All the while she said nothing: she let me kiss her gown, her feet, the stone floor on which she stood. Suddenly and abruptly she said only, "You are a droll creature: you love me, really—you?"

Then I spoke, beside myself the while. I remember nothing that I said: she heard me in silence, standing erect above me where I kneeled. The light was very faint; the lamp swung to and fro on its bronze chain; I saw only the eyes of the woman burning their will into mine. She bent her head slightly: her voice was very low. She said only, "I have known it a long time. Yes, you love me, but how? How?"

How? I knew no words that could tell her. Human tongues never have language enough for that: a look can tell it. I looked at her.

She trembled for a moment as though I had hurt her. Soon she regained her empire over herself. "But how?" she muttered very low, bending over me her beautiful head, nearly touching mine. "But how? Enough to—?"

She paused. Enough? Enough for what? Enough to deny heaven, to defy hell, to brave death and torment, to do all that a man could do: who could do more?

"And I love you—I." She murmured the words very low: the evening wind which touches the roses was never softer than her voice. She brushed my hair with her lips. "I love you," she repeated. "For you are strong, you are strong."

Kneeling before her there, I took her in my arms. I drew her close to me: I drank the wine of Paradise—the wine that makes men mad.

But she stopped me, drew herself away from me, yet gently, without wrath. "No," she said, "not yet, not yet." Then she added, lower still, "You must deserve me."

Deserve her? I did not comprehend. I knew well that I did not deserve my joy, poor fool that I was, mere man of the people, with the trestles of the village fair for all my royal throne. But, since she loved me, a crowd of ideas confused and giddy thronged on my brain and whirled madly together. Up above in the belfries and the towers in my infancy, with the clear blue air about me and the peopled world at my feet, I had dreamed so many foolish gracious things—things heroical, fantastical, woven from the legends of saints and the poems of wandering minstrels. When she spoke to me thus these old beautiful fancies came back to my memory. If she wished me to become a soldier for her sake, I thought—

She looked at me, burning my soul with her eyes, that grew sombre yet brilliant, like the Tiber water lighted by a golden moon. "You must deserve me," she repeated: "you must deliver me. You are strong."

"I am ready," I answered. I was still kneeling before her. I had at my throat a rude cross that my mother had hung there in my childish years. I touched the cross with my right hand in sign of oath and steadfastness. "I am ready," I said to her. "What do you wish?"

She answered, "You must free me. You are strong."

Even then I did not understand. "Free?" I repeated. "You would fly with me?"

She gave a gesture, superb, impatient, contemptuous. She drew herself backward and more erect. Her eyes had a terrible brilliancy in them. She was so beautiful, but as fierce in that hour as the wild beast that I saw once at a fair break from its cage and descend amidst the people, and which I strangled in my arms unaided.

She murmured through her closed teeth, "You must kill him. You are strong."

With a bound I rose to my feet. In the burning night an icy cold chilled my blood, my limbs, my heart.

Kill him? Whom? The old man? I, young and strong as I was, and his wife's lover?

I looked at her. What will be the scaffold to-morrow to me, since I have lived through that moment?

She looked at me, always with her sorceress's eyes. "You must kill him," she said briefly. "It will be so easy to you. If you love me it will be done. If not—farewell."

A horrible terror seized on me. I said nothing. I was stupefied. The gloomy shadows of the chamber surrounded us like a mystic vapor; the pale figures of the tapestries seemed like the ghosts arisen from the grave to witness against us; the oppressive heat of the night hour lay on our heads like an iron hand.

A phantom parted us: the spectre of a cowardly crime had come between us.

"You do not love me," she said slowly. She grew impatient, angered, feverish: a dumb rage began to work in her. She had no fear.

I drew my breath with effort. It seemed as if some one were strangling me. Kill him! Kill him! These ghastly words re-echoed in my ears. Kill an old and feeble man? It was worse than a crime: it was a cowardice.

"You do not love me," she repeated with utter scorn. "Go—go!"

A cry to her sprang from my very soul: "Anything else, anything but that! Ask my own life, and you shall have it."

"I ask what I wish."

As she answered me thus she drew herself in all her full height upward under the faint radiance from the lamp. Her magnificent beauty shone in it like a grand white flower of the datura under the suns of autumn. A disdain without bounds, without limit, without mercy, gleamed from her eyes. She despised me—a man of the people, a public wrestler, a bravo, only made to kill at his mistress's order, only of use to draw the stiletto in secrecy at the whim and will of a woman.

I was Italian, yet I dared not slay a feeble old man in the soft dark of a summer night, to find my reward on the breast of his wife.

Silence fell between us. Her eyes of scorn glanced over me, and all her beauty tempted me and cried to me, "Kill, kill, kill! and all this is thine!"

Then her eyes filled with tears, her proud loveliness grew humble, and, a supplicant, she stretched out her arms to me: she cried, "Ah, you love me not: you have no pity. I may live and die here: you will not save me. You are strong as the lions are—you are so strong, and yet you are afraid."

I shook in all my limbs. Yes, I was afraid—I was afraid of her, afraid of myself. I shivered: she looked at me always, her burning eyes now humid and soft with tears.

"In open war, in combat, all you wish," I said to her slowly. "But an old man—in secret—to be his assassin—"

My voice failed me. I saw the light in the lamp that swung above, oscillating between us: it seemed to me like the frail life of Taddeo Marchioni that swung on a thread at our will.

She drew herself upward once more. Her tears were burned up in the fires of a terrible dumb rage. She cried aloud, "You are a coward. Go!"

I fell once more at her feet; I seized her by her gown; I kissed her feet. "Any other thing!" I cried to her in my anguish—"any other thing! But the life of a weak old man! It would be horrible. I am not a coward: I am brave. It is for cowards to kill the feeble: I cannot. And you would not wish it? No, no, you would not wish it? It is a dream, a nightmare! It is not possible. I adore you! I adore you! I am a madman. I am yours; I give you my life; I give you my body and my soul. But to kill a feeble old man that I could crush in my arms as a fly is stifled in wine! No, no, no! Any other thing, any other thing! But not that."

She thrust me from her with her foot. "That or nothing," she said coldly.

The sweat fell from my brow in the agony of this horrible hour. I was ready to give my life for her, but an old man, a murder done in secret! All my soul revolted.

"But you love me!" I cried to her; and a great sob rose in my throat.

"You refuse to do this thing?" she answered.

"Yes."

Then she threw me away from her with the strength of a tigress: "Imbecile! You thought I loved you? I should have used you: that is all."

The lamp went out: the darkness was complete. I stretched my hands out, to meet but empty air. If I were alone I could not tell: I touched nothing, I heard nothing, I saw nothing. A strange giddiness came upon me; my limbs trembled under the weight of my body and gave way; I lost consciousness. It is what we call in this country a stroke of the blood.

When my senses revived I opened my eyes. It was still night about me, but a pallid light shone into the chamber, for the moon had risen, and its rays penetrated through the iron bars of the high windows. I remembered all.

I rose with pain and effort: the heavy fall on the stone floor had bruised and strained me. A great stupor, the stupor of horror, had fallen upon me. I felt all at once old, quite old. The thought of my mother passed through my mind for the first time for many days. My poor mother!

By the light of the moon I tried to find my way out of this chamber—a chamber accursed. I gained the entrance of the gallery. Silence reigned everywhere. I could not tell what hour it was. The lustre from the skies sufficed to illumine fitfully the vast and sombre passages. I found the door by which I had entered the house, and I felt the hot air of the night blow upon my forehead, as hot now as it had been at noonday.

I passed into the great open court. Above it hung the moon, late risen, round, yellow, luminous. I looked upward at it: this familiar object seemed to me a strange and unknown thing. I walked slowly across the pavement of the courtyard on a sheer instinct, as you may see a wounded dog walk, bearing death in him. My heart seemed like a stone in my breast: my blood seemed like ice in my veins. All around me were the walls of Sant' Aloisa, silent, gray, austere.

My foot touched something on the ground. I looked at it. It was a thing without form—a block of oak wood or a slab of marble?—yet I looked at it, and my eyes were rooted there and could not look elsewhere. The moon shed a sinister white light upon this thing. I looked long, standing there motionless and without power to move. Then I saw what it was, this shapeless thing: it was the body of Taddeo Marchioni—dead, horribly dead, fallen face downward, stretched out upon the stones, a knife plunged into the back of the throat, and left there. He had been stabbed from behind.

I looked, I saw, I understood: it was her act.

I stooped; I touched the corpse; I turned the face to the light; I searched for a pulse of life, a breath. There was none: he was dead. A single blow had been given, and the blow had been sure. A ghastly grimace distended the thin lips of the toothless mouth; the eyes were starting from their orbits; the hands were clenched: it had been a death swift, silent, violent, terrible.

I drew out the knife, deep buried in the bone of the throat below the skull. It was my knife, the same with which I had slashed asunder the boughs of the vines in the day just gone in the vintage-fields. She had taken it, no doubt, from my girdle when I had fallen at her feet.

"I understand," I said to the dead man: "it is her work."

The dead mouth seemed to laugh.

A casement opened on the court. A voice cried aloud. The voice was hers: it cried for help. From the silent dwelling came a sound of hurrying feet: the flame of a torch borne in a peasant's hand fell red on the livid moonlight.

She came with naked feet, with unloosed hair, as though roused from her bed, beautiful in her disarray, and crying aloud, "An assassin! an assassin!"

I understood all. She meant to send me to the scaffold in her place. It was my knife: that would be testimony enough for a tribunal. Justice is blind.

She cried aloud: they seized me, and the dead man lay between us, stretched on the stones and bathed in blood. I looked at her: she did not tremble.

But she had forgotten that I was strong—strong with the strength of the lion, of the bull, of the eagle. She had forgotten. With a gesture I flung far away from me, against the walls, the men who had seized me: with a bound I sprang upon her. I took her in my arms in her naked loveliness, scarcely veiled by the disordered linen, by the loosened hair, and shining like marble in the glisten of the moon. I seized her in my arms; I kissed her on her lips; I pressed against my heart her beautiful white bosom. Then between her two breasts I plunged my knife, red with the blood of her dead lord. "I avenge Phoebus," I said to her.

Now you know why to-morrow they will kill me, why my mother is mad.

Hush! I am tired. Let me sleep in peace.

* * * * *

And on the morrow he slept.

OUIDA.



STUDIES IN THE SLUMS.

III.—NAN; OR, A GIRL'S LIFE.

"An' this one? Lord have mercy on her, an' forgive me for saying it the way I do every time I look at her! It comes out of itself, an' there's times when I could think for a minute that He will; an' then it comes over me like a blackness on everything that her chance is gone. Look at that one by her. Ain't he a rough? Ain't he just fit for the Rogues' Gallery, an' nowhere else? And yet—Well, it's a long story, an' you won't want to hear it all."

"Every word," I said. "For once, we are all alone, and the rain pours down so nobody is likely to interrupt. Such a face as that could hardly help having a story, and a strange one."

"The most of it happens often enough, but I'll tell you. You think it's pretty, but that black an' white thing doesn't tell much. If you could once have looked at her, you'd have wanted to do something, same as 'most everybody did when the time for doin' was over. Let me get my bit of work, an' then I'll tell you."

It was in the "McAuley Mission-parlor." The street below, cleared by the pouring rain, was comparatively silent, though now and then a sailor swung by unmindful of wet, or the sound of a banjo came from the tenement-houses opposite. Below us, in the chapel, the janitor scrubbed vigorously to the tune which seems for some unknown reason to be always a powerful motive-power,

"I'm goin' home, no more to roam,"

the brush coming down with a whack at each measure. In my hands was the mission album, a motley collection of faces, as devoid of Nature or any clew to the real characteristics of the owners as the average photograph usually is, but here and there one with a suggestion of interest and, in this special case, of beauty—a delicate, pensive face, with a mass of floating hair, deep, dark eyes, and exquisite curves in cheek and lip and chin—the face of some gently born and nurtured maiden, looking dreamily out upon a world which thus far, at least, could have shown her only its tender, never its cruel or unfriendly, side, and not, as its place would indicate, that of one who had somehow and at some strange time found a home in these slums. Beauty of a vulgar, striking sort is common enough there—vivid coloring, even a sparkle and light poverty has had no power to kill—but this face had no share in such dower, and the dark, soft eyes had a compelling power which made mine search them for their secret,—not theirs, after all, it might prove, but only a gift from some remote ancestor, who could transmit outline, and even expression, but not the soul that had made them.

Mrs. McAuley slipped the picture from its place as she sat down by me again. "I ought to have done that long ago," she said. "Jerry is always telling me I've no business to keep it where everybody can look at it an' ask about her; an' I hadn't, indeed, for it brings up a time I'd hardly think or talk about unless I had to for some good. I'll put it away with two or three more I keep for myself; an' Jerry'll be glad of it, for he hates to think of her, 'most as much as I do.

"Her father and mother? Ah, that's it: if she'd had them! But, you see, her mother was a young thing that wasn't used to roughing it, an' this Nan only a baby then. They were decent English folks, an' he looked like a gentleman; but all we know was that she died of ship-fever on the passage over, an' was buried at sea; an' he had it too, an' came 'most as nigh dyin', an' just had strength to crawl ashore with Nan in his arms. He'd a cousin in the Bowery, a woman that kept a little store for notions, but didn't make any headway on account of two drinkin' sons; an' he went to her, an' just fell on the floor before he'd half finished his story. She put him to bed, and, though the sons swore he shouldn't stay, an' said they'd chuck him out on the sidewalk, she had her way. It didn't take him long to die, an' he'd a good bit of money that reconciled them; but when he was gone there was the baby, just walkin' an' toddlin' into everything, an' would scream if Pete came near her. He was the oldest, an' he hated her worse than poison, an' about once in so often he'd swear he'd send her to the orphan asylum or anywhere that she'd be out of his sight. Jack didn't care one way or another, but the mother was just bound up in the little thing; an' she was, they said, just that wonderful-lookin' that people stopped an' stared at her. Her eyes weren't black, as they look there, but gray, with those long curly lashes that looked innocent an' baby-like to the very last minute; and her hair—oh, you never saw such hair! Not bleached out, as they do it now, to a dead yellow, but a pure gold-color, an' every thread of it alive. I've taken hold of it many a time to see it curl round my finger, an' the little rings of it lying round her forehead; an' her face to the last as pure-lookin' as a pearl—clear an' soft, you know—an', when I saw her first, with a little color in her cheeks no deeper than the pink in a pink rose.

"Now, it'll seem to you like a bit out of the Police Gazette or those horrid story-papers, but, do you know, when she wasn't three Pete came home one night just drunk enough to be cunnin', an' he said, after he'd had his supper, he wanted to take the child a little way, only round the corner, to show her to some friends of his. Mrs. Simpson said No—whoever wanted to see her could come there, but she shouldn't let her be taken round. The shop-bell rang that minute, an' she went out. It wasn't ten minutes, but when she came back Pete an' the child weren't there. She ran to the door an' looked up an' down the street, but it was twelve years before she ever saw that child again. Pete was gone a week, an' when he come home not a word would he say but that the child was safe enough, an' he'd had enough of her round under foot. They had high words. She told him he should never have another cent till Nan was brought back, an' he went out swearin' an' cursin', to be brought home in half an hour past any tellin' in this world. He'd been knocked down an' run over by a fire-engine, an', though there was life enough left to look at his mother an' try to speak, speak he couldn't.

"Well, there was nothin' that woman didn't do, far as her money would go. She'd a nephew was a policeman, an' he hunted, an' plenty more, but never a sign or a word. She couldn't get out much on account of the shop, but whenever she did there wasn't a beggar with a child that she wouldn't stop an' look with all her eyes to see if it might be Nan. You wouldn't think anybody would take a child that way to be tormented with, when there's hundreds runnin' round loose that nobody claims; but, for all that, it's done. Not as often as people think. There's more kidnappin' in the story-papers than ever gets done really, but it does happen now and then. An' New York's a better place to hide in than anywheres out of it. I know plenty of places this minute where the police couldn't find a man if they hunted a month.

"Pete Simpson took this child to a hole in the Five Points, rag-pickers an' beggars an' worse, an' gave her to a woman that took children that was wanted out o' the way. He paid her a dollar, an' said she could make enough out of her to pay for the trouble, she was so fair-lookin'. She was one of the women that sit round with a baby an' one or two children close to her, mostly with laudanum enough to make 'em stupid.

"Nan was spirited, an' she screamed an' fought, but blows soon hushed her. She remembered, she's told me. She didn't know where she'd come from, but she knew it was clean an' decent, an' she wouldn't eat till hunger made her. Then there was a long time she came up with three or four that made a kind of a livin' pickin' pockets an' a turn now an' then as newsboys, or beggin' cold victuals an' pickin' up any light thing they could see if they were let in. Nan changed hands a dozen times, an' she never would have known where she come from if Charley Calkins hadn't kept half an eye to her. He was six years older, an' nobody knew who he belonged to; an' he an' Nan picked rags together, an' whatever trick he knew he taught her. They cropped her hair, an' dirt hid all the prettiness there was, but by ten she'd learned enough to get any bit of finery she could, an' to fight 'em off when they wanted to cut her hair still. She'd dance an' sing to any hand-organ that come along; an' that was where I saw her first—when she was twelve, I should think—with a lot o' men an' boys standin' round, an' she dancin' an' singin' till the very monkey on the organ danced too. I was in a house on Cherry street then, with some girls that played at a variety theatre on the Bowery, an' Nan by this time was so tall they'd made her a waiter-girl in one of the beer-shops. It was there the theatre-man saw her one day goin' down to the ferry. He thought she was older, for she never let on, an' she was tall as she ever was, an' her hair floatin' back the way she would always have it. She could read. She'd been to school one term, because she would, an' she had a way with her that you'd think she was twenty. So it didn't take long. The variety-man said he'd make her fortune, an' she thought he would; an' next day she come an' told me she had agreed for three years.

"She didn't know there was work in it, but she soon found there was just as much drudgery as in the rag-pickin' or a beer-shop. But she had an ambition. She said she'd started here, an' she would stay an' learn everything there was, but she believed she should be an actress in the Old Bowery yet. That seemed a great thing to me in those days, an' I looked at her an' wondered if she knew enough, an' if she'd speak to us when she got there. She was so silent sometimes that it daunted us, an' then she'd have spells of bein' wilder than the wildest; but she said straight enough, 'I'm not goin' to stay down in this hole: I'm goin' to be rich an' a lady; an' you'll see it.'

"The time came when she did get to the Old Bowery, an' the manager glad to have her too. The variety-man swore he'd kill her for leavin', for she drew at the last bigger houses than he ever had again. How she learned it all you couldn't tell, but the night we all turned out to see her in The Rover's Bride you'd have said yourself she was wonderful—painted of course, and fixed off, but a voice that made you cry, an' a way just as natural as if she believed every word she said. An' when she came out the third time, after such a stampin' an' callin' as you never heard, with her eyes shinin' an' such a smile, I cried with all my might.

"It was the very next day. Charley Calkins was bar-tender in a saloon, but getting off whenever he could to see Nan act. That was another thing. She wouldn't take any fancy name, but was Nan Evans straight through—on the bills an' everywhere—an' every one she'd grown up with went to see her, an' felt sort of proud to think she belonged to the Fourth Ward. An' a strange thing was, that, though so many were after her, she never seemed to care for anybody but this Charley, that had knocked her round himself, though he wouldn't let anybody else.

"Well, the old woman that had taken her first was dyin'. She was Charley's aunt, an' so she sent for him, for want of any other relation, an' told him she'd a little money for him, an' was a mind to give a little to Nan. Charley said, 'All right!' He knew she most likely had a good bit, for they often do, but then he said, 'You've always kept to yourself where you got Nan, an' I'm a mind to know.'—'Simpson's, up the Bowery,' she said; an' that was the very last word she ever spoke. She left thirteen hundred dollars in the Bowery Bank, an' it seemed as if there were odd sums in every bunch of rags in the room, so that Charley had enough to set him up pretty well. An' it didn't take him long after he started his own saloon near the theatre to find out, among all the Simpsons, the woman that had had Nan. She had her store still, an' a young woman to help her, an' she cried a little when Charley told her. But she was a member of the Mott Street Church, an' when she said, 'Where is she now? and why don't she come herself?' an' Charley said, 'She couldn't, because rehearsal's going on,' she looked at him.

"'Re-what?' says she.

"'Re-hearsal: she's an actress,' says he; an' she shut her eyes up as if the sight of him after such words was poison.

"'I want nothing to do with her,' says she. 'I've had my fill of sorrow an' trouble from wickedness. You can go, an' say no more.'

"This didn't suit Charley, for he knew how Nan kept herself sort of respectable even when she was with the worst, an' he was bound to find out all he could.

"Well, he hung on an' asked questions till he'd found out all there was, an' that was little, as you know. But Nan had wondered many a time where she came from, an' if she'd ever belonged to anybody, an' he wanted to be the first one to tell her. He scared the old lady, for he wasn't long from the Island, where he'd been sent up for assault an' battery, an', do what you would to him, clothes nor nothin' could ever make him look like anything but a rough. But he was bound to know, for he thought there might be money belonging to her or folks that would do for her. There wasn't a soul, though, that he could find out, an' the next thing was to go to Nan an' tell her about it. They'd have been wiser to have waited a day, till the old lady'd a chance to quiet down and think it all over; but he went straight to Nan an' told her he'd found some of her folks; an' she, without a word, put on her hat an' went with him. If she'd been alone it might have been better, for Charley seemed worse than he was. The old lady was in the room back of the shop, neat as a pin, an' Nan looked as if she was looking through everything to see if she could remember.

"An' when the old lady saw her there was a minute she cried again an' took hold of Nan. 'It's her very look,' she said, 'an' her hair an' all;' but then she stiffened. 'I've no call to feel sure,' she said, 'but if you are Nan, an' want to be decent, an' will give up all your wickedness, an' come here an' repent, I'll keep you.'

"'Wickedness?' Nan says, sort of bewildered—'repent?'

"'I don't know as it would do, either,' the old lady said, beginning to be doubtful again. 'A lost creature, that's only a disgrace, so that I couldn't hold my head up, any more'n I can when I think how Pete went: I couldn't well stand it.'

"'You won't have to,' said Nan, with her head high. 'I did think I'd found some folks, but it seems not;' an' out she went.

"Charley shook his fist an' swore. 'Nice folks, Christians are!' he said. 'I like 'em,——'em! I'd like to burn her shop over her head!'

"'Nonsense!' Nan said, as if she didn't mind a bit. 'I thought it would feel good to have somebody I belonged to, but it wouldn't. I never could stand anything like her shaking her head over me; but it's strange how I've always been hoping, an' now how I don't care.'

"Then Charley told her she'd better go home with him: he'd got a comfortable, nice place, an' he'd never bother her. They'd talked it over many a time, but she'd held off, always thinking she might find her folks.

"Marriage didn't mean anything to either of them. How could it, coming up the way they had? though she'd never been like the other girls. You can't think how they could be the heathen they were? Remember what you've seen an' heard in this very place, an' then remember that ten years ago, even, a decent man or woman didn't dare go up these alleys even by daylight, an' the two or three missionaries were in danger of their lives; an' you'll see how much chance they'd had of learning.

"Nan wasn't sixteen then, an' she didn't think ahead, though if she had likely she would have done the same. She had her choice, but she'd always known Charley, an' so it ended that way.

"Then came a long time when my own troubles were thick, an' I went off to the country an' lost sight of her. It was two years before I came back, an' then everything was changed. All that set I'd known seemed to have gone to the bad together—some in prison and some dead. Jerry was out then, an' we were married an' began together in the little room down the street; an' now I thought often of Nan. They told me Charley was drinkin' himself to death, an' that she was at the theatre still, an' kept things goin' with her money, an' that he knocked her round, when he was out of his head, the worst way. It wasn't long before I went to her. She looked so beautiful you wouldn't think a fiend could want to hurt her, an' her eyes had just the look of that picture. I told her how I had turned about, an' how happy we both were, in spite of hard times an' little work; but she listened like one in a dream, an' I knew enough to see that I should have to tell her many times before she would understand or care. But she seemed so frail I couldn't bear to leave her so. An' the worst of it was, that she'd begun to wish Charley would marry her, an' he thought it was all nonsense, an' swore at her if she said a word about it. She'd been gettin' more and more sensible, an' he'd just been goin' the other way, but she kept her old fondness for him. I said nothing then, but one day I found her cryin', an' her arm so she could hardly move it; an' it came out he'd knocked her down, an' told her she could clear out when she liked, for he was sick of her pale face an' her big eyes an' her airs, an' meant to bring a woman there with some life in her."

"'Things don't come out as we plan,' she said. 'I was going to be a lady, but I forgot that anybody had anything to do with it but myself. An' now I can't go to any decent place, an' Charley doesn't want me any longer. See how nice it all looks here, Maria. I've fixed it myself, an' I've always been so glad that after the play was over I could come home—not to somebody else's room, but my own place—an' I never thought there was any reason why it wouldn't always be my place. Men aren't like women. I was true to Charley, and I'll never think of anybody else; but he says I must get out of this.'

"Well, I wanted her to understand that I knew plenty would help her, an' I tried to tell her she could begin a different life; but she just opened her eyes, astonished at me.

"'You think I'd go to one of those Homes?' she said. 'You're crazy. I can make my livin' easy enough at the theatre, even if I'm not so strong as I was. What have I done more than anybody, after all? Do you think I'd be pointed at an' talked over the way those women are? I'd throw myself in the river first! I've learned enough these years. I go to church sometimes, an' hear men in the pulpit talk about things I know better than they do. I've found out what the good people, the respectable people, are like. I've found out, too, what I might have been, an' that if I live a thousand years I never can be it in this world; an' that's one reason I thought Charley might be willing to marry me. But I shall never say anything more now, for, you see, it isn't goin' to make so very much matter. I had a bad cold in the spring, an' the doctor said then I must be very careful or I should go with consumption. See my arm? They said the other day I'd have to do something to plump up, but I never shall: I'm goin', an' I'm glad of it.'

"'Then, if that's got to be, let it be goin' home,' I said. 'Nan, there's everything waitin' for you if you'll only take it. Come down to one of the meetin's an' you'll hear. Won't you?'

"'I don't understand it,' she said. 'Everything's in a twist. Years an' years and never hear of God, an' not a soul come near you to tell about Him, an' all at once they say He loves you, and always has. Bah! If He loved, an' people think about it as they pretend, how dare they let there be such places for us to come up in? If God is what they say, He ought to strike the people dead that keep Him to themselves till it is too late for us ever to be helped. There! I won't talk about it. I don't care: all I want is quiet, an' I'll have it soon.'

"I saw there was no use then, an' I made up my mind. I'd seen this Mrs. Simpson, for Nan had told me when it all happened, an' I'd gone to the store on purpose; an' I went straight there. 'I've come from Nan,' I said, 'but she doesn't know it. She's a dyin' girl, an' as you helped the father I want you to help the daughter. You're a Christian woman, an' the only soul belongin' to her, an' the time's come to do something.'

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

"'It's through your own son that she grew up to know no better,' I said, for I knew the whole story then, though nobody did when she was down there. 'It's for you to give her your hand now, an' not throw it up to her, any more'n the Lord when he said, "Go, and sin no more." She's in trouble an' sick, and doesn't know what way to turn, an' sore-hearted; an' if you would go to her in the right way you might save a soul, for then she'd believe people meant what they said.'

"'She's the same to me as dead,' she said. 'I mourned her sharp enough, but it ain't in nature to take one again after they've been thought dead; an' you know they're straight from corruption itself. There's places for her to go if she's tired of wickedness, but I don't want to see her bold face, an' her head high, as if she was respectable. An' I don't want to be plagued no more. I don't deny I lotted on her before she was took away, but I never want to think about her again; so you needn't come nor send. I've said my say, an' I hope the Lord will save her.'

"'It's good He's more merciful than His creatures,' I said; an' I went away more angry than I ever want to get. I couldn't quite make it out—I can't to this day—how she could mourn so over the child, an' yet never have a thought for all the years she'd had to suffer.

"There came a month that everything crowded. I thought of Nan, but couldn't go up, till one day Tom Owens came in—you know him—an' he said, 'It's all up with Charley Calkins.'

"'How?' I said.

"'Smallpox,' he said, 'an' Nan's dropped everything to nurse him. She'd left there, they said, an' the woman he brought in to take her place cut the minute she found he had the smallpox. He won't live, they say.'

"This was before they were so particular about carrying them off to hospital. The house was cleared an' the saloon shut up, but Nan was allowed to stay because she'd been exposed anyway, an' it was no use to send her off. He had it the worst way, an' he'd scream an' swear he wouldn't die, an' strike out at her, though he couldn't see, his face and eyes bein' all closed up. It didn't last but a week, and then he died, but Nan hadn't taken off her clothes or hardly slept one instant. He was stupid at the last, an' when she saw he was gone she fell on the floor in a faint; an' when she come to the blood poured from her mouth, an' all they could do was to take her off to the hospital. She didn't take the smallpox, but it was a good while before she could be let to see anybody. When they thought it was safe she sent for me, but it was hard to think it could be the same Nan I'd known. Every breath come with pain, and she was wasted to a shadow, but she smiled at me an' drew me down to kiss her. 'You see, I sha'n't be troubled or make trouble much longer,' she said, 'but oh, if I only could rest!'

"Poor soul! She couldn't breathe lyin' down, nor sleep but a bit at a time, an' it was awful to have her goin' so, an' she not twenty.

"I knelt down by her. She had a little room to herself, for she had some money yet, and I prayed till I couldn't speak for crying. 'Nan, Nan!' I said, 'you're goin' straight to the next world, an' you've got to be judged. What will you do without a Saviour? Try to think about it.'

"She patted my hand as if I were the one to be quieted. 'Don't bother,' she said: 'I don't mind, an' you mustn't. If He's as good as you say He'll see that it's all right. I'm too tired to care: I only want to get through. There's nothing to live for, an' I'm glad it's 'most over. I want you to come every day, for it won't be long.'

"'Let me bring Jerry,' I said, but she only laughed. She'd known him at his hardest, an' couldn't realize he might be different; but after a week or two she let him come, an' she'd lie an' listen with a sort of wonder as she watched him. But nothing seemed to take hold of her. She looked like a flower lyin' there, an' you'd think her only a child, for they'd cut her hair, and it lay in little rings all over her head; an' Jerry just cried over her, to think that unless she hearkened she was lost. She liked to be read to, but you couldn't make her believe, somehow, that any of it was real. 'I'd believe it if I could,' she said, 'but why should I? I don't see why you do. It sounds good, but it doesn't seem to mean anything. Why hasn't anybody ever told me before?'

"'Try to believe, only try!' I'd say. 'Ask God to make you. He can, and He will if you only ask;' but all she'd say was, 'I don't seem to care enough. How can I? If it is true He will see about it.'

"That was only a day or two before the end. The opium, maybe, hindered her thinkin', but she looked quiet an' no sign of trouble between the coughing-times. The last night of all I stayed with her. They said she would go at daybreak, an' I sat an' watched an' prayed, beggin' for one word or sign that the Lord heard us. It never came, though. She opened her eyes suddenly from a half sleep, and threw out her hands. I took one, but she did not know me. She looked toward the east and smiled. 'Why! are you coming for me?' she said, and then fell back, but that look stayed—a smile as sweet as was ever on a mortal face. An' that's why I never can help sayin', 'Lord have mercy on her!' and do you wonder even when I know better? But—"

HELEN CAMPBELL.



MY TREASURE.

Under the sea my treasure lies— Only a pair of starry eyes, That looked out from their azure skies With innocent wonder, sweet surprise, That they should have strayed from Paradise.

Under the sea lies my treasure low— Little white hands like flakes of snow, Once soft and warm; and I loved them so! Ah! the tide will come and the tide will go, But their tender touch I shall never know.

Under the sea—oh, wealth most rare!— Are silken tresses of golden hair, Each amber thread, each lock so fair, Gleaming out from the darkness there, With the same soft light they used to wear.

Under the sea—oh, treasure sweet!— Lies a curl-crowned head and tiny feet That in days gone by, when the shadows fleet Were growing long in the darkening street, Came bounding forth their love to meet.

And I sometimes think, as down by the sea I sit and dream, that there comes to me From my darling a message that none may see, Save those who can read love's mystery By Nature written on leaf and tree.

Strange things to my spirit-eyes lie bare In the azure depths of the summer air: Through the snowy leaves of the lily fair Gleams her pure white soul, and I compare Its golden heart to her sunny hair.

The perfume nestling among the leaves, Or blown on the wind from the autumn sheaves, Is her spirit of love, my soul believes; And while my stricken heart still grieves That gentle presence its pang relieves.

A shell is cast by the waves at my feet, With its wondrous music low and sweet; And in its murmuring tones I greet The voice of my love, while its crimson flush From her fair young cheek has stolen the blush.

Mid white foam, tossed on the pebbly strand, I catch a glimpse of a waving hand: 'Tis a greeting that well I understand; But to those who see not the soul of things 'Tis only the spray which the wild wave flings.

The pearl's rare whiteness, the coral's red, From the brow and the lip of my beautiful dead Their soft tints stole when her spirit fled; And it seems to me that sweet words, unsaid By my darling, gleam through the light they shed.

Thus down by the sea, in the white sunshine, While the winds and the waves their sighs combine, I sit, and wait from my love a sign; And a message comes to my waiting eyes From under the sea where my treasure lies.

H. L. LEONARD.



ON SPELLING REFORM.

The agitation for "reform" in English spelling continues, but, so far, without involving anything that can be properly called discussion. Discussion implies argument on both sides—a striking by twos. Most of the appeals to the public on this subject, whether through the newspapers and magazines or on the platform, have been made by the advocates of the movement. The other side, if another side there be, has been comparatively silent, uttering occasionally only words of dissent. I presume this follows a law of Nature: those who favor movement move, and those who desire peace keep it and are still. But it ought not to be inferred that the noise made by the "spelling reformers" is representative of the scholarship of the country, or that the silence of the conservatives indicates acquiescence in all the propositions suggested and urged by the radicals. There is much that can be said that has not been said. Some late announcements on the part of those who advocate the evisceration of the English language and literature are of a kind to call for some reply. I have no desire, at present, to enter into an elaborate discussion of the merits or demerits of the new departure in literature. The present agitation is only a skirmish, and ought not to be dignified by the title of a battle: whether we shall have a battle on this skirmish-line remains to be seen.

In the January number of the Princeton Review there appeared a paper from the pen of Professor Francis A. March in commendation of the "reform." The professor is one of the most active as well as able of those who have spoken on that side, and, while he incidentally and modestly crowns Mr. George P. Marsh as chief of the movement, his fellow-soldiers, if they are wise, will bestow the crown upon him. In the article referred to the professor emphasizes his earnestness by securing the printing of his admirable paper in the peculiar orthography he advocates. This orthography is practically the same as that advocated and contended for by the American Philological Association and the Spelling-Reform Association. Any criticism, therefore, of the peculiar orthography of the professor's paper is a criticism of the adopted orthography of the whole body of "reformers," so far as they are agreed, for in some details they still disagree.

The readers of the professor's paper will notice that in a large number of words the usual terminal ed is changed to t. This is in accordance with one of the rules recommended by the Spelling-Reform Association and laid down authoritatively by the American Philological Association. The phraseology of the rule is to make the substitution where-ever the final ed "has the sound of t." It is to the professor's application of this rule that I now desire to call the attention of the reader. The "reformers" write broacht, ceast, distinguisht, establisht, introduct, past, prejudict, pronounct, rankt, pluckt, learnt, reduct, spelt, trickt, uneartht, and assert that they write the words as they pronounce them. In the rule given by the A.P.A. for the substitution of ed for t, lasht and imprest are given as examples.

All of us are undoubtedly aware of the ease with which the sound represented by ed can be reduced to a t-sound in vocalization. But even if the sound of t is given at the termination of the words named, not much is gained by the "reform" in the actual use of the words. On the contrary, it adds another tangle in the skein which children at school must untangle. It either forms another class of regular verbs, or swells the already almost unmanageable list of irregular verbs. In either case it is shifting the burden from the shoulders of adults to those of children, already, as the reformers tell us, overburdened and overworked. When a man really and sincerely asks himself the question, "Do I pronounce lashed as though written lasht?" and tests his own practice in that respect, it will not take him long to determine that he does not know. It requires a very delicate ear to make the determination. This may also be said of most of the words quoted above. The terminal ed means something: it means what it purports to mean when used. The t may have a meaning, but that meaning cannot accompany it when it acts as a substitute for ed. The common-sense view would be, in cases of doubt, to use letters with a significance you desire to convey by their use.

In the paper to which I have referred Professor March informs us that "what the scholars want for historical spelling is a simple and uniform fonetic system, which shall record the current pronunciation." This assumption is not accidental, I think, nor is the spirit of the Pharisee confined to Professor March. Nearly all of the advocates of this special "reform" assume the prerogative of determining who are and who are not "scholars." In the same paper the professor says: "The scholars proper have, in truth, lost all patience with the etymological objection. 'Save us from such champions!' says Professor Whitney: 'they may be allowed to speak for themselves, since they know best their own infirmity of back and need of braces: the rest of the guild, however, will thank them for nothing.'" Again: "In conclusion, it may be observed that it is mainly among half-taught dabblers in filology that etymological spelling has found its supporters. All true filologists and filological bodies have uniformly denounct it as a monstrous absurdity, both from a practical and a scientific point of view." The professor also quotes approvingly Professor Lounsbury as saying that the "spelling reform numbers among its advocates every linguistic scholar of any eminence whatever." Of course, these statements, whether made by Professor March or by the distinguished scholars whom he cites, are strong arguments. That the professor so considers them is attested by the logical conclusion drawn from them in the very next paragraph after the one in which they are given. There he says: "It may be taken, then, as certain, and agreed by all whose judgment is entitled to consideration, that there are no sound arguments against fonetic spelling to be drawn from scientific and historical considerations."

We always forgive something to enthusiasts and reformers. They are expected to effervesce once in a while, and when they indulge in gush and self-appreciation it is taken as a matter of course. Whether or not it strengthens or weakens their arguments is yet to be determined. At any rate, the exhibit that is made of them and of their intemperance is furnished by themselves.

There is an illogical argument for the new spelling drawn from the published facts of illiteracy. We are told that the last national census reports 5,658,144 persons, ten years of age and over, who cannot read and write, and this number is said to be "one-fifth of the whole population." The census of 1870 reports a total population of 38,558,371, and a total of illiterates, ten years of age and over, of 5,660,074, which is only 14-1/2 per cent. of the total population. This is nearer one-seventh than one-fifth. This "one-fifth" the professor compares with the number of illiterates in other countries in order to bring discredit upon the English language, showing by the comparison that there is a larger percentage of illiterates where the English language is spoken and written than in non-English Protestant countries. He reports illiterates in England at 33 per cent. of the population. "In other Protestant countries of Europe they are comparatively few. In Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway there are none to speak of; in Germany, as a whole, they count 12 per cent., but some of the states have none." Professor March asserts that "one of the causes of the excessive illiteracy among the English-speaking people is the difficulty of the English spelling;" and his argument proceeds on the assumption that this is in fact the main cause.

Even if assent be given to the statement that the difficulty attendant upon the acquisition of correctness in English orthography is one of the causes of English and American illiteracy, the next step is to determine the force and efficiency of the cause in that direction; and this determination cannot be had on the basis of bald, unguarded and extravagant statements such as I have cited. The illiteracy of the American people must not be judged by the bare figures given above. The census returns furnish data for a more just discrimination. The statistician must not forget the item of 777,864 illiterates of foreign birth going to swell the grand total. This leaves 4,882,210 native-born illiterates—a percentage of less than 13. Of the native-born illiterates reported by the census returns, there are 2,763,991 reported as colored. This number is more than one-half the colored population, and also over one-half of the whole number of reported native illiterates. I think none of the reformers would insist that the illiteracy of the colored population ought to be charged to "the difficulties of English spelling "—I hardly need to state why: the reason will readily suggest itself to all.

Eliminating from the problem the foreign and colored factors, we find a native white population in 1870 of 28,121,816, and native white illiterates, of ten years of age and over, to the number of 2,102,670—less than 7-1/2 per cent. Of this number of native white illiterates, 1,443,956—two-thirds of the whole—are reported from the States lately known as Slave States. In these States, as is well known, there are peculiar reasons for the illiteracy of the white as well as of the colored native, outside of any consideration of the difficulty of mastering English orthography. This survey takes no account of the native children with foreign parents, as it would not materially disturb the percentage, nor of the populations of New Mexico, Arizona, Southern California and Colorado, all largely settled by Mexicans and Spaniards, among whom there is doubtless a larger percentage of illiterates than among the same number of native whites in the Northern States. If account be taken of all these elements, I think the percentage of illiterates proper to be charged up to the English language and American institutions would be reduced to about 3-1/4 per cent.

The next consideration is as to the cause of this large percentage of illiterates among the native white population of the United States. Professor March ascribes it in part to "the difficulties of the English spelling," and he adds: "We ar now having ernest testimony to this fact from scholars and educators in England." He names Max Mueller and "Dr. Morell, one of Her Majesty's inspectors of schools," and quotes from both of them. Dr. Morell states that in some examinations for the civil service, out of 1972 failures, "1866 candidates were pluckt for spelling; that is, eighteen out of every nineteen who faild, faild in spelling." Max Mueller, as quoted, bears testimony to the fact that in the public schools of England 90 per cent. fail "to read with tolerable ease and expression a passage from a newspaper, and spell the same with tolerable accuracy." This is the substance of the "ernest testimony" from "scholars and educators in England." All this testimony has been previously given by the same "reformer" and by others without variation or corroboration. The facts stated seem to be isolated ones, as well as "grand, gloomy and peculiar." One swallow does not make a summer, nor do one eminent philologist and one uneminent educator make "scholars and educators." But when the testimony is carefully viewed, what does it amount to? Some of the very elements necessary in the consideration of the testimony are wanting. What was the extent of the failures by the candidates for civil service? Did they miss one word or more? Were they more deficient in spelling than in other branches? Of the 90 per cent. of the public-school pupils who failed, what is the class composing those pupils? Were they as deficient in other branches as in spelling? What were the newspaper passages selected for trial? What is meant by "tolerable ease and expression" and "tolerable accuracy"? According to the testimony itself, the reference of Max Mueller is to the "new schools" established since the late extension of education in England. Confessedly, then, this applies to classes of pupils who had formerly been deprived of educational advantages and privileges. It is a wonder that 10 per cent. were successful. The testimony furnished is more "ernest" than valuable.

The state of education in Protestant countries where other languages than the English are spoken is taken as a conclusive argument for the efficiency of phonetic orthography. Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland are named as shining exemplars in this regard. It is because the languages of those countries are orthographic models that the people are so highly educated. The general fact is incontrovertible that among those people there is less illiteracy than among those who speak the English language. As Switzerland has no national language, the Swiss people should not have been named except in company with those others whose languages they use. But the bare fact of the smaller percentage of illiteracy among the people above named is not conclusive as to the retarding and depressing influence which the "difficulties of English spelling" have upon the spread of education among the American people. In Denmark attendance upon school for seven years by every child of school age is compulsory. The number of children of school age for 1876 was 200,761, while the number in attendance upon the public schools was 194,198, the attendance being 96 per cent. of the whole number of children of school age. In addition to the attendance upon the public schools, there were 13,994 in attendance upon private schools: some of these evidently were above or below school age. We thus see how efficiently the compulsory system is enforced. This system is not new to that country, but has been in existence for many years, and the results seem to justify the statement in the Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1871, that "even among the lower classes a remarkable knowledge of general history and geography, but more especially of Scandinavian literature and history," is found.

In Norway, as in Denmark, from the eighth to the fifteenth year attendance upon school is obligatory. In 1866, of a total of 212,137 country children of school age, 206,623, or more than 97 per cent. of the whole, were in attendance at school. In the towns and cities less than 1 per cent. failed to attend school. In Sweden compulsory attendance upon school is the rule. In 1868, of the whole number of children of school age, the average attendance amounted to 97 per cent.

There is no general or national system of common-school instruction in Switzerland. Each canton regulates its own schools. There, as in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, attendance upon schools is made compulsory. In 1870 the attendance of children between six and thirteen years of age was between 95 and 96 per cent. of the whole school population.

Now, what kind of a school system have we in the United States? Here, as in Switzerland, there is no general or national system of school instruction. Each State regulates its own schools in all details. In 1870 the total school population, excluding the Territories, in the United States was 14,093,778; the number actually enrolled in the public schools was 8,881,848, or 63 per cent. of the whole; and the average daily attendance upon the public schools was 4,886,289, or a little over 34-1/2 per cent. of the school population. An inclusion of the Territories in the computation does not vary the percentage in any appreciable degree. In the Northern States only, excluding the Territories, and excluding also Minnesota and Wisconsin, whose returns I have not at hand, there were 8,364,841 school population, while the average daily attendance was only 3,720,133, a trifle over 44 per cent.

In the United States there is practically no compulsory attendance upon school. Schools are provided by the State, and the children attend or refrain from attendance as suits the convenience or wish of the pupils or their parents. That compulsory attendance upon school is productive of a wider and more thorough diffusion of knowledge is probably conceded by all. At least, educators so urge. What would Professor March have? Does he expect to find education as thorough and general among a people of whose school population less than one-half are in usual attendance at school, and less than two-thirds even enrolled as occasional attendants at school, as among a people with whom over 95 per cent. of the school population are in constant and habitual attendance? When we consider the published school statistics of this nation, it is no wonder that about one-seventh of the whole are unable to read and write. Shall we give no credit to compulsory systems of education, and still insist that the illiteracy of the United States is caused in any appreciable degree by the "difficulties of English spelling"?

Early in 1879, Professor Edward North assured us that the Italians and Spaniards have discarded ph for f in philosophy and its fellows. Professor March gleefully records that "the Italians, like the Spaniards, have returned to f. They write and print filosofia" for philosophia, and tisica for phthisica. Professor Lounsbury, in his elaborate articles in Scribner lately, commends the Italians for writing tisico and the Spaniards for writing tisica. These of course are commendations of those peoples for the simplicity of their orthography, and they are mentioned as worthy examples for us. Yet we are not advised by either of the three professors named that the Italians and Spaniards are for that reason gaining upon the English people in intelligence, educational progress and culture. No statistics are advanced disclosing the narrow percentage of illiteracy found in Italy and Spain, and a comparison made between that narrow percentage and the wide percentage already advertised as existing in English-speaking states. If "the difficulties of English spelling" be a serious cause of illiteracy in England and the United States, the simplicity of the Italian and Spanish spelling ought to be a cause of high proficiency in literary and educational attainments among the people of Italy and Spain. A commendation of those two nations for their taste in discarding "Greek orthography" to be effective ought to be supplemented with some evidence of the usefulness of that operation. Unless so supplemented, the commendation can have no weight as an argument. The Anglo-Saxon race has not been accustomed to follow the Latins in literary and educational matters. The past and present condition of those two countries affords no guarantee that their adoption of the so-called simpler spelling is commendable. There are persons whose corroboration of a statement adds no weight to it with their neighbors. It adds no force to the arguments of the "reformers" that the Italians and Spaniards endorse them.

The demand for "spelling reform" is based upon the assumption that the pronunciation constitutes the word—in other words, that the real word is the breath by means of which it is uttered. In the word wished philologists assure us that the letters e d are remains of did, as if it were written did wish; and it certainly has that sense. It is proposed to substitute t for the ed, because, we are told by the "reformers," the t represents the sound given to those two letters. Of course the t stands for nothing: it does not represent any idea. It is only a character, and its pronunciation only a breath, without any significance. The new word cannot mean did wish. The "reformers" must contend that wisht is the real word, or their position cannot be maintained for an instant. If the word still remains wished—"did wish"—though pronounced wisht, their proposition to conform the spelling to the pronunciation is laughable. There can be no conformation and the old words remain. Whenever a change is made in a single letter of a word, the word is broken: it is no longer the same word. The new form becomes a new word, and there can be no objection to any one giving to it any significance he chooses. In a certain sense, and also to a certain extent, letters are representative, and are not the real words. Before the arts of writing and printing were invented the sound of course constituted the representative of the idea sought to be conveyed. The invention of the arts of writing and printing brought into use other representatives of ideas. The cuneiform characters and the hieroglyphics were representatives of ideas, though there could be no pronunciation of them. Letters came into use as representatives merely. In an age of printing it is hardly correct to say that they are only used to signify sounds. They are now more than that: they have become more important than the sounds even. They are now representatives of ideas, and not of sound. Modifications of pronunciation are taking place, and there are variations in the pronunciation of many words, but the word as written and printed is the arbiter.

In the Sanscrit we find the verb kan to see, and the later word gna, to know, as the result of seeing. The words are practically spelled alike, each beginning with a guttural sound. The latter could only have, at first, the idea of acquiring or possessing knowledge by sight. It is evident that the Greek [Greek: gignoscho] and the Latin gnosco came directly from the Sanscrit gna, after the vowel between the guttural g, or k and n, had been eliminated; and it is also evident that the g, or guttural sound, with which gna and its Greek and Latin children began, was vocalized. The other branch of the Aryan family retained the vowel between the guttural sound and the terminal n. Hence we have the Gothic kunnan, kaenna, Anglo-Saxon cunnan, German kennen, to examine, to know. Hence, also, our can, to know, to be able; cunning, knowing, skilful; and know, to perceive, to have knowledge of. While we pronounce know without the guttural sound, the word itself and the significance it embodies necessitate the continued use of the k. The sound of know, as we use it, gives no idea of sight or of knowledge or of ability. When we hear it articulated, and we understand that know is the word meant, we then recognize the sense intended to be conveyed. We are able to do this because of our ability to construct and give arbitrary significance to new words, and to transfer the sense of an old word to one newly formed. When any word is used in speech of which the pronunciation does not correspond with the letters with which the word is written, we instinctively image the written or printed word in the mind, and others apprehend the sense intended. I am aware of a certain answer that may be made to this—namely, that illiterate persons are able to understand a word only from its sound as it falls on their ears; but I am speaking now of a civilized language as used by a civilized people, and illiterates and their language do not come under this purview.

The movement inaugurated by Professor March and his associates contemplates the displacement of the k or guttural sound from know and knowledge, both in writing and speaking. They say, in effect, if not in so many words, that because there is no guttural sound in the pronunciation, therefore there is none in the word. Some people say again, pronouncing the word as it is spelled: others say agen, as, I believe, Professor March does. These two classes mean the same thing, but it is quite evident that they do not say the same thing. Ai cannot be the equivalent of e. To so hold would be to make "confusion worse confounded" in English orthography. By one class of literary people neither is pronounced as though the e were absent, and by another class as though the i were not present. No one, I think, will contend for the identity, or even equivalence, of i and e. If not identical or equivalent, they must be different. If ai is different from e, then again and agen cannot be the same word, and if i and e are neither identical nor equivalent, nither and neether are two different words. The logic of the "reformers" would bring the utmost confusion into the language. It would make two separate words identical in significance. It would make into one word with four different meanings the four words right, rite, write, wright. The words signet and signature are formed from the stem sign, and yet the stem when standing alone has a different vocalization from what it has when used in the derivative words. By the logic of the "reformers" the word sign when used alone is not the same as the same letters, arranged in the same order, when used in signature, signet, resignation and the like. The word is changed, but the original significance remains. When a person responds, even in writing, "It is me," grammarians say he is incorrect—that he ought to say "I." But he means the person and thing he would mean if he said "I." He simply spells "I" in a different way. Is he not just as correct as he who writes no when he means know? or he who writes filosofer when he means philosopher?

But Professor March dogmatically says that "fonetic spelling does not mean that every one is to write as he pronounces or as he thinks he pronounces. There ar all sorts of people. We must hav something else written than 'confessions of provincials.'" This may be understood as modifying the idea expressed earlier in the same paper, that the proper function of writing "is truthfully to represent the present speech." But the difficulties to be encountered in an effort to make the present speech homogeneous will baffle the wisdom of the reformers. I will not answer the question now—I will only ask it: What is the present speech? Who is to determine that? "The scholars formally recognize that there is and ought to be a standard speech and standard writing." I do not quite seize the idea embodied in the above-quoted sentences about writing as we think we pronounce and about "confessions of provincials." We may agree that there ought to be, probably, a standard speech, both spoken and written. That we have the standard written speech must be confessed, or did have until Professor March and his colaborers began the publication of their ideas in "bad spelling." The spoken speech is far from homogeneity. Some of the most pretentious scholars assume that we have a standard of pronunciation. That the standard is not adhered to, and is therefore, to all intents and purposes, no standard at all, is evident. The learned or college-bred use one pronunciation, and for that class that is the standard. Those who are deficient in education do not follow that standard. As the educated seem to drift naturally to centres of population, there is assumed to be a city standard and a country standard of pronunciation. The professor tells us that the country standard must be abolished, the city standard adopted, and then the new era will open out in beauty. Or does he mean, as his words are open to this meaning, that a spoken word is not the word unless it is spoken in accordance with the city or college-bred standard? But sound is sound, by whomsoever uttered, and if the word is mere sound a provincial can make words as well as any one else. The proposition is, the word is the word spoken and not the word written, unless the word is spoken by a provincial. To be the word, it must be intoned and articulated in accordance with the intonation and articulation of the literati. If this is the logical outcome of the position taken by the "spelling reformers," then we know our soundings.

We speak of progress in connection with intellectual, moral, religious, social and political matters and civilization. In the use of the word we discard its true meaning, "stepping forward" in a physical sense. We cannot have an idea that the mind or the morals or the manners take steps. So when we say we will consider a matter we do not necessarily mean that two or more of us will sit together about the matter. When we meet for deliberation there is no process of weighing intended, no proposal to use the scales, in arriving at a conclusion in the matter we have in mind. We say "stepping forward," "sitting together" and "weighing," but we mean something else. When Professor Whitney, in the quotation I have given in the early part of this paper, says of the spelling conservatives, "They know best their own infirmity of back," he has no idea that the back has anything to do with their refusal to follow him in his chimerical ramble after an ideal orthography. When Professor March, in the paper from which I have quoted, says that "a host of scholars are pursuing the historical study of the English language," he means something more than, and different from, what his words indicate, and he certainly doesn't mean what his words do indicate. The matter of pursuit is altogether one of physics. These words of an intellectual significance which I have noted are so used because we have no words in our language which have meanings such as those we attach to them. We are obliged to take words of a physical and material significance and use them as intimations of the sense we wish to convey. As men take a material substance—gold, silver, ivory, wood or stone—and use it as an image or symbol of the deity they worship, so we use words of a material sense to express, in some faint degree, the intellectual and moral ideas we desire to disclose.

The bald statement, expressed or implied, that the sounds we produce in our attempts to utter a word constitute the true word, requires some material modification, but to what extent it is not for me now to discuss. When that necessity for modification is admitted by the reformers, it is for them to survey its limits. They are the aggressors in the contest that is precipitated. They must outline and define their own case.

There are many considerations favorable to a modification of the present spelling of several classes of words. A reform is needed, and must come, but it will not come, and ought not to come, with the character and to the extent desired by the "reformers." A reform that shall make the spelling better, and not merely make it over, should be aided by all admirers of the English language. The just limitations of that reform have not been indicated yet by any of the "reformers." That those limitations will soon be surveyed and marked I do not doubt.

M. B. C. TRUE.



AN OPEN LOOK AT THE POLITICAL SITUATION.

Macaulay, in describing the rise of the two great parties which have alternately governed England during the last two centuries, traces the division to a fundamental distinction which "had always existed and always must exist," causing the human mind "to be drawn in opposite directions by the charm of habit and the charm of novelty," and separating mankind into two classes—those who are "anxious to preserve" and those who are "eager to reform." It seems to us extremely doubtful whether this theory, so neat and compact, so simple to state and so easy to illustrate, would suffice to explain all the struggles, great and small, that have agitated society, varying in character and circumstances, and ranging from fervent emulation to violent collision—from the ferment of ideas which is the surest sign of vitality to the selfish and aimless convulsions that portend dissolution. Applied to that condition of things by which it was suggested, the theory may be allowed to stand. The history of parliamentary government in England, in recent times at least, presents a tolerably fair example of a contest between two parties composed respectively of men who desired and men who resisted innovation—of those who looked forward to an ideal future and those who looked back to an ideal past. That the former should triumph in the long run lay in the very necessity of things; but, whatever may be thought of the changes that have taken place, no one would venture to assert that the contest has ever been conducted with purely selfish aims; that no great principles were involved in it; that the general mass of the voters have been the mere tools of artful leaders; that appeals to the reason, or at least to the interests or the prejudices, of the whole nation or of different classes have been wanting on either side; that at any crisis there has been no discussion of measures, past or prospective, no talk of any question concerning the honor or welfare of the country; or that victory has ever been achieved or contemplated by the employment of mere cunning or fraud. But in a state of things of which one might assert all this without fear of contradiction the existence of two parties, however evenly balanced, could hardly be accounted for by the sway in opposite directions of the charms of habit and of novelty and the natural antagonism between men who are anxious to preserve and men who are eager to reform. That such a state of things may actually exist there can be no doubt, since, if history had no example to offer in the past, one which is equally undeniable and conspicuous is presented by the United States at the present moment. Here is a people divided into two great parties, neither of which is anxious to preserve what the other would seek to destroy, or eager to reform anything which the other would leave untouched; no principle involving any question or policy of the present or the future is inscribed on the banner of either; no discussions are held, no appeals are put forth, with the object of convincing opponents, stimulating supporters, creating public opinion or arousing public sentiment: a great struggle is at hand, and all that any one knows about the nature of it is, that it concerns the possession of the government, and that the chiefs of the winning faction will reward as many as possible of their most active adherents by confirming them in office or appointing them to office—this being the one feature of the matter in which the "charm of habit" and "the charm of novelty" have a visible influence.

We shall probably be told in reply that this state of things is only momentary; that there is now a suspension of arms preparatory to the decisive conflict; that on each side, while the great host of warriors is at rest, the chiefs are in consultation, counting up their resources, preparing the plan of battle—above all, selecting the generalissimo; and that when these arrangements are completed and the time of action draws near the trumpets will give forth no uncertain sound, banners emblazoned with the most heart-stirring devices will be advanced, and we shall fall into line according as our temperaments and sympathies incline us to join with those who are "anxious to preserve" or with those who are "eager to reform." It is of course certain that a few weeks hence the aspect will have changed in some respects: we shall have been told the names of the "candidates" whom we are to support or oppose; we shall hear all that can be learned or imagined about their characters and acts, and see them painted by turns as angels and demons; we shall also be reminded of the traditions which they represent or are figured as representing, and shall be assured that certain shibboleths and watchwords should be the objects of our veneration and certain others of our abhorrence, and that on our choice between them will depend the ruin or salvation of the country. But we shall be no wiser then than we are now in regard to any one measure or set of measures affecting the welfare of the nation, and tending either to preserve or to reform, which one party proposes to carry out and the other to reject. The proclamations of each will be full of promises and disavowals, but these, it is very certain, will not touch a single principle of the least importance which will be disputed by the other. Each party will parade its "record," its glorious achievements in the past, when it carried the country triumphantly through dangers in which the other party had involved it; but on neither side will any distinctive line of policy be enunciated, for the simple reason that on neither side has any distinctive line of policy been conceived or even thought of. Finally, it is not at all certain that the battle will be decided by the usual and regular methods of political warfare—that "the will of the majority" will be allowed to express itself or suffered to prevail—that fraudulent devices or actual violence may not ultimately determine the result.

The inquiry naturally suggests itself how this state of things has been brought about—above all, whether it is, as many intelligent persons seem to suspect, an unavoidable outgrowth of democratic institutions. This, indeed, is a question important not only to us, but to all the civilized nations of the world, for there is nothing more certain in regard to the present tendencies of civilization than that they are setting rapidly and irresistibly toward the general adoption of democratic forms of government. The oldest and greatest of the European nations, after trying almost every conceivable system, has returned, not so much from a deliberate preference as from the breakdown of every other, to that which had twice before failed as an experiment, but which now gives fair promise of successful and permanent operation—a republic based on universal suffrage. In many other countries what is virtually the same system in a somewhat different form seems to be firmly established, and in these the ever-potent example of France may be expected at some more or less remote conjuncture to bring about the final change that shall make the form and the name coincide with the reality. England, which at one time led the van in this movement, has been outstripped by several of the continental nations, but its constant, though somewhat zigzag, advances in the same direction cannot be doubted, while community of race and former relations make the comparison between its condition and prospects and those of the United States more mutually interesting and instructive than any that could be instituted between either and another foreign country.

We are aided in making this comparison by a lecture delivered recently before the Law Academy of Philadelphia, and since published as a pamphlet, in which form we hope it may obtain the wide circulation and general attention which it well merits. In a rapid sketch of the development and present working of the English constitution the author, Judge Hare, shows how the government, which, in theory at least, was originally a personal one, has come to be parliamentary and in the strictest sense popular, that branch of the legislature which is elected by the people having raised itself from a subordinate position "to be the hinge on which all else depends, controlling the House of Lords, selecting the ministers and wielding through them the power of the Crown." Hence a complete harmony, which whenever it is broken is instantly restored, between the executive and the legislature, the latter in turn being the organ of the public sentiment, which acts through unobstructed channels and can neither be defied nor evaded. In America, on the other hand, to say nothing of those organic provisions of the Constitution which render the executive and the two branches of the legislature mutually independent, and sometimes, consequently, out of harmony with each other, divergent in their action and liable to an absolute deadlock, the method by which it was directly intended to secure the result that has been fortuitously obtained in England—namely, the selection of an executive by a deliberative assembly chosen by the people—has been practically subverted and its purpose utterly frustrated. The Electoral Colleges do not elect, but merely report the result of an election. This, on the surface, is a change in the direction of a more complete democracy. What was devised as a check on the popular impulse of the moment has broken down, and the people have taken into their own hands the mission they were expected to entrust to a small representative body. But, while thus assuming an apparently absolute freedom of choice, they virtually, and we may say necessarily, surrendered to small, nominally representative, bodies the designation of the persons between whom the choice must be made. These bodies, unknown to the Constitution, not elected or convoked or regulated by any processes or forms of law, have taken upon themselves all the functions of the electors, except that it is left to the people to throw the casting vote. Now, whatever may be thought of the actual workings of this system, it seems to us to be in itself the result of a change as natural and legitimate as any that has taken place in the practice of the English constitution. The Electoral College was one of those devices which are theoretically simple and beautiful, but which have never worked beneficially since the world began; and we have perhaps some reason to be grateful that it was virtually superseded before it had time to become the focus of intrigue and corruption which was otherwise its inevitable fate. Since the choice of a President could not be remitted to one or both Houses of Congress—which would have been the least objectionable plan—and has devolved upon the people, some previous process of sifting and nominating is indispensable in order that there may be a real and effective election; and we do not see that any method of accomplishing this object could have been devised more suitable in itself or more conformable to the general character of our political system than that which has been adopted. Conventions representing the great mass of the electors and various shades of opinion might be counted upon to select the most eligible candidates—eligible, that is to say, in the sense of having the best chance amongst the members of their respective parties of being elected. For a long period this system worked sufficiently well. If the ablest men were not put forward, this was understood to be because they were not also the most popular. If the mass of the voters were not represented in the conventions, this was attributed to their own indifference or negligence. If a split occurred, leading to the nomination of different candidates by the same party, this was the result of a division of sentiment on some great question, and might be considered a healthy indication—a proof that the interests, real or supposed, of the country or some section of the country were the objects of prime consideration.

We do not, therefore, agree with those who hold that our institutions have deteriorated, or with those who think that democracy has proved a failure. On the contrary, we believe that a simpler democratic system, with fewer checks and balances, would be an improvement on our present Constitution. The framers of that Constitution had two apprehensions constantly before their minds—one, that of a military usurper overthrowing popular freedom; the other, that of an insurrectionary populace overthrowing law and government. Experience has shown that neither of these dangers could be realized in a country and with a population like ours: the elements of them do not exist, nor are the occasions in the least likely to arise. The two great evils to which we are exposed are a breakdown of national unity and a decay of political life. The former evil—resulting from the magnitude of the country, the conflict of interests in its different sections, the State organizations and semi-sovereignty, and the consequent lack of that strong centralization of administrative powers and functions which, however much of a bugbear to many people's imaginations, is indispensable to a complete nationality—has threatened us in the past and may be expected to threaten us in the future. The latter evil threatens us now.

If we turn to England, we see political life in its fullest vigor. The recent election called forth nearly the entire force of the voting population, and the contest was carried on with well-directed vigor and amid almost unparalleled excitement. Questions affecting both domestic and foreign policy, and felt to be vital by the whole community, were ardently, persistently and minutely discussed in public meetings and at the hustings; and the general nature of the issue indicated with sufficient clearness the maintenance of the old division throughout the bulk of the nation between a party anxious to preserve and a party eager to reform. Men of the highest character and distinction in every walk of life were among the most ardent participants in the struggle; but no crowds of office-holders and office-seekers opposed each other en masse or were prominent in the struggle, the former having as a class nothing to fear, and the latter as a class nothing to hope, from the result. So far was the leader of the opposition from being suspected of a mere selfish desire to grasp the position to which in case of victory his pre-eminent ability and activity entitled him that it was altogether doubtful whether he would be willing to accept it. He and all the other men who marshalled or exhorted the opposing lines stood forth as the acknowledged representatives of certain principles and public measures, and in that capacity alone were they assailed or defended. The contest was decided by strictly legal methods; no suspicion existed as to the inviolability of the ballot-boxes or the correctness and validity of the returns; and the cases in which corrupt or undue influence was charged were reserved for the adjudication of impartial tribunals.

No one supposes that the impending struggle in the United States will be of this nature. There is no question before the country involving the policy of the government or the interests of the nation. There are no leaders who are the representatives of any principle or idea. The ardor of the contest will be confined to the men whose individual interests are directly or indirectly at stake: the management of the contest will be wholly in their hands, and no security will be felt as to the legality of the result. Whatever display of popular enthusiasm may be made will be chiefly of a factitious nature. Such excitement as may be felt will be to a large extent of the kind which is awakened by a "big show" or an athletic contest. The general mass of the voters will no doubt fall into line in response to signals and cries which, though they have lost their original meaning, still retain a certain efficacy, but a great falling off from the old fervor and discipline will, we venture to think, be almost everywhere apparent. More intelligent persons will either stand aloof with conscious powerlessness or strike feebly and wildly from a sense of embitterment. The energy put forth will indicate disease rather than health; the activity exhibited will be not so much that of a great organism as of the parasites that are preying on it.