"The second little girl has developed into a verse writer of a very curious ability. She began theologically and wrote hymns, which I soon checked on observing that she put together words and sentences out of the sacred verse she knew, and set her to write about things she saw and observed. What she now produces is very like the verse of William Blake, and containing many images that she could never have read of. She cannot write, but she dictates them to her elder sister, who is astonished at the phenomenon. We, of course, do not let her see that it is anything surprising, and the chances are that it goes off as she gets older and knows more. The lyrical faculty in many nations seems to belong to a childish condition of mind, and to disappear with experience and knowledge."



The conversation drifted into a discussion on the present system of interviewing, and Mrs. Henniker told me, with much amusement, of a reporter of the St. Louis Republic who called upon her father when he visited America, who, indeed, would not be denied, but forced his way into Lord Houghton's bedroom, where he found him actually in bed, and who, in relating what had passed between them, expressed his pleasure at having seen "a real live lord," and recorded his opinion that he was "as easy and plain as an old shoe!"



Lord Houghton must have been a welcome guest in a country where humour and the capacity for after-dinner speeches are so warmly appreciated as in America. No more brilliant after-dinner speaker ever existed than Richard Monckton Milnes, and the capacity for public speech, which was such a characteristic of the first Lord Houghton, exists no less gracefully in his poetic and now Vice-Regal son; but it was, perhaps, as a humorist that the father specially excelled, and in glancing through the many letters and papers which his daughter showed me I soon discovered this. Writing to his wife many years ago, he said: "Have you heard the last argument in favour of the Deceased Wife's Sister's Bill? It is unanswerable—if you marry two sisters, you've only one mother-in-law." And again, on another occasion, in writing to his sister, he quaintly remarks: "I left Alfred Tennyson in our rooms at the hotel; he is strictly incognito, and known by everybody except T., who asked him if he was a Southerner, assuming that he was an American."



We sat talking long, revolving many memories, until the shades of evening darkened down upon the beautiful room, and broke up the party. I joined the A.D.C.'s in their own special sanctum. There are nine on the Staff, of whom two are always on duty. Their names are as follows:—Capt. H. Streatfield, Capt. A. B. Ridley, Capt. M. O. Little, Capt. C. W. M. Fielden, Capt. Hon. H. F. White, Lieut. F. Douglas-Pennant, Lieut. A. P. M. Burke, Lieut. S. J. Meyrick, Lieut. C. P. Foley, and the Hon. C. B. Fulke-Greville. From what they told me I judged that the life at the Castle must be singularly pleasant and interesting. Capt. Streatfield, who is a very doyen among A.D.C.'s, has in that capacity led a life full of interest and variety, for he told me that for some years he was A.D.C. to the Governor-General of Canada, and that later on in life he accompanied the late Duke of Clarence as his A.D.C. in India.

The evening drifted on until it was time to dress for dinner, and we assembled, a large party of men and women, many of whom were in uniform, and some of whom displayed the pale Vice-Regal blue of the household facings in the long drawing room next to that room in which we had had afternoon tea. As His Excellency appeared, preceded by the State Steward, Capt. the Hon. H. White, and followed by Lord Charlemont, the Comptroller, we all passed through the rooms to St. Patrick's Hall, while the band played some well-known tunes. Capt. Streatfield had cleverly sketched for me in the afternoon the curious device formed by the tables, which was originally designed by Lord Charlemont himself, the whole giving the exact effect of a St. Andrew's Cross. Two huge spreading palms, placed in the hollows of the cross, overshadowed the Vice-Regal party, which, together with the beautiful music, the grouped banners upon the lofty walls, and the subdued lights, and the excellent dinner, all went towards the making of a very delightful evening indeed.



A little later on that night—and dinner upon this occasion was specially early—His Excellency held a "Drawing room." The scene upon this occasion was particularly brilliant; the long perspectives, the subdued lighting of the rooms, and the artistic grouping of rare exotics and most exquisite plants and flowers constituting a tout ensemble, the beauty of which will never fade from my memory. The ceremony itself was a singularly stately and graceful one. His Excellency, clad in Court dress, stood in the middle of the throne room, surrounded by the great officers of State in their robes of office. The aides-de-camp stood in a semicircle between the doorway and the dais. The first ladies to be presented were His Excellency's own sisters. It was specially interesting to notice the entry of the debutantes, many of whom were very beautiful, and almost all of whom were very graceful. Each young girl carried her train, properly arranged, upon her left arm during her progress through the corridor, drawing-room, and ante-room, until she passed the barrier and reached the entrance to the presence chamber; there a slight touch from the first A.D.C. in waiting released it from her arm, and two ushers, who were standing opposite, spread it carefully upon the floor. I noticed that the A.D.C. was careful not to let the ladies follow one another too quickly, which was evidently a trial to some of them. At the right moment he would take the card which each lady bore in her hand, pass it on to the semicircle of aides who stood within the room, who in their turn passed it on to the Chamberlain, who stood at the Lord Lieutenant's right hand. He having received it, then read it aloud, and presented her to the Viceroy. The Viceroy took her by the right hand, which was always ungloved, kissed her lightly on the cheek, whilst the lady curtsied low to him; then, gracefully backing, she retired, always with her face to the dais, from the Vice-Regal presence. The gentlemen attending the drawing room were not, of course, presented. They simply passed through the throne room, several at a time, bowing two or three times to the Viceroy, and so joined their party waiting for them in the long gallery.

At the end of the "Drawing room," the Lord Lieutenant and the ladies and gentlemen of the household, and some of the State officials, formed a procession, and marched with no little grace and stateliness round the magnificent hall of St. Patrick, whilst the strains of the National Anthem re-echoed down the long corridors and out into the star-lit windy night.



THE FEAR OF IT.

BY ROBERT BARR.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. S. BOYD.

The sea was done with him. He had struggled manfully for his life, but exhaustion came at last, and, realising the futility of further fighting, he gave up the battle. The tallest wave, the king of that roaring tumultuous procession racing from the wreck to the shore, took him in its relentless grasp, held him towering for a moment against the sky, whirled his heels in the air, dashed him senseless on the sand, and, finally, rolled him over and over, a helpless bundle, high up upon the sandy beach.

Human life seems of little account when we think of the trifles that make towards the extinction or the extension of it. If the wave that bore Stanford had been a little less tall, he would have been drawn back into the sea by one that followed. If, as a helpless bundle, he had been turned over one time more or one less, his mouth would have pressed into the sand, and he would have died. As it was, he lay on his back with arms outstretched on either side, and a handful of dissolving sand in one clinched fist. Succeeding waves sometimes touched him, but he lay there unmolested by the sea with his white face turned to the sky.

Oblivion has no calendar. A moment or an eternity are the same to it. When consciousness slowly returned, he neither knew nor cared how time had fled. He was not quite sure that he was alive, but weakness rather than fear kept him from opening his eyes to find out whether the world they would look upon was the world they had last gazed at. His interest, however, was speedily stimulated by the sound of the English tongue. He was still too much dazed to wonder at it, and to remember that he was cast away on some unknown island in the Southern Seas. But the purport of the words startled him.

"Let us be thankful. He is undoubtedly dead." This was said in a tone of infinite satisfaction.

There seemed to be a murmur of pleasure at the announcement from those who were with the speaker. Stanford slowly opened his eyes, wondering what these savages were who rejoiced in the death of an inoffensive stranger cast upon their shores. He saw a group standing around him, but his attention speedily became concentrated on one face. The owner of it, he judged, was not more than nineteen years of age, and the face—at least so it seemed to Stanford at the time—was the most beautiful he had ever beheld. There was an expression of sweet gladness upon it until her eyes met his, then the joy faded from the face, and a look of dismay took its place. The girl seemed to catch her breath in fear, and tears filled her eyes.



"Oh," she cried, "he is going to live." She covered her face with her hands, and sobbed.

Stanford closed his eyes wearily. "I am evidently insane," he said to himself. Then, losing faith in the reality of things, he lost consciousness as well, and when his senses came to him again he found himself lying on a bed in a clean but scantily furnished room. Through an open window came the roar of the sea, and the thunderous boom of the falling waves brought to his mind the experiences through which he had passed. The wreck and the struggle with the waves he knew to be real, but the episode on the beach he now believed to have been but a vision resulting from his condition.



A door opened noiselessly, and, before he knew of anyone's entrance, a placid-faced nurse stood by his bed and asked him how he was.

"I don't know. I am at least alive."

The nurse sighed, and cast down her eyes. Her lips moved, but she said nothing. Stanford looked at her curiously. A fear crept over him that perhaps he was hopelessly crippled for life, and that death was considered preferable to a maimed existence. He felt wearied, though not in pain, but he knew that sometimes the more desperate the hurt, the less the victim feels it at first.

"Are—are any of my—my bones broken, do you know?" he asked.

"No. You are bruised, but not badly hurt. You will soon recover."

"Ah!" said Stanford, with a sigh of relief. "By the way," he added, with sudden interest, "who was that girl who stood near me as I lay on the beach?"

"There were several."

"No, there was but one. I mean the girl with the beautiful eyes and a halo of hair like a glorified golden crown on her head."

"We speak not of our women in words like those," said the nurse, severely; "you mean Ruth, perhaps, whose hair is plentiful and yellow."

Stanford smiled. "Words matter little," he said.

"We must be temperate in speech," replied the nurse.

"We may be temperate without being teetotal. Plentiful and yellow, indeed! I have had a bad dream concerning those who found me. I thought that they—but it does not matter. She at least is not a myth. Do you happen to know if any others were saved?"

"I am thankful to be able to say that every one was drowned."

Stanford started up with horror in his eyes. The demure nurse, with sympathetic tones, bade him not excite himself. He sank back on his pillow.

"Leave the room," he cried feebly. "Leave me—leave me." He turned his face toward the wall, while the woman left silently as she had entered.



When she was gone Stanford slid from the bed, intending to make his way to the door and fasten it. He feared that these savages, who wished him dead, would take measures to kill him when they saw that he was going to recover. As he leaned against the bed, he noticed that the door had no fastening. There was a rude latch, but neither lock nor bolt. The furniture of the room was of the most meagre description, clumsily made. He staggered to the open window, and looked out. The remnants of the disastrous gale blew in upon him and gave him new life, as it had formerly threatened him with death. He saw that he was in a village of small houses, each cottage standing in its own plot of ground. It was apparently a village of one street, and over the roofs of the houses opposite he saw in the distance the white waves of the sea. What astonished him most was a church with its tapering spire at the end of the street—a wooden church such as he had seen in remote American settlements. The street was deserted, and there were no signs of life in the houses.

"I must have fallen in upon some colony of lunatics," he said to himself. "I wonder to what country these people belong—either to England or the United States, I imagine—yet in all my travels I never heard of such a colony."

There was no mirror in the room, and it was impossible for him to know how he looked. His clothes were dry and powdered with salt. He arranged them as well as he could, and slipped out of the house unnoticed. When he reached the outskirts of the village he saw that the inhabitants, both men and women, were working in the fields some distance away. Coming towards the village was a girl with a water-can in either hand. She was singing as blithely as a lark until she saw Stanford, whereupon she paused both in her walk and in her song. Stanford, never a backward man, advanced, and was about to greet her when she forestalled him by saying:

"I am grieved, indeed, to see that you have recovered."

The young man's speech was frozen on his lip, and a frown settled on his brow. Seeing that he was annoyed, though why she could not guess, Ruth hastened to amend matters by adding:

"Believe me, what I say is true. I am indeed sorry."

"Sorry that I live?"

"Most heartily am I."

"It is hard to credit such a statement from one so—from you."

"Do not say so. Miriam has already charged me with being glad that you were not drowned. It would pain me deeply if you also believed as she does."

The girl looked at him with swimming eyes, and the young man knew not what to answer. Finally he said:

"There is some horrible mistake. I cannot make it out. Perhaps our words, though apparently the same, have a different meaning. Sit down, Ruth, I want to ask you some questions."

Ruth cast a timorous glance towards the workers, and murmured something about not having much time to spare, but she placed the water-cans on the ground and sank down on the grass. Stanford throwing himself on the sward at her feet, but, seeing that she shrank back, he drew himself further from her, resting where he might gaze upon her face.

Ruth's eyes were downcast, which was necessary, for she occupied herself in pulling blade after blade of grass, sometimes weaving them together. Stanford had said he wished to question her, but he apparently forgot his intention, for he seemed wholly satisfied with merely looking at her. After the silence had lasted for some time, she lifted her eyes for one brief moment, and then asked the first question herself.

"From what land do you come?"

"From England."

"Ah! that also is an island, is it not?"

He laughed at the "also," and remembered that he had some questions to ask.



"Yes, it is an island—also. The sea dashes wrecks on all four sides of it, but there is no village on its shores so heathenish that if a man is cast upon the beach the inhabitants do not rejoice because he has escaped death."

Ruth looked at him with amazement in her eyes.

"Is there, then, no religion in England?"

"Religion? England is the most religious country on the face of the earth. There are more cathedrals, more churches, more places of worship in England than in any other State that I know of. We send missionaries to all heathenish lands. The Government, itself, supports the Church."

"I fear, then, I mistook your meaning. I thought from what you said that the people of England feared death, and did not welcome it or rejoice when one of their number died."

"They do fear death, and they do not rejoice when it comes. Far from it. From the peer to the beggar, everyone fights death as long as he can; the oldest cling to life as eagerly as the youngest. Not a man but will spend his last gold piece to ward off the inevitable even for an hour."

"Gold piece—what is that?"

Stanford plunged his hand into his pocket.

"Ah!" he said, "there are some coins left. Here is a gold piece."

The girl took it, and looked at it with keen interest.

"Isn't it pretty?" she said, holding the yellow coin on her pink palm, and glancing up at him.

"That is the general opinion. To accumulate coins like that, men will lie, and cheat, and steal—yes, and work. Although they will give their last sovereign to prolong their lives, yet will they risk life itself to accumulate gold. Every business in England is formed merely for the gathering together of bits of metal like that in your hand; huge companies of men are formed so that it may be piled up in greater quantities. The man who has most gold has most power, and is generally the most respected; the company which makes most money is the one people are most anxious to belong to."

Ruth listened to him with wonder and dismay in her eyes. As he talked she shuddered, and allowed the yellow coin to slip from her hand to the ground.

"No wonder such a people fears death."

"Do you not fear death?"

"How can we, when we believe in heaven?"

"But would you not be sorry if someone died whom you loved?"

"How could we be so selfish? Would you be sorry if your brother, or someone you loved, became possessed of whatever you value in England—a large quantity of this gold, for instance?"

"Certainly not. But then you see—well, it isn't exactly the same thing. If one you care for dies you are separated from him, and——"

"But only for a short time, and that gives but another reason for welcoming death. It seems impossible that Christian people should fear to enter Heaven. Now I begin to understand why our forefathers left England, and why our teachers will never tell us anything about the people there. I wonder why missionaries are not sent to England to teach them the truth, and try to civilise the people?"

"That would, indeed, be coals to Newcastle. But here comes one of the workers."

"It is my father," cried the girl, rising. "I fear I have been loitering. I never did such a thing before."

The man who approached was stern of countenance.

"Ruth," he said, "the workers are athirst."

The girl, without reply, picked up her pails and departed.

"I have been receiving," said the young man, colouring slightly, "some instruction regarding your belief. I had been puzzled by several remarks I heard, and wished to make inquiries regarding them."

"It is more fitting," said the man, coldly, "that you should receive instruction from me or from some of the elders than from one of the youngest in the community. When you are so far recovered as to be able to listen to an exposition of our views, I hope to be able to put forth such arguments as will convince you that they are the true views. If it should so happen that my arguments are not convincing, then I must request that you will hold no communication with our younger members. They must not be contaminated by the heresies of the outside world."



Stanford looked at Ruth standing beside the village well.

"Sir," he said, "you underrate the argumentative powers of the younger members. There is a text bearing upon the subject which I need not recall to you. I am already convinced."



MEMOIRS OF A FEMALE NIHILIST.

BY SOPHIE WASSILIEFF.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. ST. M. FITZ-GERALD.

INTRODUCTION.

BY MRS. MONA CAIRD.

In giving to the world her exciting and terrible story, "Mademoiselle Sophie" has also conveyed incidentally some idea of her remarkable character. As I had the privilege of hearing from her own lips all that she relates in this series of papers, I can supplement her unintentional self-portraiture by recording the impression that she made upon me at our first meeting.

I had always taken a strong interest in the political movements of Russia and in the Slavonic races whose character and temperament have something more or less mysterious to the Western mind. The Russian novel presents rather than explains this mystery. It is perhaps to the Tartar blood that we must attribute the incomprehensible element. Between the East and the West, there is, psychologically speaking, a great gulf fixed.

There are times when the reader of Russian fiction begins to wonder whether he or the author is not a little off his mental balance, so fantastic, so inconsequent, yet so insanely logical (so to put it) are the beings with whom he finds himself surrounded—beings, however, evidently and bewilderingly human, so that though they may appear scarcely in their right minds (as we should judge our compatriots), they can never be mistaken for mere figures of sawdust and plaster such as people extensive realms of Western fiction. It is the reality of the characters, coupled with their eccentric demeanour (the most humdrum Slav appears wildly original to the inexperienced Anglo-Saxon), that stirs anxiety.

Would "Mademoiselle Sophie" be like one of these erratic creations, or would she resemble the heroines of Russian political history whose marvellous courage and endurance excite the wonder of all who can even dimly realise what it must be to live from moment to moment in imminent peril of life and limb, and in ceaseless anxiety as to the fate of relatives and friends? Of all the trials that "Mademoiselle Sophie" went through, this last, she told me, was the worst. The absolute silence, the absolute ignorance in which she had to pass her days, seemed to have broken her wonderful spirit more than any other hardship.

It is not every day in the Nineteenth century that one comes in contact with a human being who has had to submit to the "ordeal by fire" in this literal mediaeval fashion; who has endured perils, insults, physical privations and torments, coupled with intense and ceaseless anxiety for years; and this in extreme youth before the troubles and difficulties of life have more gradually and gently taught the lessons of endurance and silent courage that probably have to be learnt by all who are destined to develop and gather force as they go, and not to dwindle and weaken, as seems to be the lot of those less fortunate in circumstance or less well-equipped at birth for the struggles that in one form or another present themselves in every career.

Russia is a nation that may almost be said to have preserved to this day the conditions of the Middle Ages. It affords, therefore, to the curious an opportunity for the study of the effect upon human character of these conditions. Here are still retained, to all intents and purposes, the thumbscrew and the rack; indeed, this is the case in a literal sense, for "Mademoiselle Sophie" told me that it was certain that prisoners were sometimes tortured in secret, after the good old-fashioned methods, not exactly officially (since the matter was kept more or less dark), but nevertheless by men in the employment of the Government who were able to take advantage of the powers bestowed by their office to practise despotism even to this extreme.

Many of the so-called Nihilists or Revolutionists (as "Mademoiselle Sophie" insisted on styling the more moderate party to which she belongs) seem to stand in the position of the early Protestants, when they protested against the abuses of the Catholic Church while retaining their reverence for the institution itself.

It is not against the Government, so much as against the illegal and tyrannous cruelty practised by many of its officials, that a certain section of the "Revolutionists" raise a remonstrance. It is astonishing how conservative some of these terrible "Revolutionists" appear to be. Many of them still look to the Tzar with a pathetic conviction that all would be well, if only the cry of his distressed children could reach his paternal ears. They ask so little; they would be thankful for such small mercies; yet there is apparently slight hope that the Tzar will be allowed to hear or would listen to the appeal of his much-enduring people!

"Mademoiselle Sophie" had promised to take tea with me on a particular afternoon, and to give me an account of her imprisonment. I had heard the general outlines before, but was anxious to hear her tell the tale in her own words. I may mention here that "Mademoiselle Sophie's" acquaintance had been sought, and that the idea of writing her story for publication in England did not emanate from her. Of her veracity there is not the faintest question; moreover, there was, evidently, no motive for deception.

Though I had heard that "Mademoiselle Sophie" had been a mere girl when she was first sent to face the rigours of a Russian prison, I was scarcely prepared to see anyone so young and fragile-looking as the lady in black who entered the room, with a quiet, reserved manner, courteous and dignified. I felt something like a thrill of dismay when I realised that it was an extremely sensitive woman who had gone through the scenes that she describes in these pages. She had been the more ill-prepared for the hardships of prison-life from having passed her childhood amidst every care and comfort.



She was singularly reticent and self-possessed. In speaking, there was no emotional emphasis, whatever she might be saying. The only comment on her narrative that one could detect was an occasional touch of cold scorn or irony. The more terrible the incident that she related, the more quiet became her tones.

It seemed as if the flame of indignation had burnt itself out in the years of suffering that she had passed through. The traces of those years were in her face. Its very stillness and pallor seemed to tell the tale of pain endured silently and in solitude for so long. It was written, too, in the steadfast quality that expressed itself in her whole bearing, and in the entire absence of any petty self-consciousness. In spite of the awful nervous strain that she had endured she had no little restless habits or movements of any kind.

One felt in her a vast reserve force and a dauntless courage. It was courage of a kind that is almost terrible, for it accompanied a highly organised and imaginative temperament, a nervous temperament, be it observed, which implies controlled and ordered, not uncontrolled and disordered nervous power. The half-hysterical persons who class themselves among the possessors of this temperament are apt to overlook that important distinction.

"Mademoiselle Sophie" gained none of her courage from insensitiveness. Her whole life was dedicated to the cause of her country, and the personal elements had been sacrificed to this object beyond herself: the forlorn hope which has already claimed so many of the noblest and bravest spirits in all the Tzar's dominions.

After "Mademoiselle Sophie" left that afternoon, I could not help placing her in imagination beside the average woman that our own civilisation has produced (not a fair comparison doubtless); and the latter seemed painfully small in aim and motive, pitifully petty and fussy and lacking in repose and dignity when compared with the calm heroine of this Russian romance.

But human beings are the creations of their circumstances, and the circumstances of a Western woman's life are not favourable to the development of the grander qualities, though, indeed, they are often harassing and bewildering, and cruel enough to demand heroism as great even as that of "Mademoiselle Sophie." I think it would be salutary for all of us—men as well as women of the West—to come more often within the influence of such natures as this; natures that command the tribute of admiration and the reverence that one must instantly yield to great moral strength and nobility.



MEMOIRS OF A FEMALE NIHILIST.

BY SOPHIE WASSILIEFF.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. ST. M. FITZ-GERALD.

I.

DEAR MESSIEURS,

You have asked me for a few reminiscences of the time when I took a more or less active part in the Revolutionary Movement in Russia—a sort of autobiographical sketch, to be published in English. As I never had the good fortune to render any really important service to my country, I have no right to draw public attention upon myself, and no wish to do so. But my experiences, of which I have told you a good deal by word of mouth, have been, save for sundry personal details, very like those of thousands of other young Russians, who, unwilling and unable to accept quietly the order of things that weighs so heavily upon their country, have devoted all their strength and all their faculties to the great struggle for freedom, which you of Western Europe call the Nihilistic Movement. In your opinion, it is just because of its simplicity and its likeness to many others, that the story of my life may possess some value; and perhaps you are right. At any rate, since to interest if but a small number of people in the lot of those who serve "the cause," will be to serve the cause still further—and it is, for the rest, the cause of common humanity and justice—I herewith put at your disposition such of my souvenirs as I am at liberty to make public, at the same time reminding you of your promise to preserve my incognito intact.

And now for my facts:

It was the year 188-. My brother had been arrested during the winter. At the beginning of the spring I went to X——, to the house of my uncle and aunt, to pass the summer, and to rest after the emotional strain I had been under. At least, such was the explanation of my leaving St. Petersburg which I gave to the police of that city, when I asked them for a passport for the interior of the Empire. As a matter of fact, I was anxious to see certain of my brother's friends at X——, with the object of trying, with their assistance, to destroy the traces of his last visit there—traces which, if discovered by the police, might be extremely detrimental to Serge's interests. On my arrival in the town—where, by the way, it was my habit to pass all my holidays—I found the Nihilist community, many of whose members were old friends of mine, in serious trouble. The police had just been making a terrible raid among them. Many had been arrested. The others, under strict surveillance, were daily expecting to be arrested in their turn.



This circumstance, apart from the regret it caused me, had a considerable influence upon my relations with the local revolutionary organisation. The centre of this organisation was a group of young men and women, who, besides the revolutionary agitation that they were carrying on, were in correspondence with other groups of the same sort, for the purpose of exchanging books, helping comrades to escape from prison and fly the country, and so forth. X—— is a big town, chiefly given up to manufactures; and at the time of which I speak there was gathered around this central group a sort of duplex association, composed, on the one hand, of well-educated young folks, and, on the other, of working men. As a precautionary measure, the association as a whole was split up into a number of small circles, or clubs, that met separately, and knew nothing of one another. It was especially in these smaller clubs that the members of the central group carried on their propaganda, the aim of which was then, as it is to-day, to alter the present method of government, to rid the country of the despotism that bears so heavily upon it, and stops its development, and thus to make possible at once an improvement in the condition of the labouring classes, and a reconstruction of Russian society upon a more rational and a more humane basis. With the working people, however, the revolutionists were often forced to begin by teaching them to read and write. Outside of all these clubs, there were in the town a good many people who, while taking no direct part in the movement, sympathised with it, and did what they could to aid and abet it by gifts of money, and by providing refuge for such of the active members as were hiding from the police. With these very useful friends the revolutionists kept up more or less continuous relations.

The programme of the group at X—— needed for its accomplishment a large force of devoted and trustworthy workers; and the arrests that had been made just before my arrival had considerably thinned their ranks. This circumstance, as I have said, changed the nature of my own relations with the revolutionary organisation. Hitherto my visits to the town had been short, only to spend my school holidays in fact. Very young, moreover, I had never belonged to any of the clubs; and my friendships with their members had been purely personal. Now, however, I was older, and I had come to stop at X—— for several months. In the face of the gaps the late arrests had made in the little army of revolutionists, I felt that I must enlist. I offered my services, and they were accepted.

Towards the middle of the summer, my uncle and aunt went to Moroznoie, a little village near the town where their property lay. Leaving St. Petersburg before the end of the University year, I, a student of medicine, had been obliged to put off my examinations until the autumn. These examinations, or rather, my necessity to work and prepare for them, coupled with the presence of a fine public library at X——, gave me the pretext I needed to stay behind during the family villegiatura. After some opposition, and a good deal of talk about the superiority of country air, my uncle and aunt consented—the more easily, perhaps, because, after all, I was not to be alone; my Aunt Vera and two servants were to remain in the town house. Besides, my uncle and his wife were often coming back for a day or two at a time, and I promised to pass all my Sundays with them. This arrangement suited me perfectly. My Aunt Vera, my dead father's sister, was the sweetest and gentlest of women, an invalid, with an infinite tenderness for Serge and myself, the orphans of her favourite brother. The servants also, an old nurse and a gardener, were entirely devoted to my family and to me. I was therefore free, mistress of the house, of my time, of myself. Divided between my studies, a few visits paid and received, and my weekly trip to Moroznoie, my life flowed peacefully, monotonously enough—on the surface.



Down deep, alas! it was not the same. Our revolutionary group was being harried by the police, and their arrests and domiciliary visits were conducted with so much skill and certainty, we were forced to believe at last that we were betrayed by a traitor or a spy among our own numbers. Strictly watched by the police, who kept us "moving on," avoided on that account by some of our friends, and knowing perfectly well that a single false step might bring ruin not only upon ourselves, but upon many others, we were obliged to be extremely cautious, and not to meet too often. A few furtive interviews now and again for the interchange of news, a few sparsely attended rendezvous for the purpose of keeping the threads of our organisation together, were pretty nearly all that we thought safe to permit ourselves. This mode of life—so tranquil to outward appearance, but in reality so full of anxiety for each and all; a life without a to-morrow, so that when we parted we did not know whether we should ever meet again, and it became our habit to say Adieu instead of Au revoir—lasted for me about five months. Melancholy enough, indeed, it had notwithstanding a charm of its own, a charm that sprang partly, perhaps, from the consciousness of dangers incurred for a noble object, and from the feeling of grave moral responsibility that we all had. A few episodes of that time are deeply fixed in my memory. A meeting we held one evening at twilight in a rich park near the town, a park that belonged to a high personage at the Imperial Court, whose son was one of us. There we met and whispered, and the murmur of the leaves overhead and the deepening shadows of the nightfall lent an intense colour of poetry to the situation. And then another meeting, in the poor little lodging of a factory-operative—a special meeting, called because our suspicions of treason within our own ranks had centred now upon a certain individual, a student, a college friend of my cousins, a constant visitor at our house. At this meeting a plan was adopted to test our suspect, and prove whether or not he was the guilty man. I, the next time he called, was to put him on a false scent; I was to tell him that a reunion of Nihilists would be held at a given place and a given time; and then we would await developments. I was also to draw him out, if possible, and make him convict himself from his own mouth. But this I could not do. I put him on the false scent; but I couldn't draw him out. It is terrible to hold the life of a human being between your hands, even though that human being be the basest of cowards and traitors.

Well, at the time and place that I told him of, surely enough, the police turned up, and naturally they found nobody there. But during the two following nights twenty fresh arrests took place; and I was one of those arrested. My cousins' friend, feeling himself discovered and menaced, had made haste to deliver us into the hands of our enemies!



That evening I had come home rather late, and had then sat and chatted for a long while with aunt Vera, so that it was well towards midnight before I started to go to bed. Half-way upstairs, I was stopped by a noise; footsteps and stifled voices, mingled with the clang of spurs and sabres. I waited a moment, to take breath, which had failed me suddenly; then I went back downstairs. A violent pull at the bell, an imperative pull, sounded at the garden gate; and in a moment was followed by another at the door of the house. It woke the old nurse, and brought my aunt Vera from her room. Having been a little forewarned by me of the possibility of such a visit as this, she questioned me with a frightened glance. I answered "Yes," by a sign of the head, and begged her under my breath to delay "them" as long as possible before letting "them" come in. The idea of being able to render me a service, perhaps the last, gave her strength and courage; and while slowly, very slowly, she moved towards the door, where the nocturnal visitors were getting impatient and trying to force the lock, I went into the dining-room. A moment later I heard her sweet trembling voice assuring Monsieur le Colonel de Gendarmerie that there was no one in the house; all the family were at Moroznoie; my uncle had been in town on Monday, but had left again on Tuesday, and wouldn't return till the end of next week; and there was no one here but herself, the speaker, and a young lady visiting her. In this little respite, which I had arranged for myself without too well knowing why, I remained inert in the room, lighted feebly by a single candle, and tried to gather my thoughts together: they were slow enough to respond to my efforts. My first notion was that of flight, and, automatically, I opened a window. Close at hand, behind some shrubbery, I perceived the glitter of a gendarme's uniform. There would surely be others in the garden and in the courtyard; and for the rest, fly—? How, and whither? I shut the window, and coming back to the middle of the room, I caught a glimpse of myself in the chimney-glass. I was very pale. Was I going to be a coward? This question, and that pale face in the mirror, awoke in me other thoughts, brought back to my memory other faces: that of my brother, who, a few months before, had gone so bravely from his home, to which he would never return, to the prison that he would perhaps never leave; those of friends lately arrested; those of so many, many noble men and women. Was I going to be a coward? So the examples set by these others turned my attention from myself, calmed me, gave me strength. I could hear the voice of Colonel P——, who, impatient of my aunt's parleying, briefly bade her hold her tongue, and conduct him to the presence of her niece, Mademoiselle Sophie. That voice, rude and gross, had the effect of changing the moral depression which I had felt a moment ago into a sort of intense nervous excitement; and at the moment when the Colonel, followed by his men, appeared upon the threshold of the dining-room, honouring me with the very least respectful of bows, I, instead of saluting him in return, met him with a gaze as fixed and haughty as his own.



A minute later the Colonel was installed at the dinner-table, with the whole household arraigned before him, and everybody forbidden to leave the room. He asked my aunt Vera for the keys of the house, and the search began. The gendarmes scattered themselves through all the rooms, through the garden, the courtyard, the offices, and turned everything upside down, emptying wardrobes and cupboards, unmaking the beds, moving the articles of furniture to see that nothing was hidden behind them, and trying the screws to discover if there were any secret drawers. In my bedroom, which was of course the object of a very particular attention, a spy dressed in civilian's costume got up on the tables and chairs, and tapped on the walls. Another drew the ashes, still hot, from the stove, and examined them by the light of a lamp, held by a big gendarme. From time to time these men would come back to the dining-room, bringing armfuls of books, and school papers belonging to my cousins, which they would deposit upon the table before Colonel P——. After looking them over, he would throw them aside with such manifest ill humour, that I, who by this time had myself completely under control, couldn't let the occasion pass to condole with him on the sad nature of his trade. The whole search was a useless and odious farce, for I knew that there was nothing in the house of the kind they were looking for. Still I wasn't sorry to let them prolong it, for that gave me more time to stay there at home, beside my aunt Vera, who, smaller and feebler and paler than ever, turned her dear eyes, full of fear and tenderness, upon my face, and kept stroking my hand with her two trembling ones.



The search was nearly over, when a gendarme came in from the stable with a great parcel of books, done up in green cloth, which he laid before the Colonel. Opened, the parcel proved to contain not books only, but forbidden books—books by Herbert Spencer, by Mr. Ruskin, by Monsieur Renan! I was astonished at seeing them, and my first thought was that they belonged to my brother, who might have forgotten them there in the stable, or to my cousins, who, without being revolutionists, were interested in forbidden literature just because it was forbidden. So when the Colonel, having finished his inspection of them, asked me whom they belonged to, I answered quietly, "To me." My aunt Vera, to whom I had always promised never to bring "forbidden" things into the house, looked at me sadly, reproachfully. Ah! my dear aunt, I lied in saying they were mine; but in my situation a few forbidden books couldn't matter much; whereas for the others, for my innocent cousins—who knows what serious trouble they might have got them into?

The Colonel demanded, "Where do these books come from?"

"From the people who had them last."

"Their names?"

"What, Colonel! You, the chief of the secret police of X——, you don't know!"

This answer kindled a light of anger in his little Chinese eyes. For my part, I had spoken very slowly, looking steadily at him, and smiling as if it were a jest; but it wasn't exactly a jest. While the Colonel had been questioning me, I had reflected. It was impossible that my cousins should have had books of this sort in their possession without speaking to me about them; and it was most unlikely that they could have belonged to Serge, who, always very careful, made it a strict rule never to bring anything of a compromising nature to our uncle's house. But I had often heard that the political police, to create evidence against people whom they strongly suspected, but who were too prudent for their taste, and also to make their arrests appear less arbitrary in the eyes of the public, had a pleasant habit of bringing "forbidden" things with them to the houses where they made their perquisitions, for the sake of supplying what they might not be able to find. Was this what had happened now? Had I been caught in such a trap?

That was what I asked the Colonel in the form of a little jest.

Did he understand? He answered with a piece of advice: that I should be less gay. For the rest, he was in a hurry; he looked at his watch; announced that all was over, and that I was under arrest; and called for witnesses to sign the proces-verbal. Our gardener ran out to find somebody. He came back with two people who had been attracted to our house by the lights and the noise. One was a cabman, the other was Dr. A——, a neighbour who had recently come to live at X——, and whom we knew only by sight. These men stared at me with surprise and curiosity. I scarcely saw them. The words "Under arrest" had completely upset my Aunt Vera, who, till then so calm, was now crying bitterly, covering me with kisses, and repeating, "My child! My child!" The old nurse also was crying, sobbing, and muttering to herself. Just when I feel that I myself am about to give way, and cry too—that which I am anxious, most anxious, not to do—she, the old nurse, throws herself at the Colonel's feet, and begs grace for me, telling him that I am too young, too frail, to go to prison, that I have been coughing these many days, that I may die there! This makes the Colonel smile. For me, I tell the old nurse to get up. I scold her. Stupefied, trembling, she sinks to the floor in a corner of the room, and weeps for me as the Russian peasants weep for their dead, mingling with her sobs memories of our common past, praises of my good qualities, and so forth. All this, uttered in a low sing-song, is like a sort of funeral dirge.



I hear it still at the moment when the Colonel shuts me into a cab, with two gendarmes facing me, and another on the box beside the driver, to whom the order is given, "The fortress!"

Sophie Wassilieff.

(To be continued.)



PEOPLE I HAVE NEVER MET.

BY SCOTT RANKIN.

BRET HARTE.

"'When a man is interviewed he, consciously or unconsciously, prepares himself for it and isn't at all natural. Suppose, for instance, you found your man in a railway car, and entered casually into conversation with him. Then you would probably get his real thoughts—the man as he is. But, of course, when a man is asked questions, and sees the answers taken down in shorthand, it is a very different thing.'"—Bret Harte.



MY SERVANT JOHN.

BY ARCHIBALD FORBES.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY FREDERIC VILLIERS.

Goa is a forlorn and decayed settlement on the west coast of Hindustan, the last remaining relic of the once wide dominions of the Portuguese in India. Its inhabitants are of the Roman Catholic faith, ever since in the 16th century St. Francis Xavier, the colleague of Loyola in the foundation of the Society of Jesus, baptised the Goanese in a mass. Its once splendid capital is now a miasmatic wreck, its cathedrals and churches are ruined and roofless, and only a few black nuns remain to keep alight the sacred fire before a crumbling altar. Of all European nations the Portuguese have intermingled most freely with the dusky races over which they held dominion, with the curious result that the offspring of the cross is darker in hue than the original coloured population. To-day, the adult males of Goa, such of them as have any enterprise, emigrate into less dull and dead regions of India, and are found everywhere as cooks, ship-stewards, messengers, and in similar menial capacities. They all call themselves Portuguese, and own high-sounding Portuguese surnames. Domingo de Gonsalvez de Soto will cook your curry, and Pedro de Guiterraz is content to act as dry nurse to your wife's babies. The vice of those dusky noblemen is their addiction to drink.



The better sort of these self-expatriated Goanese are eager to serve as travelling servants, and when you have the luck to chance on a reasonably sober fellow, no better servant can be found anywhere. Being a Christian, he has no caste, and has no religious scruples preventing him from wiping your razor after you have shaved, or from eating his dinner after your shadow has happened to fall across the table. In Bombay there is a regular club or society of these Goanese travelling servants, and when the transient wayfarer lands in that city from the Peninsular and Oriental mail boat, one of the first things he is advised to do is to send round to the "Goa Club" and desire the secretary to send him a travelling servant. The result is a lottery. The man arrives, mostly a good-looking fellow, tall and slight, of very dark olive complexion, with smooth glossy hair, large soft eyes, and well-cut features. He produces a packet of chafed and dingy testimonials of character from previous employers, all full of commendation, and not one of which is worth the paper it is written on, because the good-natured previous employer was too soft of heart to speak his mind on paper. If by chance a stern and ruthless person has characterised Bartolomeo de Braganza as drunken, lazy, and dishonest, Bartolomeo, who has learnt to read English, promptly destroys the "chit," and the stern man's object is thus frustrated. But you must take the Goa man as he comes, for it is a law of the society that its members are offered in strict succession as available, and that no picking and choosing is to be allowed. When with the Prince of Wales during his tour in India, the man who fell to me, good, steady, honest Francis, was simply a dusky jewel. My comrade, Mr. Henty, the well-known author of so many boys' books, rather crowed over me because Domingo, his man, seemed more spry and smart than did my Francis. But Francis had often to attend on Henty as well as myself, when Domingo the quick-witted was lying blind drunk at the back of the tent, and once and again I have seen Henty carrying down on his back to the departing train the unconscious servant on whom at the beginning he had congratulated himself.



In the summer of 1876, Shere Ali, the old Ameer of Afghanistan, took it into his head to pick a quarrel with the Viceroy of British India. Lord Lytton was always spoiling for a fight himself, and thus there was every prospect of a lively little war. If war should occur, it was my duty to be in the thick of it, and I reached Bombay well in time to see the opening of the campaign. Knowing the ropes, within an hour of landing I sent to the "Goa Club" for a servant, begging that, if possible, I might have worthy Francis, who had fully satisfied me during the tour of the Prince. Francis was not available, and there was sent me a tall, prepossessing-looking young man, who presented himself as "John Assissis de Compostella de Crucis," but was quite content to answer to the name of "John."

John seemed a capable man, but was occasionally muzzy. After visiting Simla, the headquarters of the Viceroy, I started for the frontier, where the army was mustering. On the way down I spent a couple of days at Umballa, to buy kit and saddlery. The train by which I was going to travel up-country was due at Umballa about midnight. I instructed John to have everything at the depot in good time, and went to dine at the mess of the Carbineers. In due time I reached the station, accompanied by several officers of that fine regiment. The train was at the platform; my belongings I found in a chaotic heap, crowned by John fast asleep, who, when awakened, proved to be extremely drunk. I could not dispense with the man; I had to cure him. There was but one chance of doing this. I gave him then and there a severe beating. A fatigue party of Carbineers pitched my kit into the baggage car, and threw John in after it. Next day he was sore, but penitent. There was no need to send him to Dwight, even if that establishment had been in the Punjaub instead of in Illinois. John was redeemed without resorting to the chloride of gold cure, and in his case at least, I was quite as successful a practitioner as any Dr. Keeley could have been. John de Compostella, &c., was a dead sober man during my subsequent experience of him, at least till close on the time we parted.



And, once cured of fuddling, he turned out a most worthy and efficient fellow. He lacked the dash of Andreas, but he was as true as steel. In the attack on Ali Musjid, in the throat of the Khyber Pass, the native groom, who was leading my horse behind me, became demoralised by the rather heavy fire of big cannon balls from the fort, and skulked to the rear with the horse. John had no call to come under fire, since the groom was specially paid for doing so; but abusing the latter for a coward in the expressive vernacular of India, he laid hold of the reins, and was up right at my back just as the close musketry fighting began. He took his chances through it manfully, had my pack pony up within half an hour after the fighting was over, and before the darkness fell had cooked a capital little dinner for myself and a comrade, whose commissariat had gone astray. Next morning the fort was found evacuated. I determined to ride back down the pass to the field telegraph post at its mouth. The General wrote in my notebook a telegram announcing the good news to the Commander-in-Chief; and poor Cavagnari, the political officer, who was afterwards massacred at Cabul, wrote another message to the same effect to the Viceroy. I expected to have to walk some distance to our bivouac of the night; but lo! as I turned to go, there was John with my horse, close up.



In one of the hill expeditions, the advanced section of the force I accompanied had to penetrate a narrow and gloomy pass which was beset on either side by swarms of Afghans, who slated us severely with their long-range jezails. With this leading detachment there somehow was no surgeon, and as men were going down and something had to be done, it devolved upon me, as having some experience in this kind of work in previous campaigns, to undertake a spell of amateur surgery. John behaved magnificently as my assistant. With his light touch and long lissom hands, the fellow seemed to have a natural instinct for successful bandaging. I was glad that we could do no more than bandage, and that we had no instruments, else I believe that John would not have hesitated to undertake a capital operation. As for the Afghan bullets, he did not shrink as they splashed on the stones around him; he did not treat them with disdain; he simply ignored them. The soldiers swore that he ought to have the war medal for the good and plucky work he was doing; and a Major protested that if his full titles, which John always gave in full when his name was asked, had not been so confoundedly long, he would have asked the General to mention the Goa man in despatches.



John liked war, but he was not fond of the rapid changes of temperature up on the "roof of the world" in Afghanistan. During one twenty-four hours at Jellalabad, we had one man killed by a sunstroke, and another frozen to death on sentry duty in the night. On Christmas morning, when I rose at sunrise, the thermometer was far below freezing point; the water in the brass basin in my tent was frozen solid, and I was glad to wrap myself in furs. At noon the thermometer was over a hundred in the shade, and we were all so hot as to wish with Sydney Smith that we could take off our flesh and sit in our bones. John was delighted when, as there seemed no immediate prospect of further hostilities in Afghanistan, I departed therefrom to pay a visit to King Thebaw, of Burmah, who has since been disestablished. When in his capital of Mandalay, there came to me a telegram from England informing me of the massacre by the Zulus of a thousand British soldiers at Isandlwana, in South Africa, and instructing me to hurry thither with all possible speed. John had none of the Hindoo dislike to cross the "dark water," and he accompanied me to Aden, where we made connection with a potty little steamer, which called into every paltry and fever-smelling Portuguese port all along the east coast of Africa, and at length dropped us at Durban, the seaport of the British colony of Natal, in South Africa, and the base of the warlike operations against the Zulus.



There are many Hindoos engaged on the Natal sugar plantations, and in that particularly one-horse Colony, every native of India is known indiscriminately by the term of "coolie." John, it is true, was a native of India, but he was no "coolie"; he could read, write, and speak English, and was altogether a superior person. I would not take him up country to be bullied and demeaned as a "coolie," and I made for him an arrangement with the proprietor of my hotel that during my absence John should help to wait in his restaurant. During the Zulu campaign I was abominably served by a lazy Africander and a lazier St. Helena boy. When Ulundi was fought, and Cetewayo's kraal was burned, I was glad to return to Durban, and take passage for India. John, I found, had during my absence become one of the prominent inhabitants of Durban. He had now the full charge of the hotel restaurant—he was the centurion of the dinner-table, with men under him, to whom he said "do this," and they did it. His skill in dishes new to Natal, especially in curries, had crowded the restaurant, and the landlord had taken the opportunity of raising his tariff. He came to me privily, and said frankly that John was making his fortune for him, that he was willing to give him a share in his business in a year's time if he would but stay, and meantime was ready to pay him a stipend of twenty dollars a week. The wages at which John served me, and I had been told I was paying him extravagantly, was eleven dollars a month. I told the landlord that I should not think of standing in the way of my man's prosperity, but would rather influence him in favour of an opportunity so promising. Then I sent for John, explained to him the hotel-keeper's proposal, and suggested that he should take time to think the matter over. John wept. "I no stay here, master, not if it was hundred rupees a day! I go with master; I no stop in Durban!" Nothing would shake his resolve, and so John and I came to England together.



The only thing John did not like in England was that the street boys insisted on regarding him as a Zulu, and treating him contumeliously accordingly. His great delight was when I went on a round of visits to country houses, and took him with me as valet. Then he was the hero of the servants' hall. I will not say that he lied, but from anecdotes of him that occasionally came to my ears, it would seem he created the impression that he habitually waded in knee-deep gore, and that he was in the habit of contemplating with equanimity battle-fields littered with the slaughtered combatants. John was quite the small lion of the hour. He had very graceful ways, and great skill in making tasteful bouquets. These he would present to the ladies of the household when they came downstairs of a morning, with a graceful salaam, and the expression of a hope that they had slept well. The spectacle of John, seen from the drawing-room windows of Chevening, Lord Stanhope's seat in Kent, as he swaggered across the park to church one Sunday morning in frock coat and silk hat, with a buxom cook on one arm and a tall and lean lady's maid on the other, will never be effaced from the recollection of those who witnessed it with shrieks of laughter.



In those days I lived in a flat, my modest establishment consisting of an old female housekeeper and John. For the most part my two domestics were good friends, but there were periods of estrangement during which they were not on speaking terms; and then they sat on opposite sides of the kitchen table, and communicated with each other exclusively by written notes of an excessively formal character, passed across the table. This stiffness of etiquette had its amusing side, but was occasionally embarrassing, since neither was uniformly intelligible with the pen. The result was that sometimes I got no dinner at all, and at other times, when I was dining alone, the board groaned with the profusion, and when I had company there would not be enough to go round; these awkwardnesses arising from the absence of a good understanding between my two domestics. I could not part with the old female servant, and I began rather to tire of John, whose head had become considerably swollen because of the notice which had been taken of him. It was all very well to be in a position to gratify ladies who were giving dinner parties, and who wrote me little notes asking for the loan for a few hours of John, to make that wonderful prawn curry of which he had the sole recipe. But John used to return from that culinary operation very late, and with indications that his beverage during his exertions had not been wholly confined to water. To my knowledge he had a wife in Goa, yet I feared he had his flirtations here in London. Once I charged him with inconstancy to the lady in Goa, but he repudiated the aspersion with the quaint denial: "No, master, many ladies are loving me, but I don't love no ladies!"

However, I had in view to spend a winter in the States, and resolved to send John home. He wept copiously when I told him of this resolve, and professed his anxiety to die in my service. But I remained firm, and reminded him that he had not seen his wife in Goa for nearly three years. That argument appeared to carry little weight with him; but he tearfully submitted to the inevitable. I made him a good present, and obtained for him from the Peninsular and Oriental people a free passage to Bombay, and wages besides in the capacity of a saloon steward. I saw him off from Southampton; at the moment of parting he emitted lugubrious howls. He never fulfilled his promise of writing to me, and I gave up the expectation of hearing of him any more.

Some two years later, I went to Australia by way of San Francisco and New Zealand. At Auckland I found letters and newspapers awaiting me from Sydney and Melbourne. Among the papers was a Melbourne illustrated journal, on a page of which I found a full-length portrait of the redoubtable John, his many-syllabled name given at full length, with a memoir of his military experiences, affixed to which was a fac-simile of the certificate of character which I had given him when we parted. It was further stated that "Mr. Compostella de Crucis" was for the present serving in the capacity of butler to a financial magnate in one of the suburbs of Melbourne, but that it was his intention to purchase the goodwill of a thriving restaurant named. Among the first to greet me on the Melbourne jetty was John, radiant with delight, and eager to accompany me throughout my projected lecture tour. I dissuaded him in his own interest from doing so; and when I finally quitted the pleasant city by the shore of Hobson's Bay, John was running with success the "Maison Dore" in Burke Street. I fear, if she is alive, that his wife in Goa is a "grass widow" to this day.



[Sidenote: Dr. Parker says It depends upon the health of the artist.]

Is the artistic temperament a blessing or a curse? We should first decide what the artistic temperament means. Artistic is a large word. It includes painting, acting, poetry, music, literature, preaching. Whether the temperament is a blessing or a curse largely depends upon the health of the artist. If De Quincey was an artist, the artistic temperament was a curse. So also with Thomas Carlyle. So also with Charles Lamb. The artistic temperament is creative, sympathetic, responsive; it sees everything, feels everything, realises everything, on a scale of exaggeration. It is in quest of ideals, and all ideals are more or less in the clouds, and not seldom at the tip-top of the rainbow. Those who undertake such long journeys are subject to disappointment and fatigue by the way; if ever they do come to the end of their journey it is probably in a temper of fretfulness and exasperation. A sudden knock at the door may drive an artist into hysterics. He is always working at the end of his tether. There is nothing more tantalising than an eternal quest after the ideal; like the horizon, it recedes from the traveller; like the mirage, it vanishes before the claims of hunger and thirst. On the other hand, it has enjoyments all its own. The idealist is always face to face with a great expectation. Perhaps to-night he may realise it; certainly in the morning it will be much nearer; and as for the third day, it will be realised in some great festival of delight. There is, too, a subtle selfishness in this quest after the ideal—the Holy Grail of the imagination. The artist keeps the secret from his brother artists until he can startle them with some gracious surprise. He almost pities them, as he thinks of the revelation that is about to dawn upon unsuspecting and slumberous minds. Postponement of this surprise is a torment to the mind which had planned its dazzling disclosure. The greatest pain of all to the artistic temperament is that it lives in the world of the Impossible and the Unattainable. That arm must be very weary which for a lifetime has been stretched out towards the horizon. Then think of the cross-lights, the mingled colours, the uncalculated relations which enter into the composition of the dreamer's life, and say whether that life is not more of a chaos than a cosmos. If the artistic temperament came within the range of our own choice and will, possibly we could do something with it; but inasmuch as it is ours by heredity, and not by adoption, we must do the best we can with the stubborn fatality.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Mrs. Lynn Linton thinks it depends upon ourselves.]

If to feel keenly be a nobler state than to drone with blunt edges through that thicket of myrtle and nightshade we call life, then is the artistic temperament a blessing. If the oyster be more enviable than the nightingale, then is it a curse. It all depends on our angle, and the colours we most prefer in the prism. He who has the artistic temperament knows depths and heights such as Those Others cannot even imagine. The feet that spring into the courts of heaven by a look or a word—by the glory of the starry night or the radiance of the dawn—stray down into the deepest abysses of hell, when Love has died or Nature forgets to smile. To the artistic temperament there is but little of the mean of things. The "Mezzo Cammin" is a line too narrow for their eager steps. Proportion is the one quality in emotional geometry which is left out of their lesson of life. Their grammar deals only with superlatives; and the positive seems to them inelastic, dead and common-place. Imaginative sympathy colours and transforms the whole picture of existence. By this sympathy the artistic of temperament knows the secrets of souls, and understands all where Those Others see nothing. And herein lies one source of those waters of bitterness which so often flood his heart. Feeling for and with his kind, as accurately as the mirror reflects the object held before it, he finds none to share the pain, the joy, the indignation he endures by this sympathy, which is reflection. He visits the Grundyite, who says "Shocking," "Not nice," when human nature writhes in its agony and cries aloud for that drop of water which he, the virtuous conformist, refuses. He goes to the flat-footed and broad-waisted; those who plod along the beaten highway, and turn neither to the right hand nor to the left, neither to the hills nor the hollows. But he speaks a foreign language, and they heed him not. The iron-bound care nought. Does that cry of suffering raise the price of stocks or lower that of grain? Tush! let it pass. To each back its own burden. So he carries the piteous tale whereby his heart is aching for sympathy, and Those Others give him stones for bread and a serpent for a fish. Then he looks up to heaven, and asks if there be indeed a God to suffer all this wrong; or if there be, How long, O Lord, how long! The artistic temperament is not merely artistic perception, with which it is so often confounded. You may be steeped to the lips in that temperament, and yet not be able to arrange flowers with deftness, draw a volute, or strike a true chord. And you may be able to do all these, and yet be dead in heart and cold in brain—a mere curly-wigged poodle doing its clever tricks with dexterity, and obedient to the hand that feeds it. The artistic temperament is not this, but something far different. Would you know what it is, and what it brings? It is the Key of Life, without which no one can understand the mysteries nor hear the secret music; and it plants a dagger in the flesh, with the handle outward. And at this handle, the careless, the brutal, the malicious, and the dense witted—all Those Others—lunge, pull, and twist by turns. But they do not see the blood trickling from the wound; and they would neither care nor yet desist if they did.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Rutland Barrington regards it as a mixed blessing.]

The artistic temperament is a most decidedly "mixed" blessing, and the more artistic the more mixed! This is strongly demonstrated to me personally in the person of a friend of my school days who has become in later years an acquaintance only; a falling away, due entirely to the abnormal development of his artistic temperament, which will not allow him to see any good in anything or anybody that does not come up to his ideal, the artistic temperament in his case taking the form of a kind of mental yellow jaundice! Of course, I consider that I myself possess this temperament, and am willing to admit that the natural friction caused by the meeting with a less highly developed temperament (?) than his own may have led to the feeling of mental and artistic superiority which has convinced one of us that association with the other is undesirable! I fancy that the two classes most strongly influenced by this temperament are the painters and the actors, who display characteristics of remarkable resemblance, as, for instance, all painters (I use the word "painters" because "artists" is applied equally to both classes) are fully alive to the beauties of Nature in all her varied moods, but, when those beauties are depicted on the canvasses of others, are somewhat prone to discover a comprehension of those beauties inferior to their own! So, too, with actors, the majority of whom possess the feeling, though they may not always express it, that, although Mr. Garrick Siddons's efforts were distinctly good, there are people, not a hundred miles off, who might have shone to more advantage in the part! There is no doubt that the artistic temperament magnifies all the pleasures of one's life by the infusion of a keener zest for enjoyment, the natural outcome of such temperament, but the reverse of the medal is equally well cut, and the misfortunes and disappointments of life are the more keenly felt in consequence of the possession of this temperament! Whether the balance is equally maintained or not is a question only to be answered by the individual, but I incline to the belief that life is smoother to the phlegmatic than the artistic temperament!—though I should not believe it would be possible to find any person possessing the latter who would be willing to renounce it, in spite of its disadvantages, so I must perforce conclude it to be a blessing! Q.E.D.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Miss Helen Mathers looks upon it as a curse.]

If the artistic temperament will enable a man to be rendered profoundly happy by one of those trifles that Nature strews each day in our path—say a salmon-pink sunset seen through the lacing of tall black boles of leafless trees, or a flower, happed upon unexpectedly, that reads you a half-forgotten lesson in "country art"—that same man will be reduced to abject misery and real suffering by a dirty tablecloth, a vulgar, uncongenial companion, or even the presence of a bright blue gown in a chamber subdued to utmost harmonies in gold and yellow. The curse with him follows all too swiftly on the blessing of enjoyment—and lasts longer. And in matters of love, the artistic temperament is a doubtful blessing. The shape of a man's nose will turn a woman's eyes away from the goodness of his character, and a badly-fitting coat so outrage her beauty-loving propensities, that she is provoked into mistaking her mind's approval for real heart affection, and she chooses the artistic man, only to find, probably, that, like the O'Flaherty, one cannot comfortably worship a lily, without a considerable amount of mutton chops as well—and in the end she may sigh for the tasteless man who yet had the taste to love her.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: We worship the "beautiful" too much.]

I think most of us carry this tendency to worship the beautiful too far, and our scorn for the physically unsatisfactory is one of our cruellest and most glaring latter-day faults. It is true we are equally cordially hard on ourselves, and hate our vile bodies, when their aches and pains intrude themselves between us and our soul's delight—for it is from the Pagan, not the Christian, point of view that most lovers of beauty regard life. And if a man's taste require costly gratification of it, say by pictures, by marbles, by the thousand and one sumptuous trifles that go to make the modern house beautiful, then that man is not possessed of true taste, and he will be poorer in his palace than if he dwelt ragged in Nature's lap, with all her riches, and those of his own mind, at his disposal. For the true artistic sense impels one to work always—and always to better and not worsen, what it touches. The artistic sense that lazes, and lets other people work to gratify it, is a bastard one, more, it is immoral, and neither bestows, nor receives, grace. It cannot be fashioned, it may not be bought, this strange sense of the inward beauty of things; nor a man's wife, nor his own soul, nor his beautiful house shall teach it him, and he will never be one with the Universe, with God, understanding all indeed, but not by written word or speech, but by what was born in him. And though he may suffer through it too, though to the ugly, the deaf, and the afflicted, such a gift may seem bestowed in cruellest irony, still when all is said and done I can think of no better summary of the whole than that given by Philip Sydney's immortal lines on love. You all know them—

"He who for love hath undergone The worst that can befall Is happier thousandfold than he Who ne'er hath loved at all ... For in his soul a grace hath reigned That nothing else could bring."

[Sidenote: Alfred C. Calmour is doubtful.]

The artistic temperament is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing when it lifts a man's soul out of the slough of vulgar commonplace, and turns his thoughts to the contemplation of noble things, while at the same time it enables him to give something to the world which it would not willingly lose, and for which he can obtain adequate remuneration. But it (the artistic temperament) is a curse when it tempts a man from that honest employment which provides him with bread and butter, and leaves him a defeated, disappointed, and heartbroken wretch, unable to return to that humble course of life which had happily supplied his daily wants.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Mrs. Panton considers it a fantastic demon.]

Personally speaking, I consider the possession of the artistic temperament a distinct curse to those unfortunate folk who have to live with the owner of this fantastic demon; while if the possessor knows how to deal with his old Man of the Sea he has a most powerful engine at his command: for once let the world at large know that the "artistic temperament" has entered into him, his strangest freaks become more than put-up-able with, and the brighter he is in company, and the more irritable and offensive he is at home, the more law is given him, and the less work, and, may I add, decency, is expected of him, until he appears to agree with his compeers or followers, and begins to be as eccentric as he likes. Commencing with long hair touching his shoulders, and with an absence of the use of Someone's soap, he passes on through mystic moonlight glances to a still more artistic appreciation of the charms of Nature at her simplest, until Mrs. Grundy looks askance, and duchesses and other leaders of Society squabble over him, and try one against the other for the honour and pleasure of his society. So far, then, the artistic temperament is for its possessor a fine thing, for it cannot put up with indifferent fare and lodging: it can only prove its existence by the manner in which it annexes all that is richest, most beautiful, and, to use a byegone slang word, most Precious. For it is reserved the luxurious Chesterfield or Divan, heaped with rainbow-like cushions, and placed in the most becoming light, until the quick, unhappy day dawns when another "artistic temperament" comes to the fore, and the first retires perforce, if not a better, certainly a sadder, man, for all that has been happening unto him. Now comes the time when one sees the slow-witted creature sinking gradually into the mere haunter of the Gaiety bar: when the sacred lamp burns brightly, and causes him to recollect, sadly indeed, the days that are no more. Or we find the man who has learned his bitter lesson, and recognising that he still exists—albeit the beast is dead—turns to the work he was meant to do, and does that nobly, though the mad and beautiful days of his youth have done, and all that caused life to be lovely has faded slowly into the ewigkeit.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: But that, if true, it must often be a delight.]

If the "artistic temperament" is true and not a sham, to the owner at least it must often be a sheer delight, for the elf or "troll" which goes by this name takes such possession of the owner that under his guidance he sees "What man may never see, the star that travels far." "The light" that the poet declares shone on sea or shore, shines for him always, if for no one else: he walks with Beatrice in Paradise, not in the "other place;" and his delight in the mere rapture of existence is such that he hardly cares to speak for joy, and for the certainty that not one living creature on earth would understand him if he did. For even if he recognised another elf or troll, peeping out of the eyes of a friend, it would not be his own familiar spirit, and, in consequence, he would not understand the other, because no two of these fantastic creatures ever speak entirely alike. But if we mention those who have to exist with the owner of this fantastic Will-o'-the-wisp—for he is as often absent as present—this makes the whole thing a matter of speculation. I feel as if I could not do justice to the idea, for I, too, have lived once on a time with these others; and I would rather not repeat the experiment.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Joseph Hatton declares it to be the choicest gift of all.]

Punch's illustration of Lord Beaconsfield's announcement that he was "on the side of the angels" casts somewhat of a shadow over the sentiment; yet I feel constrained to quote it, as representing my own feelings in regard to the question whether the artistic temperament is a curse or a blessing. Shakespeare had it; Dickens had it; and Thackeray confessed that he would have been glad to black Shakespeare's boots. One may well be convinced that it is a blessing by the penalties which Heaven exacts from its possessors. It means the capacity to enjoy and appreciate the beautiful; with the great poets and novelists it means the power to express the beautiful and describe it "in thoughts that breathe and words that burn." On the other hand, it means experiencing a keener sense of pain than those are capable of who do not possess tender susceptibilities. But in the spirit of "better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathy" the miseries that belong to the poetic temperament are better than the pleasures that go with its opposite. To feel the full glory of the sun, the joy of the Western wind, to hear the aphonous whisperings of the flowers, to be fancifully cognisant of "the music of the spheres"; better this with only a garret for your environment, than to be a wealthy Peter Bell in a palace, or a lord of many acres who sees nothing beyond its intrinsic value in a Turner, and finds Shelley poor stuff and Tennyson only a rhymster. It is the artistic temperament that lives up to the glories of Nature, and understands the parables; and you need not be a writing poet to have it. There is many a poet who never wrote a line, many a romancist who never contributed to a magazine. The ploughboy whistling behind his team, the gardener lovingly pruning his vines, the angler sitting in the shade of summer trees, even the playgoer craning his neck over the gallery and failing to catch the last words of Hamlet on the stage, may be blessed with something of "the divine afflatus," to be born utterly without which is to require at the Maker's hands a compensation. Thus He gives in a lower form the trick of money-making, the rank of birthright, the cheap distinction of a high place in society; with poverty He joins the peace of humble content, a solid faith in the bliss of a future state, and the rough enjoyment of perfect health. But the poetic temperament is the choicest gift of all; it may have occasional glimpses of the bottomless pit, but it can make its own heaven, and paint its own rainbow upon "the storms of life."

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Angelina wants to concentrate genius.]

The artistic temperament implies genius—and "there's the rub," for we others don't understand genius. The Almighty bestowed the blessing; we have superadded the curse of an ignorant reception. The Genius is the child of his century. We persist in relegating him to his family. He asks for materials and room to create. We answer him, "Go to—thou art idle. Put money in thy purse." We bind him with cords of conventionality, and deliver him into the hands of the Philistines. We declare him to be a rational animal who could pay his bills if he chose—and we County Court him if he does not. We build and maintain stately edifices for the accommodation of paupers, criminals, and idiots; but for the Genius there is not even the smallest parish allowance made to his relatives to pay for a keeper. How can he expand under present conditions? "Es bildet ein Talent sich in der stille," says Goethe, and I think you will admit that there is precious little of "der stille" to be found either in ordinary domestic life, or that refuge of the desperate, a garret in Bloomsbury. Picture to yourself Orpheus executing frenzied violin obbligati to the family baby (teething)—or Apollo hastily descending the slopes of Olympus to argue with a tax collector, or irate landlady! Alas! few survive this sort of thing. What I would propose is a Grand National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Genius—including a National Asylum for its reception and maintenance. Geniuses would be fed and clothed, and have their hair cut by the State, who would adopt and cherish them during life, and bequeath them to posterity at death. In this blissful retreat they would be preserved from the chilling influences of the outer world, liberally supplied with foolscap, musical instruments, and padded cells, and protected from all that had hitherto oppressed them—including cats, organ-grinders, creditors, and matrimony. Worshippers of the opposite sex would be allowed to express their appreciation sensibly, by contributions to the box at the door. Just think of the enormous advantage which would be gained by thus concentrating our Genius as we do our other illuminating forces; the saving of brain power by avoiding outside friction. Why there need be absolutely no waste! Genius could be "laid on," at a fixed rate, and "lions" supplied by annual subscription.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Florence Marryat believes it to be a blessing.]

Surely—without a manner of doubt—a Blessing—the greatest blessing ever bestowed by Heaven on Man—the best panacea for the troubles of this life—the magic wand that, for the time being, opens the door of a Paradise of our own creation. And in order to procure this enjoyment, it is not necessary that the artist should be successful. Disappointment may be the issue of his attempt, but the attempt itself—the knowledge that he can attempt—is so delightful. The work may never reach the artistic ideal—it seldom does—but no artist believes in failure, whilst the child of his brain is germinating. It looks so promising—it grows so fast—the ideas which are to render it immortal press so quickly one upon the other, that he has hardly time to grasp them—whilst his breast heaves and his eye sparkles, and his whole frame quivers with the sense of power to conceive and to bring to the birth. No fear enters his mind then that his offspring will prove to be stunted, deformed, or weakly. It is his own—no man has begot it before him—and he can take no interest in anything else, until it is completed. Is this not true of the Painter, as he stands with his charcoal in hand thinking out his picture for next year's Academy?—of the Composer, seated before his piano and running his fingers with apparent want of design over the keys?—of the Author, as he walks to and fro and plans the details of his new plot?—of the Poet, as he gazes up into the skies and hears the rhythm of his lines in the "music of the stars?" True, that the finely-organised and sensitive temperament of the Artist suffers keenly when jarred by the discord of the world—that it amounts almost to a curse to be interrupted when in the throes of a new conception (just thought of and hardly grasped) by someone who has no more notion of what he is undergoing than a deal table would have, and pulls him back roughly from his Paradise to the sordid details of Life, putting all his airy fancies to flight, perhaps, by the process. But neither this materialistic world, nor all the fools that inhabit it, can ever really rob the Artist of the joy—in which "no stranger intermeddleth"—of the Realm of fancy which is his own domain, inherited by right of his genius. Though he may pass through Life unappreciated and unsuccessful, let him still thank God for the Divine power which has been given him—the power to create! It will tide him over the loss of things, which other men cut their throats for—it will stand him in stead of wife and child—in stead of friends and companionship.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: And that the true artist is never alone.]

Is the true Artist ever alone? Do not the creatures of his brain walk beside him wherever he may go? Do they not lie down with him and rise up with him, and even when he is old and grey, his heart still keeps fresh, from association with the Young and Beautiful, with the blossoms of Womanhood and of Spring, that have bloomed upon his canvas—with the notes of the birds and the sounds of falling water that his fingers have conjured to life upon his instrument—with the fair maidens and noble youths that he has accompanied through so many trials and conducted to such a blissful termination in his pages. And beyond all this—beyond the joy of conception and the pride of fruition—there is an added blessing on the artistic temperament. Surely the minds which are always striving after the ideally Perfect must be, in a measure, refined and purified by the height of the summit they try to reach. "We needs must love the highest, when we see it." It is a Blessing to have the desire to reach the highest, even though we fail, and our natures are raised by the mere contemplation of it. So that the Artist may well forget the rebuffs and cold douches which he receives from those who cannot sympathise with him, and thank Heaven that he can walk out of their world into his own.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Zangwill draweth a distinction.]

There are two aspects of the artistic temperament—the active or creative side, and the passive or receptive side. It is impossible to possess the power of creation without possessing also the power of appreciation; but it is quite possible to be very susceptible to artistic influences while dowered with little or no faculty of origination. On the one hand is the artist—poet, musician, or painter—on the other, the artistic person to whom the artist appeals. Between the two, in some arts, stands the artistic interpreter—the actor who embodies the aery conceptions of the poet, the violinist or pianist who makes audible the inspirations of the musician. But in so far as this artistic interpreter rises to greatness in his field, in so far he will be found soaring above the middle ground, away from the artistic person, and into the realm of the artist or creator. Joachim and De Reszke, Paderewski and Irving, put something of themselves into their work; apart from the fact that they could all do (in some cases have done) creative work on their own account. So that when the interpreter is worth considering at all, he may be considered in the creative category. Limiting ourselves then to these two main varieties of the artistic temperament, the active and the passive, I should say that the latter is an unmixed blessing, and the former a mixed curse.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: He speaketh of ye curse.]

What, indeed, can be more delightful than to possess good aesthetic faculties—to be able to enjoy books, music, pictures, plays! This artistic sensibility is the one undoubted advantage of man over other animals, the extra octave in the gamut of life. Most enviable of mankind is the appreciative person, without a scrap of originality, who has every temptation to enjoy, and none to create. He is the idle heir to treasures greater than India's mines can yield; the bee who sucks at every flower, and is not even asked to make honey. For him poets sing, and painters paint, and composers write. "O fortunatos nimium," who not seldom yearn for the fatal gift of genius! For this artistic temperament is a curse—a curse that lights on the noblest and best of mankind! From the day of Prometheus to the days of his English laureate it has been a curse

"To vary from the kindly race of men,"

and the eagles have not ceased to peck at the liver of men's benefactors. All great and high art is purchased by suffering—it is not the mechanical product of dexterous craftsmanship. This is one part of the meaning of that mysterious Master Builder of Ibsen's. "Then I saw plainly why God had taken my little children from me. It was that I should have nothing else to attach myself to. No such thing as love and happiness, you understand. I was to be only a master builder—nothing else." And the tense strings that give the highest and sweetest notes are most in danger of being overstrung.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: And its compensations.]

But there are compensations. The creative artist is higher in the scale of existence than the man, as the man is higher than the beatified oyster for whose condition, as Aristotle pointed out, few would be tempted to barter the misery of human existence. The animal has consciousness, man self-consciousness, and the artist over-consciousness. Over-consciousness may be a curse, but, like the primitive curse—labour—there are many who would welcome it!

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] i.e., Gambled at Faro.

[2] See the writer's Life of David Gray.

[3] I have given a detailed account of Peacock in my "Look Round Literature."

[4] O those "Tendencies of one's Time"! O those dismal Phantoms, conjured up by the blatant Book-taster and the Indolent Reviewer! How many a poor Soul, that would fain have been honest, have they bewildered into the Slough of Despond and the Bog of Beautiful Ideas!—R.B.

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THE END