progress_ in connection with intellectual, moral,

religious, social and political matters and civilization. In the use of

the word we discard its true meaning, "stepping forward" in a physical

sense. We cannot have an idea that the mind or the morals or the manners

take steps. So when we say we will consider a matter we do not

necessarily mean that two or more of us will _sit together_ about the

matter. When we meet for _deliberation_ there is no process of weighing

intended, no proposal to use the scales, in arriving at a conclusion in

the matter we have in mind. We _say_ "stepping forward," "sitting

together" and "weighing," but we _mean_ something else. When Professor

Whitney, in the quotation I have given in the early part of this paper,

says of the spelling conservatives, "They know best their own infirmity

of back," he has no idea that the back has anything to do with their

refusal to follow him in his chimerical ramble after an ideal

orthography. When Professor March, in the paper from which I have

quoted, says that "a host of scholars are pursuing the historical study

of the English language," he means something more than, and different

from, what his words indicate, and he certainly doesn't mean what his

words do indicate. The matter of pursuit is altogether one of physics.

These words of an intellectual significance which I have noted are so

used because we have no words in our language which have meanings such

as those we attach to them. We are obliged to take words of a physical

and material significance and use them as intimations of the sense we

wish to convey. As men take a material substance--gold, silver, ivory,

wood or stone--and use it as an image or symbol of the deity they

worship, so we use words of a material sense to express, in some faint

degree, the intellectual and moral ideas we desire to disclose.

The bald statement, expressed or implied, that the sounds we produce in

our attempts to utter a word constitute the true word, requires some

material modification, but to what extent it is not for me now to

discuss. When that necessity for modification is admitted by the

reformers, it is for them to survey its limits. They are the aggressors

in the contest that is precipitated. They must outline and define their

own case.

There are many considerations favorable to a modification of the present

spelling of several classes of words. A reform is needed, and must come,

but it will not come, and ought not to come, with the character and to

the extent desired by the "reformers." A reform that shall make the

spelling better, and not merely make it over, should be aided by all

admirers of the English language. The just limitations of that reform

have not been indicated yet by any of the "reformers." That those

limitations will soon be surveyed and marked I do not doubt.

M. B. C. TRUE.

AN OPEN LOOK AT THE POLITICAL SITUATION.

Macaulay, in describing the rise of the two great parties which have

alternately governed England during the last two centuries, traces the

division to a fundamental distinction which "had always existed and

always must exist," causing the human mind "to be drawn in opposite

directions by the charm of habit and the charm of novelty," and

separating mankind into two classes--those who are "anxious to preserve"

and those who are "eager to reform." It seems to us extremely doubtful

whether this theory, so neat and compact, so simple to state and so easy

to illustrate, would suffice to explain all the struggles, great and

small, that have agitated society, varying in character and

circumstances, and ranging from fervent emulation to violent

collision--from the ferment of ideas which is the surest sign of

vitality to the selfish and aimless convulsions that portend

dissolution. Applied to that condition of things by which it was

suggested, the theory may be allowed to stand. The history of

parliamentary government in England, in recent times at least, presents

a tolerably fair example of a contest between two parties composed

respectively of men who desired and men who resisted innovation--of

those who looked forward to an ideal future and those who looked back to

an ideal past. That the former should triumph in the long run lay in the

very necessity of things; but, whatever may be thought of the changes

that have taken place, no one would venture to assert that the contest

has ever been conducted with purely selfish aims; that no great

principles were involved in it; that the general mass of the voters have

been the mere tools of artful leaders; that appeals to the reason, or at

least to the interests or the prejudices, of the whole nation or of

different classes have been wanting on either side; that at any crisis

there has been no discussion of measures, past or prospective, no talk

of any question concerning the honor or welfare of the country; or that

victory has ever been achieved or contemplated by the employment of

mere cunning or fraud. But in a state of things of which one might

assert all this without fear of contradiction the existence of two

parties, however evenly balanced, could hardly be accounted for by the

sway in opposite directions of the charms of habit and of novelty and

the natural antagonism between men who are anxious to preserve and men

who are eager to reform. That such a state of things may actually exist

there can be no doubt, since, if history had no example to offer in the

past, one which is equally undeniable and conspicuous is presented by

the United States at the present moment. Here is a people divided into

two great parties, neither of which is anxious to preserve what the

other would seek to destroy, or eager to reform anything which the other

would leave untouched; no principle involving any question or policy of

the present or the future is inscribed on the banner of either; no

discussions are held, no appeals are put forth, with the object of

convincing opponents, stimulating supporters, creating public opinion or

arousing public sentiment: a great struggle is at hand, and all that any

one knows about the nature of it is, that it concerns the possession of

the government, and that the chiefs of the winning faction will reward

as many as possible of their most active adherents by confirming them in

office or appointing them to office--this being the one feature of the

matter in which the "charm of habit" and "the charm of novelty" have a

visible influence.

We shall probably be told in reply that this state of things is only

momentary; that there is now a suspension of arms preparatory to the

decisive conflict; that on each side, while the great host of warriors

is at rest, the chiefs are in consultation, counting up their resources,

preparing the plan of battle--above all, selecting the generalissimo;

and that when these arrangements are completed and the time of action

draws near the trumpets will give forth no uncertain sound, banners

emblazoned with the most heart-stirring devices will be advanced, and

we shall fall into line according as our temperaments and sympathies

incline us to join with those who are "anxious to preserve" or with

those who are "eager to reform." It is of course certain that a few

weeks hence the aspect will have changed in some respects: we shall have

been told the names of the "candidates" whom we are to support or

oppose; we shall hear all that can be learned or imagined about their

characters and acts, and see them painted by turns as angels and demons;

we shall also be reminded of the traditions which they represent or are

figured as representing, and shall be assured that certain shibboleths

and watchwords should be the objects of our veneration and certain

others of our abhorrence, and that on our choice between them will

depend the ruin or salvation of the country. But we shall be no wiser

then than we are now in regard to any one measure or set of measures

affecting the welfare of the nation, and tending either to preserve or

to reform, which one party proposes to carry out and the other to

reject. The proclamations of each will be full of promises and

disavowals, but these, it is very certain, will not touch a single

principle of the least importance which will be disputed by the other.

Each party will parade its "record," its glorious achievements in the

past, when it carried the country triumphantly through dangers in which

the other party had involved it; but on neither side will any

distinctive line of policy be enunciated, for the simple reason that on

neither side has any distinctive line of policy been conceived or even

thought of. Finally, it is not at all certain that the battle will be

decided by the usual and regular methods of political warfare--that "the

will of the majority" will be allowed to express itself or suffered to

prevail--that fraudulent devices or actual violence may not ultimately

determine the result.

The inquiry naturally suggests itself how this state of things has been

brought about--above all, whether it is, as many intelligent persons

seem to suspect, an unavoidable outgrowth of democratic institutions.

This, indeed, is a question important not only to us, but to all the

civilized nations of the world, for there is nothing more certain in

regard to the present tendencies of civilization than that they are

setting rapidly and irresistibly toward the general adoption of

democratic forms of government. The oldest and greatest of the European

nations, after trying almost every conceivable system, has returned, not

so much from a deliberate preference as from the breakdown of every

other, to that which had twice before failed as an experiment, but which

now gives fair promise of successful and permanent operation--a republic

based on universal suffrage. In many other countries what is virtually

the same system in a somewhat different form seems to be firmly

established, and in these the ever-potent example of France may be

expected at some more or less remote conjuncture to bring about the

final change that shall make the form and the name coincide with the

reality. England, which at one time led the van in this movement, has

been outstripped by several of the continental nations, but its

constant, though somewhat zigzag, advances in the same direction cannot

be doubted, while community of race and former relations make the

comparison between its condition and prospects and those of the United

States more mutually interesting and instructive than any that could be

instituted between either and another foreign country.

We are aided in making this comparison by a lecture delivered recently

before the Law Academy of Philadelphia, and since published as a

pamphlet, in which form we hope it may obtain the wide circulation and

general attention which it well merits. In a rapid sketch of the

development and present working of the English constitution the author,

Judge Hare, shows how the government, which, in theory at least, was

originally a personal one, has come to be parliamentary and in the

strictest sense popular, that branch of the legislature which is elected

by the people having raised itself from a subordinate position "to be

the hinge on which all else depends, controlling the House of Lords,

selecting the ministers and wielding through them the power of the

Crown." Hence a complete harmony, which whenever it is broken is

instantly restored, between the executive and the legislature, the

latter in turn being the organ of the public sentiment, which acts

through unobstructed channels and can neither be defied nor evaded. In

America, on the other hand, to say nothing of those organic provisions

of the Constitution which render the executive and the two branches of

the legislature mutually independent, and sometimes, consequently, out

of harmony with each other, divergent in their action and liable to an

absolute deadlock, the method by which it was directly intended to

secure the result that has been fortuitously obtained in

England--namely, the selection of an executive by a deliberative

assembly chosen by the people--has been practically subverted and its

purpose utterly frustrated. The Electoral Colleges do not elect, but

merely report the result of an election. This, on the surface, is a

change in the direction of a more complete democracy. What was devised

as a check on the popular impulse of the moment has broken down, and the

people have taken into their own hands the mission they were expected to

entrust to a small representative body. But, while thus assuming an

apparently absolute freedom of choice, they virtually, and we may say

necessarily, surrendered to small, nominally representative, bodies the

designation of the persons between whom the choice must be made. These

bodies, unknown to the Constitution, not elected or convoked or

regulated by any processes or forms of law, have taken upon themselves

all the functions of the electors, except that it is left to the people

to throw the casting vote. Now, whatever may be thought of the actual

workings of this system, it seems to us to be in itself the result of a

change as natural and legitimate as any that has taken place in the

practice of the English constitution. The Electoral College was one of

those devices which are theoretically simple and beautiful, but which

have never worked beneficially since the world began; and we have

perhaps some reason to be grateful that it was virtually superseded

before it had time to become the focus of intrigue and corruption which

was otherwise its inevitable fate. Since the choice of a President could

not be remitted to one or both Houses of Congress--which would have been

the least objectionable plan--and has devolved upon the people, some

previous process of sifting and nominating is indispensable in order

that there may be a real and effective election; and we do not see that

any method of accomplishing this object could have been devised more

suitable in itself or more conformable to the general character of our

political system than that which has been adopted. Conventions

representing the great mass of the electors and various shades of

opinion might be counted upon to select the most eligible

candidates--eligible, that is to say, in the sense of having the best

chance amongst the members of their respective parties of being elected.

For a long period this system worked sufficiently well. If the ablest

men were not put forward, this was understood to be because they were

not also the most popular. If the mass of the voters were not

represented in the conventions, this was attributed to their own

indifference or negligence. If a split occurred, leading to the

nomination of different candidates by the same party, this was the

result of a division of sentiment on some great question, and might be

considered a healthy indication--a proof that the interests, real or

supposed, of the country or some section of the country were the objects

of prime consideration.

We do not, therefore, agree with those who hold that our institutions

have deteriorated, or with those who think that democracy has proved a

failure. On the contrary, we believe that a simpler democratic system,

with fewer checks and balances, would be an improvement on our present

Constitution. The framers of that Constitution had two apprehensions

constantly before their minds--one, that of a military usurper

overthrowing popular freedom; the other, that of an insurrectionary

populace overthrowing law and government. Experience has shown that

neither of these dangers could be realized in a country and with a

population like ours: the elements of them do not exist, nor are the

occasions in the least likely to arise. The two great evils to which we

are exposed are a breakdown of national unity and a decay of political

life. The former evil--resulting from the magnitude of the country, the

conflict of interests in its different sections, the State organizations

and semi-sovereignty, and the consequent lack of that strong

centralization of administrative powers and functions which, however

much of a bugbear to many people's imaginations, is indispensable to a

complete nationality--has threatened us in the past and may be expected

to threaten us in the future. The latter evil threatens us now.

If we turn to England, we see political life in its fullest vigor. The

recent election called forth nearly the entire force of the voting

population, and the contest was carried on with well-directed vigor and

amid almost unparalleled excitement. Questions affecting both domestic

and foreign policy, and felt to be vital by the whole community, were

ardently, persistently and minutely discussed in public meetings and at

the hustings; and the general nature of the issue indicated with

sufficient clearness the maintenance of the old division throughout the

bulk of the nation between a party anxious to preserve and a party eager

to reform. Men of the highest character and distinction in every walk of

life were among the most ardent participants in the struggle; but no

crowds of office-holders and office-seekers opposed each other _en

masse_ or were prominent in the struggle, the former having as a class

nothing to fear, and the latter as a class nothing to hope, from the

result. So far was the leader of the opposition from being suspected of

a mere selfish desire to grasp the position to which in case of victory

his pre-eminent ability and activity entitled him that it was altogether

doubtful whether he would be willing to accept it. He and all the other

men who marshalled or exhorted the opposing lines stood forth as the

acknowledged representatives of certain principles and public measures,

and in that capacity alone were they assailed or defended. The contest

was decided by strictly legal methods; no suspicion existed as to the

inviolability of the ballot-boxes or the correctness and validity of the

returns; and the cases in which corrupt or undue influence was charged

were reserved for the adjudication of impartial tribunals.

No one supposes that the impending struggle in the United States will be

of this nature. There is no question before the country involving the

policy of the government or the interests of the nation. There are no

leaders who are the representatives of any principle or idea. The ardor

of the contest will be confined to the men whose individual interests

are directly or indirectly at stake: the management of the contest will

be wholly in their hands, and no security will be felt as to the

legality of the result. Whatever display of popular enthusiasm may be

made will be chiefly of a factitious nature. Such excitement as may be

felt will be to a large extent of the kind which is awakened by a "big

show" or an athletic contest. The general mass of the voters will no

doubt fall into line in response to signals and cries which, though they

have lost their original meaning, still retain a certain efficacy, but a

great falling off from the old fervor and discipline will, we venture to

think, be almost everywhere apparent. More intelligent persons will

either stand aloof with conscious powerlessness or strike feebly and

wildly from a sense of embitterment. The energy put forth will indicate

disease rather than health; the activity exhibited will be not so much

that of a great organism as of the parasites that are preying on it.

It cannot be denied that there is in this country a natural tendency

toward political stagnation. With the exception of slavery and the

questions arising from it--which fill, it is true, a large space in our

history, but which must be considered abnormal in their origin--there

has never been any great and potent cause of dissension, such as rises

periodically in almost every country in Europe, setting class against

class, changing the form or character of the government and shaking the

foundations of society. In England a gradual revolution has been always

going on, and there have been several struggles even in the present

century where a popular insurrection loomed in the background and was

averted only by concession. Our institutions, on the contrary, have

undergone no change and been exposed to no danger in any fundamental

point. They were accepted by the whole people, and their stability was a

subject of national pride. There were two great parties, each of which

scented in every measure projected by the other a design to unsettle the

balance between the States and the general government, but both claimed

to be the guardians of the Constitution, and their mutual rancor was

founded mainly on jealousy. But for the existence of slavery, and the

inevitable antagonism provoked by it, there must have been a constant

decrease of interest in political questions as it became more apparent

that these could not affect the freedom and security which, coupled with

the natural advantages of the country, afforded the fullest scope and

strongest stimulant to industrial activity. The extinction of slavery

was the cutting away of an excrescence: the wound under a proper

treatment was sure to heal, and even under unwise treatment Nature has

been doing her work until only a scar remains. Painful, too, as was the

operation, its success has given the clearest proof of the health and

vigor of our system, thus increasing the tendency to political

inactivity and an over-exertion of energy in other directions. This in

itself seems not to be a matter for alarm: if the latent strength be

undiminished we can dispense with displays of mere nervous excitement.

And, in point of fact, the latent strength is, we believe, undiminished;

only, there is no general consciousness that it needs to be put forth,

still less any general agreement as to how it should be put forth.

What has happened is, that not only has the stream of political activity

been growing languid, but its channel is becoming choked. The noisome

atmosphere that exhales from it causes delicate people to avert their

nostrils, timid people to apprehend a universal malaria, and many people

of the same and other classes to assert that the sluices are not merely

defective, but constructed on a plan totally and fatally wrong. Some

bold and sagacious spirits have, however, taken the proper course in

such cases by examining the obstructions and determining their nature

and origin. According to their report, the difficulty lies not in any

general unsoundness of the works, but in the failure to detect and stop

a side issue from certain foul subterranean regions, the discharge from

which becomes copious and offensive in proportion as the regular flood

is feeble and low. In plainer words, we are told that the mode in which

places in the public service are filled and held has made the active

pursuit of politics a mere trade, attracting the basest cupidities,

conducted by the most shameless methods, and putting the control of

public affairs, directly or indirectly, into impure and incompetent

hands. This view has been so fully elaborated, and the facts that

confirm it are so abundant and notorious, that further argument is

unnecessary. It is equally clear that the state of things thus briefly

described has no necessary connection with democratic institutions. The

spread of democracy in Europe has been attended by a gradual

purification in the political atmosphere. The system of "patronage" had

its origin in oligarchy, and wherever it is found oligarchy must exist

in reality if not in name. Instead of being an inherent part of our

institutions, it is as much an excrescence, an abnormal feature, as

slavery was; but, unlike that, it might be removed with perfect safety

and by the simplest kind of operation.

Here, then, is a question worthy to come before the nation as an issue

of the first magnitude. Here is a thing affecting the interests of the

whole country which some men are anxious to preserve and which others

are eager to reform. It remains only to consider how it can best be

brought before the nation.

We shall perhaps be told that it is already before the nation; that the

account we have given of the nature of the approaching contest is

incorrect or incomplete; that on the skirts of the two parties is a body

of "Independents," carrying the banner of Reform and strong enough to

decide the contest and give the victory to whichever party will adopt

that standard as its own.

Now, we have to remark that the tactics thus proposed have been tried

twice before. Eight years ago the Reformers allied themselves with the

Democratic party, which accepted their leader--chosen, apparently,

because he was neither a Reformer nor a Democrat--and the result was not

only defeat, but disgrace, with disarray along the whole of the combined

line. Four years ago they adhered to the Republican party, having

secured, by a compromise, the nomination of Mr. Hayes. Apart from the

fact that Mr. Hayes was not elected, but obtained the position which he

holds through, we will say, "the accident of an accident," his

possession of the Presidency has not advanced the cause of Reform by a

hair's-breadth. We do not need to discuss his appointments or his views

or his consistency: it is sufficient to say that he has had neither the

power nor the opportunity to institute Reform, and that no President,

while other things are unchanged, _can_ have that power and opportunity.

The truth is, that there is a great confusion, both as to the object

they have to aim at and as to the means of accomplishing it, in the

minds of the Reformers. They talk and act continually as if their sole

and immediate object were to secure the appointment to office of men of

decent character and ability, and as if the election of a particular

candidate for the Presidency, or even the defeat of a particular

candidate, would afford a sufficient guarantee on this point. They are

"ready to vote for any Republican nominee but Grant," and, in case of

his nomination, to vote, we suppose, for any Democratic nominee but

Tilden--certainly for Mr. Bayard. It may be safely admitted that no

possible candidate for the Presidency enjoys a higher reputation for

probity and general fitness for the place than Mr. Bayard--one reason,

unhappily, why he is not likely to be called upon to fill it. But,

supposing him to be raised to it, what is one of the first uses he may

be expected to make of it if not to turn out the solid mass of

Republican office-holders and fill their places with Democrats? If Mr.

Hayes, with whom the Reformers have been at least partially satisfied,

had succeeded to a Democratic administration, can it be doubted that he

would have made a similar change in favor of the Republicans? Is not

every President bound by fealty to his party, consequently by a regard

for his honor and reputation, to perpetuate a system which the true aim

of Reform is to abolish?

Even if we should concede, what it is impossible to believe, that a

President personally irreproachable might be trusted to make no unfit

appointments, this would not reach the source of the evils of which we

have to complain, which lies in the _method_ by which appointments are

made and in the _tenure_ by which they are held. So long as the system

of "patronage" and "rotation in office" prevails, little real

improvement even in the civil service can be looked for. But improvement

of the civil service, important as it is in itself, is an insignificant

object of aspiration compared with the general purification of political

life, the elevation of the public sentiment, the creation of a school of

statesmanship in that arena which is now only a mart for hucksters,

bargaining and wrangling, drowning all discussions and impeding all

transactions of a legitimate nature. The class who fill that arena and

block every avenue to it cannot be dispossessed so long as the system

which furnishes the capital and material for their traffic remains

unchanged. It is a matter of demonstration that if the civil service

were put on the same footing as in England and other European countries,

the machinery by which parties are now governed, not led, public spirit

stifled, not animated, legislation misdirected or reduced to impotence,

and "politics" and "politician" made by-words of reproach and objects of

contempt, must decay and perish. We are not setting up any ideal state

of things as the result, but only such as shall show a conformity

between our political life and our social life, exhibiting equal defects

but also equal merits in both, affording the same scope to honorable

ambition, healthy activity and right purpose in the one as in the other.

We are not calling for any change in the character of our institutions

or one which they afford no means of effecting, but the removal by a

method which they themselves provide of an incumbrance which impairs

their nature and impedes their working. No partial measure will

suffice--none that will depend for its efficacy on the disposition of

those whose duty it will be to enforce it--none that will be exposed to

the attacks of those whose interest it will be to reverse it. The end

can be secured neither by the action of the President nor by that of

Congress. Reform, in order that it may endure and bear fruit, must be

engrafted on the organic law, its principles made the subject of an

amendment to the Constitution, in which they should have been originally

incorporated.

It may be urged in reply that the present action of those who desire

Reform is of a preliminary character; that they are simply grasping the

instruments with which the work is to be done; that the ultimate object

can be achieved only in the distant future, when the nation has been

aroused to a sense of its necessity. But the question arises, Is their

present action consistent with their principles and suited to advance

their purpose? When they stand between the opposite parties, dickering

with each in turn, ready to accept any candidate but one that either may

put forward, inciting people by the prospect of their support to violate

their pledges, are they introducing purer methods or giving their

sanction to those which are now in use? Will any nomination they may

obtain by such means bring the question squarely before the nation?

Would a President elected by their aid be recognized by the country as

the champion of Reform? Are they more likely to "capture" the party with

which they connect themselves or to be captured by it? If they give

their aid to the Democrats, will they expect the Democrats in return to

give aid to the cause of Reform? If they support a Republican candidate

satisfactory to themselves, will not the lukewarmness or disaffection of

large sections of the party ensure his defeat? If the "best man" on each

side be nominated, are the Reformers secure against a division and

melting away of their own unorganized and easily-disheartened ranks?

Will the victory, in any case, be other than a party victory, leaving

the fruits to be reaped and further operations to be planned by those

who have organized and conducted the campaign?

We know well that it is only in a distant future that Reform can hope

for a complete and assured success. But it is in a distant future that

the greatest need for it, and with that need its opportunity, will

arise. Serious as are the present effects of the virus that has stolen

into our system, its malignant character and fatal tendency are apparent

only to those who have made it the subject of a careful diagnosis. This

in part accounts for the apathy of the great mass of the people under a

state of things which in almost any other country would lead to a

profound and general agitation. Another cause lies in the consciousness

of a power to remedy all such evils by peaceful and ordinary methods;

and a third, in the present lack of any organization for applying those

methods. This lack will be supplied, and the first step toward a remedy

taken, when, instead of a body of "Independents" making no direct appeal

to the people, treating alternately with each of the two existing

organizations, and liable to be merged in one or the other, we have a

Reform Party standing on its own ground, assuming a distinctive

character, refusing any junction or compromise with other parties, and

trusting to the only means consistent with its aim and capable of

attaining it. Eight years ago there was a junction with the Democrats,

four years ago a compromise with the Republicans, and one or other of

these courses is the only choice presented now. This policy can lead

only to defeat or to an empty and illusive victory, worse than defeat.

Had a different policy been pursued in the past, the situation at

present would, we believe, be a very hopeful one. It is impossible not

to see that the existing parties are undergoing a disintegration which

was inevitable from several causes, and which on one side at least would

be far more rapid if a third party stood ready to profit by it. One

cause of this disintegration is the natural tendency to decay of

organizations that have lost their _raison d'etre_--that have ceased to

embody any vital principle and consequently to appeal to any strong and

general sentiment. Another is the disgust inspired by the base uses to

which they have been turned--a feeling shared by a far larger number of

voters than those who have already proclaimed their independence. A

third lies in the feuds among the leaders and managers of each party,

who, having no longer any principle to represent or any common cause to

contend for, have thrown away all pretence of disinterestedness and

generous emulation and engaged in a strife of which the nature is

undisguised and the effect easy to foresee. Thus it is that outraged

principles work out their revenge, making their violators mutually

destructive, and clearing a way for those who are prepared to assert and

maintain them. In the Democratic party the breach may possibly be

skinned over, though it can hardly be healed: in the Republican party it

must widen and deepen. The latter stands now in a position analogous to

that of the Whig party when it made its last vain attempt to elect its

candidate, and shortly after went to pieces, the mass of its adherents

going over to that meagre band which in the same election had stood firm

around the standard of Liberty. It is for the Reformers to say whether

they will contend for the inheritance which is legitimately theirs. With

a cause so clear they have no right to intrigue and no reason to

despair. They have on their side the best intelligence of the country,

and consequently at their command the agencies which have ever been the

most potent in the long run. What they need is faith, concert and

consistency.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

EDELWEISS.

Everybody has heard of it, and those who have been in Switzerland have

seen in the shop-windows, if nowhere else, or in the hat of the man who

leads their horse over the Wengern Alp, the little irregular,

star-shaped flower with thick petals that look as if they were cut out

of white flannel. People may not be certain how its name is

pronounced--may call it _eedelwise_, or even _idlewise_--but as to its

habits every one is fully persuaded in his own mind; that is to say, if

one person believes that it grows on rocks, another is equally sure that

it blooms under the snow, while in either case there is apt to be an

impression that it is found only in regions where the foot of the

ordinary tourist may not venture. The writer has found it, however, in

various places perfectly accessible to good walkers or where a horse

could carry those not in that category. Edelweiss certainly likes to

grow among rocks, on the brink of a precipice or down the face of it,

and out of reach if possible; but it will also nestle in the grass at

some distance from the brink, and may be found even where there is no

precipice at all.

The village of Zweisimmen is a quiet summer resort in the Upper

Simmenthal, in the canton of Berne. The valley is green and peaceful,

with chalets dotted over all the mountain-sides: the rocks of the

Spielgarten tower on the one hand, the snow of the Wildstrubel closes

the view to the south, where the Rawyl Pass leads to Sion in the valley

of the Rhone, and, looking northward, the mountains grow more and more

blue and distant in the direction of Thun. From Zweisimmen, on four

excursions, the writer and others have had the pleasure of picking

edelweiss. First, at the Fromattgrat. Horses and saddles are forthcoming

when required, and the four legs go as far as the scattered chalets of

Fromatt, the wide mountain-pasture which is reached after a steady

ascent of two hours and a half. Across from the chalets rises the _grat_

or ridge where we have to seek our edelweiss. As we mount higher the

gray masses of the Spielgarten seem very near: a fresh vivifying wind,

the breath of the Alps, makes one forget how warm it was toiling up the

gorge. The clouds are drawing around in white veils and sweeping down

into the valley, quite concealing our destination at times, hiding even

the members of the party from each other if they separate themselves a

little. Our fine day takes on a decidedly doubtful aspect: nevertheless,

after the first cry, "Here's some!" nobody thinks of impending

discomforts. Here and there in the grass the soft white petals have

opened, but where the _grat_ sinks straight down for hundreds of feet it

grows more abundantly, on the edge, and, alas! chiefly over the edge;

and here a steady head and common prudence come in play. Furnished with

those requisites, we can collect a bunch of edelweiss, and go on our way

rejoicing even though the rain-drops begin to fall, the wind grows

wilder, and presently hail comes in cutting dashes anything but

agreeable to one's features. We go back along the ridge and descend to

the broad-roofed chalet that lies invitingly below. It goes by the name

of the Stierenberger Wirthschaft, and is known to all the cow-herds

round; but we want no doubtful wine, only fresh milk and thick cream in

a wooden bowl, and a brown fluid called coffee. Bread we brought with

us, not caring to exercise our teeth on last month's bake. In any case,

nothing more solid than bread and cheese is to be found here, tavern

though it is. A fire blazes in the first room, which has no window, and

might properly be styled the antechamber of the cow-house, into which

there is a fine view through an open door. Sixty tails are peacefully

whisking to and fro, for in the middle of the day the cattle are housed

to protect them from flies. All the implements of cheese-making--the

immense copper kettle, the presses, pails, etc.--are kept in the

antechamber. After trying to dry ourselves at the hearth, and

discovering that much hail comes down the great square chimney and very

little smoke goes up, we are shown into the "best room," the furniture

of which consists of a bed, a pine table and benches. In the adjoining

apartment are two beds, the gayly-painted chest in which our hostess

brought home her bridal outfit, and another table; while in both rooms

the knives and forks are stuck in the chinks of the beams over the

benches--a convenient arrangement by which one has only to stretch up an

arm and take down from the ceiling whatever implement is needed. In most

of these chalets a tall man might be embarrassed what to do with his

head: it is only necessary to go into their houses to perceive that the

Swiss mountaineers are short of stature. When the hail and rain have

ceased we start downward over the hilly pastures, through pine woods and

beside a rushing stream, into the valley, and so back to Zweisimmen.

Another excursion was to go up to the same inn, and thence to a little

lake at the foot of the Seeberg, where edelweiss is again to be found.

At Iffigen Lake it may also be had in abundance; and the fourth and last

occasion on which we picked it was on the Rawyl Pass. From Zweisimmen

one drives to Lenk, whence the fine glaciers of the Wildstrubel are in

full view, then through the village and up a steep ascent, but a good

carriage-road still, to the beautiful Iffigen Fall. The water descends

almost perpendicularly over picturesque rocks from a great height,

falling in long arrows that seem to hesitate and linger in mid-air, and

then take a fresh swoop down: a rainbow spans it at the foot, where the

mist rises. Here the carriage is left, and those who intend to ride take

to the saddle. The way goes up steeply to the broad Iffigen Alp, shut in

on either hand by Nature's towering gray battlements. Having reached the

chalets at the farther end of the pasture, we find ourselves facing the

solid rock and wondering what next. Over the brow of the lofty parapet

falls a little stream, looking like a white ribbon as it foams on its

dizzy way. "The path certainly cannot be there," we say; but, as it

happens, it is just there. It zigzags up, cut with infinite labor in the

face of the mountain, like the famous Gemmi road from Loeche-les-Bains,

only that it is not so smooth and more picturesque. The Rawyl, like the

Gemmi, is sometimes given the reputation of a dangerous pass, but in our

party a lady rode the whole way without feeling the least uneasiness.

The path goes up and up until it crosses the waterfall, where one is

showered with cooling spray: soon after we are over the top of the rock

and on plainer ground, but still mounting. A hut is passed where the

guide says travellers can spend the night should it overtake them. There

is indeed nothing to prevent their spending the night there, but also

nothing to aid them in so doing: the place is uninhabited and

unfurnished, the only sign that it is a shelter for human beings and not

for cattle being a tiny stove in one corner, with a pile of wood. Now a

small green lake lies beside the way, and then the chalet on the summit

is in sight, and a cross that marks the boundary between the cantons of

Berne and Valais. There the highest point of our journey is reached in

two and three-quarter hours from where the carriage was left, and we

walk nearly another hour on the level. Snow lies in wide fields in

several places across the path: the pass is never wholly free from it,

for what is rain in the valley is apt to be snow at seven thousand nine

hundred feet, the height of the Rawyl. During this part of the way the

scene is most wild and impressive: the dark masses of the Mittaghorn,

the Rohrbachstein and Rawylhorn, and the dazzling glacier of the

Wildhorn rise majestically into blue space, while from the granite

summits to the very path under our feet there is nothing but rock, rock,

rock! It is as if we were passing where the foot of man had never trod

before, so solemn is the stillness here in the midst of the "everlasting

hills." To see one solitary bird flitting fitfully from point to point

only makes the loneliness seem greater, and it is absolutely touching

to find in a place like this the lovely little _Ranunculus alpestris_

and _Ranunculus glacialis_ forcing a way between the shingly stones and

opening their delicate white petals to light and air. The purple

_Linaria alpina_ keeps them company, but it is only farther on, and as

we come to green again, that asters, pansies and gentians gem the grass.

Where the way begins to descend to Sion there is an enchanting view into

the valley of the Rhone, and for a background to the picture a superb

line of glaciers and snow-peaks, among them the Matterhorn. The path to

Sion can be traced for some distance down, but our party intended to go

back by the way it came; and while we still lingered, wandering among

the knolls and rocks, we discovered edelweiss, faded and gray, however,

for in these regions the latter part of August is too late to find it in

perfection.

As American ladies have the reputation of being poor pedestrians, it may

be of interest to add that ladies walked on all these excursions.

G.H.P.

SPOILED CHILDREN.

It will always remain a mystery to sensible people why, when they are

held to a rigid consistency, compelled to face palpable and indisputable

facts, and to acknowledge that under all circumstances two and two make

four, and never five, there is another class who from childhood to old

age thrive on their mistakes, are never forced to pay the piper, and are

granted the privilege of counting the sum of two and two as four when

convenient, and five when they like, or a hundred if so it should please

them.

These are the spoiled children of the world, whose fate it is to get the

best of everything without regard to their deserts. Others may be warm,

may shiver with cold, may be weary, may be ill, but they must not

complain. The burden of lamentation comes from those who were never too

warm or too cold, never weary or ill, but who tremble lest in some cruel

way they should be forced to suffer, and thus provide against it

beforehand. To these spoiled children the system of things in general

has no other design than to give them comfort in particular. And by some

subtle law of attraction the good things of the world are almost certain

naturally to gravitate toward them. They sleep well; they dine well;

they are petted by everybody; they have no despairs; they never suffer

from other people's mishaps.

A woman who marries one of these spoiled children may be sure of an

opportunity to practise all the feminine virtues. She is certain to have

been very much in love with him, for he was handsome, could dance and

flirt to perfection, and was the very ideal of a charming lover. The

little dash of selfishness in his ante-nuptial imperiousness and tender

tyranny pleased her, for it seemed to be the expression of a more ardent

love than that of every-day men. It depends very much upon her

generosity and largeness of heart whether she soon wakes up to the fact

that she has married a being destitute of sympathy, wholly careless and

ignorant of others' needs and requirements, full of caprices, allowing

every impulse to carry him away, and thoroughly bent on having his own

will and bending everybody about him to his own purposes.

Self-renunciation and absolute devotion and self-sacrifice are natural

to women of a certain quality of intellect and heart, and possess the

most powerful charm to their imagination, provided they can have a dash

of romance or a kindling of sentiment. Hence this form of martyrdom

offers the female sex the pose in which it has sat for its portrait all

the centuries since civilization began, and the picture stands out

impressively against a background we all can recognize. As a school for

heroism nothing can equal marriage with a spoiled child.

But, although probably quite as many instances may be found in one sex

as in the other, the characteristics of a spoiled child are distinctly

feminine, and in no measure belong to robust masculinity. Thus, for a

study, let us take a girl who from her cradle has found everything

subordinate to her princess-like whims, inclinations and caprices, and

has had her way by smiles and cajoleries or sobs and tears, as the case

may be. She finds out at an early age that it is pleasanter and more

profitable to be petted and pampered than to be forced to shift for

herself. She learns that an easy little pitiful curve of her coral lips

and upward glance of her baby orbs is answered by certain manifestations

of tenderness and concern: thus she "makes eyes," flirts, as it were,

before she can talk, and studies the art of successful tyranny. The

nursery--in fact, the entire house--rejoices when she rejoices and

trembles when she weeps. She wants everything she sees, and sulks at any

superiority of circumstances in another; but then she sulks

bewitchingly. Wherever she goes she carries an imperious sway, and keeps

her foot well on the necks of her admirers.

The spoiled child blossoms into perfection as a young lady. That is her

destiny, and to the proper fulfilment of it her family and friends stand

ready to devote themselves. It may be they are a trifle weary of her

incalculable temper, that her fascinations have palled a little upon

them, and that her mysterious inability to put up with the lot of

every-day mortals and bear disagreeables contentedly has worn out their

patience. They want her to marry, and, without wasting any empty wishing

upon a result so certain to come, she wants to marry herself. She is not

likely to have unattainable ideals: what she demands is a continuation

of her petted existence--a lifelong adorer to minister to her vanity and

desires, to find her always beautiful, always precious, and to smooth

away the rough places of life for her.

Nothing can be more bewitching than she is on her entrance into society.

Nothing could seem more desirable to an admirer than the possession of

the beautiful creature, who, with her alternations of sweetness and

imperiousness, tenderness, and cruelty, stimulates his ardor and appears

more like a spirit of fire and dew than a real woman. It seems to him

the most delightful thing in the world when she confesses that she never

likes what she has, but always craves what she has not--that she hates

everything useful and prosaic and likes everything which people declare

she ought to renounce. She is unreasonable, and he loves her

unreason--it bewitches him: she is obstinate, and he loves to feel the

strength of her tiny will, as if it were the manifestation of some

phenomenal force in her nature. Her scorn for common things, her

fastidiousness, her indifference to the little obligations which compel

less dainty and spirited creatures,--all act as chains and rivet his

attachment to her.

A few months later, when she has become his wife, and he is forced to

look at her tempers and her caprices, at her fastidiousness and

expensiveness, from an altered standpoint, her whole character seems to

be illuminated with new light. He no longer finds her charming when she

has an incurable restlessness and melancholy: her pretty negations of

the facts life present to her begin to seem to him the product of a mind

undisciplined by any actual knowledge that she is "a human creature,

subject to the same laws as other human creatures." He has hitherto

considered that her scorn for the common and usual indicated an

appreciation of the rarest and loftiest, but she seems to have no

appreciation for anything save enjoyment. She has no idea of the true

purposes of life: she likes everything dwarfed to suit her own stature.

It is not by compliance that her husband can give her more than

temporary pleasure. If she wants to see Europe, Europe will not satisfy

her. "Sense will support itself handsomely in most countries," says

Carlyle, "on eighteen pence a day, but for fantasy planets and solar

systems will not suffice."

L.W.

PRAYER-MEETING ELOQUENCE.

Weekly prayer-meetings in New England villages offer a variety of

singular experiences to the unaccustomed listener, and it seems almost

incredible at times that they can furnish spiritual sustenance even to

the devout. There are apt to be two or three among the regular

attendants who being, according to their own estimate, "gifted in

prayer," raise their voices loud and long with many a mellifluous

phrase and lofty-sounding polysyllable. Mr. Eli Lewis is one of the most

eloquent among the church-members in the village of C----, and if left

to his own way would engross the entire evening with his prayers and

exhortations. Nothing is too large for his imagination to grasp nor too

small for his observations to consider. "_O Lord, Thou knowest!_" he

repeats endlessly, sometimes qualifying this statement by putting into

the next phrase, "_O Lord, Thou art probably aware!_" He is fond of

poetry too, and frequently interpolates into his petition and

thanksgiving his favorite verses. His fellow-worshippers are fully

conscious of his excellent intentions, but there is some jealousy of the

surpassing length of his prayers. The other evening he was standing, as

his custom is, with his long arms upraised with many a strange gesture.

He had been on his feet half an hour already, and there began to be

signs of restlessness among the bowed heads around him. Still, there was

no sign of any let up. He was engaged in drawing a vivid picture of the

condition of the universe in the abstract, the world in general and his

country and native village in particular, and required ample time fully

to elucidate his views regarding their needs, but proposed to illustrate

it by quotations. "O Lord," said he, "Thou knowest what the poet Cowper

says--" He paused and cleared his throat as if the better to articulate

the inspired strains of poetry, and began again more emphatically: "O

Lord, Thou art probably aware what the poet Cowper says--" but the

second time broke off. He could not remember what it was the poet Cowper

said, but with a view to taking the place his memory halted at, went

back to the starting-place and recommenced: "O Lord, Thou recollectest

what the poet Cowper says--" It was of no use: he could not think of it,

and with a wild gesture put his hand to his head. "O Lord," he exclaimed

in a tone of excessive pain, "_I cannot remember what the poet Cowper

says_," and prepared to go on with other matter; but Deacon Smith had

been watching his opportunity for twenty minutes, and was already on

his feet. "_Let us pray_," he said in a deep voice, which broke on

Brother Lewis's ears with preternatural power, and he was obliged to sit

down while the senior deacon held forth. No sooner, however, had Deacon

Smith's amen sounded than Mr. Eli Lewis started up. "O Lord," he cried

in a tone of heartfelt satisfaction, "I remember now what the poet

Cowper says;" and, repeating it at length, he finished his remarks.

It was Deacon Smith who one Sunday asked his pastor to put a petition

for rain into his afternoon prayer, as moisture was very much needed by

the deacon's parched fields and meadows. Accordingly, Dr. Peters, who

was something of a rhetorician, alluded in his prayer to the melancholy

prospects of the harvest unless rain should soon be sent, and requested

that the Almighty would consider their sufferings and dispense the

floods which He held in His right hand. After service, as the reverend

doctor left the church, he saw Mr. Smith standing rigid in the porch,

perhaps looking for a rising cloud, and remarked to him, "Well, deacon,

I hope our petition may be answered." He received only a snort of wrath

and defiance in reply. Rather puzzled as to what had vexed his

parishioner, Dr. Peters said blandly, "You heard my prayer for a shower,

Deacon Smith?" The deacon turned grimly: "I heard you mention the matter

of rain, Dr. Peters, but, good Heavens, sir! _you should have insisted

upon it!_"

A.T.

THE JARDIN D'ACCLIMATATION OF PARIS.

This beautiful garden, one of the most attractive places in the world,

was established in the Bois de Boulogne in 1860. It was in the most

flourishing condition at the time of the breaking out of the war with

Germany. That war nearly ruined it. During the siege elephants and other

valuable animals were sacrificed for food. The carrier-pigeons that did

such noble service during the siege were mostly raised in this

establishment, and those that survived the war are kept there and most

tenderly preserved. "Many died gloriously on the field of honor," as we

read in the records of the society, which preserve a full account of

their wonderful feats. Some of them again and again dared the Prussian

lines, carrying those precious microscopic despatches photographed upon

pellicles of collodion--so light that the whole one hundred and fifteen

thousand received during the siege do not weigh over one gramme, a

little over fifteen grains!

The great greenhouse of these gardens for plants that cannot endure a

temperature lower than two degrees below zero centigrade (28.4 deg. Fahr.)

would enchant even the most indifferent observer. The building itself is

one of the finest structures of its kind. It was once the property of

the Lemichez Brothers, celebrated florists at Villiers, at which place

it was known as the Palais des Flors. The Acclimatation Society

purchased it in 1861, and every winter since then there has been a

magnificent and unfailing display of flowers there. Masses of camellias,

rhododendrons, azaleas, primroses, _bruyeres_, pelargoniums constantly

succeed each other. These are merely to delight the visitors, the great

object of the hothouse being to nurse foreign plants and experiment with

them. Among the rare ones are the paper-plant of the _Aralia_ family;

the _Chamaerops_, or hemp-plant; the _Phormium tenax_, or New Zealand

flax; and the _Eucalyptus_ of Australia, that wonderful tree introduced

lately into Algeria, where it grows six metres a year, and yields more

revenue than the cereals. This, at least, is what the official handbook

of the garden says. It may be that the famous "fever-plant" has lost

some of the faith accorded to it at first.

At the end of this great greenhouse there is a beautiful grotto where a

little brook loses itself playing hide-and-seek among the fronds of the

maiden-hair and other lovely ferns. At the right of this grotto is a

reading-room where visitors may find all the current periodicals--on the

left, the library of the society, rich in works upon agriculture,

_zootechnie_, natural history, travels, industrial and domestic economy,

etc., in several languages. The remarkable thing about this great

greenhouse is the ever-flourishing, ever-perfect condition of its

vegetation. Of course this effect must be secured by succursal

hothouses, not always open to visitors. No tree, no plant, ever appears

there in a sickly condition, but this may be said also of the animals in

the gardens. I shall not soon forget a great wire canary cage some

sixteen or more feet square, enclosing considerable shrubbery and scores

of birds. There I received my first notion of the natural brilliancy of

the plumage of these birds: its golden sheen literally dazzled the eyes.

The garden does excellent work for the French people besides furnishing

a popular school and an inimitable pleasure resort: it assures the

preservation of approved varieties of fruits, grains, animals. Whoever

questions the absolute purity of his stock, from a garden herb up to an

Arabian steed, can place this beyond question by substituting those

furnished by the Society of Acclimatation. Eggs of birds packed in its

garden have safely crossed the Atlantic, seventy-five per cent. hatching

on their arrival. So immensely has the business of the society increased

that more ground has had to be secured for nursery and seed-raising

purposes, and the whole vast Zoological Gardens of Marseilles have been

secured and turned into a "tender," as it were, to the Jardin

d'Acclimatation at Paris. This was a very important acquisition.

Marseilles, the great Mediterranean sea-port of France, is necessarily

the spot where treasures from Africa, Asia and the South Sea Islands

have to be landed, and they arrive often in a critical condition and

need rest and careful nursing before continuing their journey.

One of the functions of the garden is to restock parks with game when

the pheasants, hares, wild-boars, deer, etc. become too rare for good

sport: another is to tame and break to the harness certain animals

counted unmanageable. The zebra is one of these. The society has

succeeded perfectly in breaking the zebra and making him work in the

field quite like the horse. An ostrich also allows itself to be

harnessed to a small carriage and to draw two children in it over the

garden. Still another work of the society is to breed new species. A

very beautiful animal has been bred by crossing the wild-ass of Mongolia

with the French variety.

Among the rare animals of the garden may be mentioned the apteryx,

the only bird existing belonging to the same family as the

_Dinornis giganteus_ and the still larger _Epyornis maximus_ of

Madagascar--monstrous wingless birds now extinct. One of the eggs of the

latter in a fossil condition is preserved in the museum of the Garden of

Plants in Paris. Its longer axis is sixteen inches, I think. It is, for

an egg, a most wonderful thing, and on account of its size the bird

laying it has been supposed to be of very much greater size than even

the _Dinornis giganteus_, a perfect skeleton of which exists; but this

seems to be a too hasty conclusion, for the apteryx, a member of the

same family, has laid an egg or two in captivity, and one of these on

being weighed proved to be very nearly one-fourth the whole weight of

the bird, the bird weighing sixty ounces and the egg fourteen and a

half.

The _Tallegalla Lathami_, or brush-turkey of Australia, is another rare

bird. It does not sit upon its eggs, but constructs a sort of hot-bed

for them, which it watches during the whole term as assiduously as a

wise florist does his seeds planted under glass or as a baker does his

ovens. As in the ostrich family, it is the male that has the entire care

of the family from the moment the eggs are laid--a fairer division of

labor than we see in most _menages_. The interesting process of

constructing the hot-bed has been observed several times in Europe. It

is as follows: When the time arrives for the making of the nest the

enclosure is supplied with sticks, leaves and detritus of various kinds.

The male then, with his tail to the centre of the enclosure, commences

with his powerful feet to throw up a mound of the materials furnished.

To do this he walks around in a series of concentric circles. When the

mound is about four feet high the female adds a few artistic touches by

way of smoothing down, evening the surface and making a depression in

the centre, where the eggs in due time are laid in a circle, each with

the point downward and no two in contact. The male tends this hot-bed

most unweariedly. "A cylindrical opening is always maintained in the

centre of the circle"--no doubt for ventilation--and the male will often

cover and uncover the eggs two or three times a day, according to the

change of temperature. The observer, noting how intelligently this bird

watches the temperature, almost expects to see him thrust a thermometer

into his mound! On the second day after it is hatched the young bird

leaves the nest, but returns to it in the afternoon, and is very cozily

tucked up by his devoted papa.

One thing in the garden that used to greatly attract visitors was the

Gaveuse Martin, a machine for cramming fowls in order to fatten them

rapidly. The society considered Martin's invention of so much importance

to the world that it granted him a building in the garden and permission

to charge a special admission. The machine has since been introduced

into the artificial egg-hatching establishment of Mr. Baker at

Catskill-on-the-Hudson; at least, he has a machine for "forced feeding"

which must greatly resemble Martin's. Specimens fattened by the Gaveuse

Martin, all ready for the _broche_, used to be sold on the premises. The

interior of the building was occupied by six gigantic _epinettes_, each

holding two hundred birds. A windlass mounted upon a railroad enabled

the operator (_gaveur_, from _gaver_, to cram, an inelegant term) very

easily to raise himself to any story of the epinette. The latter was a

cylinder turning upon its axis, and thus passing every bird in review.

"An india-rubber tube introduced into the throat, accompanied by the

pressure of the foot upon a pedal, makes the bird absorb its copious and

succulent repast in the wink of an eye." Four hundred an hour have been

thus fed by one operator. Fowls thus fattened are said to possess a

delicacy of flavor entirely their own.

M. H.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

Christy Carew. By May Laffan, author of "The Honorable Miss

Ferrard," etc. (Leisure-Hour Series.) New York: Henry Holt &

Co.

The novels to which Miss Laffan gives a sponsor in affixing her

signature to the latest, _Christy Carew_, present two strong and

distinct claims to our notice in the vigor and realism with which they

are written, and the thorough picture they give of Ireland, politically

and socially, at the present day. They are no mere repetitions of

hackneyed Irish stories, no sketches drawn from a narrow or partial

phase of life, but the result of large and penetrating observation among

all classes, made in a thoroughly systematized manner, so as to form a

thoughtful and almost exhaustive study of a country which is more

dogmatized over than understood. Ireland has never been depicted with so

much interest and sympathy by any novelist since Miss Edgeworth wrote

her _Moral Tales_, and both the country and the art of novel-writing

have advanced since then, the latter possibly more than the former. Miss

Edgeworth, indeed, has been singularly unfortunate. She drew from life,

and her talent and observation were worthy of a more lasting shrine,

while the artificiality of her books has caused them to decay even

faster than those of some of her contemporaries. Her successors in Irish

fiction, with no lack of talent, have been too often careless in using

it, or have preferred story-telling to observation. Miss Laffan wields a

genuine Irish pen, graphic, keen of satire, with plenty of sharp

Hibernian humor, but she shows in its exercise a care and directness of

aim which are not the common qualities of Irish writers. In beginning

her career as a novelist she had the courage to refrain from the pursuit

of those finer artistic beauties which lure to failure so many writers

incapable of seizing them: she even put aside the question of plot, and

strove to give a sound and truthful representation of life and manners.

That end was gained with masterly success. No one reading the anonymous

novel _Hogan, M.P._, would have been likely to set it down from internal

evidence as a woman's book: it is one of the stoutest and most vigorous

pieces of fiction which have appeared for years. We can find no trace of

its having been reprinted in this country, and are at a loss to account

for the omission: its distinctively Irish character ought to form an

attraction. _Hogan, M.P._, is a political novel as realistic as Anthony

Trollope's, but more incisive in tone and wider in scope. Instead of

confining her energies to the doings and conversations of one set of

people, Miss Laffan looks at politics as they are mirrored in society,

sketching not alone the wire-pulling and petty diplomacies, but phases

of life resulting therefrom. In _Hogan, M.P._, we have a vivid _coup

d'oeil_ of Dublin society, with its sharp, irregular boundaries, its

sects and sets, its manner of comporting and amusing itself. The field

is a wide one, but Miss Laffan has the happy art of generalization--of

portraying a whole society in a few well-marked types. There is no

confusion of character, and though we seem to have shaken hands with all

Dublin in her pages, from great dignitaries to school-boys, the picture

is never overcrowded.

"A drop of ditch-water under a microscope" Hogan calls the society of

his native city--"everybody pushing upward on the social ladder kicking

down those behind." This zoological spectacle is not confined to Dublin,

but there appears to be a combination of strictness and indefiniteness

of precedence belonging peculiarly to that place. At the top of the

ladder, though not so firmly fixed there as before the Disestablishment,

is the Protestant set, regarding the Castle as its stronghold and

looking down on the Roman Catholic set, who reciprocate the contempt.

These grand divisions are separated by a strict line of demarcation,

even the performance of the marriage ceremony between Protestants and

Catholics being forbidden in Dublin. They contain an endless

ramification of lesser groups, whose relations we may attempt to

illustrate by quoting from the book before us an account of the mutual

position of Mrs. O'Neil and Mrs. Carew, the former the wife of a

tradesman shortly to become lord mayor, the latter a "'vert" from

Protestantism and the spouse of a Crown solicitor in debt to his future

mayorship. "The lady mayoress elect, conscious of her prospective

dignity in addition to the heavy bill due by the Carews, was the least

possible shade--not patronizing, for that would have been

impossible--but perhaps independent in manner. She did not turn her head

toward her companion as she addressed her; she put more questions to her

and in a broader accent than she usually did in conversation; and she

barely gave her interlocutor time to finish the rather curt

contributions she vouchsafed toward the conversation. On her side, Mrs.

Carew, mindful of her position and of her superior accent, which implied

even more, wanting to be condescending and patronizing, and half afraid

to be openly impertinent, was calm and self-possessed. She grew more

freezingly courteous as the other lady grew less formal."

We have said that Miss Laffan began with realism pure and simple.

_Hogan, M.P._, remains, so far, to our mind, her strongest book, but

there are finer and sweeter qualities in her other writings. We should

be inclined to rank _The Honorable Miss Ferrard_ as an artistic rather

than a realistic book, though it is based on the same soundness of

observation as its predecessor. It is an episode, suggestive, rather

analytic in treatment, with the freshness of a first impression--_le

charme de l'inacheve_. The heroine is a singularly original, fresh and

attractive conception. The book deals almost wholly with the outside

aspects of things, with picturesque rather than moral traits, though a

breath of feeling true and sweet is wafted across it and heightens its

fine vague beauty.

A deeper humanity is shown in the short story _Flitters, Tatters and the

Counsellor_, which made its first appearance in this magazine in

January, 1879. This sketch gained a quicker popularity than her longer

novels, and drew forth warm eulogies from critics so far apart in

standard as Ruskin, Leslie Stephen and Bret Harte.

_Christy Carew_, in its picture of two middle-class Catholic families in

Dublin, takes us back to the society described in _Hogan, M.P._, but its

range is narrower and its theme rather social than political. It is a

softer and more attractive book than _Hogan, M.P._, though, like that

novel, it is devoted to a realistic picture of life. Miss Laffan's

characters have the merit of being always real. They are often types,

but they are never mere abstractions. Whatever their importance or

qualities, they stand firmly on their feet, are individual and alive.

Her men are drawn with a vigor which ought to ensure them from the

reproach of being ladies' men. They may display traits of weakness, but

these are due to no faltering on the author's part. In _Christy Carew_

the men are in a minority as far as minuteness of portraiture goes, and

the most elaborate touches are bestowed on the two young girls who act

as heroines, for the one is as prominent as the other. Christy and her

friend Esther O'Neil present two types of girlhood. Esther, _devote_ and

gentle, is a very tender, lovable figure, but there is perhaps more

skill shown in the more contradictory character of Christy, a pretty

girl addicted to flirting, keenly intelligent and impatient of the

restraints and inconsistencies of her religious teaching, yet with an

earnestness which makes her feel the emptiness of her life and vaguely

seek for something higher. When each of the friends is sought by a

Protestant lover their different ways of regarding the calamity are in

keeping with their characters, and though any reader will agree with

Christy that Esther was the more deserving of happiness, no one will be

sorry that her own love-story should find a pleasant denouement. As an

argument in favor of mixed marriages the book would have been stronger

if Esther's lover had been separated from her only by prejudice, and not

by unworthiness as well, but the pathos of the story is in no way marred

by the neglect to clinch an argument. Like all Miss Laffan's novels, it

is simple in plot. Construction is not her strong point, and though

_Christy Carew_ has more story to it than her former books, it is by no

means technically perfect. There is a certain hurry about it: its good

things are not driven home, and effects upon which more skilful artists

would dwell at length are dropped in a concentration upon other objects.

The book, in the American edition, is also marred by numerous

typographical defects that betray a singular laxity in proof-reading.

_Hogan, M.P._, was published in 1876: Miss Laffan's career as a novelist

is therefore only four years old. We will not attempt to cast its

future: we have simply endeavored, as far as space would admit, to point

out the soundness of its foundation and the method by which it has been

laid. In all that she has written there is a reserved strength, a

sincerity and conscientiousness, which mark her work as unmistakably

genuine. A large store of observation lies behind all her writing, and

an intellectual power of a very high order is apparent throughout. What

she lacks is a mellowness and breadth of art which would enable her to

blend and concentrate her qualities--to bring the realism of _Hogan,

M.P._, into unison with the grace of _The Honorable Miss Ferrard_ and

the pathos and sympathy of _Christy Carew_--to give form and

completeness to her work. Then Ireland would have a great novelist.

The Reminiscences of an Idler. By Henry Wikoff. New York:

Fords, Howard & Hulbert.

The reminiscences of idle men are apt to be more entertaining than those

of busy men. The idler, passing his time in search of amusement, can

hardly fail to communicate it when he yields up his store of

experiences. Being disengaged, his mind is more observant and more

retentive of the by-play of life, which is the only amusing part of it,

than that of one of the chief actors can possibly be. Moreover, idlers

are the natural confidants of the busy: they are consulted, made useful

as go-betweens, entrusted with those little services which, being

transient and disconnected, are precisely suited to their disposition

and secure them a place in the economy of Nature. Mr. Wikoff has been a

model idler, with large opportunities of this description. From boyhood

he has, according to his own account, shirked all regular application

and devoted himself to the pursuit of pleasure, including the

gratification of an intelligent but superficial curiosity in regard to

men and manners. He has come in close contact with a great variety of

people, especially of a class whose private lives and public careers

react in the production of a piquant interest. These associations kept

his hands full of what only a very rigid censor would denominate

mischief. His intimacy with Forrest gained him a suitable companion in a

journey to the Crimea, and the tragedian a not less suitable negotiator

in the arrangements for his marriage and his professional engagements in

London. He aided Lady Bulwer in her fight with her husband's family and

the recovery of her stolen lap-dog. His friendly offices to Fanny

Ellsler were more important and fruitful. He had the chief share in

bringing her to America, smoothing away the difficulties, assuming the

responsibilities, and escorting her in person, while taking charge at

the same time of two other interesting and otherwise unprotected

females. It was, indeed, we need hardly say, in feminine affairs that

Mr. Wikoff was most at home. But his obliging disposition made him

equally ready to execute commissions for members of the Bonaparte

family, his relations with whom grew closer and more interesting at a

period subsequent to that which is embraced in this volume. Many other

notabilities, both American and European, have more or less prominence

in its pages. Some letters from Mrs. Grote are especially deserving of

notice. As long as it is confined to personal topics the narrative is

never dull. Without being distinguished for vigor or wit, it has the

graceful and sprightly garrulity characteristic of the well-preserved

veteran. Unfortunately, it betrays also the tendency to tediousness

which belongs to a revered epoch, much of it, being devoted to persons

and things seen only from a distance and without the powers of vision

requisite for penetrating their true character. But, in spite of this

defect, the book is exceedingly readable and enjoyable, and we trust to

have a continuation of it which may show a restraining influence

exercised with kindness and tact, such as were so often exerted by the

author for the benefit of his friends.

The Life and Work of William Augustus Muhlenberg. By Anne

Ayres. New York: Harper & Brothers.

There could not well be a stronger contrast than between the subject of

this book and that of the one just noticed. We have called Mr. Wikoff a

model idler, and with at least equal truth we may call Dr. Muhlenberg a

model worker, not because he was unremitting and methodical in labor or

because his work was his delight, but because it was consecrated by a

devoted singleness of purpose and crowned by the noblest achievements.

The life of the founder of St. Luke's Hospital and St. Johnland, as

exhibited in this faithful record, has the simplicity and grandeur of an

antique statue, and in the contemplation of it the marvel of its rare

perfection grows, till we are half inclined to ask whether it, too, be

not some relic of the remote past rather than a product of our own age.

Saintly purity, unbounded beneficence, intense earnestness and

great-hearted liberality of sentiment were never more symmetrically

blended than in the character of "the great presbyter," whose

ministrations were neither inspired nor confined by any narrower dogma

than "that love to man, flowing from love to God," which, as he himself,

with no lack of humility, said, "had been their impulse." It has been

justly observed that "he was eminently the common property of a common

Christianity," and not less truly that "there is, and ever will be, more

of Christian charity in the world because Dr. Muhlenberg has lived in it

as he did." He was perhaps not a man of extraordinary intellect, but his

singularly healthy mind, with its union of resoluteness and candor,

sound sense and lively fancy, gave the needed counterpoise to his moral

qualities, keeping his enterprises within the domain of the useful and

the practical, and thus saving him from the disappointments that too

often checker the career of the philanthropist. This biography, written

from long and intimate knowledge and admirable alike in spirit and

execution, will find, we may trust, a multitude of readers among members

of all sects and those who belong to none. Its interest is of a far more

absorbing kind than any that can be excited by gossip or anecdote. It is

that of a vivid portraiture, in which nothing characteristic is missing,

in which the details are all harmonious, and which awakens not only our

admiration, but our warmest sympathies.

_Books Received._

History of Political Economy in Europe. By Jerome-Adolphe Blanqui.

Translated from the fourth French edition by Emily J. Leonard. New York:

G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Pure Wine--Fermented Wine and Other Alcoholic Drinks in the Light of the

New Dispensation. By John Ellis, M. D. New York: Published by the

Author.

Shakespeare's History of King Henry the Fourth. Parts 1 and 2. Edited,

with Notes, by William J. Rolfe, A. M. New York: Harper & Brothers.

A History of New York. By Diedrich Knickerbocker. (New "Geoffrey-Crayon"

Edition of Irving's Works.) New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Card Essays: Clay's Decisions and Card-table Talk. By "Cavendish."

(Leisure-Hour Series.) New York: Henry Holt & Co.

William Ellery Channing: His Opinions, Genius and Character. By Henry W.

Bellows. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

The Virginia Bohemians: A Novel. By John Esten Cooke. (Library of

American Fiction.) New York: Harper & Brothers.

Nana: Sequel to "L'Assommoir." By Emile Zola. Translated by John

Stirling. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & Brothers.

The Hair, its Growth, Care, Diseases and Treatment. By C. Henri Leonard,

M. A., M. D. Detroit: C. Henri Leonard.

The Amazon. By Franz Dingelstedt. Translated from the German by J. M.

Hart. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Reminiscences of Rev. William Ellery Channing, D. D. By Elizabeth Palmer

Peabody. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

Around the World with General Grant. By John Russell Young. Parts 19 and

20. New York: American News Co.

Proverbial Treasury. English and Select Foreign Proverbs. By Carl

Seelbach. New York: Seelbach Brothers.

The Princess Elizabeth: A Lyric Drama. By Francis H. Williams.

Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger.

A Foreign Marriage; or, Buying a Title. (Harpers' Library of American

Fiction.) New York: Harper & Brothers.

William Ellery Channing: A Centennial Memory. By Charles T. Brooks.

Boston: Roberts Brothers.

Rev. Mr. Dashwell, the New Minister at Hampton. By E. P. B.

Philadelphia: John E. Potter & Co.

History of the Administration of John De Witt. By James Geddes. New

York: Harper & Brothers.

Masterpieces of English Literature. By William Swinton. New York: Harper

& Brothers.

The Theory of Thought: A Treatise on Deductive Logic. New York: Harper &

Brothers.

The Logic of Christian Evidences. By G. Frederick Wright. Andover:

Warren F. Draper.

Modern Communism. By Charles W. Hubner. Atlanta, Ga.: Jas. P. Harrison &

Co.

Free Land and Free Trade. By Samuel S. Cox. New York: G. P. Putnam's

Sons.

Only a Waif. By R. A. Braendle ("Pips"). New York: D. and J. Sadlier &

Co.

Life: Its True Genesis. By R. W. Wright. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Joan of Arc, "The Maid." By Janet Tuckey. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Mrs. Beauchamp Brown. (No-Name Series.) Boston: Roberts Brothers.