NOTES OF THE WEEK . . . FOREIGN AFFAIRS : Another Open Letter to “ S.” By S. Verdad . TOWARDSNATIONAL GUILDS: Sovereignty and the State-IV. By National Guildsmen NOTES FROM FRANCE. By Alice Morning . OUT OF SCHOOL. By Kenneth Richmond . DOSTOYEVSKY AND His PROBLEMS--I. By Janko Lavrin DRAMA. By John Francis Hope . READERS AND WRITERS. By R. H. C. . A MODERN PROSE ANTHOLOGY. Edited by R. Harrison. XIV-Mr. A-g-st-ne B-rr-ll . ORIENTAL ENCOUNTERS. By Marmaduke Pickthall. XI-The Unwalled Vineyard . ART NOTES : The New English, By B. H. Dias VIEWS AND REVIEWS: The Feminism of Men. By A. E. R. . ‘‘ PRODUCERSBY BRAIN.” By Allen Upward . PASTICHE. By Will Dyson, Triboulet, P. Selver, Desmond Fitzgerald . . LETTERSTO THE EDITOR from R. B. Kerr, F. H. Drinkwater, Elsie F. Buckley, Charles F. S. Barker, P. T. K. . MEMORANDA (from last week’s NEW AGE). By Will THE OLD FLERS ROAD: A Drawing. Dyson Wednesday his old tag that the war is for the purpose of saving Europe--as if, in fact, we were merely repeating, Napoleonic history. But in that event, it might be asked, what has America to do with it; still more, what has Asiatic Japan to do with it? The most comprehensive and, at the same time, accurate formula for the meaning of the war is this : that the aim of the Allies is to prevent Germany from making use of the peoples of other nations, and particularly of the peoples of the Slav race, to become the autocrat of the world. The issue, it will be seen, is not alone European: nor is it one that concerns us only for a period. It is world-wide, and it concerns history for the next five hundred or a thousand years. Should Germany be successful in her present aim, Europe will be for her the jumping-off ground for a fresh spring upon world-power, the successful issue of which would assuredly place her in the position of wielding the hegemonyof the world. Only a little insight into the character of German militarist mentality is necessary to conjure up the vision of a world under the hegemony of the junkers. Democracy, as we understand the word, would certainly have no place in it. Of personal liberty there would only be so much as was safe in the opinion of the military clique. Political and economic experimentation, such as it is the privilege of democracy make, would come to an end ; for only the tried to, and the effcient could possibly be allowed. But before this state was brought about, we ask our Labour and Liberal, friends to imagine the events of the intervening period. Assuming German militarism to have won the present war and to be intact at the end of it, does anybody believe that the world will then peacefully submit, without any further struggle, to a prospective universal German dominion? Even if England should have compromised, it is not to be expected that America and Japan will not fight to retain their worldposition. An undefeated Prussia would, therefore, be under the necessity of preparing herself to meet first America ‘and then Asia-with prospects altogether of a century or two of wars upon a world-scale. This is, indeed, the contingent probability of an immediate peace; that is to say, of a peace with the present German military autocracy : a century or so of world-wars, followed, if all goes well for Germany, by the German mastery of the world. NOTES OF THE WEEK. WE should like to warn the political Left of Labour of the danger it is running in associating itself with disillusioned Liberals. The “Herald,” the “Call,” the ‘‘Labour Leader,” and several other professedly extreme and even revolutionary Labour journals are at this moment engaged in calling for peace much more loudly than they ever called for democracy. And assisting them audibly in their campaign are the Liberals whom we have called disillusioned-men like Mr. Braitsford, Professor Pigou, Mr. Massingham; Mr. Lowes Dickenson, and many others, few of whom before the war were particularly distinguished by their sympathy with the Labour Left, and all of whom, we know anything, would rejoin if Liberalism against Labour to-morrow offical Liberalismbecame if pacifist again. Even these, however, not the most are serious or compromising elements now openly or secretly supporting Laboure's campaign for peace. Behind the scenes the are financiers are so little who concerned for democracy that a peace fatal to democracy would be welcome to them if only it should spare them the Conscription of Wealth. What would better suit their book than while continuing to pose before the world as patriots ready to spend their last shilling to find the extreme section of Labour obliging enough to pull peace out of the fire for them? The onus of an unsatisfactory peace would thus be laid upon Labour, while Finance would derive all the advantages from it. Labour must be warned that there are many forces working for a peace with the German autocracy of which, indeed, Labour is the most insignificant. But to work for peace is not necessarily to work for democracy; and it is a matter for brief reflection which of the parties now working for peace for contrary ends is likely to find ’its object fulfilled. To our minds the conclusion is foregone. It is not democracy but finance that will gain by an immediate peace with German militarism. *** An imaginative grasp of the meaning of the war is still lacking’ in many quarters, and not merely in Labour circles. Even Mr. Balfour was so little instructed in what the war has revealed as to repeat on No doubt to pacifist Liberals and catspaw Labour men this sketch of the issues and issue of the present war will appear fanciful. Being “ good” themselves by nature and training they cannot conceivethat it can be in the heart of a caste, even of the German militarist caste, to aim at world-dominion at the cost of a century of war. Such “ badness ” or “ wickedness ” they hold to be impossible. Morality, however, is a matter of philosophy; and it can easily be shown that upon the basis of a militarist philosophy such as prevails in Germany the meanings of good and bad, as we use the terms, are there transposed. The acquirement of power by means of power is not so much an aspiration of militarism as a sacred and inalienable duty. German militarist mentality does not differ from ours in deploring the horrors of war or even in grieving over the bloody means by which power must be obtained. It differs from ours in thinking that, nevertheless, the duty of obtaining power is paramount, and must be discharged even at the sacrifice of common humanity. Moreover, this obligation of militarist philosophy is reinforced by practical necessity. A militarist caste can only continue in power by perpetually adding to it. A militaristcaste that began either to cease to aspire to more power or to submit to subtractions from its existing power would infallibly find itself like a spinning ’top that was losing its momentum-in imminent danger of falling. Both by nature and from policy, therefore, the German militarist caste, if it were successful in the present war, would continue its career of violence ; and, strengthened as it would be by its present success, its future would be less pacific than ever. We implore our Labour friends who have still an intelligent doubt concerning their present attitude, to reflect upon what they may be bringing upon the world. After all, history is there before them to convince them even if they fail to see what is before their eyes. They have only to turn to the history of the PeloponesianWar, to the history of the militarist Philip of Macedon, and to the speeches of Demosthenes to the Athenian democracy-to discover a parallel ‘for everything we have just described. And when it is remembered that Aristotle-that great Liberal-though an Athenian himself, was nevertheless on the side of Philip-the parallel with our own times is complete to the point of flattery. *** President Wilson, it is clear, has a wider conception of the meaning of the war than Mr. Lloyd George. Mr. Lloyd George, it will be remembered, was parochial enough in his recent speech to appear to be willing to wash his hands of a Russia that had militarily disappointed him. His error, however, has been vividly corrected by President ,Wilson. From his entry into the war, the latter has never wavered in his conviction that the object of the German autocracy was the exploitation of the Slav peoples; and though it may now be the case that the peril of the Near East is less than it was, President Wilson sees clearly that the exchange of a Near East for a Far East peril is no gain to the Allies. Let it be supposed, he asks in effect, that the subjection of the Balkan Slavs and the consequent opening up to Germany of the Bagdad railway-by which means Germany would become the heir apparent of the Turkish Empire-are no longer probable; in other words, that the original form of the pan-German plan had failed-what would have been gained if the pan-Germans now merely found themselves headed off into Russian instead of into Balkan territory ? On the contrary, Germany would have gained by it, while Europe and the world would have lost. A comparison of actual territory lately Russian and now in Germany’s military occupation with the prospective territorial gains of Germanyin the Balkans is scarcely sufficient to show the difference in favour of the former. Potentiality is nearly everything; and if in the one case Germany might have found herself heir-apparent to the Balkans and to the Turkish Empire, in the other case she would have found herself heir-apparent immediately to the whole of the Russian Empire and in the not remote succession to the hegemony of the Balkan Slavs and the Turks. Even to appear to consent, therefore, to the German annexation of a square yard of Russia must in President Wilson’s eyes be a weakness; and to wash our hands of the annexation of whole provinces is nothing less than a first-class blunder. It might be true that humanly- speaking there was justification Mr. Lloyd George’s attitude of despair. for Russia herself did not appear to be mindful of her own interests any more than of the interests of the Allies; and who are the Allies to be more Russian than the Russians themselves? Nevertheless, the proper policy is that of President Wilson-to insist, even against Russia’s present mood, upon the integrity of Russia; to maintain her patrimony even against her own folly; and to act as trustees during the minority of the young majority. *** Accusations of war-lust that are brought against us leave us indifferent. It is precisely horror of war, together with our hope for democracy; that leads us to fear that our pacifists who are willing to make peace, with German militarists are thereby ensuring for the world both a prolonged period of war and the ultimate defeat of democracy. Even the journals that sneer at any insistence upon the democratisation of Germany as the only stable foundation of peace have to acknowledge that it is true. The “Daily News,” which professes to be glad that President Wilson has withdrawn his condition of No peace with the Hohenzollerns (though we read him oltherwise), nevertheless, has to admit that “until the military power in Prussia has surrendered to the democratic power in Germany, there is no security for democracy anywhere.” The “Times, ” again, whose well-known scepticism of the existence of any German democracy was evidenced again in its comments upon President Wilson’s speech had within a day or two to ask, apropos of the sinking of a hospital ship: “IS any peace thinkable with the authors of the system by which such crimes are coldly sanctioned as necessary, and therefore legitimate, acts of war?” And the quotations could be multiplied from all the journals, now either willing to consider peace-terms with the autocracy, or to laugh at us for believing that only the democratisation of Germany can secure lasting peace. Surely, however, the contradiction involved in their attitude, is obvious. If peace cannot be made secure if made with the Prussian autocracy, why are they consenting to discuss such a peace? If peace with the authors of these crimes is unthinkable, why are they thinking of it? We ourselves are not a whit less opposed to war than any pacifist in this country. But to work for peace, as we have said before, is not necessarily to work against war, and still less to work for democracy. On their own showing; by words from their own pen-we find the pacifists themselves declaring that a secure peace can be made only with the German people. And if that is the case, is it not treachery to peace as well as to democracy to make peace with the German autocracy? *** But let us consider what kind of “revolution” in Germany it is that we want. It is nothing bloody. Heine, indeed, used to say that in comparison with the German Revolution, when it came (and he was certain of its approach), “the French Revolution will be only an innocent idyll.” “At the sound of it the eagles will fall dead from on high, rind the lions in remotest deserts in Africa will draw in their tails and creep into their royal caves.” But that was nearly a hundred years ago. We have learned since then the secret of revolution without too much violence, revolution by constitutional means; and if, indeed, it has taken an external war to bring home to the German people the incompatibility of their autocracy with democracies elsewhere, the inner transformation need not involve anything more terrible than a series of political crises. Already there have been several of them in Germany during the war; and, if we are not mistaken, they have grown in significance and intensity. Only last week the Kaiser was called upon to choose between Baron von Kuhlmann and Generals Ludendorff and Hindenburg; and if upon the latest occasion he has repeated his choice of his military advisersm that is not to say that his next may not be under greater pressure in favour of the Reichstag. All that we regard as democratic opinion in Germany is on the side of this decision;and much of it, as we happen to know, is disposed to pray the Allies not to cease hammering at the militarist gates. Baron von Kuhlmann himself would rather be the Prime Minister than the Chancellor of Germany; and his ambition to be a constitutional rather than a favourite Minister is shared by many leading German statesmen. To provide the conditions in which their democratic and liberal aspirations can be satisfied is surely to co-operate with German democracy; but the means is to continue the war until the autocracy is finally discredited. When that event occurs-and nobody can say at what moment it may; when between the Allies without and democracy within, Prussian autocracy finds itself crushed out of existence, then will be the moment for a democratic peace. Until then, not only democrats abroad but democrats in Germany itself (and we are not writing at random) must continue to employ the means necessary to secure democracy everywhere. *** The business of democrats is to encourage democracy. we should have thought, was as plain a That, duty as the old claim that the business of Socialists is to propagate Socialism. It appears to us, how-ever, that the pacifist democrats of this country conceive it to be their business, not to encourage and develop democracy in Germany, but simply to stop the war. Their love of democracy, in other words, has succumbed to their hatred of war. If this were not the case, we should find them welcoming rather than opposing the declarations of President Wilson and others in favour of democratising Germany ; and their contention that democracy cannot be brought about by force would, at any rate, be supplemented by an attempt to bring about the democratisation by other and their own means. It happens, moreover, that an opportunity has been extended to them in the recent speeches of Mr. Lloyd George and President Wilson of which it is their proper policy to make the best use M. Pichon, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George have all recently re-affirmed in the words of the last-named that “the adoption of a really democratic constitution by Germany . . . would make it much easier for the Allies to conclude a broad general peace with her.” Here is the very invitation to democrats at home and in Germany to work out their own salvation by their own means. On the supposition, here plainly confirmed, that the Allies desire the democratisation of Germany; desire it so much that they are willing to offer a democratised Germany liberal terms of peace; and are, as it were, indifferent to the means by which democratisation is brought about-whether, that is to say, by their own military means, or by a spontaneous revolution in Germany, or by revolution induced by propaganda from withoutwe can surely ask our democrats to second the efforts of the Allied Governments, and, instead of protesting against the use of force, to add to force the power of reason and diplomacy. What, in effect, is indicated in the offer referred to is a choice of the kind of peace the Allies are prepared to make with Germany : a peace with the existing autocracy, the terms of which have been laid clown by Mr. Lloyd George and President Wilson; and a peace with a German constitutional Government, the terms of which are left at present undefined. And here we are now suggesting no more than this : that, instead of quarrelling with the former defined terms, our democrats should set to work to give definition to the terms on which we could make peace with the German people. *** As matters stand at present, we are at crosspurposes. Regarding any definition of war-aims likely to be drawn up by the Allies, two schools of opinion are at once formed, which are mutually hostile from sheer honest misunderstanding. On the one side, the terms are said to be too severe; on the other side they are said to be too lenient; whereupon there begins again that chaffering and bargaining which is ultimately destined to result in another compromise equally certain to arouse another division of opinion, ‘The explanation is simple. Those who say that the, terms (of Mr. Lloyd George’s last speech, for example) are too severe have in mind the German democracy; those, on the other hand, who say they are too lenient have in mind the German autocracy. To the former, any terms but those of a broad democratic peace are unacceptable; to the latter, any terms but those of a conqueror are pusillanimous. Now these two schools are not to be reconciled by any compromise for the simple reason that both are right and equally right. A peace: with the German people cannot, we say, be too lenient ; a truce with the German autocracy cannot be too stringent in its terms. Our democrats are therefore right to require a democratic peace-but only if there be a German democracy; and our statesmen are likewise right to require a military peace if there is to be no German democracy. The reconciliation between them must surely be upon objects and not upon means. Both demand the democratisation of Germany, but the one assumes it, the other assumes the contrary. Is not the policy, then, to offer Germany, not vaguely but definitely, two sets of terms of peaceterms with the autocracy and terms with a democracy? We venture to say that if Mr. Lloyd George can be persuaded to particularise his offer of a broad democratic peace with a German democracy; to put it in contrast with the peace-terms already offered to the German autocracy; and to take steps to have it scattered broadcast over Germany for the reflective comparison of the German people-millions of blood and treasure would be spared in consequence. And if our professing democrats were to concentrate upon this, while leaving the Allies to pursue their other and military way to democracy, their actions would at last begin to correspond with their words. *** Without attempting to draw up such a programme ourselves--a peace-programme, that is to say, with a German constitutional Government, a Government representative of and responsible to the German electorate-we may make one suggestion for it. Everybody who knows the opinions of the German Socialists intimately is assured that the crux of peacediscussions with them would not be Belgium or even Alsace-Lorraine, still less the application of the right of reasonable self-determination to the smaller nationalities of Europe. The crux would be the German colonies. The possession of colonies, for some reason or other, is regarded by most European nations as an evidence of the world’s respect, and it is essential in our opinion that a new German democracy should be permitted to feel itself welcome and respected enough to be entrusted with the charge of a colony or two. WE are not saying, by any means, that Germany’s late colonies must be restored even to a democratic Germany. But compensating evidences of the world’s trust must certainly be provided. We shall return to the whole subject, however, on a later occasion. Foreign Affairs, MY DEARS.-I cannot mistake the tone of sincerity in your reply to my open letter to you, and I gladly acknowledge it. It is no less creditable to your good nature that you refrained from mentioning my identity at a time when you obviously believed that I was the first to say who " Sagittarius " was. This is a point of detail; but I should mention that the man to whom you make reference as " the vagrom creature sent by Northcliffe to spy about Germany " openly mentioned your connection with the " Continental Times" months ago. *** Now, before coming to the case against you, which is only left naked by your sincerity, let me point out that you somewhat naively admit (for a subtle person) that of course the " Continental Times " is friendly to Germany : and that, if it were not so, the German Government would cease to tolerate it. Can you call it freedom merely to be aIlowed to say what the German Government wishes you to say, or, at least, does not wish not said? Such freedom is common to your confreres in America and all over the world. Every Government gives freedom to writers who will write what pleases' it. But I should scarcely envy your fate in Germany if you should change your view of the war and commence writing against the German Government. You would no doubt soon discover the length of your rope. However, this is beside the mark: I want to get at more important considerations. *** Accepting, as I willingly do, your assurances that you write from conviction, I will now put it to you that you have scarcely comprehended all the facts. To give a decision against the country of your birth is surely a serious act: one would need to be very certain of the justice of one's cause. But at the very best, my dear S., we can none of us be certain that we know all the facts; and I am sure that in the Spring of 1915, when you left England for Germany, you had not enough to judge upon. A war of these dimensions is not just a melodrama in which one side is right and the other wrong. It is a tragedy in which the struggle turns upon the degree of rightness in one and the other protagonist. Your blackand-white assumption I find surprisingin a playwright whose play I remember as one of the best produced within the last ten years in London. Moreover,it is identical with the attitude you condemn in this country. You and the " Daily Mail " are as closely related as the Poles : both of you read in the same book day and night; but whereas they read black you read white. Neither I nor the NEW AGE can accept this Adelphism ; and as little as I find the " Daily Mail " to my taste do I find your attitude. Neither of you takes all the facts into 'account; but each of you takes a selection. *** To rid my mind of certain qualifications, let me admit the faults of the Allies. They are considerable; and THE NEW AGE has never attempted to conceal or to minimise them. What we assert, however, is that they are accidental and remediable faults; faults not inherent in our system, but incidental to personnel ; faults, also, under constant censorship. In the case of Germany, however, the faults were and are native, constitutional, inherent, independent of personnel; and not merely tolerated but encouraged. There have been more books published on militarism in Germany than upon theology in this country-and how many of these latter there are the " Times " Literary Supplement has shown ; even during the war! You say, however, that the fruits of Government am even more important than their forms. That demonstrates again your naivete that so little justifies you to pass judgment' on the policy of the Allies. You have Pope's approval; but Pope was no philosopher, still less a statesman. As a matter of fact, both Pope and Swift suffered from the Constitution of Queen Anne. Sincerely, my dear S., the Prussian constittution militarist by nature. is I could believe that the Kaiser might be a man of peace and the Prussian junkers men of peace; and still Prussia would be militarist. In industry we are familiar with the complaints of capitalists that they cannot help making profits during a shortage.' Prices, they say, go up by no volition of theirs, and they must sell at the market price even at the risk of seeming to profiteer. No doubt their belief in their argument is genuine enough ; but our reply is that the system they support is designed to make profits : its whole aim is profit; and it must make profits or collapse. The present Prussian Constitution is similar. Its design is military power. Military power is necessary to it. The pursuit of world-power is necessary to it. Without military power it would collapse. My warning to you is therefore this : that whatever be the ostensible causes of the war, the real cause is to be found in the military character of the Prussian Government. (You will forgive my omission of the technical evidences contained in the Prussian constitution.) *** Overlooking this root fact, as if it were of minor importance, you naturally compare the immediate fruits of a military autocracy with the fruits of democracies. And you naturally conclude in favour of I say naturally : but that is offensive. the former. Why? Let me say that you so concIude without having thought much about it. For, on thinking it over, you will see that a comparison of the ripe fruits of an autocracy with the sour buds of democracy is altogether unfair. The nature of a thing is known, says Aristotle, only when its development is complete. Prussian autocracy is completely developed. It has nothing more to do to become itself. Any reform in it must be a departure from autocracy and in the direction of democracy. You cannot have more autocracy than in Prussia : it has reached its height; and if its fruit, on the one side, is an efficiency you admire, its fruit, on the other side, is a militarism which has both terrified and shocked the world. *** To compare this perfectly developed form of government with any existing democracy is to darken counsel. THE NEW AGE is always saying that our democracy is imperfect. You yourself " hope and believe " that one day " Germany will become democratised not, as you put it, " not because I have "; deep faith in the panacea or the millennium of democracy,or because I hold her (Germany's) present form of constitutional monarchy a greater danger to peace than that form which has proved its futility in this respect elsewhere, but because the principle at. least is just, and because with a people such as the German even the most liberal democratic and parliamentary forms would not prove a peril." You do not appear to have examined this argument with sufficient care. If democratic 'forms of government have not been able to keep the peace, that is because the autocratic government of Germany forced the democracies fight for their very existence; and this fact to is proved-I take only one glaring incident--by the almost entire lack of even defensive military proportion on the side of the Allies. The Socialists in France and Italy, like the Labour Party in England, invariably opposed even the modest naval and military votes put forward by the respective governments in the years before the war; the inadequacy of all the Allied armies in the matter of guns, shells, and aero- planes was notorious from the first day of the war; and it was not until the struggle had lasted for a year and a half that conscription could be introduced into this country : such was the bitterness of democracies towards even a defensive war. We " hope and believe that equal bitterness towards war will be shown in Germany when the German people jettison their mediaeval constitution-the last of its kind in Europe-and come into line, politically as well as culturally, with the other civilised nations. We say that our democracy is imperfect because we are impatient to develop an economic democracy : and, as you know, before the war we were doing it what time our German Socialist colleagues were still mewing their political democratisation of Germany . When therefore, you say that democracy is poor, we agree with you. Our reply is that it contains the seeds of development We can perfect democracy but for the perfect German autocracy there is only corruption or defeat. I dwell upon this to the exclusion of the common material of belligerent polemics because the point is to us vital. But for the democracy --infantile if you like-of the Allies we should be against the war. What however I cannot understand is your decision tu side with an autocracy against the democracy you profess to wish to see--even in Germany You pride yourself on being like us, poor but free. By the side of other writers we cut an obscure Nevertheless you know that we would figure. rather be fools than accomplished rogues. Does it not follow that you ought rather to be a blundering democrat than an efficient autocrat? +** My dear S., you have chosen; but you have chosen unwisely. You have chosen t o support the efficient autocrat whose crimes you cannot see for the faults of the blundering democrat That is sentiment ; and now I come to think of it, your play might have warned us of this weakness of yours. Did you not make your new Shylock succumb to sentiment S S. VERDAD. Towards SOVEREIGNTY And THE GUILDS-IV National Guilds. A.I.F. Men OF THE Dedication To you who tread that dire itinerary Who go like pedlars down the routes of Death Grey in its bloody traffic, but who gaze Inured upon its scarlet merchandise With eyes too young yet to have wholly shed TheIre pity-moving roundness of the child-To The To you, like cave men rough-hewn of the mud, Housed in a world made primal mud again, With terrors of that legendary past, Reborn to iron palpability, Roaring upon the earth with every wind To you who go to do the work of wolves Burdened like mules, and bandying with Death To hide the silent places of the soul The ribald jests that half convince the blind It does not wholly anguish you to die To you who through those days upon the Somme About you still the odours of our bush I saw come down with eyes like tired mares, Along the jamming traffic of Mametz, Creeping each man, detached among his kind, Along a separate Hell of memory To you and you, I dedicate these things That have no merit save that they, for you, Were woven with what truth there was in me, Where you went up, with Death athwart the wind Poised like a hawk a-strike-to save the world, Or else to succour poor old bloody Bill Beleaguered in a shell hole on the ridge. Will Dyson THE point at which we left the discussion in our last article was this : that the State is practically necessary, that sovereignty is essential to the Stale, but that the necessarily arbitrary and compulsory powers implied in sovereignty should be as far as possible reduced. The question is now of the means of their reduction. How are we while retaining sovereignty, to avoid a s much as possible the arbitrary and the compulsory ? While retaining sovereignty, how are we to assure as much personal liberty as possible A digression which is not n real digression is as follows We do not complain of our subjection io natural laws, but, on the contrary, we submit to them. But, for all we know, natural laws, the constitution of the world, may be as arbitrary as they are certainly compulsory Likewise their sovereignty is indisputable. Not even Mr. Ewer would propose to abolish the sovereignty of the laws of Nature. But why not? In the first place, of course because it is not possible. ,Nature is made better by no means but Nature makes the means In other words the sovereignty of Nature can only be disputed by the sovereignty of Nature And in the second place, we are the less disposed to challenge the sovereignty of natural laws because, even if arbitrary and compulsory, they are nevertheless regular, consistent, and constitutional Regularity consistency, and constitutionalism are not, in fact, incompatible with a. power whose origin is arbitrary and whose weapon is compulsion. We therefore submit to Nature not only because we are unable t o dispute its sovereignty but with a much betterer grace because its sovereignty is wielded regularly , impartially, and consistently. Returning from our brief digression With its conclusion in mind, we find t h a t the sovereignty implied in the State is in some respects similar tu the sovereignty of Nature It is " arbitrary " and it is compulsory. We say, moreover that we can no more " abolish " it than we can abolish the sovereignty of Nature, and for the parallel reason that as the sovereignty of Nature is implied in the nature of God, the sovereignty of the State is implied in the nature of Man Wherever there is a God there is a sovereign Nature ; wherever there is an association of men there is a sovereign State. What on the other hand differentiates the sovereignty of Nature from the sovereignty of the human State is that wheras the former as we have seen and do know is regular, consistent, and impartial in its exercise (in a word, subject to Law), the latter is far the most part irregular, inconsistent, and partial In other words while the sovereignty of Nature is just (at the same time, be it remembered, that its origin is arbitrary and its method cpmpulsion) the sovereignty of the State being. no less arbitrary in origin and compulsory in method, is very often unjust. And this is where the discussion once more turns ; for it will be seen that Mr. Ewer in his natural anxiety to abolish the " injustice " wrought by State sovereignty its irregularity inconsistency and by reason of partiality proposes a means to this end, not to as abolish these defects o r to reduce them as far as they can be :-educed, but to " abolish " the sovereignty in which their opposites as well as themselves are implied. This is to empty out the baby with the bath with a It is more-it is to empty out the baby vengeance because of the bath ! Because Mr. Ewer argues, the sovereignty of the State is exercised irregularly, inconsistently and partially (in a word unjustly), therefore we must abolish the sovereignty of the State. The sovereignty of the State must be abolished because by no other means can we secure justice and freedom. But our reply to this is, in the first place that it is impossible to abolish the sovereignty of the State, for the reasons we have given ; and in the second place, that it is unnecessary to attempt to do so, since what is within our power is to see that the sovereignty of the State shall be exercised more and more regularly, more and more consistently, more and more inipartially --in a word, more and more justly. Here, again, we are on ground made holy by the feet of many Guild pilgrims-for with what other questions have our philosophic writers been recently concerned but with this question: how to Secure that the sovereignty of the State shall be exercised justly? Allowing, we repeat, that the origin of the sovereignty of the State is the arbitrary act of the human mind (performed for the sake of practical finality) and that its method is compulsion (and for the same practical reason), our ethical and practical problem is now to endeavour that, in spite of its arbitrary origin and its arbitrary possession of compulsion, the sovereignty of the State shall nevertheless be exercised as little arbitrarily as possible and with as little compulsion as possible. The arbitrary and the compulsory are repugnant to perfect personal liberty. But to practical personal liberty the elements of the arbitrary and the compulsory implied in State sovereignty are necessary. Our problem, then, is, whiIe accepting as necessary the sovereignty of the State, to see how and by what means we can secure within that necessity as perfect a personal liberty as is practical. (Forgive the repetition, but we are more anxious to make ourselves clear than succinct.) The problem involves us in ethics’, in the question of what is right to be done. Right, we say, is distinguishableby its character of regularity, consistency, and impartiality. From right action the arbitrary is excluded; and, as we shall see later, in right action the element of compulsion is reduced to its practical minimum. Our question, then, can be re-stated in this form : HOW are we to ensure that the sovereignty of the State shall be exercised as justly as possible? And the answer that arises from the present discussion is that “justice” can be best assured by requiring of the State that its sovereignty shall be exercised rightly. But what, you ask, is Right? And how much nearer the light are we for having substituted Right for Justice? Very likely we are no nearer in theory; but in fact there is a practical difference in favour of Right. The word “ Justice ” is nowadays under suspicion of ideological leanings; the company it has lately kept has been pedantic But Right is still a word of the world; it is in daily use among all men. Moreover, to say that an act is right is to submit that it is right in itself, independently of judgments based on personal preferences. The right is the right, and no personal equation is admitted to determine it. As one of our pioneers would say, the right is a ‘fact. With this in mind, our problem of securing that the sovereignty of the State shall be exercised justly comes within the competence of the citizen to appreciate. What we require is that the State shall use its power rightly, that is to say, in a manner that is ‘‘ right,” and independently of the personal equations of this or that party, this or that interest, this or that person. Bat this, after all, is only to require that the State shall exercise its sovereignty under law, and as the law is supposed to exercise its function, without respect of persons, etc., etc. And as Law is said to be pure reason and those lawyers are certainly the best who come nearest in practice to pure reason, that State is the best whose sovereignty is exercised most nearly in accordance with Law or right reason. To conclude for the present (though we are by no means done with Mr. Ewer), we would say that the sovereignty of the State must be maintained because it must be. At the same time it is our duty and interest to see that its sovereignty shall be exercised rationally. Not “ NO FORCE” is our motto for the State; but “ LA FORCE OBLIGE. ” NATIONAL GUILDSMEN. THE night at Marseilles, where the connection from Nice had failed, was bad enough, in a hotel whose grandeur moaned in all its corridors and down the well of the lift, stock-still in its cage. But we had tapped our way across the stony hall in the early morning, full of hope and cheer at the announcement of a train for Lyons, where our business was. Our seats, reserved ten days beforehand-were found, I put it vaguely. I had nothing to do with finding them. I shall never believe that they were our seats. Nothing less than a laisserpasser inscribed with a title could have convinced anybody that they were ours; money- would not have worked the miracle. Helena took one window and I took the other, and the man went off, no doubt as heartily republican as ever for his likes. Helena said this. I revenged republicanism by remarking that fifteenn degrees below zero had arrested his intelligence. Helena is not so bad really, for when, on a certain day, some months back, with closed doors and a cautious voice, I murmured that the Bolsheviks were magnificent, this creature of courts applauded. She is tainted with the Arts, which accounts for much. Arts which today were against the trend of Russia would be hopelessly out of the period, for that is the way things are destined to go. But what a journey! Through the Midi! Not that I believe in the Midi. I saw last year what they told me was the blue Mediterranean. It was grey, green, black, and white with the foam whipped up by the infamous wind, the mistral, which swooped down upon it roaring, seemed to smack it on a hundred spots at once with invisible, spiteful hands, and swept its waves out of their course. I saw at Arles what they told me was the smiling Provence. Here the mistral threw handfuls of dust in your eyes, nipped your nose, and swept -it is always sweeping, this wind; the whole country is swept clean as a table, which hygienic accident corrupts the inhabitants, affording them the servile consolationwithout whose support mankind would long since have turned honestly atheist-swept a twenty-franc note out of your hand into the Rhone. One of the renowned Arlesian women was by and laughed. I have never agreed with everyone else about the classic beauty of these women. At twenty their-necks seem already swollen with pride, which is notgood for the classic line, and they are as stiff as professional models. Neither do I like their costume, with its black velvet coif and white fichu. But then anything strictly local gives me a fright. This, I say to myself, is a stronghold of reaction! There is a sign of the stupid sort of solidarity. There is paraphernalia, exclusivism, rattle-trap and property, empire and feudalism, interest, stake, and title, and all the rest of middle-age obscurantism. There is lack of personality, of individuality, tolerance, and understanding. The streets of Arles, town of antiquities, are as dead as though the great pest had just passed which once destroyed ten thousand of its inhabitants. Well considered, the smile of that woman at my ill-luck was almost a sign of renascence. So‘ the Midi did not surprise me this year by its failure to turn up anywhere. At icy Avignon, the corridors of the train, already full, overflowed into our carriagewhere the seats for six, which we had made eight, became ten. And we heard that the line was snowblocked in front of Lyons. Were was true democracy, and aristocracy had to accommodate itself. I think, moreover, that it was not so very displeased to have four bodies communicating their foreign warmth. The heating, which the P.L.M. had bravely begun, was now non-existest. The snow snowed unceasingly. Nobody talked much. Outside Orange, where we stopped an hour, one of the passengers, my neighbour, an officer of some sort, had the courage to read a newspaper. He remarked indignantly to his friend: “The fools are talking of putting a tax on the workmen’s wages! ” Ah ! ” returned the other with a momentary show of interest; but he relapsed. I mentally shouted an Hurrah, applauding the blessed gods for their evident will to drive M. Clemenceau mad preparatory to his destruction. M. Clemenceau must have an old score against England, for he persistently misrepresents the “ Timer,” as the grand British national organ. How many moments of my precious life have I not to devote Notes from France. to correcting this error in French minds! When I got a chance, during the picnic-meal which all prepared unblushingly, I informed the courageous passenger about the English Labour Party’s proposed attack on the insurancecompanies. “ Ha! we shall have similar things tumbling on our heads here if me don’t look out,” he returned. And I relapsed. They will have it on their heads, too. What did I hear only the other day in a grocer’s shop or somewhere even nearer the Place de la Concorde? The voice of the people was talking of Byng, our Byng. “What is the good of the pauvre bougre killing himself to win, for he’s sure to be sold! ” Perhaps it is only the restaurant diners and the bourgeois who hear the echo of their own “Matin” in the “Times,” and pretend to believe hearing the national voice. The bourgeois, however, with their wonderful confidence to keep their end up, do seem to hope that revolution may happen in Germany. Do they hope it? It is so difficult to know from day to day what people want whose aim is to keep and make business. This aim does not necessarily imply intelligence to achieve it. So now the bourgeois hopes that Germany may revolt, end the war, and let him get on with hi‘s business;and then he fears lest the revolt should be a la Russe, with division of coats and even house-room. The capitalist, he, is blue-pencilling references to a German revolt, a thing certain to be unhealthy for him. But what a moment to choose for taxing the workmen’s wages, with forty cases before the courts of corruption, bribery, and downright robbery in high places! But the German people apparently has not realised its true position. It still seems to think imperially. And it has the misfortune to be over-educated while politically enslaved. One may object that England also is politically enslaved at this minute. But we are not over-educated, and that saves us. Ours not to reason why! Whereas every unhappy Teuton ever since he first sat on a kindergarten bench has had to reason why from a false Berlin basis. So now in the trenches and elsewhere he reasons and constructs Berlin syllogisms : where it goes well with me, there is my Fatherland: it goes well with me in Belgium, in Roumania, in Italy, in Servia : therefore, there is my Fatherland. And he sticks, seeing, as yet, no reason fur locking his Kaiser in a lunatic asylum and sending back all the deported Belgians and others with fraternal apologies. It remains to be seen whether the Russians will not teach him more in three months of peace than three years of war has achieved. We others, even with all our lack of culture and logic, are yet not capable of teaching him. Well, night fell. We advanced to where the snowdrift was, outside Lyons, and duly came to a standstill. The thermometer registered twenty below zero. The snow snowed. Rumour began to run. The trains behind would be stopped at Saint Etienne, so that there would be no danger of collision! Telegraph interrupted! A new drift of snow since the last communication! Finally, just in time, for the old nobility was growing restive, they moved us back to a tiny station, where we all packed into the waiting-room, and I fell asleep on Helena’s bosom. I dreamed that Paradise was really in Paris, as the Americans say it is, where tea, milk, butter, and eggs are still to be had for the asking, anyway without a card; and sugar and coal are sufficient, albeit carded. Up to three weeks ago, when I left Paris, we lacked for nothing. If this statement arouse envy in any heart, consider that London comes a long may down the list of war-sacrificing places. Think of Servia, even of Italy, while not forgetting how newspapers and how often have we been assured during lie, three years that Germany is on the edge of famine. People write condoling with me on the awful state of things in France, the want and the high prices. It is simply not true. France is not in an awful state, and people in genera1 have plenty of money. Prices are not anywhere near famine height. From what one can judge London is worse-managed than most places. Last year, indeed, we suffered from lack of coal in a very severe winter, but this year coal and wood are almost plentiful. Tobacco is short at times. If the envious wish to cool their hearts, they may imagine us all dancing on a volcano. True, paraffin is not to be had, and I did hear that a woman who had gone to five colour merchants, who sell it here, without finding a drop, had breathed forth. the awful secret that the Germans had made a great hole in the Front, and would be in Paris by the twentieth of this very month. Apart from this, the populace is getting what it needs, and only the folly of a capitalist government, furious at high wages, may goad it past its intention to put off the revolution until the end of the war. I awaked from my pleasant dream, into the icy, illlighted cabin. Helena offered me the choice between a biscuit and a cigarette. There remained one of each. I meanly seized the cigarette. In Paris, woman is suffering a certain appreciation on account of the lack of tobacco and the prohibition against serving the feminine sex with a liqueur. Man finds himself altogether too handy! Last summer things were worse when poor Madame Dutuit, whose husband is mobilised, found herself forbidden to drink a glass of beer at a cafe-and the cafe, remember, is the proletarian French substitute for a home-unless she were accompanied by a man! The police discreetly allowed this absurd regulation to lapse. I have never said anything very bad of Germans, even when their airmen came bombarding Saris; honestly, I couldn’t, knowing only nice ones in England, whose worst fault was a confidence in our ideals of liberty which verged on the scandalous; so I shall not repeat here all the maledictions which fell on their heads in that waiting-room. The snow could only be imputed to them by a mind less just than mine; surely, even if Italy were not in great danger, and the Midi line requisitioned and blocked up with parcels, the snow would have blocked it up just the same! The red man with the blue nose seemed to believe otherwise, and had to be called to order by some soldiers who reminded him that ladies were present. It was their way of saying that he was no soldier, for his remarks were not really unprintable, merely armchair-swearing and civilianbosh about the Boches. I have heard it argued that the German will be all the better for the war; that, before, his only experience of force was a kick behind from one of his officers, and that since he has proved a good soldier, he has a better opinion of himself,and can talk to another man. without cringing. Far be it from me to say that he ever cringed. I. merely repeat. The red man vanished somewhere, and I began to count all the red men I had seen in the Midi. Although I would maintain that the average French person is more civilised than the average anywhere else, and that Paris is the only city in the world, the typical French provincial is as he is found all over-fat, red, ugly, inquisitive, and vindictive, provincial, exactly as described by all novelists in all capitals. On the other hand, you have only to go to Nimes, or Aix, or Avignon, Tarascon, or Lyons, and in any of these holes you will learn that Paris is a nest of gourmands, diseased, thieves, snobs, and tyrants; but you will also soon discover that your informant has a ticket for the inferno in his wallet. Nothing but his accent stays him from leaping into the train. “ Bo-dio, bo-dio! ” he murmurs, as it glides out of the station, and resolves to learn to say “ Pardieu ! ” like his old friend, the one-time pharmacien who is now in the Ministry. Ting, ting, ting! Hoot, hoot! We rushed out and took our seats. At eight in the morning, famished, we steamed into Lyons, where, after breakfast, the butcher’s was found to be flourishing in spite of the snow and the war. Lyons is now under ice, but the inhabitants declare that they like it; which is not wonderful, for the ordinary climate is horribly humid. The Rhone, with a terrific current and full of whirlpools, and the Saone conjoin and encircle a great part of the town. Mist is permanent. The town is dull in colour, spreading to the hills, with narrow pebbled streets, giving glimpses of these hills, but for the most part built expressly to exclude sun and air. Food is cheaper than in Paris, the war-bread is an example to the country, the hospitals are no better than anywhere else in France. One notes appeals to English sympathy, etc., in the names of hotels and sub-titles of shops : “ Old England,” of course, and Tommy’s Tea, or something like. The number of people here who speak, or at least understand, English is a little more truly flattering. ALICE MORNING, Out of School, IN any study of inspiration, however slight, it is necessary to thread one’s way in and out of the nebulous. We reach back into the unconscious region and grasp, uncertainly, something fine and thrilling but not, precisely identifiable. The consumer, so to put it, is content with the thrill; the producer, or artist, has to consider how he may symbolise and so recreate it in crystalline form; the investigator, in the long run a producer as well, must run away from the thrill the moment it has touched him, and start pursuing the straws that show which way the wind of inspiration blows. A teacher has to be investigator and artist by turns. It is not enough for him to show the product, or to waft his children, by the force of an infectious enthusiasm, through an occasional rosy cloud. This cuts no ice; it is only a momentary thaw. I hope I escape from so rich a confusion of metaphors with an excuse :for abandoning high considerations and spending a paragraph or two upon a simple experiment with playing cards, of which the psychological import will appear as we go along. I ‘once found myself absent-mindedly turning up cards from the top of a pack, and informing myself in an undertone, before each card was turned up, what nine cards, a it was going to be. After about surprisedconsciousness of what I was doing began to come to the surface. I recognised, “ instinctively,” as one says, that this consciousness would disturb the special polarity of the attention that was making the phenomenon possible, and tried to disregard it and to hold my mind in its existing posture. I succeeded in this until fifteen cards in all, as I counted them afterwards, had been accurately foretold. Then the pressure of surprise got the better of me, and I could work the magic no longer. I have tried many times since, with deliberate intention excluded, as far as possible, from my consciousness, but without the least success. There are four alternative explanations of this incident :-( I) Chance, coinciding with, or inducing, a subjective impression of knowledge. The odds against this are, of course, enormous, but an irrational rationalist might well snatch at it, and look no further. Probablyhe would say that it would be time to take note of the phenomenon when I could repeat it to order, in someone’s psychological laboratory. (2) Illusion, dependent upon some kink in the memory, analogous to that by which one may receive the impression that an experience of the moment is an exact repetition of something which has happened before. I may have only imagined, as I saw the face of each card, that I had already pictured it mentally. But it is more difficult to suppose that I also imagined myself to have spoken the name of the card before turning it. (3) Unconscious trickery-the use of some indication present to the unconscious, but not to the conscious, mind. There were no reflecting surfaces, and I had named each card before separating it from the pack; but the pack was an oldish one, and every card may have been effectually “ marked,” for an all-recording unconscious mind, by faint smudges of dirt on the back and slight differences in the wearing of the edges, imperceptible by the normal vision. It is difficult to set a limit to possible hyperaesthesia of this kind. There remains hypothesis (4), not unrelated to (2) : a temporary and limited extension of time-focus, so that I was conscious of myself-about-to-turn-the-card and of myself-having-turned-it simultaneously. This hypothesis carries very large implications ; but it is the business of inquiry neither to shy at large implications nor to grab at them, but to weigh probabilities and see where they lead. The probability of (4), implications apart, is, I think, higher than that of (I) or (2), and about equal with that of (3). There is good evidence for the unconscious perception of very faint identifying marks ; and for that which I have called extension of time-focus there is not direct evidence so much as a great mass of unexplained event which the hypothesis might cover. To stick to playing-cards, I will only instance the firm refusal of “runs of luck” and “hostile series” to conform to mathematical probability, and the lifelong tendency of certain individuals to win or lose at cards. The whole atmosphere of popular superstition connected with the pack, the whole vague feeling that there is “something queer about cards,” may have its source in the unconscious recognition of an unexplored faculty that is brought into play by the only book of which all the pages are known by heart, and equally known. (A digression on divination by book will suggestitself to many readers.) The single, spontaneous incident that I have given would hardly have been worth citing if it had not led up to a controllable experiment. I have familiarised myself with the game of poker patience till I can play it, solitaire, almost mechanically. For those who do not know the game, it will be enough to explain that the cards are laid out, as they come, so as to form a square of with 5 possible discards; the object being to arrange them in sequences, flushes, and other “poker hands” of cards each each perpendicular and each horizontal row of cards in the square constituting one “hand.” No card may be placed except in contact with one already in place; and at the beginning of the game the structure of your square gives mild anxiety, As a rule, some particular card is highly desirable, after the first four or five are out, so as to complete a sufficient basis for the square and enable subsequent cards to be placed where they belong. Also, visions of a “flush sequence, ” the highest-scoring hand, are suggested by the first few cards; and you form a strong wish for a card that will at once add to your projected sequence and help the structure of your square. I began to find that my wishes, in proportion as my play became more mechanical and they less directly conscious, were being assented to or negatived by some curious inner sense, which was very often right. It would have been easy to form the upside-down impression that I could “will” the card I wanted to appear. Following the clue given by the previous experience, I played my game with as little conscious thought as possible until an “impression” turned up, and then noted the name of the card and the number of cards already out. If the impression was verified, I noted the odds against that particular card. In my last 20 experiments the card “foretold” turned up in 15 instances, being generally the second, third or fourth card following the impression. The more positive the impression (as noted when it occurred), the sooner the card made its appearance. In two of the five failures the card that came into my mind was one that had scored a success just before; this suggests interference by a lower stratum of the unconscious, making naively futile attempts to help. I will not go into the numerical odds against coincidence, except to say that they are less prohibitive than might appear at a first glance. I should be less interested in much higher odds, unconnected with a distinct subjective impression. Quantitative and objective tests, in psychology, have to be strictly observed but strictly limited to their proper function. If a pack of cards were casually shuffled, and then found to have all its cards arranged in suit and sequence, it would be very unusual, but quite dull. On the other hand, an accumulation of reasonably suggestive evidence for an elementary faculty of prevision would be highly exciting and important. It would give a new significance to that training in constructive guesswork, to which, as a valuable point in educational method, at least two great minds have jumped. KENNETH RICHMOND. Dostoyevsky DOSTOYEVSKY and Certain of Problems. By Janko Lavrin. his AND MODERN ART. I. ART in general and literature in particular may be traced through two main paths of creation-the horizontal path and the vertical path. The representatives of the former are,. in the main, concerned with the surface of reality, with all its diversity of forms, its odd complications and its external conflicts. Self-styled naturalism is merely one of the logical extremities of this path. “Reality for reality’s sake,”-that is more or less its watch word. The vertical path, however, shows a tendency to “ penetrate even to the very essence of, the real ” as Dostoyevsky himself expresses it. It is attracted most not by the surface of reality, or by external reality, but by reality’s depths, its mysterious and transcendental essence. “ A realibus ad realiora ”-that is its emblem. But here we encounter a great danger. It consists in the possibility of losing touch with reality, while probing its internal essence, and of straying into an abstract mysticism or into a pseudo-symbolism, which distorts not only reality as such, but, above all, art itself. . . . Modern European literature. abounds in examples of this cheap “ symbolism ” and its "profound” platitudes, which reveal, not reality, but the artistic incapacity of their authors. But it is always possible to investigate internal reality (the “ essence of reality ”) without the help of abstract symbols and enigmatic formulas-by endeavouring to fathom its essence without departing from external reality ; by trying to fix, to ‘‘ symbolise ” internal reality within the limits of, and by means of external reality. The watchword, “ A realibus ad realiora “ is then replaced by “ Per realia ad realiora.” And it is here that realism and symbolism meet : realism becomes symbolical and symbolism realistic. It is here that great art begins-art sub specie aeterni. . . We find a few attempts at this realistic symbolism or symbolistic realism in several of Ibsen’s plays. But the symbolism of Ibsen is often not organically co-ordinated with his “ realism ” and thus, where Ibsen endeavours, at all costs, to be a symbolist, he is more of an allegorist than a symbolist. . . . But in modern European literature there is a giant who, without the slightest attempt to symbolise in the conventional manner, achieves “ symbolistic ” revelations in his purely realistic works. By means of external and commonplace reality, and almost entirely within the limits of this reality, he has revealed to us the greatest, the most tragic mysteries of internal and transcendental reality. This is Dostoyevsky II Huysmans gives an approximate image of his realism when he writes : “ The main path, so deeply worn by Zola, would have to be followed, but, at the same time, a parallel track would have to be pursued in the air, in order to attain the things of beyond and the things of afterwards-in a word, to produce a spiritual naturalism. At the very most, the one who could be mentioned as having come near to this conception, is Dostoyevsky ” (Labas, p. 6). “ Let us call it, if you will, mystical realism,” says M. de Vogue in his book on the Russian novel. And Dostoyevsky himself has written somewhere : "I am called a psychologist-that is wrong; I am merely a realist in the higher meaning of the word.” In other terms, he is a transcendental or symbolical realist. By this fact alone we can explain the method of his realism and the “ pathology ” of his heroes. Dostoyevsky is very far from concerning himself with pathology for pathology’s sake, as some of his critics allege. His pathology is not the end but the means. It is through exaggeration, by straining the “normal” to its utmost limits, or perhaps through the abnormal, that he seeks to fathom the essence, the secret of the ‘‘ normal ” itself. “ As soon as man falls ill, as soon as the normal, earthly order of his organism becomes disturbed, immediately the possibility of another world begins to reveal itself, and the more ill man is, the more he feels the proximity of our world to another,” says Svidrigailov in “Crime and Punishment.” And the illness of Prince Myshkin in “The Idiot” is characterised Dostoyevsky thus : “ He (Myshkin) often by told himself that those fugitive moments which are marked by the most intense self-realisation, and, consequently by the most exalted vitality, are due to nothing but sickness, to a rupture of normal conditions, and, that if it is so, then there is no superior life there (i.e., in normal life) but, on the contrary, a life of the lowest order, an inferior life. . . .” This explains sufficiently why Dostoyevsky that “ Shakespeare of the madhouse,” is not even capable of taking any interest in the normal as such; reality begins to interest him only when it becomes abnormal and irrational. . . . Exterior or normal man is in Dostoyevsky’s eyes only the cypher of irrational man, who has to be deciphered. And in the manner of an inquisitor he devises the cruellest experimented the most unheard-of tortures to decipher him, to drag from him his secret, his “essence.” For this reason his main heroes are always in conflict, not with their “environment,” not with “ social conditions,” but with “ irrational forces “ revealing themselves in their consciousness, of which they become victims and martyrs. Raskolnikov, Svidrigailov, Stavrogin, Ivan Karamazov do not fall beneath the burden of external conditions (as victims of an external complication) but rather beneath the oppression of internal necessity. Rational man falls overwhelmed by the irrational man, whom he bears in his own consciousness.-“That is why each of Dostoyevsky ’s novels is rather a majestic internal tragedy, a spiritual tragedy. In contemporary art Dostoyevsky is the greatest and perhaps the only true tragedian, and his whole art can best he summed up as tragic art par excellence. In what does this tragic ‘art chiefly differ from current art, from self-styled modern art? To understand Dostoyevsky and his position in European literature, this question must first be answered. III. If we classify works of art, not from asuperficially aesthetic, but from a psycho-aesthetic point of view, we shall observe two main sources of creation. The first arises from an inner necessity to obliterate one’s own self and reality; the second, to divine one’s own self and reality. To the representatives of the first tendency, creation becomes an artistic game, a beautiful illusion, which now conceals, now idealises and corrects reality socalled. The artist takes refuge in the new reality created by himself, bathing in it, toying with its combinations,like a child with soap-bubbles. Art becomes a spiritual hedonism, a spiritual Epicureanism. This art finds its acme especially in what is known as aestheticism, which declares art as a whole to be nothing but the art of lying and a beautiful game. To the representatives of the second tendency, creation is not a spiritual hedonism, but a spiritual tragedy. For them it represents a search after a solutionfor the insoluble antinomies of the spirit, which, unless a man solve, he must perish. For them, creation becomes an unending Golgotha, an unceasing struggle against their. own downfall. Thus did Nietzsche create. Thus did Baudelaire, in part, create (although his tragical utterances are often artificial). Thus, and thus only, did Dostoyevsky create his chief works. This art we may define as tragic. It is always the result of an inner spiritual necessity. It is very seldom “pleasant” as this word is applied to “art for entertainment’ssake ” ; it often attaches little importance to formal prettiness; but, in place of this, it has another quality which is peculiar to itself-it can be majestic and elemental. An example of this is seen in Dostoyevsky’s art, which bursts forth beyond the bounds of all plastic form, as a river overflows its banks during a flood. It bursts forth also beyond the bounds of all conventional aesthetics, because it is stronger than aesthetics, it is not to be dragged along by aesthetics, but vice versa. . . . Turgenyev’s aesthetic and sentimental writings bear the same relation to Dostoyevsky’s novels as a beautiful and graceful rocket to the majestic chaos of a volcano, when an wean of fire is mingled with lava, with smoke and ashes, with howling and thunder, at which the earth seems to be rent asunder, bringing forth apocalyptic monsters. Only in tragic art is a great synthesis possible between beauty and ethics, between aesthetics, psychology, religion, and philosophy-and this synthesis we find in the works ob Dostoyevsky. Being pervaded by the profoundest ideas, this art is beyond any moral or utilitarian tendency, just as it is beyond all rules of commonplace aesthetics. Nay, more--commonplace aesthetics so far possess no standardby which to estimate this art; for this purpose it would, rather be necessary to create a new and less dogmatic type of aesthetics, which might be termed psycho-aesthetics. Such is tragic art. That is why it is unsuited to the reading mob--and even more to the writing mob. IV. Dostoyevsky‘s influence on the contemporary literature of Russia and of Europe generally, is enormousfar greater than that of Tolstoy. But the great synthesisof his tragic art has been split up into fragments by his followers. Some of them have seized upon the “(clinical ” aspects of Dostoyevsky‘s work, as a new species of ‘‘ sensational ” literature--frequently lapsing even into pornography, as, for instance, in the case of Artsibashev. Others have taken unto themselves the tragic antitheses and antinomies in Dostoyevsky‘s method, but as they have not organically experienced them, they produce, not tragic art, but a tragic pose: this can be observed even in so talented a writer as Andreyev; the more he desires and endeavours to be strong, A cost what it may, the weaker does he become. third variety, again, have been possessed of the catchword naked soul,” i.e., psychology for psychology’s “ sake. (A typical example is the well-known Polish poet Stanislaw Przybyszewski). Yet a ‘fourth variety began to develop further the religious and philosophical problems in Dostoyevsky. The best known of them is Merezhkovsky. It may here be remarked that the modern religious and philosophical thinkers of Russia all bear, in a smaller or greater degree, some relation to Dostoyevsky. (Solovyov, Rozanov, Bulgakov, Berdyaiev, Shestov, Andrey Byely, etc.). Then there is a fifth variety which has appropriated, more or less, Dostoyevsky‘s external mannerisms. Such writers are found not only in Russia, but also in the rest of Europe. Knut Hamsun, the best contemporary novelist of Scandinavia, is an instance. In other words, the synthetic art of Dostoyevsky is dissolved into its component parts. There are writers with the affectation of tragedy, i.e., desiring to convincethemselves and others that they are tragic figures; there are aesthetes who, on principle, shun all tragedy ; there are entertaining journalists who prefer the spiritual circus to the spiritual Golgotha. . . But truly tragic artists there are none. There are no more Titans capable of plunging into the darkest labyrinths of the soul-and that without any Ariadne-thread with which to return and describe in apocalyptic utterances the terrible mysteries of those depths. Nietzsche was, after Dostoyevsky, the only one who hurled himself thither, but- even he was not strong enough to hold out. There are no more great tragic creators There is no more great tragic art, Drama, By John Francis Hope. THE year that has just ended has been a most successful year for the theatres; that is to say, there is scarcely a play now being performed that has not received its hundredth performance, and there are plays which are in the second and third years of their continuous existence. The demand for theatres (even at present prices, and a year rent is not extraordinary) is greater than the supply; we have at this moment thirty-two theatres in the West End whose only complaint (apart from air-raids) is that seating accommodation cannot be suddenly expanded. I say nothing of variety theatres, which do not fall in my province; but there is the fact-that, in spite of all difficulties, the theatre flourishes and would expand if it could. But there are still people, like ‘‘ H. W. M.” in the “ Nation,” who are desolate at the prospect of this success, who ask : “ Where shall the artfamished soul, whose particular food is the drama, find the wherewithal to feed on?” and project plans for an after-war theatre. The implied censure of the theatre rouses me to a defence of it; although a correspondent has detected “ venom ?’ in my writing, I do feel that the “art-famished souls ” do not make sufficient allowance for the difficulties under which the theatre labours, and, also,, that the habitual playgoer, like myself, is entitled to demand a better quality of drama than is at present offered. The first difficulty, of course, is the difficulty of man-power. The stage, at this moment, is occupied by men above military age, unfit for military service, or men who have served and been discharged-and women who mean well enough, but can do nothing but “ dilute ” drama. All the objections to the revival of the “ star ” must seem to be merely cantankerous to those who have to cope with this prime difficulty; Irving’s valiant attempt to produce “ Hamlet ” with only three actors who had the Shakespearean sense is an example. There is much that could be done for the “ art-famished soul ” if only the men who could do it were not in the Army, or already added to that Roll of Honour that the stage, equally with any other occupation, possesses. But with the stage denuded of the most able and vigorous of the younger generation of actors, we are obliged to fall back on the men whose skill is traditional, and, like everybody else, are unable to make experiments without material. The second difficulty, equally, of course, is the dearth of writers for the stage. Whatever we may have thought of the younger generation of dramatists, the facts remain that they were young, that they had their lives before them, that they represented, however feebly, the possibilities rather than the accomplishments of our generation. But the same monster that devoured the actors devoured the dramatists ; most of them are serving, or have served, or have already given their lives for their country. We arc compelled fall back oh the older dramatists, on Americans, to and on women; Barrie is a stage army, and Bairnsfather is the Army on the stage. In his own-way Bairnsfather is a portent; his mental attitude is an authentic representation, although not the only one of the spirit of the Army, and that it is agreeable to soldiers and civilians alike, a visit to the Oxford will prove. I hold strongly to Ruskin’s opinion that what people will not pay for, they are not ready or fit for; and although I think that they would pay for better comedy than now holds the stage, if they could get it, I am certain that they would not pay, at this moment, for what the “ art-famished souls ” desire. Lest readers should suppose that we are only frivolous in London, I may remark that “ Romance,” which has been played about 1,000 times, is not a comedy; that “ Chu Chin Chow,” now in its second year, is a spectacle; that ‘‘ The 13th Chair,” which promises well, is a ghostly melodrama;and although “ The Invisible Foe ” has made way for the Christmas entertainment of “ Alice in Wonderland ” and “ The Private Secretary,” it also was successful in putting the fear of ghosts into theatre-goers. I hold, also, the opinion that it was a sound instinct that prompted the theatre managers to give a preference to comedy during this period. Nothing is more certain than that this is a war of endurance, and whatever will make it easier for us to “ carry on,” as the phrase goes, is a reinforcement. It may be regrettable from an artistic point of view, but the fact remains that the mass of Englishmen do not find it easy to “ carry on ” under conditions of emotional stress or intellectual effort; the people who want to make us “ feel ” the war, or “ think ” about the war, are really, although unconsciously, sapping our moral. The fact that the Greeks reacted to such a crisis with tragedy, or that the French are flocking to the classics, is no condemnation of us; each of us has to find his own working conditions, and the Englishman works best when he is least selfconscious. The man who has come out of hell does not want to talk about it; he wants to forget it for a time; he does not want a kathartic, but an anodyne, and there is none better than laughter. It is not that the Englishman is less, he is probably more, emotionalthan his Allies; but he is not so conscious of his emotions, has not developed adequate expression of them, and their excitement only embarrasses him in the performance of his duty. “They are manly rather than war-like. When the war is over, the mask falls from the affectionate and domestic tastes, which makes them women in kindness”; and as the whole psychological purpose of tragedy is to educate us to “become hard” by purging US of the emotions of pity and terror, I am by no means sure that the Englishman is not really preserving the spirit of civilisation by his refusal either to “think” or to “feel” the war in his drama. Call it sentimentality if you will, but the Englishman still cares more for “England, HOme, and Beauty” than for all the forms of art for which more exotic souls are famishing. But although I agree that the drama could theoretically be improved, I admit that I do not see how it can be done except by convincing those who write for the stage that the public will tolerate a better quality. My own “venomous” criticism has no other purpose than this; I write as an intelligent playgoer, and not as the fish-fag that my correspondent imagines. The suggestion made by “H. W. M.” in the “Nation” does not, in my opinion, offer any real hope of improvement; it is all very well to collect subscriptions from your enthusiasts, take a theatre, to form a company of actors, to and to encourage unknown writers, but as some of you have done so, you are obliged to cater for your audience. that audience is, self-confessed, an exclusive And and “superior” audience, and liable to develop singular tastes, to express a preference for exotics and to become incapable either of developing or appreciating a national drama. It is not Russian psychology, nor French wit, nor Japanese symbolism, that we need on the English stage; but the authentic spirit of the English genius which found expression through Shakespeare, and has been mute ever since. It is not the- drama of culture, but of human nature as represented the English, that we need; and we cannot by obtain that by offering something different from what is now acceptable, but by trying to inspire the drama of the day with the critical-creative spirit of its period of glory. Readers and Writers. I HAVE been invited to join with several correspondents in depreciating Mr. Pound’s series of studies in contemporary mentality concluded in last week’s issue. I can do nothing of the kind. Many comments of a critical character may be passed upon Mr. Pound’s work, and, indeed, they have been from time to time in these very columns. Mr. Pound’s prose style, though showing signs of improvement, is still wilfully wooly in patches ; while deploring literary formlessness in others, he very often falls into it himself. His pose, moreover, is still a little that of the enfant terrible : a pose, no doubt, impressive in America, but much less terrifying than irritating in this ancient world of England. I shall have something to say, again, of Mr. Pound’s elementary attitude towards religion in general and towards Christianity in particular ; likewisea criticism to make of an omission in his diagnosis of the contemporary Press. But none of these things appears to hie to justify anything more than qualifications of the praise to which his series is entitled. Men of culture, as I have often observed, are too often so self-satisfied both with their own superiority and with the inferiority of the rest of mankind, that beyond an occasional sneer they will not trouble to recognise the chivalrous obligation of the possession of culture, which is to spread it, and, as Matthew Arnold said, to make it prevail. Very seldom, indeed, will any professed artist descend to particular criticism of popular literature, to examine and diagnose it with the honest purpose of improving it. In a word, culture usually Now shirks its duty of grappling with philistinism. Mr. Pound, it must be admitted, hac gone into the Not satisfied with the arena and fought manfully. silent contempt of men of letters for the literature of the masses, he has been at pains to collect specimens of that literature and to analyse and criticise it as if, at any rate, its victims have souls to be saved. The diligence, patience and sympathy necessary in such a work should be obvious; and, for having carried it through, Mr. Pound deserves our gratitude. *** He has been called over the coals for his impolite dismissal of Mr. G. K. Chesterton as one of the dangers of English literature. But, good gracious, Mr. G. K. Chesterton’s reputation is not so frail that it cannot take care of itself against a spirited idiosyncrasy. Mr. Pound has expressed his honest opinion, and I, for one, do not wholly agree with him; but what is discussion for but to elicit opinions and then to extract the truth from them? There is undoubtedly a fragment of truth in Mr. Pound’s view of Mr. G. K. Chesterton’s influence. It is this: that Mr. Chesterton is a most dangerous man to imitate. His imitators really become apes. But that is not to say that Mr. Chesterton is not himself a great writer. Shakespeare is likewise a dangerous man to imitate; and we should only be repeating good criticism if we affirmed that the influence of Shakespeare upon English style has been on the whole bad. But this is not to detract from the greatness of Shakespeare. Every writer of a unique style is liable to ruin his imitators; and, from this point of view, the wise thing to be done is to classify good writers as writers to be imitated and writers never to he imitated. ‘Among the former are the writers whom personally I prefer; for I love best the men of the eighteenth century who aimed at writing as nearly as possible like the world and through whom the common genius of the EngIish language spoke. But there is pleasure and profit also in the highly individualised styles of the latter sort of writers, beginning, let us say, with “ Euphues ’’ and represented to-day by Mr. G. K. Chesterton. Mr. Pound, it is true, may have no fancy for the unique and personally invented style of Mr. Chesterton; but it is a matter entirely of taste and not of judgment. Should he, on the other hand, announce that he cannot tolerate Swift or Burke or Milton, writers of pure, English, then, indeed, I should join our correspondents in deploring his judgment. As it is, I listen to his remarks on Mr. Chesterton as I should hear his opinion of crab-soup. *** Coming to his views upon religion and upon Christianity, find myself not so much hostile to Mr. Pound I as bewildered by him; and yet not bewildered to the degree of much curiosity. Certain critical views of reIigion are stimulating. Nietzsche’s, for example, or Huxley’s or W. K. Clifford’s, or even Frazer’s. You feel they come from minds serious enough to take religionseriously; and that they are expressive rather of impatience with the superficiality of current religion than of hostility to religion itself. Nietzsche and the rest, in fact, were not critical of religion and of Christianity, because they were themselves indifferent to religion, but because they were too intensely concerned with the religious problem to accept the popular solutions. Pound, on the other hand, does not appear Mr. to me to be a profoundly serious thinker on the subject, He dismisses the current popular solutions not only as if they were, as they mostly are, superficial and absurd, but as if the problems of conscience, the soul, sin, and of salvation, to which these solutions are trial replies, were non-existent or trivial. It is his indifference to the reality of the problems and not his criticism of the popular solutions that keeps my mind at a distance from Mr. Pound’s when he is writing on religion. He does not, therefore, so much as even irritate me, he simply leaves me as indifferent as he is himself. *** The omission from his analysis of the Press to which I referred concerns his proposed remedies for the states of mentality he has discovered. After his painstaking series, nobody can deny that the English Press is in a bad way. It is a disgrace to the nation. Yet the disgrace is not mainly, as Mr.. Pound leaves us to suppose, the presence of so much popular vile rubbish circulating among us, as the absence of more than a very small amount of good popular work. And the consequent remedy is, therefore, not to attempt to suppress, even by means of education, the former kind of work, but to encourage by every means the latter kind. Evolution, as “A. E. R.” has often observed-it is one of his few positive doctrines-does not proceed by eliminating the unfit directly, but by producing the more fit, and thus indirectly causing the less fit to disappear. Progress, in short, is always a positive and additive, and not a negative or subtractive, process.‘ Our critical work is, therefore, to create and encourage the better literature of the day, and then, having examined it, to leave the worst to struggle as long as it can. Mr. Pound, I freely admit, has done both to the best of his present ability. He has both examined critically the much existing bad, and supported heartily the little existing good. My present comment is confined to a regret that in suggesting the remedies for our contemporary mentality he has forgotten his own better part. *** I have read in manuscript the short series of articles on Dostoyevsky, of which the first is published in the present issue. The author is a young Slovene of twenty-eight, now exiled in London. Like my colleague, Mr. P. Selver, Mr. Janko Lavrin has the gift of tongues, and the more difficult they are the easier they seem to come to him. He writes, I believe, in pearly a score of languages, in several of which he has published works of criticism, study, and travel. As a student in Petrograd he was the editor of “The Slav World,” and during part of the war he has been the Correspondent of the Russian daily, “Novoye Vremya” on the Serbian and other fronts. The present studies of Dostoyevsky were originally written in Russian, afterwards translated into French, and are now condensed into English ; the last of which transformations owes something-but he would be the first to say how little-to Mr. Selver. That they are remarkable in this respect is, however, to claim only a curiosity on their behalf. They are, indeed, much more remarkable for the depth, vigour, and range of their treatment of one of the greatest writers that ever lived. R. H. c. A Modern Prose Anthology Edited by R. Harrison. XIII.-THE USE OF ROOKS. By MR. A-G-ST-NE B-RR-LL. “ BOOKS do not teach the use of books.” A sound opinion, most surely. “ Many things are tiresome,” says Gautier’s D’Albert; “ it is tiresome to write a novel and more so to read one.” In these book-read days we are reminded of the truth of this aphorism, and would fain escape on some such easy raft to float buoyantly above the tide that threatens us. These are terrible days, indeed, when (as the old countryman said) “ we do all be buryin’ our ’cads in this ’ere printin’-ter’ble strange it be and no kind o’ manner o’ good to no one.” I am of the old countryman’s opinion in this matter. As Cleone wrote to Aspasia (in that bundle of imaginary letters Landor called “Pericles and Aspasia"): "Let me confess to you, I do not like your sheer democracies What are they good for? Why, yes, they have indeed their use; the filth and ferment of the compost are necessary for raising rare plants.” “ Shrimps and oysters are the lower order of the inhabitants (thus Anaxagoras) : and these, it is pretended, have reason to complain of the aristocracy above them. ” They may complain, but now their voices have risen to a very din ; their pens have become articulate, and even the library, the home of learning itself, is no longer sacrosanct. We are visited in this our age by a plague of books of all kinds. It is worse than a plague of locusts, and I am of those who believe that only the rumour of it would have delivered the Israelites from the hands of the Egyptians. Our consolation in this grievous affliction is that it cannot last for ever. There may likely be, indeed there must be, a lull; a sudden turn in the tide; a momentary weakening of the opposing forces. I am aware that this and metaphor will ultimately be the end of me, but in the meantime, like: Job, we refuse to be comforted. For of all odd crazes the craze to be for ever reading new books is one of the oddest. There is no new thing under the sun, and you cannot put old wine into new bottles. If you are stranded and illat-ease, and the Deluge is upon you, I say: back to the old masters. If the flood of cheap rubbish has caused you to forgot that (as Lamartine said) the memory of peoples begins with their literature, I would quote Dryden :Strong were our Syres . . . Theirs was the Giant Race before the Flood! -it is true to-day. Believe me, I would read you a sermon on it, but, like Parson Adams in a similar predicament, “ I have it not about me.” One of the results of this flood of illiteracy is that we no longer dare to trust our own judgments. We no longer read books ourselves,’ but like another to read them for us; and, like most hirelings, he gives us only what suits his purpose or has affected his intelligence. He is either a rogue or a dunce. Do not trust the disciple. “ Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes the biography.” These are odd days when it is thought better to read about an author than ‘to read him. Look at that fountain! Gods around Sit and enjoy its liquid sound. Come, conic : why should not we draw near? The well is for all alike, but you are requested to take your own can. “ Authority,” says Rigby in “Coningsby," “ authority is a phrase.” Writers must make a living (poor devils!) and there will always be books about books, but there is (thank Heaven !) no obligation on our part to read them. The biographer (who, as Wilde said, arrives at the house aIong with the undertaker), the reviewer, may proclaim his wares like I prefer to judge for myself. any tradesman. “ Indeed, papa,” cried Olivia, “ I have read a great deal of controversy. I have read the disputes between Thwackum and Squeers ; the controversy between Robinson Crusoe and Friday the savage, and I am now employed in reading the controversy on Religious Courtship. ” “ Very well,” replied the Vicar, “ that’s a good girl. I find you are perfectly qualified fur making converts, and so go help your mother to make the gooseberry pie. ” We are all for dipping our It is the pie we want. fingers into that, and leaving dispute to the disputatious. was true in ancient Athens, so to-day, As “ we are growing too loquacious both on the stage and off.” But, if you must be perverse and argumentative, why there is Shakespeare, Dante, Milton, to exercise your wits upon. I make no objection ; if your raptures are dull, they will not he read, and no one will be a penny the worse or the wiser; and if at the worst they are both dull and censorious, they can be As for the modern burnt by the common hangman. authors’, if they are worth anything, posterity can be relied upon to rescue them from the lumber-room; if Proclaim to me they are not, the less said the better. (if you must) the merits of Shakespeare, and you can safely leave me to deal with Mr. Alfred Austin. But you see the merits of Shakespeare well enough for yourself, I dare swear? “ My good feIlow,” said Sir John Chester to Mr. Haredale, “ of course I do. I see everything you speak of,. when you stand aside, and do not interpose yourself between the view and me.” But, apart from living authors, I am the most tolerant of readers. No less a critic than G. H. Lewes said that the purpose of literature was to instruct, to animate, or to amuse. I would say only with Dr. Johnson that it must help me either to enjoy life or You will see, I am the least exacting of endure it. readers. Lamb’s Sist of books that are not books is too well known to bear repeating here, but it is worth remembering that Ruskin added the bound newspaper and peregrinatory journal. For my own part, I would not exclude any book that has made a noise in the world, not even Johnson’s Dictionary (was not that the interesting work Miss Jemima Pinkerton presented as a prize to her favourite pupils?), certainly not either So the author be Gibbon or Whitaker’s Almanack. great enough, I have-like Lamb-no repugnances. The older he is, the longer dead, the better. After several thousands of years, I can still warm my hands at his fire. As MacDonald said to Glengarry-(‘prove yourself to be my chief,” and I am your very humble servant. With the great pubIic, I can “enjoy a pantomime under the sanction of Jonson’s or Shakespeare’s name;’’ Cried Juliet : What’s in a name? “ Monk ” Lewis, we recollect, thought there was a great deal in a name, and (pace Shakespeare) we think he was not far wrong. Deeds, men, books, must be judged by their resistance to “the tooth of time :” a long liver and a tough one, these are our demands. We have nothing to do with authors except as they minister to our wants, or with books except as they amuse us or bore us. The gardener may plant his seeds how he pleases-the gambler deal his cards as he likes-the author arrange such ideas as God has given him-When the plant is grown we only ask, Is it good to eat? When the game is played, Who won? When the book is written, Who wrote it? “ Literature is the expression of society,” said de Bonald; and, like Mrs. Sparsit, it is our boast that we have moved only in -the best. Beyond that, and a personal preference for merry feIlows we care not who it is we take down from his shelf; whether we choose “ Cervantes’ serious air ” or “ shake and laugh in Rabelais’ easy chair,” is immaterial. No sterner precepts would we urge on the reader. “ Do you think I am so ignorant of the world,” said Johnson, when Boswell proposed a meeting with Wilkes, “ as to imagine that I am to prescribe to a gentleman what company he is to have at his table? “ The best are at your hand, most noble sir. Will you read? No? Then it is no concern of mine. Of all affectations or conceits we abominate most that which pretends to a worldly contempt for books. Lamb, quoting a phrase of Vanbrugh’s Foppington, contemptuous of books, declares an acquaintance of his was so much struck with the sally that he left off reading altogether‘; to the great improvement of his originality. This, of course, was only one of Lamb’s many quips at his own expense, for no one was a greater reader than Lamb, and, nest to Shakespeare, he is the most original of authors-Lamb, whose bookcase followed him about, as he describes in a letter to Wordsworth, like a faithful dog (only exceeding him in knowledge). One grows tired of this perpetual disparagement of books in an age that surrenders itself too easily to the latest novel hot from the press. Mr. Shandy, we know, thought an ounce of a man’s own wit was worth a ton of other people’s. And so, indeed, it may be, we doubt not, when it is a Mr. Shandy in the case; but there are persons to be found whose mother wit is not generous, who dole out their little store with too parsimonious a hand for our liking. If a person have not many wits, he is better employed in using the few he has to make a reading-glass for his own use than in spreading them out in a shop window for those who have more to envy. I would conclude these detached notes with a modest panegyric on the advantages reading brings-if one might do so without encroaching on the ground of Lord Avebury-but I have already, I fear, presumed somewhat overmuch‘ on pur patience. Mr. Bagehot speaks of the peculiar proportionateness of the mind to the task which he undertakes, and the present writer is not the one to plan beyond his power : the showman is well enough in his place, extolling the wonders of which a modest sum will buy the key, but if he shout himself hoarse it is more than probable he will frighten prospective customers away. There are some men born to tread the library, as Nicholas Nickleby (so Crumbles said) was born to tread the stage ; but they are not many. The “ common man ” is easily unnerved, and is overcome by stage fright at the door of the booth. Take your courage in your hands, my friend, it will prove worth your while (and your money) ; the play is well worth seeing. It is, I assure you. There is much to learn, and much to unlearn; much that will make you dab your eyes, and much more that will make you open them very wide. “ But judge yourself and pass your own decree, ” By Marmaduke Pickthall XI.-THE UNWALLED VINEYARD. One morning, as we rode along, we came to vineyards ahillside. Rashid dismounted and began to on pick the grapes. Suleyman dismounted likewise, and invited me to do the same. “ But it is stealing,” I objected. “ Allah ! Allah ! ” moaned Suleyman as one past He hung his head a moment, limp ail over, patience. as if the spirit had been taken out of him; then called out to Rashid who was devouring grapes : “ Return, O malefactor, O most wicked robber ! Thou art guilty of a fearful crime. Thy master says so.” bringing a Rashid came back to us immediately, purple bunch, which he was going to give to me when Suleyman prevented him, exclaiming : “ Wouldst dishonour our good lord by placing in his hands the fruit of infamy, as if he were a vile accomplice of thy crime? For shame, O sinful depredator! O defrauder of the poor ! ” Rashid gaped at him, and then looked at me. I held out my hand for the grapes. “ Touch them not, for they are stolen ! ” cried Suleyman man. “ I know not what thou wouldst be at, O evil joker,” said Rashid with warmth; “ but if thou calIest me a thief again, I’ll break thy head.” “ I call thee thief? Thou art mistaken, O my soul ! By Allah ! I am but the mouthpiece of thy master here, who says that to pluck grapes out of this vineyard tosteal.” is Rashid looked towards me, half-incredulous, and seeingthat I ate the grapes with gusto answered with a laugh : “ He does not understand our customs, that is all. By Allah ! there is no man in this land so churlish as to begrudge to thirsty wayfarers a bunch of grapes out of his vineyard or figs or apricots from trees beside the road. To go into the middle of the vineyard and pick fruit there would be wrong, but to gather near the edge is quite allowable. If we were to come with sumpter-mules and load them with the grapes, that would be robbery ; but who but the most miserly would blame US for picking for our own refreshment as we pass, any more than he would stop the needy from gleaning in the fields when corn is cut. What your honour thinks a crime, with LIS is reckoned as a kindness andtaken.” done “ Aye,” said Suleyman whose gift was for intertpretations,“ and in the same way other matters which your honour blames in us as faults are in reality but laudable and pious uses. Thus, it is customary here among us to allow the servant to help himself a little to his master’s plenty in so far as food and means of living are concerned. The servant being wholly given to his master’s service, having no other means of living, still must live; aye, and support a wife and children if he have them; and it is the custom of our great ones to pay little wages, because they have but little ready money. Upon the other hand they have possessions and wide influence, in which each servant is their partner to a small extent. No one among them would object to such small profits as that cook of yours, whom you condemned so fiercely, made while in your service. If the master does not care to let the servant gain beyond his wages, he must pay him wages high enough for his existence-certainly higher wages than you paid that cook.” ” I paid him what he asked,” I said indignantly. “And he asked what he thought sufficient in consideration of the profits he felt sure of making in your service--a foreigner and a young man of many wants. ” “ I had told him that thou art of all men living the most generous ? ” put in Rashid Oriental Encounters My dismissal of that cook had long been rankling in his mind. ‘‘ It is the custom of the country,” he subjoined, defiantly. “It is a custom which I very heartily dislike,” I answered. “ It seems to me that people here are always grasping. Lock at the prices which the merchantsask, the way they bargain. They fight for each They are para as if it were their soul’s salvation. mad for gain.” “ Again you are mistaken,’ ’ answered Suleyman ‘‘ They do not ask too much from avarice, but for the sake of pastime. Indeed, you will find sometimes that the price they ask is less than the real value of the object, and still they let the buyer beat it down-for mere amusement of the argument and for the sake of seeing what devices he will use. In addition they will give the buyer a nice cup of coffee-sometimes two cups of coffee if the argument is long-and as many glasses full of sherbet as he cares to drink.” “And if the buyer will not pay the price, though much reduced, the merchant often will present the object to him, as happened to your honour in Aleppo only the other day,” put in Rashid. “ That was only a device to shame me into buying it.” “ No, by your honour’s leave ! ” “ Rashid may well be right,” said Suleyman "although I cannot judge of the peculiar instance since I was not present.” Just then we came around a shoulder of the hill, and saw some people, men and women, harvesting the grapes in a much larger ‘vineyard. “ Now you shall see ! ” exclaimed Rashid exultantly He got down off his horse and stooped over the nearest vines. The workers, seeing him, set up a shout of “ Itfaddalu I ” (Perform a kindness), the usual form of hospitable invitation. Since we refused to join them in the middle of the vineyard, a man came wading towards us, bearing on his head a basket tray piled up with grapes. Suleyman picked out three monstrous clusters, one for each of us, with blessings on the giver. To my offer of payment the fellah opposed a serious refusal, saying: “ It would be a shame for me.” “ You see now !” said Rashid, as we resumed our way. “ It is not robbery for wayfarers to take refreshment." “And as for the custom of the merchants,” added Suleyman “ in asking a much higher price than that which they at last accept, what would you have? Those merchants are rich men, who have enough for all their needs. Their aim is not that of the Frankish traders : to increase their wealth by all means and outdistance rivals. Their object is to pass the time agreeably and, to that end, detain the customer as long as possible, the more so if he be a person like your honour, who loves jokes and laughter. The greatest disappointment to our merchants is for the customer to pay the price first asked and so depart immediately. I have a rare thing in my memory which hits the case. “ Everyone has heard of Abdu, the great Egyptian singer, who died recently. His only daughter met her death in a distressing way. It was her wedding night, and bride and bridegroom died of suffocation owing to the scent, of flowers and perfumes in the bedroom where they lay. At sight, of the two corpses Abdu broke his lute and swore a solemn oath never to sing again. He was rich-for he had earned much by his singing, often as much as a hundred pounds a nightand he sought some means to pass the ,time till death should come for him. He took a shop in Cairo, and hoped for pleasant conversation in the course of bargaining. But the Egyptians wished to hear him sing again, and men of wealth among them planned together to buy up his- whole stack-in-trade immediately. This happened thrice, to the despair of Abdu, who saw his hope of pastime taken from him. In the end he was complled to get the Cadi to release him from his vow, and sing again, although he would have much preferred to be a merchant. That shows the difference between a trader in our cities and one in any city of the Franks, whose sole desire is to sell quickly and repeatedly.’’ “ There is no accounting for tastes,” was my reply. ‘‘ For my part I detest this bargaining.” “ When that is understood by decent merchants they will not afflict thee. They will ask thee a fair price and let thee go-though with regret, for they would rather spend an hour in talk with thee,” said Suleyman. “ It is a game of wits which most men like.’’ He shrugged his shoulders. “ Your honour was relating yesterday,” observed Rashid, with grievance in his tone, “how an Englishman of your acquaintance, in our country accused his servants of dishonesty. Doubtless he distrusted them and locked things up, which is the same as saying to them : ‘ It is my locks and my vigilance against your wits.’ Few men of spirit could resist a challenge such as that, which is indeed to urge men on to robbery. But where the master trusts his servants and leaves all things to their care, only a son of infamy would dream of robbing him. Let me put it in another way, for understanding. Seeing that open vineyard, with a wall but two stones high, no man would think of plundering the crop of grapes. But surround that vineyard with a high, strong wall, and every son of Adam will conceive the project of clearing it of every cluster.’’ “ I should never think of such a thing.” “That is because your honour is accustomed to restraints and barriers,” said Suleyman. “ We, in the Sultan’s dominions, have more freedom, praise to Allah ! For us a high wall is an insult, save in cities.” Art. By B. H. Dias. The NEW ENGLISH Art CLUE. IN Rule 10 of the New English Art Club we read: “ There are no restrictions as regards frames, except that paintings in oil must be framed in gold,” Whether this quaint bit of folklore is an heritage from Cimabue or Madame Blavatsky or only from the aureate period of the late Sir Frederick Leighton, the present critic is unable to state. Indeed, as I only read the ”Rules” after leaving the building. I am unable to say if the tenth rule is strictly observed in the present exhibition. The question whether or no all oils are gold-framed is, however, without reasonable doubt, vital to the health of the N.E.A.C., especially in the absence of Mr. Augustus John and Mr. William Orpen. Not that this absence is by any means as grave a matter to the club’s health as the “ Daily Mail ” would have us believe. In reference to these two “ most distinguished members ” we say, however, that whatever British official art has been, the Canadian Government has recently set the rest of the Empire a fine example and that the committee in charge of the Canadian war records is to be congratulated on the courage and discrimination with which it has chosen for its work the best artists in the contemporary schools, without favour, and in defiance of various makers of municipal monuments, moulagers of mice and other official furniture. There are there “ for all tastes,'' from water-colours it la Turner (not bad), an oil a la Turner (appalling, by Mr. William Shackleton, really appalling !) to pseudoJapanese backgrounds and Mr. Nevinson; from bad imitations of six or seven early Italian mastersimitation confined usually to one part of the picture, seldom covering in its discipleship the whole of any one canvas-to pointillism, spotty impressionism, de Smet, Mr. McEvoy (naturally), Mr. William Rothenstein, a “ Pygmalion ” poster (that is to say, a “ Lithographed Fan,” by Miss Margarite Janes, done in the style of those charming advertisements of “ Pygmalion ” that so used to adorn the “ Metro ” in La Ville Lumiere). Mr. Rothenstein’s clear house with the storm cloud behind it is well painted. Mr. Nevinson’s portrait of himself is a very good piece of work (with due debt to Picasso). (“ Wind,” as we suspected, gained by being reproduced in “ Colour.”) A great deal of Mr. Nevinson’s actual painting is not commendable. But in the ‘‘ Outskirts of Montmartre” he has justified at least some of his enthusiasts, He has, naturally, chosen a different style for this picture. It is his habit to choose a “ different style ” on what seems an In this case fie has chosen average once afortnight. of a good firm, clear representational method, and executed with no mean skill. If by some act of God he could once make up his mind what good art really is-I do not mean in the sense that there is ,only one good art, but that for every fine artist there are certain things which must be to him in particular, “the best” -if Mr. Nevinson could really decide what the words ‘‘ the best ” mean to him, and thereafter please himself exclusively and leave off trying to suit everyone all at once, he would greatly strengthen our belief in his future. Cleverness and. journalistic ability no one can he so rabid as to deny him. Mr. F. S. Unwin, in “ Man With a Scythe,” seeks to temper the “ old master ’’ method with Segonzac. Miss Wynn George has seen the Ajunta cave frescoes, or at feast some Indian painting. She has got into her “ Etching ” a great deal of “ beauty” as the term was understood in 1897; she has done this without weakness, without obliterating the Indian influence, or, I think, a little Dutch influence; but in the process she has found the beginning of a personal style. There is no reason why one should not use beauty a la 1897 if one so desire. Mr. D. W. Hawksley in the “ Patient Griselda ” has shown a pleasing contempt for history, reality and geography. Griselda’s attendants may just as well have been Japanese as Italian. Mr. C. Marco Pearce has found a style of his own; in black and white there is something wrong with every drawing, or it would seem with every drawing. One does not analyse, but one receives the distressing impression that the work has something wrong, something out of composition. But “ La Foire dans la Place “ comes off. Given colour (late impressionis: or pointiliste; this artist is most pleasing, and his crowd-grouping- is excellent in this instance. Mr. Thomas T. Baxter presents what appears to be a figure of Christ teaching a dickey-bird to chew worms. This work is labelled ‘‘ St. Francis ” (D’Asise). I cannot concede his background but the face is remarkable; it is painted with very great skill, and the frenetic modernist who rushes by the picture merely because of the demoded subject-matter will miss one of the best pieces of detail in the exhibition. ’There are (naturally) points where the critic’s patience gives out. The week’s wash (entitled ‘‘ A Shiny Night ”) by Miss Olive Gardner is one of them; so also are ’‘ The Bath ” by Mr. R. Schwabe; “ Bain on the River ” by Mr. William Shackleton; “ Interior of a Church ” by Miss Coke; “ The Rose Garden ” by Mr. William Shackleton; “ An Aeroplane Passes ” by Mr. Derwent Lees ; “ The Burden of the Sea ” by an artist already mentioned; “Gavin” by Mr. F. Dodd. “ The Happy March ” illustrates again the consummate inanity of trying to combine an Italian primitive (with a false naivete substituted for the real), Puvis (minus his spacing) Rosetti (minus his molasses and his really well painted jewelry). The man who comes best out of the show is very probably Mr. Walter Taylor. His “ Fragment of a Palace ” has great charm and simplicity. His “ Pavilion, Brighton” is done in the excellent clean colours of a Navajo blanket. Both these pictures are ‘‘ ready to hang in one’s room.” If we are still to retain Aristotle, and still to believe that the excellence of a work of art depends largely on what one intends to do with it, i.e., whether if made to stand on the pinnacle of a church-spire it is so made as to look well in that exalted position ; if made to hang in a room, then so made as to look well in a room-we must take some count of the suitability of modern pictures for conceivable modern interiors. Mr. Taylor’s two pictures are made without any appearance of struggle, without any sign of eccentricity. There are other pictures in the show, and quite enough of them to make one feel that the show’s averageis rather high, in which the painters have shown the results of long arid honest work-results such as to cheer anyone who has not a determined pessimism concerning English painters. The general proclamation of the collection, as a whole, is that : There is no set current criterion; there is no type‘, and there are no ten types of picture that represent the present decade. Painting has achieved a condition of absolute individualism. Apart from knowing the work of at least a hundred painters, there are no common symptoms by which the future connoisseur will know the work of this generation. Antiacademism is having its innings, whether for better or worse I do not know. But it is having its innings, and if one will spend enough time at the N.E.A.C., one can find evidence of a good deal of thought and a good deal of skill among the exhibitors. “Endymion,” by Mr. H. Morley, is another of the points where patience fails. The head of Diana is cleanly drawn, but the rest of the work is a caramel, and a damned indigestible caramel. Mr. Meninsky is after John. Mr. Dodd gets a likeness. Miss Lubov Letnikoff strains after the romantic, after the oo-oo of Celtic balladry. Mr. N. M. Summers shows merit. Mr. R. Schwabe presents a portrait, a perfectly good John, done with rather more care than the original painter has made habitual during later years. Miss Ethel Walker, in “The Sacrifice, ” uses her smeary colours and swirly lines to good effect. To “The Chelsea Figure” one says a violent “No” at close range, but finds, from the other side of the gallery, that Mr. F. Harmer has put quite good work into it. “Le Chiffe d’amour” has the amateur prettiness of a magazine cover. Mr. Steer’s “Betty” shows well from a distance, but on approaching one finds that it is not really Velasquez. Mr. J. M. Jefferys shows “Dans un Studio Ami” a13 blubby-blubby, but not without merit. “ West Bay ” is our old friend : “ Is this worth fighting for?” ; but it is rather neater in execution. Mr. Archibald Wells’ “Portrait in Time, ” shows humour and a desire to make painting resemble a textile, and his light shows well from a distance. The pseudo-Goya of “Christopher St. John” cannot be called ‘‘ achieved. ” Mr. McEvoy’s sitter was lucky ; this is one of the times he has painted quite a good portrait. “Stacking Turf” is one of Mr. Schwabe’s better tries. Mr. Louis Sargent presents a “Portrait” ; the young lady’s face is mostly hidden by a veil. We have long sympathised with the painters of portraits. Mr. R. M. Hughes shows skill a la 1870; but there is no earthly reason why a man should not paint a la 1870 if he wants to, and if he is rather good at it. Mr. RI. F. Wollard holds one up with his “Man and Child.” Are we to endure this wooden-faced individual with the syropy-carrot-hued hair? On the whole, we had better endure it ; the colour is perhaps out of Matisse and les Independents, but the face is well carved, and most of the colour is clean. The pose and mass of the infant’s body are excellent. The water-colours in the S. W. room are mostly just water-colours, some good, some bad, mainly indifferent. Views THE and Reviews. OF MEN. Feminism The resumed debate in the House of Lords on the subject of woman suffrage produced no new argument for or against this extension of the franchise ; but it did elicit an opinion that is surely one of the most amazing that has ever been uttered in that assembly. According to the “ Times “ report, the Earl of Selborne said : “ It was said by Lord Loreburn that men had indescribably a greater share in the sufferings of war than women. No statement had ever surprised him more. Could the physical sufferings of a man be compared for one moment to the anguish of some of the mothers who lost their sons, or the wife who lost her husband. To him there appeared no comparison. (Hear, hear.)” That is a sentiment that, I think and hope, not even the suffering wives and mothers would endorse; it misplaces the real object of human sympathy so deliberately, reverses so completelythe order of importance, that it can only be called an unnatural sentiment. Certainly, if the man is dead, as the Earl of Selborne supposes, he is presumably suffering no longer ; and the anguish of the bereaved is the only object of human sympathy. But the men do not always die, nor die easiIy; and to assert that their suffering is in any degree less moving than that of their wives and mothers is to travesty the facts in the attempt to express a misguided chivalry. Apply the sentiment to the typical example of physical suffering, the Crucifixion of Christ, and its callousness becomes obvious; it is the agony of the Cross, and not the grief of the Virgin Mary, that ha:; at all times moved the heart of humanity, for there arc compensations for grief, but none whateverfor pain. When a man is screaming in agony (and men have screamed during this war), it is worse than idle, it is inhuman, to pretend that he suffers less than his wife or mother will do when she hears of her loss. I say all this without prejudice to the argument that mental or emotional suffering is more acute, and may be more prolonged, than physical suffering. It may well be true, as Nietzsche says, that “ the curve of maxi’s receptivity for pain seems, in fact, to undergo an uncommonly rapid and almost sudden lowering, as soon as the upper ten-thousand or ten-million of over-civilisation are once left behind, and I, for my part, do not doubt that, compared with one single painful night of one single, hysterical, dainty woman of culture, the sufferings of all animals so far questioned,knife in hand, with a view to scientific answers, simply fall out of consideration.’’ But the comparison here is still between degrees of physical pain; Nietzsche does not pretend that the person who actually suffers suffers less, or is less worthy of compassion, than the one who suffers either by sympathetic emotion or the more self-regarding passion of, grief. Grief itself may be assuaged by the knowledge that the loved one did not Suffer; brit the fact that our soldiers bear with praiseworthy fortitude the agonies of the modern battlefield justifies no one in attempting to depreciate the value of their sacrifice. Fur the anguish of the wife or mother is useless even to herself; but “ with his strips we are healed,” by his sacrifice we are saved and have the leisure to indulge in the luxury of grief and commiseration with the sorrows of one another. There is truly “ no comparison ” between the physical suffering of the man, and the anguish of the woman ; the value, even to women, of the sufferings of men in this war is incomparable. But the sentiment is valuable as an indication of the real danger of woman suffrage. I do not share the optimism of its advocates, nor the pessimism of its opponents; but it has always been my contention that women have more to fear from male feminists than from women. It is the feminists on the Bench who have transformed marriage from a contract with mutual obligations into a contract that allots the rights to the wife and the duties to the husband; it was the feminists on the bench of Bishops who prescribed flogging for men, and exempted women from the same punishment for the same offence Power passes with every concession to weakness; and in the name of equality, the male feminists have elevated women to a position of irresponsible superiority. The most extravagant laudation of the services of women during the war has come from male feminists, who apparently were surprised that women should condescend to help us in this crisis; but they leave us to discover from what source we can (I find the figures in Miss B. L. Hutchins’ pamphlet, “ Women In Industry After the War ”) that although about five millions of men have been withdrawn from industry, “ the number of females directly replacing males is given as 376,000 in industrial occupations, and in the total” ; and, by the way, nothing but abuse of the men who remain in industry is usually uttered publicly by the friends of women. The men have to be combed out of industry, but at the mere suggestion of “ combing in ” the women, the male feminists would faint. If the women of this country ever exercise to the full the powers they already possess, if they ever adopt in its entirety the extravagant conception of their importance that the male feminists have developed, we shall be as near to revolution as some of the Lords think that woman suffrage has brought us. Fur there is a limit even to the uxoriousness of the Englishman, and that limit will probably be reached when the hopes of the advocates of women suffrage are realised. If, as Lord Burnham prophesied, “the struggle of the immediate future in the factory and the workshop would be between men and women,” it is useless to expect that men will defer to women in a struggle for their livelihood. As Emerson put it: “The Englishman is peaceably minding his business and earning his day’s wages. But if we offer to lay hands on his day’s wages, or his cow, or his right in common, or his shop, he will fight to the Judgment. Magna-charta jury-trial, habeas corpus, star-chamber, ship-money, Popery, Plymouth Colony, American Revolution, are all questions involving a yeoman’s right to his dinner, and except as touching that, would not have lashed the British nation to rage and revolt.” If it comes to such a struggle, in the spirit of Lord Selborne’ssentiment, whatever may happen to the women it is certain that the male feminists will discover that there is about as much sympathy with their ideals as there is with those of the conscientious objector. Luckily, the mass of working women in this country have more sense on bread-and-butter quest ions than their advocates credit them with, and the re-construction of industry will be more amicably arranged, and the relative values of the sexes more clearly recognised, than the male feminists expect. The triumph of women A. E. R. will be not to triumph. TO A PILGRIM. All crooked style is camouflage, and when You wandered fearlessly through bog and fen Why cast you not away with honest smile Your horrible deformity of style ? That burden buried in some squalid page, Then Pound might rise supreme in this New Age. TRIBOULET. ‘‘Producers by Brain.” [THE NEW’ AGE has placed this column at the service of Mr. Allen Upward for the purpose of carrying on his Parliamentary candidature as a representative of literature and art.] THE TURNER BEQUEST. FROMtime to time we see allusions in the press to the Turner bequest, but so far as I know the matter is still in abeyance, and I shall be grateful if anyone interestedwill communicate with me. As I understand it, Turner bequeathed a great number his works to the nation in trust for the benefit of of poor artists, with a particular direction that houses should be built ‘for their accommodation, and named after him, The nation, or its Government, took possession of the pictures, cast most of them into a cellar, and has never yet laid the first stone of the first Turner House, or done anything else to carry out the trust. If a private person were to act in that way, he would be guilty of felony, and would receive a long term of penal servitude. It has been said that you cannot indict a nation, but you can indict Ministers, and the Minister primarily responsible in this case would appear to be the First Lord of the Treasury. The King can do no wrong, according to the theory of the, Constitution, and therefore when a grave wrong is committed by what lawyers speak of as “ the Crown,” it is the Ministerial adviser who must bear the blame. The embezzlement of the Turner trust fund being a continuing- wrong, every Minister who takes office without taking steps to carry out the trust becomes guilty in his turn. Mr. Balfour, Mr. Asquith, Mr., Lloyd George, and Mr. Bonar Law, therefore, it would seem, ought all to be doing time at Portland. The only reason that they are not is because there is no one to prosecute. If Turner had left this wealth to build a home for insane horses or incurably diseased dogs, of course a stately palace in magnificent grounds would long ago have been put up. The Canine DefenceLeague or the Equine Friends would have taken prompt action, and the illustrious statesmen I have named would have had to choose between carrying out their trust or finding themselves in the dock. But the artist has no friends. The servant of beauty ranks below the dog. ‘There is a Department called the Charity Commissioners specially charged with inquiring into the administration of charitable funds, and if ever there were a case for its interference this ought to be one. But yet it may be said that this is not a charity. When one artist leaves a legacy to others it is all in the The gifts and the rewards of genius are so family. unequally distributed; it is so hard to say why Tennyson should make a fortune and Milton wellnigh starve; why Leighton should die a peer and Whistler all but a pauper; that there seems to be room for some trade unionism among the arts. In any case, it is a gracious thing for a prosperous producer by brain to go shares with an unprosperous one, and such a gift ought not to be reckoned charity. I hope I may receive a mandate from artists to insist on the fulfilment of the Turner trust. I hope still more that the Turner Houses will not be almshouses, but studios. I am filled with indignation when I see Leighton’s rich mansion standing empty as a shrine for the worshippers of the dead, while his living brethren are toiling in attics and in basements. I look forward to seeing a building arise in Chelsea which shall be the home of art, and not its hospital; for when we learn to take care of youth and manhood there will be the less need to provide for age. ALLEN UPWARD. Pastiche. VLADIMIR. NAZOR : NOCTURNE. (Translated from the Serbo-Croatian by P. SELVER.) Gently, gently, gently, spider Spins a thread; Where the fir-trees slimly: loom, in woods, the stag has laid his head: Night, the silent, lofty, presses O’er the land with silvery glazes, And a quenched lamp she raises From the water’s deep recesses. Guiding mortals by the hand, as blind sons, dream advances. I will weave a nest, O mother, deep within their glancesCricket from the grass is prying: See, O berry, see! Gently, gently spins the spider Threadlets three. Woe, woe, woe has gathered round me, Black and fierce. In my breast a green-hued sprig of rose has made a thorn to pierce. And my sobbing, sobbing, sobbing In this lustrous night doth scatter; Pearly’ tear-drops downward patter ; With restive wings I set them throbbing: They are shaken, pitter-patter On a marble platter. O thou green-hued sprig of rose, within thy barb a store of pain is, And my bosom is so frail, and in this woe a store of bane is! From my heart the blood-drops patter : Tap, tap, tap. . . . In that thorn from off the rose-tree poisoned is the sap. Can the moon reveal no splendour, Or the night-bloom scent engender, With this cry allayed? Canst not, earth, to sleep surrender, With my weeping stayed? Dost thou crave another’s anguish, that thou lull to rest thy woe? Stars are hotly dropping tears upon the meads and dales below. . . . O sorrow is thus more tender! Woe, woe, woe. Night with potent spell enchants my Woodland calm, Where, O where are thou, enchantress? Thee friend calls with a psalm ! Hearken : chiming, chiming, chiming-Jasmin-calyx, scarce unfolded, Lily-calyx, bigly moulded ! Hearken : whirring, whirring, whirring Of the juniper’s green windle, Of forget-me-not’s blue spindle ! Blossoms scatter waves of fragrance in this night. O enchantress, hither, hither : Now our troth we plight! Cricket from the grass is prying : See, O maiden, see! Where our bed is softly lying Gently spins the spider Fibres three. Sweetest fragrance that in billowings arises, That is wafted, that is twirled in curving guises That is rocking, that is swinging, To the moth’s and insect’s winging: Breath of earth that sinks to rest in warm embraces, And the quiver of the stars in flashing traces: Throbbing, lustre, perfume, surging Heave their billows like an Ocean With my bosom merging ! am singing, singing, singing in” this night that is enchanted, In this warm, impassioned night, with wreaths of blossoms round it planted, Frail, alone. Unto whom my joy to utter and my sorrow to bemoan? On the woodland branches growing In the night, a thirsty bud is; And my wounded heart is strowing Drop by drop, the dew-that blood isGently flowing. Spider, weave, O weave a net stoutly blended? Gently, gently, lest thy fibre be rended! There this night thou show’st no pity To thy spoil! Round these slender threads my ditty, Too, shall coil! MEMORY. The Spring days always called you to my mind, and then I said, “ In languid Summer I shall forget again.” Rut the sultry wind and sky of such heart-breaking blue, In Summer days brought back the thought of you. And now as I sit here and watch the falling leaf, I wonder shall I know surcease of grief, And sweet forgetfulness of you or-horn I have lost, When come the bitter winds, and the snow and frost. Desmond Fitzgerald. I LETTERS To THE EDITOR. LORD NORTHCLIFFE Sir,-Your writer of “ Notes of the Week ” is always at his best in dealing with Lord Northcliffe. His attack on that nobleman, however, is made rather in the bitter vein of Junius than in ‘the philosophical manner of Burke. I think he does not quite see the inevitability of Lord Northcliffe. To me it is plain, however, that a plutocratic democracy like England cannot avoid a dictatorship like that of Lord Northcliffe. All plutocratic democracies have succumbed to noisy Athens was not very and self-confident personalities. plutocratic, and escaped with Alcibiades; but the later history of the Roman Republic is filled with characters like Lord Northcliffe. The life of Cicero was mainly spent in contests with men of that type, for Catiline, Clodins, and Mark Antony had all of them much in common with Lord Northcliffe. In England it is inevitable that a powerful man should be a rich man. Money is in England the one real proof of capacity. The people of England would never trust a Lenin or a Trotsky. Men of that stamp point out never so plainly that, if the labourers seized the land their children would probably hold it a thousand years hence; but nobody would listen to them, because they have not made money. Even a gentleman like Catiline, without money, could not gain power in England. On the other hand, a self-confident man who has made money is amazingly trusted in all English-speakingcountries. Cecil Rhodes was a fine example, and Mr. Cifford Sifton is fast becoming another Cecil Rhodes in Canada. Mr. Hearst has hardly managed so well in the United States, but a wiser man may arise. Meanwhile England has Lord Northcliffe. It is inevitable that a ’Lord Northcliffe should be ludicrous to persons of delicate perception, for a new millionaire cannot by any possibility be an aesthetic Person. The logical consequence is that a Lord. Northcliffe is always funny to those who can perceive. thy peaceful I am in this dim, deep night-time All alone. Unto whom my joy to utter and my sorrow to bemoan? Prithee, drench with wet caresses, Dewdrop, wisps of elfin-tresses ! Prithee, drench, thou radiant shimmer, Shepherd’s-pouches with thy glimmer ! I am ‘singing, singing, singing starry rays. In my anguished breast have nestled all the glories that are May’s: Every nook the wreath containeth, Every kiss the petal gaineth : Many cannot perceive, however, and probably there are enough of that kind to satisfy Lord Northcliffe. I do not expect to see the English people delivered very early from persons like Lord Northcliffe. Their reverence for the external and material lies too deep : even Shakespeare’s one ambition was tu be respected R. B. Kerr. as a man of property. *** CATHOLICISM AND REACTION. Sir,-For a Guildsman, Mr. S. Verdad has evidently never reflected much on the implications of a visible and organised society like the Catholic Church. The ‘‘ maintenance and [legitimate] increase of the power of the Church itself ” is precisely the business of the higher officials of the Church; that is partly what they are for, and unless they performed that function there would be little elbow-room €or what Mr. Verdad quaintly calls “ the important cultural value of Catholicism.”Owing to the imperfections’ of human nature, it may happen sometimes that ecclesiastical officials pursue aims and methods which are unwise or corporately selfish (the Guild officials will sometimes do the same). The keen‘-eyed Mr. Verdad would be better employed in watching for such transgressions and criticising them in the public interest if and when they actually occur, than in joining the Maxse-Kipling“Morning Post ” Press to drop bombs of poisonous suspicion on the oldest Church of all. In the particular case in point, an alliance of the Polish bishops with the German Government would be about as likely as an alliance of the Irish Bishops with Sir Edward Carson. F. H. DRINKWATER. *** FAST OR FEAST. Sir,-We are accustomed to the vagaries and whimisicalities of the Protestant God, and by now most of us have ceased even from showing surprise at His irregularities.When, however, He is being appealed to on a special Day of Intercession we refuse to believe that He insists upon the poor and the dispossessed fasting and praying, while He allows the rich to feast and pray. We refuse to believe that He will not hearken to the prayer of the poor man unless he is parched or faint, while He will listen to the prayer of the rich man who has possibly overfed or overimbibed. On Sunday, January 6, the Solemn Day of Intercession, the poor man’s pubs were closed by order, all while the pubs of the rich were open. ELSIE F. BUCKLEY. *** NATIONALGUILDS LEAGUE. Sir,-The Liverpool Branch of the National Guilds League-started about two years ago with a membership of twenty (all NEW AGE readers)-having lost, owing principally to the war, about half its members, desires to appeal, through THE NEW AGE, for the active co-operation of supporters in Liverpool and District of National Guilds. I shall, therefore, be glad to receive the names of National Guildsmen who are ready to help in the work of the Liverpool Branch. CHARLESF. S. BARKER, Hon. Sec., Liverpool Branch. 8, Drury Buildings, 23, Water Street, Liverpool. *** WRIT SARCASTIC. Sir,Suppose the little violet Should hang its little head And say “ I’m such a little flower, I’d better stop in bed.” * It no longer shall. I bought a hat yesterday, and the man said I was taking size larger. I have serious thoughts of putting up for M.P. for Philosophy, therapeutics, Hymnology, with all its collateral branches, and and am writing this note to request the loan of a column a week in your paper in support of my candidature. P. T. K. P.S.-I am very. busy just now, so perhaps you might make up the requisite copy yourself. I don’t suppose your readers mill really mind. * Felicia Wilcox. Memoranda, (From last week’s NEW AGE.) If the inheritance of the Tsar falls piecemeal into the power of Prussia, all the problems that began the present war will be repeated upon a still larger scale. The history of Liberalism has been the history of a struggle for constitutional reform. In virtually denyingthat a constitutional change in Germany is imperative our Liberals are, therefore, casting doubts upon the value of their own historic, not to say their recent, past. The liberalisation of Germany is our only security for democracy; in other words, for our freedom to achieve economic emancipation. If Labour is “pacifist ” in international affairs, it must in common consistency be pacifist in industrial affairs.-“ Notes of the Week.” Generally stated, skill and organisation have been coincident. Quantitative production spells the indefinite prolongation of wagery and ?he final degradation of the craftsman. Capitalists mould production purposes.-S. G. H. to their own consumptive The resentment which all the older Socialists and some of the newer felt against Liberalism even at its best rested on a just conviction that political and personalliberty were stones offered them instead of bread. Politics is in principle only an extension of morality. The contrast of the writings of the greater and older Liberals with the futility of their Parliamentary activities, and the ultimate outcome of the travail of the mountain in the shape of a little adder, like the Insurance Act, is one of the most pathetic things in history. The philosopher is like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, also one of the servants of Jahwe distinguished from the others only by his peculiar subtlety.-O. LATHAM. Current magazines and periodicals are a unified endeavour to prevent thought. The monotheistic temperament has been the curse our time.--Ezra POUND. of Consciousness is the region of contact between personality and environment, and it is only in that region that the word education has meaning. Consciousness is the threshold of that which we call the soul, as interest is the threshold of that which we call inspiration. It is painful to listen to an invaluable biologist trying to make biology do the work of metaphysics. The origin of super-conscious mind can no more be located in the past than in the future; it is a perpetual becoming. And it is the business of educational research to catch the elements of soul in the nascent condition .-KENNETH RICHMOND. We are all much too prone to assume that where restraint and magnanimity are displayed in an attack the attack itself and all its most mortal blows are, on account of the generous appearance of the assailant, entirely justified and beyond suspicion. A form of government may be judged from the nature of the revolutions it provokes. Despite the rude scourge of this war, not one of the great lessons that might have been learnt from it has as yet been taken to heart. You cannot have the freedom of the guide and of the guided at one and the same time. Exploitation in the capitalistic sense is everything that is horrible, because it neither leads to any great popular achievement, nor does it ever fail to debase the people it exploits.--Zarathustrian. The Old Flers Road. By Will Dyson.