Suffer me, O reader, to recall the elements of this unparalleled occasion: On the one hand, almost omnipotent power, backed by transcendent though wayward genius, a will that hitherto had never been balked, an unsullied prestige, a front of Jove to threaten and command, upon which great thought registered every varying expression, one of the least of which would have endowed an ordinary prince with lasting renown. On the other hand, "fantastic compliment strutting up and down tricked in outlandish feather." A motion from the hand of majesty, now fully erect, sent another mighty wave of martial music flying on invisible wings, in thousand forms, throughout every corridor. As this second summons for the masterpiece to be set in motion died away in turn, two bands of men detached themselves from the distant throng massed in the farthest background, and came slowly forward with bowed heads and deferential tread. At the same instant a hundred brilliant officers of the household stepped out of the corridors behind the King with drawn swords, and other hundreds crowded behind them prepared to do their master's instant service.

The Great Strategist comprehended the situation with a single sweeping glance of his eagle eye, and drawing himself up full height motioned his servitors with his left hand back into their concealment, while with his extended right hand he encouraged with benignant gesture the approach of the representatives of the people, who had shrunk back in dismay when the King's guard sprang forth so abruptly. It was now seen that the approaching bands were composed in equal parts of the gaudily caparisoned workmen and their plainly dressed advisers. Each party bore in its midst an enormous roll, whose weight impeded anything like rapid progress. On arriving at the front of the throne, they deposited their burdens and then prostrated themselves before the King. When bidden to arise and state their purpose, a stalwart son of toil stepped forward in front of his comrades. He was attired in a $10,000 costume, representing Henry of Navarre. This costume sat upon his rugged limbs as though they had been melted into it. The King gazed complacently upon his manufactured nobleman and bade him proceed.

"August and Sovereign King!" thus began the blacksmith, for such he was when not intoxicated or attending a costume ball—"August and Sovereign King, I have been pushed forward by my fellows who have joined in this petition, with a vast multitude of their co-workers, similarly gorged with hateful luxury. They ask me to state plainly to your Majesty that they now know from actual experience how hollow and worthless are all the glories of the merely rich, whose time is devoted to vain shows and in devising new delicacies for the palate. They beseech your Majesty that you, in accordance with your gracious pleasure, should restore them to their simple and humble paths of life, wherein they will dwell in reasonable contentment hereafter."

The workman ceased, and the spokesman for wealth and idleness stepped forward and pleaded his case very eloquently. He showed, in the petition which many thousands of his class had signed, that through their recent experience they all had been made to feel the weight of life as it rests upon those under them. He averred that he and his fellows were heartily sick of their lives thus ordered, and that they petitioned the King to send them beyond his confines, or place them in his army, or, better still, allow them to seek honorable employment in vocations more in accord with their taste and inclination.

The King, esteeming that he had sufficiently disciplined the wealthy and had measurably cast out the "daimon of unrest" from the mind of labor, while at the same time he had given a notable illustration to all his people of the folly of outrunning too far the sentiments of your age, and the arrant rot of placing edicts upon the statute books that at once become a dead letter unless backed by despotic force, and feeling the security of his position, stood before his petitioners, lightly leaning on his left foot, with his right hand in the breast of his coat, and thus addressed them:

"My people, the results flowing from my edict are not otherwise than I fully believed would result; I am satisfied at the real good that has been accomplished. Many there are who would like to see human nature changed by an equally absurd upheaval of the social fabric, which would instantly place the limbs of labor between cambric sheets and line their stomachs with sweetmeats. The truly wise base their expectations for the race upon no such sudden revolution, but rather see salvation for their fellows in a gradual and natural betterment of conditions, a growth upwards that can be maintained through all the spasms of reform, a lifting of the whole fabric of society by the great forces of education, faith, and persistency, which are and have ever been the architects of the race."



PLAZA OF THE POETS.

REPLY TO "LOCKSLEY HALL SIXTY YEARS AFTER."

BY BARTON LOMAX PITTMAN.

Nay, my grandsire, though you leave me latest lord of Locksley Hall, Speak of Amy's heavenly graces and the frailty of her fall, Point me to the shield of Locksley, hanging in this mansion lone, I must turn from such sad splendor ere my heart be changed to stone.

While you prate of pride ancestral and the dead dreams of your youth, I, despite my birth and lineage, am a battler for the truth. To the work-worn, half-starved peasants of this realm my heart goes out— Those who, plundered and forgotten, find this life a ruthless rout.

In the rustling robes of Amy bloomed the roses that had fled From the cheeks of pauper maidens forced into the brothel-bed; In her saintly smiles and glances flashed the sunlight that was shut By the iron-hand injustice from the cotter's humble hut.

Nay, 'tis wrong that we should range with science glorying in the time, While we force our brother mortals into squalor, need, and crime; Wicked we should pose as Christians singing songs to God on high, Heedless of his tortured creatures who in pauper prisons lie.

Christless is the crime of turning creed-stopped ears to teardrops shed By the women whom oppression robs of virtue for their bread. Satan's blush would mantle crimson could he see the stunted child Slaving in our marts and markets, helpless, hopeless, and reviled—

See its pallid face uplifted from the whirling factory wheels, Tear-stained with the grief and anguish of a baby brain that reels, Tortured in life's budding springtime, toiling on with stifled cries, Seeing, through its tears refracted, rippling cascades, azure skies; Skies and birds and flowery meadows made for children wealthy-born, While God's outcasts, with their parents, robbed and drudging, live forlorn, Men in whom the fires of hope have sunk into a sordid spark, Mothers rearing helpless infants for the brothel's dawnless dark.

While this world seems far too crowded to provide us work for all, Acres spread their untilled bosoms, while the nations rise and fall. Nature's storehouse, made for all men, is monopolized by some, Robbing labor of its produce, making almshouse, jail, and slum.

Side by side with art and progress creeps the haggard spectre, Want— Creeps the frightful phantom, Hunger, with its bloodless body gaunt. Wider, wider spreads the chasm 'twixt the wealthy and the poor, Social discontent declaring that such wrongs cannot endure.

And this yawning of the chasm is the curse of every race, As it saps and kills its manhood ere it reach the zenith-place; Spartan valor, Grecian learning, Roman honor had their day, But land plunder rose among them, dooming death by slow decay.

Shall we wait for evolution, let it right these monstrous wrongs, While the helpless, young, and tender writhe and groan 'neath social thongs? Nay, 'tis better all should perish in a battle for the right, Than let philosophic cowards keep us in this stygian night.

Locksley Hall has now a master who would claim the earth for all, Who would make the titled idler cease to rob his tenant-thrall; Wreck the Church and State if need be (better such in time will rise), But who from this glorious purpose nevermore will turn his eyes—

Never, till the arms of nature clasp in joy her outcast child, Long since driven from the meadow and the dell and woodland wild, Till to each belongs the produce of his hand and heart and brain, And glad heralds of millennium thrill along our path of pain.

Though the world has piled its fagots round the great and good and brave; Thrust its Socrates the hemlock, scourged its Jesus to the grave; Though its sneer has chilled the tender, and its frown has cursed the good, While its Nero sways the sceptre and its Emmett dies in blood;

Yet in Truth there is a power that through ceaseless cycles slow Will inscribe the doom of Error in an ever-fadeless glow, That will trample on oppression, burst the chains and crush the throne, Rearing on the blood and ruin justice-reign from zone to zone.

Idealistic dreamer, say you? In your youth you once felt so? Well, I only pray life's sunset, bowing down my head with snow, Shall not swerve me from my purpose, though the victor-laurels twine In my reach, and if forsaking my convictions they are mine.

Do not so condemn the realists, rhymesters, authors, and their way, Just because they point about us to the errors of to-day; Spare them, though they gaze not upward from our self-wrought piteous plight, For, though blinded and despairing, they are struggling toward the light.

Let the realist dip his falcon in the boiling blood of life, Tracing in heartrending horror all the hoary wrongs and strife, Till the world shall sick and sadden of its folly and its sin, Hearkening through the roar of traffic to the still small voice within—

Voice which murmurs Christ's own message as we circle round the sun: That, though greed and creed divide us, still humanity is one— One in all its godlike longing, one in all its hopes and fears, With its calvaries, scaffolds, hemlocks, and its seas of unshed tears.

Then this star of sorrow swinging through the vast immortal void Shall, regenerated, slumber while man's heart is overjoyed, Thrilled with yearnings altruistic, triumphing o'er clods of clay, As we march into the love-light of the grand Millennial day.



JOHN BROWN.

BY COATES KINNEY.

The Great Republic bred her free-born sons To smother conscience in the coward's hush, And had to have a freedom-champion's Blood sprinkled in her face to make her blush.

One Will became a passion to avenge Her shame—a fury consecrate and weird, As if the old religion of Stonehenge Amid our weakling worships reappeared.

It was a drawn sword of Jehovah's wrath, Two-edged and flaming, waved back to a host Of mighty shadows gathering on its path, Soon to emerge as soldiers, when the ghost

Of John Brown should the lines of battle form. When John Brown crossed the Nation's Rubicon, Him Freedom followed in the battle-storm, And John Brown's soul in song went marching on.

Though John Brown's body lay beneath the sod, His soul released the winds and loosed the flood: The Nation wrought his will as hest of God, And her bloodguiltiness atoned with blood.

The world may censure and the world regret: The present wrath becomes the future ruth; For stern old History does not forget The man who flings his life away for truth.

In the far time to come, when it shall irk The schoolboy to recite our Presidents' Dull line of memorabilia, John Brown's work Shall thrill him through from all the elements.



DEMOS.

BY W. H. VENABLE, LL. D.

America, my own! Thy spacious grandeurs rise Faming the proudest zone Pavilioned by the skies; Day's flying glory breaks Thy vales and mountains o'er, And gilds thy streams and lakes From ocean shore to shore.

Praised be thy wood and wold, Thy corn and wine and flocks, The yellow blood of gold Drained from thy canon rocks; Thy trains that shake the land, Thy ships that plough the main! Triumphant cities grand Roaring with noise of gain!

Yet not the things of sense, By nature wrought, or art, Prove soul's preeminence, Or swell the patriot heart; Our country we revere For that from sea to sea Her vast-domed atmosphere Is life-breath of the free.

Brown Labor, gazing up, Takes hope, and Hunger stands Holding her empty cup In pale, expectant hands. Brave young Ambition waits Thy just law's clarion call, That power unbar the gates Of privilege to all.

Trade's fickle signets coined From Mammon's molten dust, With reverence conjoined, Proclaim "In God we trust." Nor doth the legend lie: The People, patient, bide, Trusting the Lord on high, To thunder on their side.

Earth's races look to thee; The peoples of the world Thy risen splendors see, And thy wide flag unfurled; Kelt, Slav, and Hun behold That banner from afar, They bless each streaming fold, And cheer its every star.

For liberty is sweet To every folk and age,— Armenia, Cuba, Crete,— Despite war's heathen rage, Or scheming diplomat Whose words of peace enslave. Columbia! Democrat Of Nations! speak and save!

As mightful Moses led To Canaan's promised land; As Christ victorious bled, Obeying Love's command; So thou, Right's champion, God's chosen leader strong, Gird up thy loins! march on! Defend mankind from Wrong.



THE EDITOR'S EVENING.

Leaf From My Samoan Notebook. (A. D. 2297.)

In that age (siecle XIX, ad finem) great attention was given on the continent of Am-ri-ka to increased speed in locomotion. Men and women went darting about like the big yellow gnats that we see at sundown on the western coast of our island when the bay is hazy. The whole history of that century in both Am-ri-ka and Yoo-rup might well be written around the fact of transit, for transit was the spinal cord of the whole social, civil, and political order. Man-life then seemed to oscillate more rapidly than ever before, as if in sympathy with the vibration of the universal ether.

The struggle for the increase of speed began in the early part of the century referred to—about 1822. Scarcely had the wars of Na-Bu-Leon subsided when the matter of getting over the earth's surface at a greater velocity was taken up as eagerly as if life consisted in going quickly to a certain point. Men, it would appear, had not yet learned that the principal aim of this existence is the going, and not the getting there. Then it was that the steam En-jo-in was invented. The Bah-lune had been frequently tried, but always with ludicrous or fatal results. A young man by the name of Dee Green once essayed this method in Am-ri-ka, with a most ridiculous catastrophe. A poem was written about the affair beginning thus—

An aspiring genius was Dee Green.

For more than half a century locomotion by steam prevailed in Am-ri-ka, though it did not satisfy the demand for swiftness. When this method no longer sufficed, several expedients were found to avoid going anywhere. It was observed that the necessity of going depended upon the limitation of the human voice; that is, of hearing vocal utterances. The voices of human beings could not then be heard beyond a certain limit. To hear the voice of a man from Am-ri-ka to Ing-land was then thought to be impossible. The possessors of voices, therefore, had in that age to get together before they could communicate. True, there were some men upon whom this necessity did not rest, for they could be heard at a great distance. It might be noted, however, that this kind, called Homo politicus, had so little sense that nobody cared to hear them, so that their success in vociferation amounted to nothing.

All the people of Am-ri-ka who were civilized spoke in a low tone, and any who cared to communicate must seek each other's presence. This had been the reason for the old invention of E-pistol-ary correspondence. This method, however, was not satisfactory, since it required much time to say only a little, and since what was said in this manner was found so wide of the mark as to produce disastrous results. Society was, on this account, frequently rent with lawsuits, having no better foundation than a bundle of Let-yers.

To avoid this trouble another invention, called the Far-talker (or Tel-ef-oan), was made; and by means of this conceit the people of Am-ri-ka could speak to one another many miles apart. The Far-talker was a remarkable sort of invention by which one merchant, by stretching a copper thread across the country to the ear of another merchant, could talk to him through the wire. The other merchant could reverse and talk back! Sometimes a young woman would tiptoe up to the box where the wire ended and say the most absurd things to her favorite fop down-town; this was often overheard. People had not yet learned the method of understanding each other's thoughts without the ridiculous contrivance of speech, written scratches, wires, and Fo-ny-grafs.

It was at this time that men, in their effort to carry themselves from place to place, seem to have taken the first hints from nature. It was remembered that between swimming and flying, and between flying and walking, certain forms of locomotion, quite rapid withal, are used by our poor relatives on land and sea. Thus the flying-fish rises from the water and shoots, quite parabolically, for some distance through the air. The genus Cheiroptera also gives a hint of progress by means of wings that are not made of feathers. The flying lemur, nearly akin to Homo bifurcans, shows how one may rise and go by a sort of aerial progress along the ground.

Out of these hints the men of Am-ri-ka, at the epoch of which we speak, sought inventions by means of which they might keep close to the ground for safety, but otherwise fly; for the age was very fast! Under these conditions some Unknown Man invented what was called the By-sigh-kel. It was a sort of flat-sided, rotary ground-skimmer, very thin and notorious. It came coincidently with another invention called the Trol-lee. The latter was an electrical wagon for general travel in cities and suburbs, while the By-sigh-kel was a personal carriage for one or possibly two. The passenger in this case had to start his machine and then jump on. The propulsion was effected by a pump-like action of the legs, very tiresome and elegant. The passenger generally leaned forward in a position strongly suggestive of the favorite attitude of his arboreal ancestors. It was the peculiarity of the Trol-lee that it made a sort of humming roar as it went that sounded like a hundred prisoners groaning in unison; but the By-sigh-kel made no noise in going except in collisions and wrecks. The latter were so frequent that a whole cycle of restorative arts had to be undertaken of which the principal was dentistry. At the close of the century there were few front teeth remaining—except artificials.

Many accounts of the Age of the By-sigh-kel and Trol-lee have been preserved among the old records of Am-ri-ka, and traditions of it are found in the antiquarian papers of other countries. We have seen pictorial representations made by Fo-to-graf-ure of scenes from the age referred to. The streets of extinct cities are found pictured in this way. There was an instrument called the Cow-dack which was used in taking pictures in an instantaneous manner, so that the scene would look like life.

A busy street, thus pictured, in that time, shows many Trol-lees rushing by, filled with merry people. Along the side-ways scores of passengers are seen, mounted on their 'Sigh-kels, going in divers directions at full speed. The passengers present many aspects; for riding the 'Sigh-kel was an art which had to be acquired; and by some this could not be done—at least not gracefully done. Many tried, but few were chosen. Two classes of people suffered much in this particular, namely, the very fat and the very bony. Those whom nature had favored in form and feature, and who had acquired the art of sitting upright, look well enough in these old pictures of a past age. But the clumsy and obese, the slender and angular people may well be laughed at even through the shadowy retrospect of four centuries.

One of the 'Sigh-kel machines was made double; and an old cartoon which is now before me gives to this kind the name of Tan-doom. On this men and women frequently rode together, the woman going before, for that was the age in which the woman, becoming new, showed her newness by being forward.

Nor may we leave these reminiscences of a bygone age without reflecting upon the absurdities of our ancestors, who had not yet imagined the ease and excellence of our own method of locomotion by skimming at will the surface of the earth. The facile beauty and natural art with which we now rise from the ground and propel ourselves by our own thought and wish to any distance—thus vindicating our superiority to all other creatures in our method of excursion—are facts so obvious and ever-present that we fail to reflect upon the impediments and hardships of the people of Am-ri-ka and indeed of the whole world in the nineteenth century....

Thinking on these things I can but imagine that I have myself seen them in some previous epoch of my existence. The facts which I have recorded appear dimly, as if in memory of what I once beheld; but the vision of it is so obscure that I still doubt whether it be dream or reality. I have long imagined that we retain from one epoch of our existence to the next a vague recollection of our experiences in the remote ages of the past. I sometimes think that it is not impossible that I myself, in some forgotten avatar, used to sit alone at the window of my office, looking into the street of one of the old towns of Am-ri-ka where the Trol-lees were going one way and the By-sigh-kels the other way, crossing and darting hither and yon, according to the wills of the riders; but the vision is so dim that it looks like the fictions of sleep.

Vita Longa.

The question is not how long this bodily life may last, or how long the mind, so conditioned, can endure. It is not even how long the mind may continue to produce; for the mind, like a poor, half-exhausted field, urged with rain and fertilizers, may produce only potatoes, mullen, and cockle. The real question—the deep-down essence of it—is how long the mind, or soul, may retain the enthusiasm and passionate power of creation. That is the only true test of longevity; and when that ceases there is nothing left. The real duration of man-life is measured only by the persistency of creative power.

Longfellow, standing in the old pulpit, on the fiftieth anniversary of his class at Bowdoin, and saying to those who would introduce him, "I wish the desk were large enough to conceal me all," makes a beautiful section of this theme by citing some of the most inspiring instances of the long life of the soul:

Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles Wrote his grand OEdipus, and Simonides Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers, When each had numbered more than fourscore years; And Theophrastus at fourscore and ten Had but begun his "Characters of Men;" Chaucer at Woodstock with his nightingales, At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales; Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last, Completed Faust when eighty years were past: These are indeed exceptions; but they show How far the Gulf Stream of our youth may flow Into the arctic regions of our lives, Where little else than life itself survives.

Measured by this test of creative power and its persistency, how variable is the duration of human life! Sometimes the creative power appears in early youth; but when that happens there is generally an early surcease. Sometimes the power comes late and remains long. Sometimes it flashes forth in the early morning and remains in the after twilight. Estimated by years this productive power (which goes by the name of genius) sometimes reaches only to a few score moons. Sometimes it reaches to a score of years. Sometimes, though rarely, it extends to three-score years or more.

Thomas Chatterton went to a suicide's grave in Potter's Field when he was only seventeen years, nine months, and four days of age. I know of no other case of so great precocity; it is beyond belief. His mind had been productive for about three years. Byron's productive period covered sixteen years—no more. Pope began at twelve and ended at fifty-six.

In our own age, Tennyson has done well. Making an early effort to begin, he, like Dryden, did not really reach the creative epoch until he was fully thirty. His creative period covers about fifty-nine years. It extends from "A Dream of Fair Women," in 1833, to "Crossing the Bar," in 1892.

The best example, however, in the history of the human mind, is that of William Cullen Bryant; that is, Bryant has real creations that lie further apart in time than can be paralleled, so far as I know, in the case of any other of the sons of men. The date of "Thanatopsis" is not precisely known. It belongs, however, to the years 1812-13. Bryant was then eighteen—in his nineteenth year. Add to 1812 sixty-four years and we have 1876, the date of the publication of the "Flood of Years." The two poems in question lie apart in production by the space of fully three-score and four years. It is a marvel! And why not?

To him who in the love of nature holds Communion with her visible forms,

why should not life, productive life, enthusiastic fruitful life, be extended until its last acts of creation, shot through with the sunshine of experience and wisdom, shall flash in great bars of haze and glory over the landscape of the twilight days?

Kaboto.

Old John a Venice in his cockleshell Breasted the salt sea like an Englishman! He saw the bleak coast of the Tartar Khan To left-hand in the distance. "All is well!" He cried to Labrador. The roaring swell Bore him to shore, whereon his hands upran The Lion flag and flag republican Of the old Doges' wave-girt citadel.

Dominion and Democracy are ours! From the first day unto the last we hold To Liberty and Empire! We shall be, Under the Star-flag, for eternal hours, Even as Cabot's two flags first foretold, Both free and strong from mountain crag to sea!



A STROKE FOR THE PEOPLE.

Here is a message for all: FROM AND AFTER THE ISSUANCE OF THE NUMBER FOR JULY THE REGULAR SUBSCRIPTION PRICE OF THE ARENA, THE MAGAZINE OF THE PEOPLE, WILL BE REDUCED TO $2.50 A YEAR. The reasons for this reduction are not far to seek. The stringency of the times, the hardships of the people,—their lack of money, the decline in the prices of their products, the relentless grip of the mortgages on their homes,—and the absence of any symptom of present relief from a Government under the domination and dictation of the money power, have induced the managers of THE ARENA to bear their part of the common burden and distress, and to express in a practical way their sympathies with the masses by reducing the price of the magazine to the lowest possible figure consistent with its maintenance at the present standard of efficiency and excellence.

One of the immediate causes and suggestions of this course will be found in the following private letter written to THE ARENA by a plain Kansas farmer. We have obtained his permission to use his letter as an appeal to the public:

"SYLVAN GROVE, KANSAS, May 22, 1897.

"To THE ARENA.

"GENTLEMEN: I enclose my subscription for THE ARENA for the current year. The only reason for my tardiness in doing this is pinching, grinding poverty. If we farmers do not assist the OLD ARENA, so loyal to our interests, we shall deserve the fate many of us have already accepted; that is, the doom of serfdom under the club of plutocracy.

"We, at our home, are straining every nerve and denying ourselves of almost the comforts of life for the purpose of meeting our mortgage that falls due on the first of July. Our farmers here in the West are divided into four classes:

"First. Those who have failed to meet even the interest on loans, who have been closed out, and are now renters, often, of the very farms which they once fondly hoped to make their own.

"Second. Those who are still paying interest or keeping the companies at bay in the courts until one more crop may ripen, but without any well-founded hope of saving their homes.

"Third. Those who are skimping, pinching, almost starving to pay their mortgages. I belong to this class. I still struggle with the incubus.

"Fourth. A very few who wisely have never encumbered their homes. I have given the classes in the order of their numerical importance.

"I live in the beautiful little West Twin Creek valley about seven miles in length. There are but two pieces of unencumbered property in the valley; one belonging to a poor widow, and the other to a bank president. Thirty-five per cent of the farms have already passed into the hands of mortgagees; many of the remainder have changed hands, shifted under renewals and various expedients to avoid the ruination of closing out. This is more than an average well-to-do community, selected from this or any other central county of Kansas. We are realizing to the full that 'Beneficent Effect of Falling Prices' which was so ably set forth (from his standpoint) by Dean Gordon in THE ARENA for March. If all people were out of debt, falling prices might not work so great injustice. But when a vast majority of the people are in debt, and heavily in debt, and when a man talks of the blessings that fall from falling prices, the conviction is forced upon us that the killer of fools in his annual round has missed one conspicuous example. The trouble is, our dollar of debt, instead of decreasing, has more than doubled in its power as compared with labor and the products of labor. Meanwhile our Solons talk glibly of 'vested rights,' 'corporate rights,' etc., strenuously objecting to squeezing the water out of their stocks, while they have by legislation for the last thirty-five years remorselessly squeezed the value out of our property.

"When our debts were contracted the values of everything were double what they now are. I could then have sold my farm for three thousand dollars; now, although it has been much improved, it would go a-begging at one thousand dollars. Perhaps there is not as much distress in our country as there was three or four years ago. People have adjusted themselves somewhat to their straitened circumstances, and a few are becoming actually reconciled to their condition! I heard one man who had recently failed in business as a grain-dealer say, 'Well, Cleveland is right on this money question; we want a money good in Yurrup or any other part of the world.' As I looked at the battered hat of this personage, at the split toes of his shoes, the ragged elbows of his coat, and the rents in his demoralized nether garments, I could but ejaculate, 'May the Lord have mercy on your ignorant soul! what does it matter to you what kind of money they use in Europe?'

"We are now taking the advice of Governor Morrill, who says: 'If you cannot get seventy-five cents a day, work for fifty cents.' Our Republican speakers advise us to dress plainly, live the same, and work still harder. We are told to 'stop running around to Alliances and picnics.' We have taken this advice. We had to take it! But we have now reached the bottom. We can curtail our dress no further without making our garb identical with our complexion. We cannot further reduce our rations and live. We cannot extend the hours of labor, for most of us have already adopted the blessed eight-hour system; that is, we work eight hours before dinner and eight hours after dinner.

"However, Kansas is coming to the front again. Since the mortgage companies are willing to do business once more our Governor is no longer 'ashamed of the State.' Occasionally a Republican politician squirms and kicks as the pressure is turned on. The eloquent and volcanic Ingalls breaks out at intervals. In these eruptions he pours lava upon his party in fine style. But he does not break out often enough!

"The most serious bar to the progress of reform is that the people are too poor to pay for reform papers and magazines; out of these they might get the truth. The publishers of such are unable to send their periodicals for less than cost. Not so the party in power. Thousands of people get complimentary copies of the gold-bug papers, and other thousands get them for a nominal sum. Somebody pays for them. Who?

"I have been pleased with THE ARENA, both old and new. I first subscribed to it in order to get 'The Bond and the Dollar,' which I consider the most succinct exposition of the American money question ever written. No publication that I am acquainted with equals THE ARENA as an educator. I wish you godspeed in your efforts for the betterment of our people and of humanity in general. I hope (almost against hope) for the peaceful solution of the difficulties that now beset our beloved country.

"Sincerely yours,

"A. BIGGS."

Moved by the foregoing communication and scores of others of the same purport, and knowing the truth of what the honest producers (who are the very blood and sinew and soul of this Republic) say of their trials and of the wrongs to which they have been mercilessly subjected for years, THE ARENA has decided to share the common lot. With the people we shall stand or fall. Let all who can rally, therefore, rally to the support of THE ARENA, and the management will try to show the nation what a great and free American magazine devoted to American interests and American democracy really is, and will be, in the battle for human rights.

Address all subscriptions and all other business communications to

JOHN D. MCINTYRE, Manager of THE ARENA, Copley Square, Boston.



BOOK REVIEWS.

[In this Department of THE ARENA no book will be reviewed which is not regarded as a real addition to literature.]

The Emperor.[8]

[8] "Life of Napoleon Bonaparte." By Willian Milligan Sloane, Ph. D., L. H. D.; Professor of History in Princeton University. Four volumes, imperial octavo; pp. 1120. New York: The Century Company. Boston: Balch Brothers, 1896.

At the hour when, on the evening of the first day of this century, the first asteroid was discovered by Piazzi at Naples, an olive-complexioned man was sitting smileless in a box in the opera house in Paris. He sat back where nobody could see him. It was his way not to be seen—except on business.

The man was thirty-one years, four months, and sixteen days of age. He had already done something. If he had not equalled the work of Alexander at the corresponding age, he had at least surpassed Caesar; for Caesar at thirty was still a comparatively unknown roue in Rome.

The figure in the opera box was slender and trim. He who sat there was only five feet, four and a half inches high; but his head was fine, heavy, symmetrical. His features twitched when he was disturbed, but were beautiful when he smiled. To a profound observer he looked dangerous. He had the faculty of making his face signify nothing at all. He had been begotten an insular Italian, but was born a Frenchman. His wife, a Creole, more than six years older than he, was in the box with him. She sat at the front, and was seen by thousands. She wished to be seen; and when the pit shouted in the direction of the box she smiled a little smile, with a puckered mouth—for her teeth were not good.

The birthplace of this man had been oddly set on the map of the world, for the meridian of Discovery and the parallel of Conquest intersect at the birthplace of NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. The birthlines of Caesar and Columbus—drawn, the one due west from Rome, the other due south from Genoa—cross each other within a few miles of Ajaccio! It is a circumstance that might well incline one to astrology.

About the birth of great men cycles of fiction grow. Friends and enemies alike invent significant circumstances. The traducers of Napoleon have said that he was illegitimate—that his father was the French marshal Marboeuf. They also say, on better grounds, that the marriage of Letitia Ramolino to Carlo di Buonaparte was not solemnized until 1767—that the first two children were therefore born out of wedlock. On the other hand, the idol-worshippers would fain have Napoleon born as a god or Titan. Premature pangs seize the mother at church. She hurries home, barely reaching her apartment when the heroic babe is delivered, without an accoucheur, on a piece of tapestry inwrought with an effigy of Achilles! This probably occurred. It was the 15th of August, 1769.

Thus, as it were before the Corsican saw the light of day in this world, dispute began about him. It has been continued for a hundred and twenty-eight years. Whatever else he succeeded in doing—whatever else he failed to do—he at least did succeed in dividing the civilized world into two parties; he made himself the subject of a controversy which has not ceased to the present hour. The reason, no doubt, is that we do not as yet understand human history and the part which the individual plays in the progress of events. Nearly all men begin with a prejudice in judging all other men, and nearly all men end as they begin. So it has been in the case of Bonaparte. After a while we shall see things more clearly; after a while we shall be able to interpret men—but not yet.

The writings relative to this man constitute a cycle. The books on him and his times make a library, the perusal and study of which might absorb a large section of an active life. The name of such productions is legion. Most of them will fortunately perish. The controversial aspect of the life of the Emperor must at last subside. Nine out of ten of the books about him will go down to the nether oblivion. Then the judicial aspect will arise—if it has not already arisen—and will occupy the attention of those who are still curious to study the career of him who shares with the son of Philip and the matchless Julius the triune honor of being the greatest warriors known to human history. If a fourth should be added to the group it would be Hannibal, and if a fifth, Charlemagne.

Here at the date of a century from those days in which the star of Napoleon emerged from the mists and clouds and began to climb the sky the interest in his life revives. In America this revival is attributable in part to general and in part to special causes. The general causes are to be found in the fact that society de la fin de siecle is in such a state of profound disturbance, and the existing order feels so insecure, that that order—as it always does—begins to cast about in the shadows to find, if it may, some Big Man with a Sword; him when found we will make our Imperator, and by sharing some of our estates with certain of his military subalterns we will make sure of the rest—and after us the deluge. The special cause—at least in America—is the tremendous and growing tradition of General Grant. Albeit, General Grant hated the Bonapartes, from the Great One to the Little One; yet his own luminous setting has left a glow in which the nation sees men as trees walking—and among these the greatest simulacrum is Napoleon Bonaparte.

Of this man, who began as the son of a Corsican peasant-mother working in a mulberry orchard, and who, after fifty-one years, eight months, and twenty days, ended in a cyclone on the rock called St. Helena, having meanwhile for nearly a third of his life bestridden western Europe like a colossus,—a new biography claiming to be the ultimate summation of the Emperor's life and character has appeared. Professor William Milligan Sloane, of Princeton University, has entered the lists which may be said to have opened with Walter Scott and finished with the McClure Syndicate, passing meanwhile by way of such personages as De Stael, Las Cases, Victor Hugo, and Lanfrey, and such drudges as Bourrienne and Meneval, to lodge at last with the miscellaneous hacks who get three dollars a column for their boiler-plate philosophy in American newspapers! Heavens, what a scrimmage!

It were difficult to say when the final biography of a man has been produced. Hard, hard is it to decide when anything in this world is final. The never-ending progress of events shapes and readjusts not only the present materials of history, but also by reaction the materials of the past. Much that is supposed to be complete is seen to be unfinished; the done becomes undone, and the peroration of an epoch has to be rewritten for an exordium.

This is as true of the individual lives of men as it is of great events. If the ages have to be reconstructed, so also must the men of the ages. If only a mummy now turn over in his porphyry sarcophagus, a papyrus is generally found under him; and the finder, with the papyrus in his hand, may go forth fully warranted to revise every event from the first cataclysm of the Devonian age to the last earthquake in Java, and every man from Moses to Cagliostro.

On the whole I incline to the opinion that Professor Sloane has brought the Emperor Napoleon to a kind of final interpretation; I will not say to a full stop, but to something very much resembling a period. In the first place, I offer on the "Life of Napoleon Bonaparte," the eulogium that the work has, in a great degree, naturalized the Corsican as he was never naturalized before—thus bringing him out of cloudland and mere impossible fog to the plain level of human action and purpose.

This is much. In accomplishing thus much Professor Sloane has vindicated his claim to be regarded as a great biographer. It has been the bane of nearly all biographical writing that the subjects of it have been completely mythologized. Thus far in the history of mankind biography might be defined as the art of myth-making. I scarcely know what exceptions to cite to this universal vice except only and always Boswell's "Life of Samuel Johnson." As for American biographies thus far produced, there is scarcely a single example of a work which is not to be classified as a recorded myth. The trouble in all this business has been that the myth-makers, living in a certain atmosphere, have imagined that they are obliged to make their characters conform to the established antecedents of greatness. These established antecedents of greatness have for the most part been created out of superstitions, credulities, blank idealism, and mere dogmatic bosh. No living, active men have ever conformed, or could conform, to the standards which the logicians, the philosophers, and the priests have fixed up for them; and if any of them should conform to such a standard, their place under classification would be with automata, not with living men.

Nevertheless, our biographers have been so weak and servile as to make their characters according to this pattern. One character is labelled Washington, another is labelled Franklin, another is labelled Adams, and still another, Lincoln.

All this, I think, Professor Sloane has studiously avoided. As a literary doctor he has done much to destroy the mythical disease. He has written an elaborate work in which the man Napoleon moves and acts, neither as an angel nor as a devil, but as a man, moved upon and moving by the common human passions, though inflamed, in his case, to a white heat in the furnace of his ambition.

All this was to have been expected in view of the plan of Professor Sloane as expressed in his preface:

"Until within a very recent period," says he, "it seemed that no man could discuss him [Napoleon] or his time without manifesting such strong personal feeling as to vitiate his judgment and conclusions. This was partly due to the lack of perspective, but in the main to ignorance of the facts essential to a sober treatment of the theme. In this respect the last quarter of a century has seen a gradual but radical change, for a band of dispassionate scientific scholars have during that time been occupied in the preparation of material for his life without reference to the advocacy of one theory or another concerning his character. European archives, long carefully guarded, have been thrown open; the diplomatic correspondence of the most important periods has been published; family papers have been examined, and numbers of valuable memoirs have been printed. It has therefore been possible to check one account by another, to cancel misrepresentations, to eliminate passion—in short, to establish something like correct outline and accurate detail, at least in regard to what the man actually did. Those hidden secrets of any human mind which we call motives must ever remain to other minds largely a matter of opinion, but a very fair indication of them can be found when once the actual conduct of the actor has been determined."

From this point of view Professor Sloane has proceeded with his tremendous work. His studies at home and abroad have been ample. We may remark, in passing, upon the physical vigor of the author as shown in his portrait. From such a face and figure we can but expect energy, persistency, accomplishment. I do not pretend to disclose the reasons of Professor Sloane for indulging in this prodigious Napoleonic dream and for delineating it in what is likely to be regarded as the best product of his intellectual career. We can only take what he has produced and give it such cursory notice as our space will permit.

The first volume of the work extends from a survey of the conditions under which Napoleon was born and reared to the conclusion of his twenty-eighth year. The first events depicted are those historical movements in which the Bonapartes, within the narrow limits of their island, were involved in the seventh decade of the eighteenth century; and the last event recorded in this volume is the fall of Venice, at the end of May, 1797. I incline to regard this as the most interesting, though not the most important, of the four great volumes of Professor Sloane's work. In the nature of the case the ascendant of a man is the more inspiring part. In it he appears as an orb whose full majesty, not yet revealed, solicits the imagination and kindles by sympathy the ambitions that in some measure are common to us all. Here in volume I is portrayed the youth of the man Napoleon Bonaparte. In this he is revealed in the full charm of that electrical audacity which had as yet lost none of its sharpness and burning flash. Nor had Napoleon, as a man, as yet become sufficiently involved with the general maze of history, sufficiently immersed in the storm-cloud of that tempestuous epoch, to be lost from view. This volume shows the man emerging from boyhood into the full career of a military conqueror. It shows him in his magical transformation from the character of an adventurer into the character of a leader of armies and a dictator of events. It also shows Napoleon with the still fluid heart of boyhood passing through the lava floods of his first loves, in particular his love for Josephine, into the age of cynicism and calculation.

This first volume brings sufficiently to memory the progress of the youthful Napoleon. Here we see him at his mother's knee; then in the time of his school days; then in Paris and Valence; then as a neophyte author, quite absurd in his dreams; then on garrison duty, and then swept away with the tides of the oncoming revolution. In the smoke of the South his slender figure is seen here and there until he emerges at Toulon. In his character of Jacobin he becomes a general in the army at a time of life when most men are happy to be lieutenants. Then for the first time he touches the revolutionary society of Paris. He meets Josephine; Barras delivers her to the coming man. They are wedded, and from that date the stage widens, the wars in Italy break out, and the young general begins to whirl his sword at Mantua, Arcole, and Rivoli—from which he was wont to date his military birth, saying on that occasion, "Make my life begin at Rivoli;" and finally at Montebello and Venice, where, in the late spring of 1797, he is joined by Josephine. There from the French capital they seemed to stand afar as the cynosure of all revolutionary eyes, expecting a greater light.

In the second volume Professor Sloane begins with the rescue of the Directory. Hard after we have the great episode of the Treaty of Campo Formio, and then the expedition to Egypt. The story of that expedition is known through all the world; so also the return, and the overthrow of the Directory.

From that day Bonaparte became the embodiment of the revolution. He became a statesman and a strategist. He found himself in the geographical and historical storm-centre of Europe. Then came the epoch of great wars. Marengo marks the close of the old century, and the treaty of Luneville the beginning of the new. Napoleon undertakes the pacification of Europe, and reorganizes France. He steps cautiously towards the restoration of monarchy. There is a life-consulate, transforming itself quickly into an empire. The old royalism is extinguished, and the new military imperialism is glorified in its stead. The third coalition of Europe succeeds the second. Trafalgar strews the sea with the wrecks of France, and Austerlitz strews the land with the wrecks of Russia and Austria. The sea is virtually abandoned by the man of destiny, but over the land he rises as War-lord and Emperor.

The second conflict breaks out with Prussia and ends with the ruin of that power at Jena and Auerstadt. The year 1806 sees the parvenu emperor, now thirty-seven years of age, the master of all the better parts of Europe. Here ends the second volume of his life, according to Professor Sloane's division, and the third begins with the devastation and humiliation of the Prussian kingdom.

In this volume the author views Napoleon for the first time as the arbitrary diplomatist of the West. It is evident that from this time the emperor's vision widens to a more remote horizon than he had ever scanned before. The Berlin decree was issued. The battle of Eylau was fought, and then was achieved the victory of Friedland. Nor may we pass without noticing the acme which Napoleon, according to the judgment of many, now reached on that memorable field. Here it is that art has caught and transmitted him. For it is in the trodden wheat-field of Friedland that Meissonier's pencil has delineated Napoleon with his marshals around him, in one of the greatest pictures of the world.

By this epoch ambition in the emperor had swallowed up all other passions. He goes on from conquering to conquest. The dream of a French Empire, coextensive with the borders of Europe, seizes the Napoleonic imagination. The emperor's armies strike left and right. They are seen first on one horizon, then on another. The Corsican on his white horse is now upon the Pyrenees, now on the Germanic frontier, and now in Poland. He faces Alexander of Russia, and laughs at him! His gray coat and three-cornered hat become the best known symbols of military genius in modern times.

Kingdoms and principalities are transformed. Already the mythical Roman empire has passed away. Austria is threatened with extinction. The Corsican is seen first in one and then in another of the ancient capitals of Europe. Aspern follows Eckmuehl, and Essling and Wagram follow Aspern. The treaty of Schoenbrunn promises peace to the nations, but the hope is broken to the lips. In this crisis Josephine goes down in the shadows, and the daughter of Austria is led to the imperial chamber—this from the necessity of establishing a dynasty. The relations between France and Russia are strained to breaking. The fatal year 1812 comes, and there is a congress of kings. Alexander gives his ultimatum, and the invasion of Russia is begun. There is an indescribable struggle on the Moskwa, and then the flames of Moscow are seen across the deserts of Russian snow.

The fourth and last volume begins with the return of the allied armies from Russia. Then follows the universal revolt of the nations. Insurrection breaks out on every horizon, and treachery, as might have been expected, is added to the combinations that are rapidly formed against the imperial Corsican. The borders of France are broken in. There is a narrowing rim of fire bursting into battle flame here and there; and then the catastrophe of the capture of Paris. There is an ambiguous abdication and an equivocal exile of a few months' duration to Elba. It was much like the establishment of a live lion on Governor's Island!

The lion got away. Then came an instantaneous upheaval of old revolutionary France, which had now become imperial France. The Emperor was welcomed home as a returning god. The country was drained to the last drop of its resources, and everything was staked on the final strategy of the Hundred Days and the hazard of the ever-memorable battle.

"There was a sound of revelry by night,"

and then the imperial eagle was seen stretched upon the plain, pierced through with the shafts of banded nations. He was caged and transported to that far rock which in his school-essay at Autun he had described thus: "St. Helena is a small island!" He found it so. For nearly six years his captivity continued until his stormy career ended in a May hurricane that might well have shaken the desolate foundations of his ocean-girt prison. Then the historical tide rolled on without him. France was transformed into the old image, but her soul was still imperial. At last the bones of her great dead were recovered, to be placed at rest in that red-black sarcophagus over which the world looks down and wonders.

Such is the fiery but fruitful chaos through which the life-line of Napoleon is drawn with a master hand by Professor William Milligan Sloane. My judgment is that, on the whole, he has produced the greatest biographical work which has yet appeared in American literature. I think that in the main his accomplishment has been equal to his ambition. It is not an unworthy thing that an American professor, at the seat of an American university, turning his energies to this great task, has succeeded in making a well-nigh final record of the life and work of that unequalled organizer, that sublime dissembler, that cruel reformer, that heartless philanthropist, who, for half a lifetime, converted old Europe into a mire of murder and desolation, for the ultimate good of man.

Only one thing may be said in adverse criticism of Professor Sloane's book, and that is, that his style is too mathematical and too little imaginative for the subject which he has in hand. His rather cold precision, however, we concede to him; for it is, no doubt, the natural method of his expression. We do our part to acknowledge and welcome the remarkable work which he has produced, and to commend it to all readers as the best existing and best probable account of the personal and historical career of Napoleon Bonaparte.

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[Transcriber's Notes: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other inconsistencies.

The transcriber made these changes to the text to correct obvious errors:

1. p. 6 over-capatalized —> over-capitalized 2. p. 18 successfull —> successful 3. p. 23 benovelent —> benevolent 4. p. 60 ecocomists —> economists 5. p. 68 A macron diacritical mark, a straight line above a letter, is found on the first letter o, in the word Sosoku. This letter is indicated here by the coding x for a macron above any letter x. Thus, for example, the word Sosoku appears as Sōsoku in the text. 6. p. 76 staightforward —> straightforward 7. p. 94 abnormalties —> abnormalities 8. p. 124 desparing —> despairing 9. p. 144 stategy —> strategy

End of Transcriber's Notes]