Last month, taking the Past for a background, I tried to picture the
opportunity which the Present holds up before the daughters of America.
Let me now, for a brief space, coming freshly from the field of active
service, where banners wave and squadrons wheel, try to talk about the
conditions of success, in this wonderful battle of life. First, then,
I would give this not at all startling bit of advice: _Keep to your
specialty_; to the doing of the thing that you accomplish with most of
satisfaction to yourself, and most of benefit to those about you. Keep
to this, whether it is raising turnips or tunes; painting screens or
battle pieces; studying political economy or domestic receipts; for, as
we read in a great author who has a genius for common sense: “There is
not one thing that men ought to do, there is not one thing that ought
to be done, which a woman ought not to be encouraged to do, if she has
the capacity for doing it. For wherever there is a gift, there is a
prophecy pointing to its use, and a silent command of God to use it.”
Such utterances as these are assertions of the “natural and inalienable
rights” of the individual as such. They are deductions of the Christian
philosophy which regards you and me, first and chiefly, as human beings,
and makes the greatest possible account of personal identity. In all ages
there have been minds that saw this truth. The intellects which towered
like Alpine peaks above the mass of men, were the first to reflect its
blessed light. Two thousand years ago, Juvenal made the heroine of a
famous “Satire” say to the hero: “I like our Latin word for _man_, which
equally includes your sex and mine. For you should not forget that, in
all things highest, best, and most enduring in our natures, I am as much
a man as you are.” The sun of truth looms high above the far horizon in
our day, and even the plains of human thought and purpose are glowing
with the light of this new inspiration. “Personal value,” “personal
development,” these will be the noontide watchwords, “when the race out
of childhood has grown.” Only yesterday I heard a fashionable butterfly,
in the surroundings of a luxurious home, saying with sudden enthusiasm:
“Of one thing I am sure; every woman that lives is bound to find out what
is the very best thing she can do with her powers, and then she’s bound
to do it.” In creating each of us with some peculiar talent, God has
given us each “a call” to some peculiar work. Indeed, the time is almost
here when the only call that will be recognized as valid, in any field,
must involve in him who thinks he hears it, both adaptation and success.
Each one of us is a marvelous bundle of aptitudes and of capacities. But,
just as I prefer the active to the passive voice, I prefer to put the
aptitudes first in my present inventory. Besides, the world has harangued
us women on our capacities, from the beginning, and it is really
refreshing to take the dilemma of our destiny by the other horn, at last!
Civilization (by which I mean Christianity’s effect on the brains and
hands of humanity), wonderfully develops and differentiates our powers.
Among the Modocs there are but four specialties—assigned with remarkable
fairness, in the proportion of two for the squaws and two for the braves.
The last hunt and fight; the first do the drudgery and bring up the
pappooses. Among the Parisians, on the contrary, the division of labor is
almost infinite, so that the hand perfectly skilled in the most minute
industry (as, for instance, in moulding the shoestrings of a porcelain
statuette), needs no other resource to gain a comfortable livelihood.
Among the Modocs, skins are about the only article of commerce. Among
the Parisians, evolution has gone so far in the direction of separating
employments formerly blended, that you can not buy cream and milk in the
same shop.
By some unaccountable perversion of good sense, the specialties of
human beings who are women, have been strangely circumscribed. But they
were _there_, all the same, and now, under the genial sun of a more
enlightened era, they are coming airily forth, like singing birds after
a thunder storm. And wonderfully do they help some of us to solve the
toughest of all problems: _What is life for?_
Let us see. Lift the cover of your sewing basket; there are thimble,
scissors, spools of thread, and all the neat outfit needful to a
seamstress, but minus the needle they have no explanation and no
efficiency. Unlock your writing desk: what are paper, ink, and
sealing-wax, without the pen? They are nothing but waste material and
toys. So it is with you and me. We have no explanation that is adequate;
we have no place in the work-box and portfolio of to-day; no place in the
great humming hive of the land we live in, save as some predominating
aptitude in each of us explains why we are here, and in what way we are
to swell the inspiring song of voluntary toil and beneficent success.
Suppose that here, and now, you proceed to take an “inventory of stock,”
if you have not been thoughtful enough to do that already. Made up as
you are, what is your _forte_, your “specialty,” your “best hold,” as
men phrase it? Be sure of one thing, at the outset: The great Artificer,
in putting together your individual nature, did not forget this crowning
gift, any more than he forgets to add its own peculiar fragrance to the
arbutus, or its own song to the lark. It may not lie upon the surface,
this choicest of your treasures; diamonds seldom do. Miners lift a
great deal of mere dust, before the sparkling jewel they are seeking
gladdens the eye. Genius has been often and variously defined. I would
call it _an intuition_ of one’s own best gift. Rosa Bonheur knew hers;
Charlotte Cushman recognized hers; George Eliot was not greatly at a loss
concerning hers. As for us, of less emphatic individuality, sometimes we
wait until a friend’s hand leads us up before the mirror of our potential
self; sometimes we see it reflected in another’s success (as the eaglet,
among the flock of geese, first learned that he could fly, when he
recognized a mate in the heaven-soaring eagle, whose shadow frightened
all the geese away); sometimes we come upon our heritage unwittingly, as
Diana found Endymion, but always it is there, be sure of that, and “let
no man take thy crown.” As iron filings fall into line around a magnet,
so make your opportunities cluster close about your magic gift. In a land
so generous as ours, this can be done, by every woman who reads these
lines. A sharpened perception of their own possibilities is far more
needed by “our girls” than better means for education. But how was it in
the past? If there is one thought which, for humanity’s sake, grieves
me as no other can, it is this thought of God’s endowment bestowed upon
us each, so that we might in some especial manner gladden and bless the
world, by bestowing upon it our best; the thought of his patience all
through the years, as he has gone on hewing out the myriad souls of a
wayward race, that they might be lively stones in the temple of use and
of achievement, and side by side with this, the thought of our individual
blindness, our failure to discern the riches of brain, heart and hand,
with which we were endowed. But most of all, I think about the gentle
women who have lived, and died, and made no sign of their best gifts,
but whose achievements of voice and pen, of brush and chisel, of noble
statesmanship and great-hearted philanthropy, might have blessed and
soothed our race through these six thousand years.
There is a stern old gentleman of my acquaintance, who, if he had heard
what I have felt called upon to say, would have entered his demurrer,
in this fashion: “That’s all fol-de-rol, my friend; a mere rhetorical
flourish. If women could have done all this, why didn’t they, pray
tell? If it’s in it’s in, and will come out, but what’s wanting can’t
be numbered. You can’t pull the wool over my eyes with your vague
generalities. I went to the Centennial; I saw Machinery Hall, and what’s
more for my argument (and less for yours), I saw the ‘Woman’s Pavilion,’
too.”
He would then proceed to ask me, with some asperity, if I thought that
any of my “gentle myriads” could have invented a steam engine? Whereupon
I would say to him, what I now say to you, “most assuredly I think so;
why not?” And I would ask, in turn, if my old friend had studied history
with reference to the principle that, as a rule, human beings do not rise
above the standard implied in society’s general estimate of the class
to which they belong. Take the nations of Eastern Europe and Western
Asia; “civilized” nations, too, be it remembered; study the mechanic
of Jerusalem, the merchant of Damascus and Ispahan; in what particular
are the tools of the one or the facilities of commerce familiar to the
others, superior to those of a thousand years ago? Surely, so far as
oriental inventions are concerned, they have changed as little as the
methods of the bee or the wing-stroke of the swallow. We hear no more of
man’s inventiveness in those countries than of woman’s. Why should we,
indeed, when we remember that both are alike untaught in the arts and
sciences which form the basis of mechanical invention? They are inspired
by no intellectual movement; no demand; no “modern spirit.” It is not
“in the air” that _men_ shall be fertile of brain and skilled of hand as
inventors there, any more than it is here that women shall be, and where
both knowledge and incentive are not present, achievement is evermore a
minus quantity. None but a heaven-sent genius, stimulated by a love of
science, prepared by special education and inspired by the _prestige_ of
belonging to the dominant sex, ever yet carved types, tamed lightning
or imprisoned steam. Besides, in ages past, if some brave soul, man or
woman, conscious of splendid powers, strove to bless the world by their
free exercise, what dangers were involved! Was it Joan of Arc? the fagot
soon became her portion; or Galileo? on came the rack; or Christopher
Columbus? the long disdain of courtiers and jealousy of ambitious
coadjutors followed him; or Stephenson? his fetter was the menace of
the law; or Robert Fulton? he faced the sarcasm of the learned and the
merriment of boors. Even for the most adventurous inventors of to-day
(as the aeronaut experimenters), what have we but bad puns and insipid
conundrums, until he wins, and then ready caps tossed high in air and
fame’s loud trumpet at his ear—when death’s cold finger has closed it up
forever.
Times are changing, though. The world grows slowly better and more
brotherly. The day is near when women will lack no high incentive to
the best results in every branch of intellectual endeavor and skilled
workmanship. Not a week passes but from the Patent Office comes some
favorable verdict as to woman’s inventive power. Wisdom’s goddess deems
herself no longer compromised because places are assigned us in her
banquet hall. “The world is all before us where to choose,” and I, for
one, appeal from the “Woman’s Pavilion” of the first, to that which shall
illustrate the second hundred years of this republic.
FORTRESS, PALACE AND PRISON.
BY EDITH SESSIONS TUPPER.
It is believed by many that the Tower of London is, as its name would
seem to indicate, but a single lofty pile, while in reality it is a vast
collection of grim towers and frowning bastions; a great walled town in
the heart of busy London.
The Tower, or the White Tower, built in the time of the Conqueror, is
surrounded by twelve smaller towers—Bloody, Bell, Beauchamp, Devereux,
Flint, Bowyer, Brick, Martin, Constable, Broadarrow, Salt and Record. In
turn, these are environed by the ballium walls and bastions, and the moat
guarded by Middle, Byward, St. Thomas, Cradle, Well and Devlin towers.
As one descends Tower Hill, the eye takes in the whole immense and
hoary mass, fit emblem of the stormy and tempestuous times in which
each separate tower arose. Like black shadows of the past casting their
gloom over the present, rise the lofty turrets above the roofs of modern
buildings. Sternly they look down upon throbbing London, each with its
own history, each with its own awful secrets locked in its stony breast.
Amid the terrific conflict of the days when the Norman was trampling the
Saxon under foot, the Tower, the Great Tower, or the White Tower, as it
was variously called, arose.
William the Conqueror caused it to be built as a fortress for himself
in case his Saxon subjects might rebel against his hard and iron rule.
Among the ecclesiastics who possessed the richest sees of those days was
Gundulph, bishop of Rochester, who was also a fine military architect.
To him the Conqueror gave the commission to build his New Fortress in
1079-80. Gundulph selected the site just without the city then, and to
the east, on the northern side of the Thames. The tower is quadrangular
in shape, one hundred and sixteen feet from north to south, ninety-six
from east to west, ninety-two feet in height, and its external walls
are fifteen feet in thickness—an imposing and superb specimen of Norman
architecture. It is three stories high, not counting the vaults. There
are some slight traces remaining of the grand entrance on the north side,
but visitors enter by modern doors on both the north and south sides.
In the northeast corner of the White Tower is a massive staircase,
connecting the three stories. The column around which the stairs wind is
a remarkable and well preserved specimen of ancient masonry. A wall seven
feet in thickness runs north and south, which divides the tower from base
to summit. Another wall extending east and west subdivides the southern
portion into unequal parts, forming in each story one large and two
small rooms. The smallest division on the ground floor is called Queen
Elizabeth’s Armory, being filled with armor and trappings of her day. On
the north side of this room, one is shown a cell formed in the thickness
of the wall, ten feet long and eight wide, receiving no light save from
the entrance. In this dark and dismal room was imprisoned for twelve long
years the gay and brilliant courtier, Sir Walter Raleigh, on suspicion
merely of being implicated in a plot to place the Lady Arabella Stuart,
the niece of the unfortunate Queen of Scots, on the throne of England.
This ill-fated lady also perished in the tower, her reason having been
dethroned by her long and cruel captivity. In the year she died, Sir
Walter was released and sent to South America to search for gold mines;
returning unsuccessful he was remanded to the Tower, and beheaded in
1618 to please the Spaniards. James First wished to gain their favor,
as his son Prince Charles was to be married to the Infanta. Raleigh’s
bravery and valor had been too often directed against the Spaniards for
them not to exult over his cruel fate. In this wretched and gloomy cell,
it is said, he wrote his “History of the World.” In the center of this
armory are various instruments of torture; about the room are stands of
weapons, halberds, battle axes, maces and bills, and military instruments
for cutting the bridles of horses; at the end of the room is a figure on
horseback, representing Queen Bess. Her dress is copied from an ancient
portrait, and she is attended by officers and pages. Just back of these
figures hangs a very old picture of St. Paul’s cathedral. But the most
terribly fascinating objects in this room are the block, the headsman’s
hideous, grinning mask and the original axe. With horror the visitor
looks upon the block, dented here and there where the executioner’s
nervous blows struck wide of the mark, and upon the ponderous axe, whose
blade has cleft the necks of so many royal and noble victims.
One is glad to leave this chamber of horrors and go above into St.
John’s Chapel, which is considered one of the finest specimens of Norman
architecture left in the kingdom. It terminates in a semi-circle, and
the twelve enormous pillars are arranged in similar fashion. These
pillars are united by arches which admit the light into the nave from
the windows. In the reign of Henry III. three immense windows of stained
glass were added to the chapel. It is not known at what time or from what
cause it ceased to be used for religious purposes. A large room directly
above, on the third floor, was used as a council chamber by the kings,
when they held their court in the Tower. It was in this room that the
infamous Richard, Duke of Gloucester, ordered Lord Hastings to instant
execution in front of St. Peter’s Chapel.
This room is now used as a depository for small arms, and the arrangement
of weapons in the form of various flowers is wonderful and artistic, the
entire ceiling being covered by curious and intricate combinations of
these arms.
Encircling the great White Tower, as has been said, is a row of twelve
smaller towers. Perhaps the one first in interest is that directly
opposite the Traitor’s Gate, and rightly named, known as the Bloody
Tower. It is rectangular in form, being the only one of that shape in the
inner ward. It closely joins Record or Wakefield Tower on the west. Its
grand gateway was built in the reign of Edward III., and is the entrance
proper to the inner ward. The massive portcullis gives signs of immense
age. It was in this tower in 1483, that the most infamous order of the
hateful Gloucester, the murder of the innocent princes, the children of
Edward IV., was consummated.
“The tyrannous and bloody act is done—
The most arch deed of piteous massacre
That ever yet this land was guilty of.”
The little victims are supposed to have been buried at the foot of the
staircase in the White Tower, but a strange mystery surrounds their fate.
Joining Bloody Tower is the tower next in size to the Great or White
Tower, known as the Record Tower, from its having been for many centuries
the depository for the records of the nation, and Wakefield Tower, from
the imprisonment there of the Yorkists, after the victory of Margaret of
Anjou, the Amazonian queen of the good but weak Henry VI., at Wakefield,
in 1460. This victory gave the House of Lancaster the ascendency for
a short time. The next year the Yorkists were successful, Henry was
remanded to the tower, and was soon after found dead, murdered by
Gloucester’s command, it is supposed.
“Within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps death his court; and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchise, be fear’d and kill with looks;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life
Were brass impregnable; and humor’d thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall—and farewell, king!”
Wakefield Tower is very ancient, having been built in the time of William
Rufus, in 1087.
On the opposite side of the inner ward looms up the gloomy and famous
Bowyer Tower, so named from its having been the residence of the Master
Provider of the King’s Bows. In a dungeon-like room of this tower,
“false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,” younger brother of Edward IV., was
drowned in a butt of Malmsey. Together with the detestable Gloucester,
he stabbed the young son of Henry VI. in the field at Tewkesbury, but
retribution was swift. He soon incurred the displeasure and jealousy of
his royal brother, and perished in this wretched manner.
“O Brackenbury, I have done these things
That now give evidence against my soul—
For Edward’s sake, and see, how he requites me.”
But a short distance from the Bowyer is the Brick Tower, which acquires
a mournful interest from the fact that tradition has assigned this as
the prison of the martyr of ambition, the lovely Lady Jane Grey. Fuller
says of her that at eighteen she possessed the innocence of childhood,
the sedateness of age, the learning of a clerk, and the life of a saint.
Gentle, modest and retiring, fond of her studies and books, little
dreamed she of her short-lived honor and cruel fate. Forced upon the
throne by the insatiable ambition of Northumberland, she ruled for ten
days. It is asserted that Mary wished to spare her cousin’s life, but
that Wyatt’s rebellion so alarmed her that she determined to make an
example of Lady Jane and her boy husband, Guildford Dudley.
Not only her piety, grace and beauty excite our admiration, but also her
sublime heroism, which caused her to refuse to bid her young lover and
husband farewell, lest the parting should unman him. Dudley was executed
on Tower Hill, and the same day the lofty spirit of his wife joined his.
“Now boast thee, death; in thy possession lies
A lass, unparallel’d.”
Next to the Brick is the Jewel or Martin Tower, where the crown jewels
were formerly kept. They are now preserved in the Record Tower. On the
wall of the Martin Tower we saw inscribed the name of Anne Boleyn. It is
said that one of the unfortunate gentlemen who lost their heads on her
account traced it there. Diagonally across the inner ward rises the Bell
Tower, thus named from the alarm bell which crowned it. This was the
prison of Princess Elizabeth during her enforced stay in the tower. Some
little children used to bring her flowers here, until it came to the ears
of Mary, who forbade this innocent service.
Only a short walk from Bell loom up the frowning walls of Beauchamp
Tower, than which there is no more interesting place in the entire
enclosure. Its architecture is of the reign of John and Henry III. Its
name is derived from Thomas De Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, imprisoned
here during the reign of Richard II. This tower is in the center of the
western side of the inner ward, and in a half circle projects from the
strong ballium walls, and is two stories in height. Its walls are covered
with inscriptions made by different prisoners; some indicative of their
mental agony during their captivity; many, indeed the most, expressing
Christian fortitude and pious resignation to their hard lot.
The first name noticed is that of Marmaduke Neville, near the entrance.
He was one of the Nevilles, Earls of Westmoreland, and was implicated in
a plot to place Mary Stuart upon the throne during Elizabeth’s reign. In
the southern recess is shown an inscription in old Italian: “Dispoi che
voie la fortuna che la mea speranza va al vento pianger, hovolio el tempo
per dudo; e semper stel me tristo, e disconteto. Wilim: Tyrrel, 1541.”
The mournful burden of which comes like a sigh of despair from out the
past, “Since fortune hath chosen that my hope should go to the wind to
complain, I wish the time were destroyed; my planet being ever sad and
unfavorable.” Alas, unhappy one! Your words no doubt were but the echo of
many sad hearts that found the times were indeed out of joint.
Over the fireplace is a beautiful and touching inscription: “Quanto plus
afflictionis pro Christo in hoc sæculo, tanto plus gloriæ cum Christo in
futuro. Arundell, June 22, 1587,” which being interpreted is, “The more
affliction for Christ in this world, the more glory with Christ in the
next.”
This was written by Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, whose devotion to
the Romish church during Elizabeth’s reign, brought so much odium upon
him, and made for him so many enemies that he at last resolved to leave
his country, friends, and his wife, to whom he was devotedly attached,
and go into voluntary exile for his better safety. He informed the Queen
in a most pathetic letter of his intention, designing she should not
receive it until he was well out of way, but by some freak of fortune,
the letter fell into the hands of his foes, and he was seized as he was
setting sail from the coast of Sussex. He was sent to the Tower and kept
a close prisoner for forty years, when worn out with his long and cruel
confinement and sorrow he died, realizing at the end, we hope, the truth
of the touching words he traced upon his prison walls.
There are several interesting inscriptions made by Arthur and Edmund
Poole, great-grandsons of the Duke of Clarence. These young gentlemen
were also accused for conspiring for Mary Stuart, adjudged traitors, and
pined away their lives in hopeless captivity. Well might the White Rose
of Scotland have said with Helen of Troy:
“Many drew swords and died; where’er I came,
I brought calamity.”
One inscription reads:
“IHS. A passage perillus maketh a port pleasant. Ao. 1568. Arthur
Poole, Æ sue 37, A. P.”
A passage perilous indeed, hadst thou, poor soul; God grant thou madst a
fair haven at last.
Another contains these words:
“IHS. Dio semine in lachrimis in exultatione meter. Æ. 21, E.
Poole, 1562.” “That which is sown by God in tears is reaped in
joy.”
In all the inscriptions left by these ill-starred gentlemen, there
breathes the same spirit of noble and pious submission.
The greatest interest clusters about one little word, supposed to have
been traced by the hand of one to whom that name was sacred. Directly
under one of the Poole autographs is the word “IANE,” supposed to have
been the royal title of Lady Jane Grey, written there by her husband,
Lord Dudley, who was confined in this tower. Scarcely can the eyes be
restrained at this touching reminder of the fate of those two unhappy
children, the victims of circumstance and greedy ambition.
In the corner next the Beauchamp is the Devereux Tower, named from the
brilliant Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, the chivalric soldier and
courtier, first a petted favorite, then a victim of Queen Elizabeth.
His story is one of thrilling and fascinating interest. Meteor-like he
flashed through his court and army life, and after gaining the zenith of
his power, sank as suddenly as he had risen. It is said that he was one
of the many with whom the royal and fickle spinster coquetted, and that
he really touched her haughty heart. The government of Ireland was in his
hands, but enemies at court plotted his overthrow. He in turn plotted
against these foes and rashly attempted to cause their removal. He was
arrested and arraigned in Westminster Hall for high treason, pronounced
guilty, and doomed to the block.
Elizabeth had a terrific struggle between revenge and affection, but the
baser passion got the victory, and the accomplished general, statesman,
and courtier trod the same hard road to death that so many knew full well.
“I have reached the highest point of all my greatness!
And from that full meridian of my glory,
I haste now to my setting: I shall fall
Like a bright exhalation in the evening,
And no man see me more.”
The towers of the outer ward are comparatively of but little interest,
with the exception of St. Thomas’s Tower or the Traitor’s Gate. This is
a large, square building over the moat, the outside of which is guarded
by two circular towers, which exhibit specimens of the architecture of
the time of Henry III. The gate through which state prisoners entered the
Tower is underneath this building.
The rain was falling drearily on the day we visited the Tower. Somber
and heavy skies looked sullenly down on the gloomy scene. Thoughts as
somber and heavy weighed down our minds as we stood before the Traitor’s
Gate; thoughts of countless numbers that had gone in at that gate never
to come forth again. In the clang of those iron portals behind them they
heard their death knell. The royal, the noble, the illustrious, the
pious passed under these frowning battlements, leaving behind grandeur,
brilliancy of courts, dreams of glory, home, friends, all that makes life
sweet, to receive in exchange, the dungeon, the scaffold, the block, the
axe.
They who entered there left hope indeed behind.
Through this gate went Elizabeth, expecting naught but death; dreaming
little of the hour when all England should lie within the hollow of her
white hand. Under these portals three short years after she issued from
the Tower in all the full flush of her pride and triumph, received by
lords and dukes, amid the blare of trumpets, and peal of bells and roar
of guns. Elizabeth’s hapless mother, Anne Boleyn, returned to the Tower.
No nobles in her train now; no burst of music; no chime of bells nor roar
of artillery; alone, save with her jailers; her fair fame blackened; her
triumphs, glories—all shrunk to this little measure. The husband she had
stolen from another, in turn lured from her, wearied of her, longing to
be rid of her, hurrying her to her fearful doom with brutal haste.
“A dream of what thou wast; a garish flag,
To be the aim of ever dangerous shot;
A sign of dignity, a breath, a bubble;
A queen in jest only to fill the scene.
…
Where is thy husband now?
…
Who sues and kneels and says God save the queen?
Where be thy bending peers that flattered thee?
Where be the thronging troops that followed thee?
…
For one being sued to, one that humbly sues;
For queen, a very caitiff crowned with care;
Thus hath the course of justice wheeled about
And left thee but a very prey to time;
Having no more but thought of what thou wert,
To torture thee the more, being what thou art.”
What thoughts must have chased each other in lightning rapidity through
the mind of beautiful, brilliant, witty Anne Boleyn, during those
short seventeen days she passed in the Tower before she was led out to
execution. What experience of life had she not compressed into those
three little years of usurpation, during which she spurned “heads like
foot balls,” laughed, danced, and jested away her poor, butterfly life?
What remorse must have been hers when the sad, pale face of Katharine
arose before her! What unspeakable anguish when the coquettish features
of Jane Seymour swam before her weeping eyes!
On the 19th of May, 1536, when hedge and field were bursting into bloom,
when birds sang and soft breezes played, when all nature must have
breathed of beauty, hope and life—Anne Boleyn went forth the second time
from the Tower to receive her crown; not this time an earthly diadem,
glittering with jewels, but the thorny crown of martyrdom. Not in cloth
of gold and blazing with gems, but in sable robes went she to this
coronation, and her only salute was the dull boom of the cannon which
announced to the royal ruffian waiting at Richmond that he was free.
The Tower of London has been used not alone for a fortress and prison,
but also for a palace. All of the kings from William to Charles II. held
occasional court in the Tower. A palace occupied a space in the inner
ward, between the southwest corner of the White Tower and the Record,
Salt and Broadarrow Towers. The queens had a suite extending from the
Lanthorn to the southeast of the White Tower. And near the Record Tower
was a great hall which demanded forty fir trees to repair it at the time
of the marriage festivities of Henry III. and Eleanore of Provence.
When Edward the Black Prince took prisoner King John of France, he lodged
his royal captive in this palace, and King John gave an entertainment for
his captor in this great hall. The beautiful Elizabeth of York, daughter
of Edward IV., and queen of Henry VII., resided for a time in this
palace, and passed from thence to her coronation. Sixteen years later
she lay in state twelve days in the royal chapel in the White Tower,
where her knights and ladies kept solemn vigil beside her bier. What an
impressive scene it must have been! The windows all ablaze with lights,
and an illuminated hearse holding the royal dead.
Queen Mary held court in the Tower directly after she had defeated
Northumberland and the Dudleys. The ancient custom of a state procession
from the Tower to Westminster was observed for the last time at the
coronation of Charles II.
Very near the Devereux Tower is a plain, unpretentious building—the
chapel of St. Peter Ad Vincula. It is small, having but one nave and one
side aisle, and is quite without ornamentation. But marvelous interest
invests it. Here Lady Jane was buried; here the body of poor Anne Boleyn
was thrust into an old chest and hastily interred in the vaults; here
lies the dust of Northumberland, Thomas Cromwell, Somerset, Surrey, and
Essex, teaching the terribly solemn lesson that ambition, talents, fame,
form no sure bulwark against death.
“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusky death. Out, out, brief candle.”
Just in front of this chapel is the spot on which the scaffold was built;
the spot where the best blood of England flowed like water; the spot
which mars the escutcheon of the Tudors with an ineffaceable stain; the
spot where Englishmen first looked upon the spectacle of the blood of
their countrywoman flowing beneath the blows of a foreign headsman. Here
fell the heads of two of the wives of Henry VIII.; here the hapless Lady
Jane was despatched, and the gallant Essex met his death by orders of
Henry’s daughters, fit representatives of their father; here was enacted
that revolting scene, the butchery of the venerable mother of Cardinal
Pole, the Countess of Salisbury. She was sister of the Earl of Warwick,
and daughter of the murdered Clarence. Her only crime seems to have been
her royal blood. When brought out to execution, she refused to lay her
head on the block, saying haughtily, “So do traitors use to do, and I
am no traitor.” The sequel is almost too sickening to be rehearsed. The
executioner pursued his victim around the scaffold, striking at her with
his axe, and finally dragged her by her white hairs to the block. Thus
miserably perished the last of the Plantagenets.
Heavier fell the rain and wilder blew the wind as we slowly took our
way toward the outer entrance to the Tower. In the patter of the rain
upon the stone flagging beneath us, we seemed to hear the footsteps of a
countless, headless throng; in the slow drip, drip of the raindrops from
the gloomy walls, the drip, drip of warm life blood trickling down and
ebbing away; borne on the wail of the wind there seemed to come sighs of
anguish, moaning voices long since silenced, voices from out a dreadful
past, voices that cried aloud for vengeance. And as the great gates of
the Tower clanged behind us, in a tremendous peal of thunder, there
seemed to come an answering voice from heaven, “Vengeance is mine, I will
repay.”
GEOGRAPHY OF THE HEAVENS FOR APRIL.
BY PROF. M. B. GOFF,
Western University of Pennsylvania.
THE SUN,
With its immediate attendants, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, etc., has
been the “theme of our discourse” for the last eighteen months. Except
an occasional reference to one of the planets as being located near
some fixed star, or in some constellation, little has been said about
the 3,391 “fixed” stars, visible to the naked eye, many of which are
located on maps of the heavens, just as villages, cities, mountains,
rivers and plains are located on maps of the earth; nor of the somewhere
between 30,000,000 and 50,000,000 which are visible only through powerful
telescopes, and whose distances from the sun are so great as to make that
of Neptune appear like a little walk “across lots” to visit a neighbor.
Nor is it proposed now to enter upon such an extensive subject, except
so far as may be necessary to present a single thought. As we know, our
sun is a bright body, whose light and heat (so great is their power) we
can hardly estimate. Both these qualities render it visible to us and
make us realize its presence. The other bodies, as Mars, Jupiter and the
Moon are seen only by reflected light, and were they as distant as the
fixed stars, would not be at all visible. These 30,000,000 to 50,000,000
stars must be suns. How many satellites has each? We do not know, for
they can not be seen. Suppose each had as many as our sun. Then instead
of 30,000,000 to 50,000,000 of heavenly bodies, we have within reach of
the telescope from 240,000,000 to 400,000,000. How many are outside of
these? No man can number them. We shall have to wait till our minds can
grasp the infinite. Are these millions of bodies standing still, or are
they in motion? Does our sun stand still and permit us to go around him
once every year, or is he, and are we along with him, making our way
through other vast multitudes and moving around some other central orb?
Observation proves that the sun is only a sergeant in a great army of
generals, and marches his squad in an appointed way to their assigned
duties. How do we know? The records of patient watchers for centuries
reveal the fact. “If we suppose the sun, attended by planets, to be
moving through space, we ought to be able to detect this motion by an
apparent motion of the stars in a contrary direction, as when an observer
moves through a forest of trees, his own motion imparts an apparent
motion to the trees in a contrary direction. All the stars would not
be equally affected by such a motion of the solar system. The nearest
stars would appear to have the greatest motion, but all the changes of
position would appear to take place in the same direction. The stars
would appear to recede from that point of the heavens _toward_ which
the sun is moving, while in the opposite quarter the stars would seem
to crowd more closely together.” Proceeding upon this principle, Sir
William Herschel was in 1783 enabled to announce that the observed proper
motion of a large portion of the stars could be accounted for on the
supposition that the sun was moving toward the constellation _Hercules_.
Later investigations not only established the fact that the sun moved,
but that it was moving nearly toward the star _Rho_, in _Hercules_,
and Struve estimated its motion at about five miles per second; though
Professor Airy places it at about twenty-seven miles per second. It is
also highly probable that its motion is not in a straight line, but in
obedience to the same laws that govern the motions of its own satellites,
it with other suns revolves about a center located nearly in the plane
of the Milky Way, and with an orbit so great “that ages may elapse
before it will be possible to detect any change in the direction of its
motion.” Meantime, finite beings are interested in knowing how its light
and heat affect their interests, and how these qualities may be made
most profitable to mankind. For ourselves, we must at present be content
to know that on the 1st our sun has reached a point 4° 48′ north of the
equator, and that by the 30th he will be 14° 58′ north, an increase in
northern declination of 10° 10′, and, as a consequence, our daylight will
be increased about one hour and thirteen minutes, and the time “from
early dawn to dewy” twilight will be seventeen hours and thirty-five
minutes. On the 1st sunrise occurs at 5:43 a. m., sunset, 6:24 p. m.;
on the 16th, sunrise, 5:19, sunset, 6:40; on the 30th, sunrise, 4:59,
sunset, 6:54.
THE MOON.
The phases for the month are as follows: Last quarter, 7th, at 9:34 a.
m.; new moon, 15th, at 12:43 a. m.; first quarter, 21st, at 6:12 p. m.;
full moon, 29th, at 1:06 a. m. Rises on the 1st, at 8:38 p. m.; sets on
the 16th, at 8:28 p. m.; rises on the 30th, at 8:21 p. m. In latitude
41° 30′ north, least elevation on the 6th, and equals 30° 20′; greatest
elevation on the 19th, equals 66° 44′ 29″.
MERCURY
Will be an evening star during the month; it will have a direct motion
of 12° 25′ 59″ up to the 17th, after which, to the end of the month, a
retrograde motion of 5° 22′ 11″. On the 8th, at 2:00 a. m., will be at
its greatest eastern elongation (19° 26′); on the 16th, at 11:55 a. m.,
will be 6° 21′ south of the moon; on the 17th, at 5:00 a. m., will be
stationary; on 27th, at 10:00 p. m., will be in inferior conjunction with
the sun—that is, will be between the earth and sun; and next day, at 1:00
p. m., will be 1° 42′ north of Venus. A few days before and after the 8th
may be seen as a pale, light star, near the western horizon. Its times of
rising and setting are as follows: On the 1st, rises at 6:21 a. m., sets
at 7:51 p. m.; on the 16th, rises at 5:50 a. m., sets at 8:00 p. m.; on
30th, rises at 4:53 a. m., sets at 6:29 p. m. Diameter increases from
6.4″ to 11.8″.
VENUS,
Like Mercury, will be evening star throughout the month, and near the
28th the two will keep “close company,” but will so completely hide
themselves in the light of “Old Sol” as to be entirely indifferent to the
gaze of the “vulgar crowd.” On the 1st Venus rises at 5:34 a. m., and
sets at 5:34 p. m., being just twelve hours above the horizon; on the
16th, rises at 5:19 a. m., sets at 6:09 p. m.; on 30th, rises at 5:06 a.
m., sets at 6:42 p. m. Diameter diminishes during the month two tenths of
a second; motion, 34° 38′ 45″ eastwardly; on the 14th, at 3:00 p. m., six
minutes north of the moon.
MARS
Has a direct motion of 21° 13′ 16″, and his diameter increases two tenths
of one second. On the 14th, at 12:27 a. m., 12′ south of the moon. On the
1st, rises at 5:29 a. m., sets at 5:25 p. m.; on the 16th, rises at 4:56
a. m., sets at 5:24 p. m.; on the 30th, rises at 4:27 a. m., sets at 5:23
p. m.; on the 14th, at 12:27 a. m., twelve minutes south of moon.
JUPITER
May well be called this month the “Ruler of the Night.” From twilight
till near the dawn his broad face looks condescendingly upon our little
world, and by his example cheerily bids us “pursue the even tenor of our
way.” Jupiter rises on the 1st at 2:26 p. m., sets next morning at 4:02
a. m.; on the 16th, rises at 1:24 p. m., sets on 17th at 3:02 a. m.;
rises on 30th, at 12:29 p. m., and sets next morning at 2:07 a. m. Before
the 21st, retrograde motion amounts to 36′ 26″; after that date to end of
month, direct motion equals 8′ 42″; diameter diminishes three seconds,
from 40.4″ to 37.4″. On 21st, at 3:00 p. m., stationary; on 23d, at 2:05
p. m., 4° 37′ north of the moon. It might be observed in passing that as
a mean result of five years’ observations at the Dearborn Observatory,
Chicago, the time of Jupiter’s rotation has been discovered to be greater
by three seconds than was supposed in 1879.
SATURN
Sets at the following times: On the 1st, at 11:49 p. m.; on 16th, at
10:57 p. m.; on the 30th, at 10:09 p. m.; is, therefore, an evening star,
and will remain so till the 18th of June. On the 18th, at 8:20 p. m.,
4° 1′ north of the moon. Diameter diminishes from 16.6″ to 16″. Makes
a forward (direct) motion of 3° 2′ 30″. For observation, this month is
preferable to May. Can be found a little northwest of _Zeta_, in the
constellation _Taurus_.
URANUS,
Unlike Saturn, retrogrades nearly one degree of arc during the present
month, and shines from early eve to break of day, rising on the 1st at
5:18 p. m., and setting on the 2d at 5:22 a. m.; on the 16th, rising at
4:17 p. m., and setting next morning at 4:21; and on the 30th, rising at
3:19 p. m., and setting May 1st at 3:23 a. m., and can be seen all night
by those who know where to find him (a little southwest of _Eta_, in the
constellation _Virgo_). On 26th, at 12:16 a. m., 1° 17′ north of moon.
NEPTUNE,
Not only the father of waters, but water himself, scarcely visible at
best, “hangs out” all day, rising soon after the sun, and setting as
follows: On the 1st, at 9:36 p. m.; on the 16th, at 8:40 p. m.; on the
30th, at 7:46 p. m. Has a retrograde motion of 58′ 16″; and on the 16th,
at 8:42 p. m., is 2° 13′ north of the moon.
* * * * *
We have now passed the boundary of the first century of our existence as
an independent nation. We are as a people engaged in a confused struggle
with the problem of our own national self-consciousness. We want to know
what is the spirit that is in us as a nation. We must know this in order
to be properly master of ourselves and of our destiny. We must know this
in order to know our place in universal history.—_George S. Morris._
ENGLAND AND ISLAM.
BY PRESIDENT D. H. WHEELER, D.D., LL.D.
Within two years there have been three prophets in Egypt. Arabi Pasha is
in exile; Chinese Gordon is dead; El Mahdi, the mysterious voice in the
Soudan wilderness, mutters his prayers in the mosque of Khartoum. England
bombarded Alexandria; Arab loss in dead perhaps 5,000. Then England
fought and conquered Arabi in the open field, captured him, and sent him
into exile; Arab loss in dead perhaps 7,000. Next there is trouble on the
Red Sea, and another English army killed perhaps 9,000 Arabs. And last
a battle or series of battles in the heart of the Soudan; Arab loss in
dead perhaps 12,000. Probably not less than 30,000 have been slaughtered
by Englishmen in less than two years. English loss, a few hundreds. The
butchers have been liberally rewarded; one soldier has become a “lord;”
promotions and extra pay and pensions have fallen in a silvery shower
on “our brave fellows” in Egypt. Only one Englishman got nothing. He
disappeared one day in the desert, and his dromedary was said to carry
the destiny of England; and perhaps it did. He was a soldier seeking
peace at the meeting place of the Niles. Chinese Gordon entered Khartoum
in triumph, and almost at once there rose a cry: “We must rescue Gordon.”
Then came the long delayed march of an army in search of the English
prophet at Khartoum; then the butcheries, called battles of Metemneh, and
what not. And then in the last days of January there was a slaughter,
not this time by Englishmen in person, and perhaps 5,000 more Moslems
perish by Moslem steel in the sack of Khartoum. Then a wail rises on
every breeze in Christendom; “_Alas! alas! Gordon is dead!_” The story of
his death is a parable: “Stabbed in the back while leaving his house.”
Make the “house” stand for England, and the knives that pierced him the
indecisions, tergiversations, and infidelities of an English ministry
with a great Christian statesman at its head. The world has supped full
of the horrors of that kind of Christian statesmanship. We have believed
in it; we have hoped that it meant something, even in those bloody
Egyptian campaigns.
We are nearly at the end of our confidence. It is not merely the shade
of Disraeli which calls mockingly for explanations; the world that
believed in Gladstone when Disraeli was playing at fantastic military
statesmanship, wants to know why Christian statesmanship in Egypt has, in
a short time, spilt almost as much blood as was shed by one army in that
American conflict which Mr. Gladstone thought so cruel and so useless.
We can not even condone Mr. Gladstone’s offense against civilization
by saying that it has been a less bloody assault on humanitarian ideas
and plans than Disraeli’s was; for Gladstone has butchered twenty men
to Disraeli’s one. There has, in fact, been nothing so bloody in this
century—I mean no such large butchery by a small army. Ten years of such
statesmanship would fill the Nile valley with human bones. It is high
time to call for a full explanation. What does Mr. Gladstone mean? What
does he expect to accomplish? If he has intended something exalted and
noble, which we should wish to believe, it is time to say so with the
breadth of statement and accuracy of detail by which he obtained renown.
The personal question stands at the front, because England is governed by
one man. It is a happiness of Englishmen that they are able to know whom
to blame when things go wrong. Mr. Gladstone is the head of a government
for whose acts and failures to act he is perfectly responsible. What
England does in Egypt Gladstone does. It is the one governmental luxury
of the English people—they know exactly who governs them. Mr. Gladstone
has not been compelled to do this or that by parties or circumstances. If
he turns butcher in the Delta, on the Nile, or on the Red Sea, he alone
does it, and he does it because he chooses to do it. For, at any moment,
he can shift disagreeable duties to another; three lines in the form of
a resignation will relieve him of the burden of responsible government.
So long as he remains at the head of the English ministry he is the man
who shoots down Arabs by the thousand. In this country politicians have
divided, dispersed and destroyed responsibility to such an extent that
the people know not whom to blame for evil events. It is a devil’s art,
from whose manipulations England has by some special favor of heaven
escaped. There the ghosts of murdered men and things can “shake” their
“gory locks” at the Prime Minister; and he may not reply:
“Thou canst not say I did it.”
Many of us have expected Mr. Gladstone to retire when each of these
bloody episodes in Egypt has begun. His retention of power may be
explained as an old man’s insane appetite for office, or as the surrender
of a statesman to the logic of a situation. The first explanation we
respect Mr. Gladstone too much to accept; the second is embarrassed by
the absence of a clearly defined policy. We should understand Disraeli;
but he would help us to understand him by making distinct proclamation
of his purpose to govern and bless the Moslem world. He would have
butchered less, but he would have planted an imperial stake on every
battle-field. We should have known that he meant conquest and dominion.
There would have been no meaningless carnage. A humanitarian war is a
difficult conception; but it is not impossible to conceive of wars that
produce beneficent results. We could conceive of the subjugation of Islam
to British sway, and rejoice to see the Soudan like India, slowly but
surely rising into civilization under English rule. But an army thrusting
down no imperial stakes, going home after each slaughter to be paid,
promoted and fêted, is not doing work which opens any vistas of smiling
peace and advancing light. It is only a bloody carnival. No petty cabinet
differences, no outcry of public opinion, no Jingoism in the army or the
royal family, no temporary exigencies of party, no domestic dangers nor
foreign rivalries can explain and justify the responsible man’s conduct.
Mr. Gladstone’s garments are dripping with Moslem blood, and the world
can not find an explanation which explains.
It seems to the spectators that England is doing the one thing she
should most carefully avoid doing. She is uniting Islam, and teaching
Islam how to make war. In each new campaign the Soudanese are better
armed, fight with better method, and kill more Englishmen. England is
training them into sturdy and disciplined soldiers. A Moslem victory
is proclaimed in every Arab tent, and in every Indian village. Such a
victory is not merely a victory for El Mahdi; it is a hope for the whole
Moslem world. Moslem defeats travel less swiftly, and mean only a delayed
victory. What fierce resolutions are begotten in Moslem bosoms by Mr.
Gladstone’s campaigns of butchery, we can easily imagine. Meanwhile,
Christendom can only say: “Premier of England, your garments are soaked
with blood; and, may God forgive you, the blood is not your own. We can
not understand you, but we are painfully certain that you are arousing
all Islam against us.” Meanwhile, the ancient spears are giving place
in the Prophet’s armies to repeating rifles, and Krupp guns may soon
guard every height along the Nile. Islam is strong in numbers. There
are 75,000,000 of Soudanese, with a very large proportion of men just
civilized enough to make terrible soldiers. It may happen some day that
a military leader will arise in the front of this vast army, and that
an effeminate Europe may find that its military science has gone over
to the Moslems. Probably no one man’s policy could effect its transfer
more rapidly than Mr. Gladstone’s. When that dark wave of the Moslem
millions is gathered into conquering masses by a capable leader, it
will have mighty winds of religious enthusiasm behind it, and plenty of
room before it. The southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean
would be swept clean of the petty European military establishments in a
month. Morocco, larger than France, holds at least half of the western
gate of the Mediterranean, while the Turk holds the eastern gate; and a
month’s campaign might convert that sea into a Moslem lake, and leave its
Italian, French, and Spanish and Greek shores to be ravaged again as in
the crusading centuries, by Moslem piracy and brigandage. The one thing
the Arab can learn thoroughly is the art of war. He was once great on
the sea. That man may exult too soon, who, remembering the leviathans of
the deep which destroyed Alexandria, trusts Europe’s safety to the great
navies of Europe. Islam has some great ships in the Bosphorus, and is
rapidly learning where the great ships grow. It is true that if splendid
leadership does not arise, Islam may continue to bleed and die in vain;
but wars produce great soldiers as regularly as oaks bear acorns. There
_is_ danger. Ten years of Gladstoneism in the Nile valley would make the
danger a terrible reality. Christendom should rise up and condemn the
bloody education which England is imparting to Islam.
Meanwhile, Germans and Frenchmen are in the armies of the Prophet,
teaching the rude but vigorous men of the desert how to use arms of
precision with deadly effect. In the process of creating a terrible
peril for Europe, greed, personal ambition, and national jealousies are
contributing to perfect the lessons in modern warfare which England is
giving to Islam. No doubt it is true that a great man is needed to weld
together the forces of Islam. But why should no strong man be expected
to arise in a race so rich in warlike memories? When the Prophet is
once crowned with the diadem of military success, there is an army
of Mohammedans in India wearing the queen’s uniform, there are vast
resources at Constantinople ready to fall from the helpless hands of the
Sultan; there are millions of soldiers who require no pay, and have no
scruples about the rights of private property. If one gives rein to his
imagination, he is soon in a world of awful possibilities. There are
two hundred millions of Mohammedans waiting for a leader to restore the
glories of Islam.
The relations of England to Islam are logically and historically
friendly. England has a Moslem army in India, and has long protected the
head of Islam at Constantinople, from the consequences of his vices,
extravagances and follies. The Indian mutiny had a religious source, but
this was denied, and the spring covered up so successfully that, until
Mr. Gladstone attacked Disraeli’s policy in the name of Christianity
(such as it is) in Bulgaria, England had successfully encountered the
difficulties of her position as a Christian power ruling directly and
indirectly half the Moslem world.
Does Mr. Gladstone foresee an “irrepressible conflict” between England
and Islam? Is he instinctively bringing on a conflict which will be
the less perilous the sooner it comes? Will history add to his rare
good fortune by making him glorious as the beginner of a defense of
Christendom which he has never dreamed of organizing? Disraeli’s
conception followed logic and history. He made a Christian queen empress
of India, and he contemplated with composure a time when the descendant
of Victoria should be born in India, and be reared in the faith of
Mohammed, the center of the British empire having gone to its proper
place. Against such ideas Christian England revolted. Is Mr. Gladstone
reversing centuries of history and setting the Moslem and Christian
worlds by the ears again? If he is moving on that line, his armies should
conquer and hold Egypt and the Soudan, the Nile and the Red Sea, the
ancient Delta and its modern canal, with the grip England once laid on
North America. The audacity of the conquest would provoke diplomatic
criminations; but it were easier far to face them than to answer the hard
questions which are provoked by fruitless slaughter in Moslem lands.
England is only the heart of the British empire. A quiet and gentle
England is a possible dream; but the empire is war, conquest, dominion,
at the expense of weak peoples. The empire can not survive the definitive
abandonment of an imperial policy. The empire must dominate by force or
fall to pieces.
It is not worth while to seek in the history of the Egyptian debt, and
the “grasping disposition of the English bondholders,” for the key of the
present situation. Those who make a religion, or at least a philanthropy,
of heaping abuse on bondholders anywhere and everywhere, are the least
reasonable of Christians. It is not a crime to deny ourselves, save
money and lend it to others. To refuse to pay debts freely contracted is
not the first of virtues or the best of policies. The bondholders are
commonly poor people who have saved a little by pinching themselves,
and have bought bonds for the holy purposes of family forethought.
Repudiated debts are baptised in the self-renouncing spirit which is at
the heart of our religion, and repudiators make war on the foundations of
character and society. In so far as England protects her money lenders,
she protects her noble middle class, whose honest thrift lies at the
foundation of her wealth. It is among the strangest perversions of
feeling that prodigals and prodigal governments should get the sympathy
of mankind. Let England foreclose her mortgage on Egypt, and the honest
world will thank her for abolishing one nest of spendthrifts. Much is
said of the miserable Egyptian peasants, from whom the taxes to pay
interest are wrung with every form of despotic oppression. Let us not be
deceived by such false-toned appeals for sympathy. The fellaheen of the
Nile are oppressed irrespective of the bondholders. Arabi or El Mahdi
would maintain the oppressive systems if they were in power. If there
were no bondholders, the backs of the miserable fellaheen would smart
under the lash of the oppressor. The despotism is Egyptian, not English.
English rule would gradually emancipate the oppressed classes. Nowhere,
not even in Ireland, has England conquered a people without improving
the condition of the poor. The interest on debts which she surrenders in
the valley of the Nile does not go to the relief of the peasants; it is
squandered in the harems of Cairo and Alexandria. The issue is strictly
between the splendid, many-concubined lords in Egypt and the honest and
self-denying people who have lent honest money on the faith of England.
Which way, then, will events march? Toward a war between Islam and
Christendom, or back to the old imperial policy of England? It would
seem that the world’s hope lies in a restoration of the ancient policy
of the British empire. The events of 1885 in Moslem land will be full
of interest, perhaps pregnant with destiny. A larger English army,
perhaps 25,000 men, will soon be in Egypt. It will probably face a
better trained foe. There will be more English graves in Egypt. To
what end? The London _Times_ says: “Gordon must be avenged.” England
repeats the cry. But what end will the vengeance serve? And what if
Arabi Pasha and the Emirs killed in the late battles, and the 30,000
to 40,000 Moslems slain, should be avenged? Soon or late—if she does
not attempt it too late—England must return to her historical policy
and stand among Christian powers the foremost ally of the sons of
Mohammed. It is the inexorable logic of her greatness. Let us shut
our eyes upon the horrible vision of the new crusades, as useless as
the old and far bloodier. Christendom can hope for no more fortunate
disposition of Mohammedanism than that it should be locked fast in the
iron arms of the British empire; and on the other hand the failure of
the British empire would involve the greatest possible disasters for
Christendom. Many foolish things have been promised in the name of
“manifest destiny.” Perhaps destiny is never so manifest that it may be
read off by uninspired prophecy; but there is no other Power which seems
fitted to play England’s imperial rôle; and it does not appear how the
progress and happiness of mankind can go forward without such an imperial
force as England has been for two centuries. While we deprecate the
effects of the Jingo spirit which Disraeli fostered, and repudiate the
indifference to the progress of Christianity which the Hebrew statesman
scarcely concealed, we can not look with complacency upon changes of
British policy which would disintegrate the empire. Let England’s
drum-beat go round the earth with the sun; for the sunrise of progress
and civilization will awaken wherever that martial music falls upon the
ear of mankind.
THE ART OF FISH CULTURE.
BY PROF. G. BROWN GOODE.