The Contributors' Club

I AM glad to see the suggestion in the last Contributors’ Club of making an examination of the tomb of Shakespeare. I have often spoken of it, and I am pleased that one of us has had the courage to come out boldly with the thought that must be in many minds.

The imprecation on the tomb-stone is unquestionably all that prevents the exploration. But there is no sufficient evidence that the lines were written by Shakespeare. It would not be surprising to find that they were, as the Reverend Mr. Jephson says they were, old church-yard rhymes, like “ Afflictions sore long time I bore,” and that they had served many others before the days of Shakespeare.

Whether he wrote them or not, it is altogether probable they were meant to keep his bones from being dug up and huddled into the great charnel-house attached to the Stratford church. Ward, the old Stratford vicar, says, in his diary, that he “ searched thirty-four skulls or thereabouts,” four of which had the exceptional though not very rare “frontal suture.” This was, no doubt, in the Stratford charnel-house. Many persons might object to their own bones or those of a relative being removed to this receptacle of the fragments of mortality, where future vicars and physicians — worthy Mr. Ward united the functions of both — could handle their skulls and “ pah ” at them as Hamlet did at Yorick’s.

Everybody’s tomb gets opened at last. Cheops or Agamemnon, their bones or their dust, must sooner or later revisit “the warm precincts of the cheerful day.” King John came to the light in 1797; King Henry IV. ’s sarcophagus in Canterbury Cathedral was opened, and Bolingbroke’s face was looked upon once more; Sir Henry Halford has given us a full account of what appeared on opening the coffin of King Charles I. in 1813; the crypt where the bones of Raphael were lying gave up its precious deposit in 1833, to be replaced after the examination for which the vault had been unsealed; and the chest containing the bones of Dante was searched and reported upon by a committee in 1865.

No question was settled by any of these examinations to compare for a moment in importance and interest with that which would attach to the exploration of the spot where Shakespeare lies buried. Our race has a right to know, if it can be known, in what kind of tenement that Supreme human intelligence was lodged. It is not an idle curiosity. The examination might determine which of the alleged portraits is the true one. A portrait may be identified by a skull more readily than many would suppose who have never looked on the fleshless frame of the features they have known during life.

The stones that lie over what remains of Shakespeare may be “ spared” and replaced, so as to call down the blessing of the epitaph. The bones need not be “moved” in the sense against which the curse was levelled, that is, removed. Let the Archbishop of Canterbury lift the malediction by his consecrating presence. Let the heir of the throne stand by with uncovered head while with reverential hands the sacred relies are tenderly sought for. Let the men of science chosen for the task see that every fact which is of interest or value to the race is carefully observed and recorded for after ages. The world will have gained much, and the yet unmeasured poet, who lives in his writings, and not in his mortal remains, will have lost nothing.

Will the experts tell us whether or not it is too late ?

— In a late number of The Nation, the writer of an article entitled Recent Poetry remarks: “ In some previous papers under this head it has been necessary to exhibit, some flowers of rhetoric so marvelous as to excite a little incredulity among readers. It has been suggested that we must have invented them.”

I am not aware that any one has suggested this, but the suggestion commends itself as natural, for the writer of those papers has shown that he is quite capable of producing (one does n’t “ invent ” flowers, except in confused metaphor) as curious flowers of rhetoric as any which have fallen under the scythe of his criticism. For instance, in this same article he speaks of certain odes “ which seem to aim at a Horatian flavor.” If to aim at a flavor is an Americanism, it is certainly an Irish-Americanism; and if the poet under consideration really did aim, or cause his odes to aim, at a flavor, his Recent Poetry got no more than it deserved at the hands of the recent critic. But is it too much to demand that the critic should put his death-sentences into clear, compact English? It often happens that the condemned poet has a vague consciousness of injustice when he finds himself expiating offenses of which his judge is equally guilty. Indeed, to drop the simile, it is only fair that the critic should write good prose when he is giving lessons to bad poets. However, it was not a question of style which I wished to discuss; I merely desired to point out a discovery that has been made by the writer on Recent Poetry. He has discovered that Browning is a model of condensation. Speaking of one of Mr. Fawcett’s lyrics, the writer in The Nation says, “ It is a genuinely poetic motive; Heine would have crystallized it into two short verses [meaning stanzas], and Browning into a line and a half.” It is very possible that Heine could have suggested in eight lines what Mr. Fawcett has told in twenty-four, — but Browning ? It appears to me that the author of The Red Cotton Night-Cap Country, or Turf and Towers (there’s a neatly condensed title for yon!), is the last man to be held up as a model for diffuse young writers. If there was ever a true poet sunk to the chin in the quicksands of verbiage, and threatening wholly to disappear from the eyes of mortals, that poet is Robert Browning. Here and there, in his earlier poems, he said a fine thing simply and finely; but since 1856, when he gave us Men and Women, he has required a hundred verses to express a thought which Milton, for instance, would have expressed in ten words. I wonder in what shape the author of Pacchiarotto - and - How - he -Worked-in-Distemper would have stated this; —

(Milton’s Comus.)

Somewhat in the following fashion, possibly:—

If that is not very fair Browningese, it at least “ seems to aim,” as our mentor of The Nation would say, at a Browning flavor. My personal conviction is that it hits the flavor in the bull’s-eye.

— In The Atlantic Monthly for April, 1878, page 460, among other statements is the following: “It was Sherman and Porter who projected the many schemes at Vicksburg and vicinity, except the last successful demonstration, which originated with Farragut, who, in 1863, when lying between Grand Gulf and Vicksburg, sent his marine officer, Captain, now Major, John L. Broome, and Paymaster Meredith, of the Hartford, across the peninsula at Vicksburg, and advised that the army should come below and make its advance, instead of wasting its strength and that of the navy above, on the Yazoo.”

As bearing directly on this point, and showing that the writer of the above is mistaken, I submit the following extract from a private letter from General Grant, written in February, 1863.

W. F. R.

BEFORE VICKSBURG, February 22, 1863.}

DEAR R——: A large mail, the first

in a week, has just arrived, and in it yours. I hasten to answer, but will necessarily be short, having a number of letters to go out by the 12 M. mail. . . .

I am much obliged to you for your kind expressions of confidence. The reduction of Vicksburg is a heavy contract, but I feel very confident of success. Since arriving here, however, the amount of rain that has fallen, and the very high water, has been a great drawback to our progress.

It is now impossible to effect a landing on the east bank of the river at any point from which Vicksburg can be reached except under the guns of the enemy. By passing below and taking Port Hudson it would give high land all the way up to operate on, and give in addition coöperation from Banks’ forces.

Hoping news from this department will be favorable to our cause, I remain, truly yours, U. S. GRANT.

— I wish to say to a contributor in the last Club that the reason “ why English and American printers always put a circumflex accent over the first vowel in the word chalet ” (sic) is that it is correct under the following rule: “ On emploie l’accent circonflexe lorsque la voyelle est longue, et qu’il y a suppression de lettre.” (Grammaire du Grammaire; par Girault-Duvivier, page 972.)

Château, formerly chasteau (Latin castellum), is a large mansion house in which the lord of the manor lives.

Châtelet is a little château.

Châlet is a sti_smaller building, the

name being restricted to such buildings in Switzerland.

For orthography, see the Grand Dictionnaire Général et Grammatical des Dictionnaires Français, par Napoléon Landais, la quatorzième édition, Paris, 1862.

— As to that note about the circumflex accent on chalet which you send me: Alfred de Musset, Jacques Porchat, and twenty other French authors whose works have been crowned by the Académie Française are wrong if Mr. —— is right. Of course I did not make my criticism without looking deeply into the matter. I did n’t base my charge on even such good authority as the dictionary of Spiers and Surenne, who do not give the circumflex accent to chalet. I didn’t trust to a dictionary; I got the whole literature of France to back me. I went through my collection of French authors (selecting the masters of style) and found the word in twenty different works, and in not a single instance was it printed with the circumflex accent. I’ve this moment come across the word in De Musset’s La Nuit de Décembre (Poésies Nouvelles, page 671): —

Porchat, in Trois Mois sous la Neige, says, “ enfermé dans ce chalet” (page 1), “dans les chalets” (page 5), “ laissez-moi aussi dans le chalet ” (page 12). He uses the word thirty or forty times in the course of the narrative, and nowhere prints it with the accent. Moreover, there are etymological reasons why the circumflex accent is not admissible. I will lay myself out to give them, if it becomes necessary.

Perhaps Mr. —— has fallen foul of clâlit in his dictionary. Châlit, a wooden bedstead, — the circumflex accent is correct there. I don’t pretend to know much more about these matters than the French Academy does; I was always modest.

“ Un grand chalet.” (George Sand, Le Dernier Amour, page 17.)

Mr. Henry James, Jr., writes chalet. (Transatlantic Sketches, page 65.)

writes Matthew Arnold, (Poems, page 146.)

The authors of all civilized nations are now coming to my rescue! Chalets are springing up all around me, and not one of them has a pointed gable!

— Here is what I think a queer bit of philology, which, I venture to surmise, may be as new to most of your readers as it was to me. Did you ever happen to become interested in any of the discussions which have raged, so to speak, about the word Kearsarge ? That name, as everybody knows, has been bestowed on two mountains, one gun-boat, and several hotels; and whether it be an Indian name or no, and if Indian how it happens to bear no sort of kinship to any other Indian name, and which of the mountains received it first, and which was named for the other, and for which, if either, the gun-boat and the hotels were named, and what the proper spelling of the word may be, are a few of the questions which have agitated the public mind, and on which I have a modest confidence that I am both competent, and called to set that mind at rest. In the first place, the word should be spelled Kiarsarge. All the oldest documents in which it is mentioned give it so, and there is even extant the artless narrative of an ancient Dutch mariner, who used to trade with Portsmouth in the days of her greatest prosperity, and who once pushed his way far enough into the interior of New Hampshire to discern the summit of what he calls by the extremely imposing and Niebelungenish name of the Kiah Saga Mount. He did not go to North Conway, however. The Conway Kearsarge, so often sung by Boston bards and climbed by Boston boots, was really christened after the southern or Merrimac County Kearsarge, both morally and chronologically. The somewhat passionate prepossession which has prevailed to the contrary is due to the fact that Boston discovered the northern mountain before she did the southern one, and argued, naturally enough, that neither could have existed long without, her knowing it. But in fact the towns adjoining and including the southern mountain (which is situated almost exactly in the geographical centre of the State of New Hampshire), Warner, Boscawen (pronounced Boskwine), Andover, and New London, were nearly all settled in the earlier half of the last century; while the Conway tract was first occupied, late in the seventeen hundreds, by emigrants from the Merrimac County region. They must have named the northern mountain for the southern one, on account of a resemblance of outline, which is remote enough from some points of view, but rather striking from others. The southern mountain is almost isolated. Its massive proportions dwarf to mere undulations all the nearer hills. The northern mountain is accompanied by a troop of other peaks, hardly less distinguished than itself. But they are both triple mountains, and when they are seen in a three-quarters profile the likeness comes out. The Conway mountain is much the lighter and more graceful. That sweet-souled enthusiast in mountains, Thomas Starr King, said it was the most feminine of all great heights; whereas the southern eminence has a vast breadth of shoulder and a stupendous, not to say piggish character of head, which are even triumphantly masculine. The two would answer very well for husband and wife. Now let us see where they got their family name. The tradition is yet alive in Merrimac County of a famous hunter and trapper who had a lodge in the vast wilderness which clothed all the sides of the southern mountain a hundred and fifty years ago, and even, some say, extended over the now bare granite top, whence the very soil was burned away, within the memory of man’s grandfather, by an unparalleled forest fire. However that may be, the old hunter was the only person who had ever explored the mountain in earlier days, while he enjoyed a hermit’s intimacy with it, — descending only at intervals of months, and taking a taste of civilization (so called) at some of the settlers’ farms, where he was never refused hospitality. This man’s name was Currier Sargent. Both these surnames are still common in Warner and New London, and in the sweet patois of the latter place the former is still softened to Kiah, —as Reynolds in the same region becomes Runnels, and Whittier Whicher. The great, mountain was Kiah Sargent’s or Kiar Sarge’s Mountain before geography had dreamed of adopting it.

The only trouble about this explanation seems to be that it is too satisfactory. A real philologist once said to me, “ In seeking for the derivation of a word always remember that nothing is so perilous as probability, and that what is reasonable is untrue.”

As for the hotels, — if our married mounts insist on a divorce, — part will probably be given to one, and part to the other. But the gun-boat was unquestionably named for the old man. Captain Winslow, who commanded her, was born in what is poetically termed the shadow of the southern mountain. He could not very well have been born in any of the middle counties of New Hampshire and escaped it, but, as a matter of fact, I believe that he first saw the light — or the shadow —in the town of Andover, at its northern base. Lest, however, I should be suspected of a league with some “ gentlemanly proprietor,” I shall forbear to mention the fact that a hotel on the northwestern slope of the original Kiarsarge, “ commanding an unrivaled expanse of lake, river, and valley,” commands the commander’s early home also, and is named for him.

— The curiosity as to Saxe Holm seems now to be turning from biographical to botanical details. As a tolerably careful student of nature and of that lady’s writings, I am compelled to question your correspondent’s statements of fact, under both these heads. To begin with, one is always suspicions of a critic who first misquotes a passage and then parodies it. It is perfectly safe to assert that Mrs. Jackson did not write “ My snowy eupatorium came today ” in Mercy Philbriek, because nobody wrote it. There is no such line. The passage probably intended is this (page 209): —

As to the appearance of the plant, there are ten or twelve wild species of white eupatorium, of which your correspondent selects the very coarsest, in order to question the epithet. These species often grow intermingled, and as the careful Gray describes some of them as “very white” it is certainly within poetical license to say “ snowy.” Even the boneset, on favorable soils, sometimes deserves this epithet.

Now as to the critic’s dates. He objects to Draxy Miller’s wearing blossoms of the low cornel in September, because “ it is a spring flower.” So is the dandelion a spring flower, but who has not seen it in the autumn? I have myself often gathered the low cornel in September, and have heard of it in October. The actual range of time in our wild flowers is often much greater than the books allow. Again, your critic complains that in Hetty’s Strange Story a church in Canada is dressed with dogwood blossoms, Ayrshire roses, and carnations, “ flowers respectively of May, June, and July, and therefore “ impossible. to combine in out - door culture.” Here, again, your critic is mistaken. The dogwood is assigned by Gray to “ May, June,” and by Bigelow to “ early June; ” the Ayrshire rose is a June flower; and Copeland says, in his Country Life (page 656), that carnations “ naturally bloom in June and July,” but that some varieties can be forced even earlier. The simple fact is that the wedding is supposed to have taken place in June, in time for the earliest carnations, but not too late for the last dogwood blossoms. The combination is not “ impossible; ” it is not even improbable.

This disposes of the only specifications given by your critic to sustain the charge of utter “ignorance,” a phrase which I will not retaliate. The assertion that the plot of the One-Legged Dancers is taken bodily from Mary Howitt’s Strive and Thrive appears to me one of those trivial charges in which Poe delighted; the plot in both stories is very simple, and might well have occurred to half a dozen different persons. What is more to the purpose is a coincidence which your correspondent does not seem to have discovered, namely, that the fancy from which this story takes its name—the comparison of vine-trellises to one-legged dancers — is “ taken bodily ” from H. H.’s Bits of Travel (page 65), and so far tends to defeat the critic’s main argument.

— I believe there is nothing sacred in our present English spelling; but do not many good people act and talk as if it were an article in their creed to believe in the dictionary or typographical orthography, and in none other ? In their infatuation they forget that a hundred years ago books and printers were the only “ correct ” orthographers, and that gentlemen and ladies of the best education followed the leadings of fancy in their spelling. Sir Walter Scott, for example, as secretary of a literary society in Edinburgh, was careless enough to make mistakes in his records, writing, for example, “Teusday, scociety, ballance, presant,” etc.; and it is said that some Englishmen of great reputation are equally erratic to-day.

Bishop Thirlwall says, “The public cling to these anomalies with a tenacity proportioned to their absurdity.” I think the bishop is correct, for one of our own Contributors’ Club writes to me thus: “Words are the dearest of old friends. Each has a consistent and legitimate ancestry. If some of them are a little big-headed or thick in the waist, they can’t help it. It seems to me that the variety of feature and composition of English words is a large part of the beauty of the English language. I may be thick-headed and strongly conservative on this question, but I shall fight for every letter in my little vocabulary.” To which I venture to reply in the words of Professor Child, of Harvard: “Nothing cau be more absurd than the veneration felt and paid to the actual spelling of English, as if it had been shaped by the national mind, and were not really imposed upon us by the foremen of some printing-offices.” My friend assumes (1) that the present spelling is an aid in tracing the pedigrees of words, and (2) that the reformed orthography will leave them less varied in feature and less beautiful than they are now. The first of these assumptions is not supported by the best philologists, who agree with the late Professor Hadley, of Yale, that “our common spelling is often an untrustworthy guide to etymology,” and with Max Müller, who says, “ If our spelling followed the pronunciation of words, it would in reality be of greater help to the critical student of language than the present uncertain and unscientific mode of writing.” Professor Müller says also, by the way, that he feels convinced of the truth and reasonableness of the principles on which the spelling reform rests, and believes that our “ corrupt and effete orthography ” will in time be swept away, following those other “dear and sacred” things, “corn laws,” “Stuart dynasties,” and “heathen idols.” My fellow member of this Club is mistaken in thinking that a reform will leave our words less varied and beautiful in form than they are now. By any system there must be as much variety as there is at present; and as for beauty, is it any more ornamental to print with our fathers “ fantum ” and “ prophane,” with our dictionaries “ phantom ” and “ profane,” or in a new style “ fantom ” and “ profain ”?

There are four ways in which it is possible for us to spell: (1.) The historical method, which was originally as nearly phonetic as it could be made by men who had more sounds to indicate than there were letters to represent them with. That it. is simply impossible to reconstruct our spelling in this way will be apparent to any who will examine the irregular orthography of past times. (2.) The etymological method. That this is another impossible plan is plain when we consider that the wisest scholars are unable to discover the derivation of very many English words; but it would also involve a vast number of changes in the present spelling, and would offend all who are ready to “fight for every letter” fully as seriously as any phonetic system could. Besides, some great scholar has said, “There is no etymology without phonetics ” ! (3.) The typographical method. This is the one now employed in China, Arabia, and the English-speaking countries; and the sagacious Dr. Franklin said that we must give it up, or “ our writing will become the same with the Chinese as to the difficulty of learning and using it.” It has already brought us to the point where English spelling is to be learned by observation and practice only, and our language is in this respect the worst off of all which use the Latin alphabet. This arises from the fact that we adopt the alphabet practically unchanged, though it is acknowledged to be inadequate to represent the rich variety of our phonic elements, and we have made less effort than the other nations to make our writing phonetic. Typographical spelling is difficult for us, confusing to foreigners, causes the prevalence of ignorance, is a hindrance to missionaries, travelers, and scientific men, obscures the history of our language, and hinders its extension into other countries. It has, however, one recommendation: our fathers established it, — though even this is qualified, for their fathers knew it not. (4.) The phonetic method. This is a return to and a perfection of the most ancient use. The earliest alphabetic writing was phonetic, though its symbols were insufficient, and the science of sound had not yet been perfected. In Sanskrit words were written as they were sounded, and yet there is no language in which etymological and grammatical relations are more clearly exhibited or easily traced. To this system we are urged to return by the representative scholars in philology of England and America, by the successful efforts put forth in this direction by most of the European nations, and by Anglo-Saxon common sense. Such men as Franklin, Pitman, and Bell, joined with Professors Ellis, Child, Latham, March, Hatchman, Whitney, Hadley, Marsh, and Trumbull, give us the most assuring words, and offer the fruits of many years of thought to help us to a decision.

Mr. Ellis, one of the most thorough students of phonetics and pronunciation, presents some of the advantages of phonetic spelling, briefly, thus: “It renders reading very easy, forms the best introduction to reading the present typographical spelling, is as easy as correct speaking, renders learning to read a pleasant task, increases the efficiency of primary schools by economizing time, affords a logical training to the child’s mind, improves pronunciation, will greatly assist the missionary traveler and ethnologist, would exhibit the real history of our language, would favor the extension and universal employment of English, and would be of material use in facilitating etymological investigation.” The interested reader is referred to Ellis’s Early English Pronunciation, pp. 606-632, published by the Early English Text and Chaucer societies.

“ Words are the dearest of old friends” my correspondent rightly tells me, but they have no prescriptive right by reason of being “ old ” and “ dear” to appear before me in a costume that is absurd and irrational. All the more because they are dear and old do I wish to see them dressed in garments that become them and accord with the good characters they bear.

— It certainly seems only right that an author should have the last word in deciding which of his books shall be given to the public and which shall be left in obscurity. After his death, if he has been famous during his life-time, it is to be expected that every cupboard shall be ransacked and every trunk examined for literary matter that he had always meant to burn, but which will be printed and bound up in the final collection of his writings; yet most living authors do not find indecent greed for manuscript the prevailing trait of publishers. There are, however, some writers who are troubled by finding books they thought long forgotten raked out of the past and printed again without proper dusting and mending. Mrs. Burnett is a memorable victim of this course of action. A novel of hers, That Lass o’ Lowrie’s, became popular, and at once a number of her old stories that were quietly floating down to oblivion found themselves again on the book-shelves.

With the morality of this proceeding I have nothing to do. The books are there against the author’s will, to be sure, and full of glaring misprints and little ends of phrases that even careless revision could not fail to correct; yet it is to be hoped that the public will not be kept from reading them by their author’s indignation at their unauthorized republication. It is Dolly and Theo that we have in mind. They are not strikingly new stories, with their accounts of the happiness, after much suffering, of very charming girls, who grow up in out-ofthe-way places, breathing the air of genteel poverty, which they exchange very naturally for the perfumes of the glided drawing-room. It is not the plots that are noteworthy, but the animated and fascinating style in which these threadbare incidents are recountedWhere so many novel-writers are pompous or affected, Mrs. Burnett is as simple, as natural, and as amusing as any one could wish. For myself I find her high spirits and her pathos much better reading than the cold discussion of a “ problem ” in That Lass o' Lowrie’s, and the willful accumulation of distressing incidents in Surly Tim and Other Stories. This last book is a record of various forms of mental and physical suffering that enrage while they depress the reader. One man has hot words with his wife, and then goes out on the beach to help launch a boat; something gives way; the boat falls on him, not comfortably killing him, but leaving him pinned down to watch the futile efforts of his friends to lift, the boat up, and to make impressive farewell speeches while the tide slowly crawls up and drowns him. Why the hardy fishermen and children of the sea did not think of digging the sand away from beneath him, and so freeing him, is not made clear, but they did not; and what with the man’s dying and the way of his dying the sympathetic reader gets a choking feeling in his throat, as if he had held his head under water a few seconds longer than was pleasant; which, however, is no more pathos than reading the morning paper is devoting one’s life to study. So in the other tales there is a tendency to wring the heart of the reader, which is not counterbalanced by equally marked literary merit. In a word, Mrs. Burnett seems to have learned to think ill of the much-trodden path she first followed, and under this feeling to have tried to strike out for herself where her rivals were fewer. Dickens is one whose influence may be seen in one or two of the short sketches in this volume. But the more serious attempts to be impressive at all hazards seem to me to tempt this writer beyond her depth; for the heaping up of casualties is not tragedy, and the problem she took up in That Lass o’ Lowrie’s, how to marry a pauper and quickly civilize her, leads her aside from work in which she has done well, in describing the hopes and fears of conventional life.

— It strikes me that nothing is more bewildering than the totally different impressions the same words often make upon different minds; an unprejudiced person, with a turn for analysis, must sometimes stop and ask himself, seriously, whether he is mad, or his neighbor. The other day, in a mixed company, the subject of following the hounds came up, in connection with the new Queen’s County hunt, on Long Island. Some one remarked that English ladies no longer took part in such sports, as formerly. “But,” I said, “in the latest English stories they do. Take Daniel Deronda : Gwendolen followed the hounds.” “ Yes; but Gwendolen was fast,” was the answer. “ Fast! ” I exclaimed. “ Is it possible that Gwendolen Harleth impressed any of you as fast?” “Decidedly so,” they said. “But,” I protested, “I do not think George Eliot meant to portray a fast girl, at all.” They did not know what she meant, of course; one thing was certain, however, her Gwendolen to them was fast. I looked around their unmoved circle. There was no appeal. They were ten against me. So, then, the proud, refined, dainty Gwendolen, with her intense fastidiousness and repugnances, was labeled “fast;” the very last word I should have dreamed of applying to her.

More recently, in speaking to a friend of some paragraphs on That Lass o’ Lowrie’s, which appeared in the Contributors’ Club, I said, “ they struck you as favorable, of course?” “Why, no,” she answered; “ they did not strike me so, especially.’’ “ What can you mean! ’ ’ I exclaimed. “ I intended a high degree of praise, for I liked the book. Did I not say that the Lass had gained for herself a place in my memory as a distinct character, next to that occupied by Grandcourt, thereby placing Mrs. Burnett’s work, in this instance, next to that of George Eliot herself? What more could be said?” “ Oh, I don’t know,” replied my friend; “ still, it certainly did not strike me as a favorable criticism.” Now, what is one to do?

All this comes to my mind as I write the name Farjeon. He is in this country now, and attention is freshly directed towards his stories. Discussion, even acrid discussion, means strength, I think. The continued arguing of the Contributors’ Club over Tourguéneff and Henry James proves that they have strength of some kind, does it not? Just as the fact that there are many opinions about a man proves that at least the man is not a nonentity. Solomon Isaacs, at this writing Farjeon’s latest story, shows his good and bad points together. It is not so good as Blade-o’-Grass; it does not approach At the Sign of the Silver Flagon; but neither is it so bad as Love’s Victory, nor so wildly improbable and dislocated as Bread - and - Cheese and Kisses, or The Duchess of Rosemary Lane. The old-clothes man, Moses Levy, is well drawn; we feel an affection for him, and are glad when on Saturday morning he has for his breakfast, in addition to bread and coffee, a “bit of fish stewed in brown gravy,” with onions “made tasty with lemon.” We picture him coming home at night, with a pyramid of acquired hats on his head and a well-filled bag over his shoulder, happy in the thought of a good bargain and the hot supper las pretty daughter Rachel has ready for him in their little second-story room. The other oldclothes man, Solomon Isaacs, is not so well drawn; nor do we feel much interest, either, in his son Leon, that talkative, successful young Hebrew. In spite of all we can do, the way in which he discourses upon “frying” and “a raisin stew,” combined with the particular statement that he has “ wide nostrils ” and a “ large mouth,” brings up an image with which we are all familiar, — the smartly-dressed young Israelite on railroad ears and at railroad eating-houses, buoyantly fulfilling his mission as a commercial traveler. There are some very good bits of description in the book, such as the ceremony called “ sitting for joy; ” the arrival of old Moshé from Jerusalem, with his ninety years, his smiling, uncomprehending nods, his long beard, and his Hebrew benedictions; fat Milly Isaacs running “ to give Mr. Levy a ’ug;” and, best of all, the cribbage played by the two old men, and Solomon Isaacs’ final triumph with his battered half-penny. One does not exactly see what the Introduction and the last four pages have to do with the tale; it looks as though they were fastened in to make it a Christmas story by force, and account for the opening illustration.

To go back over the list of Farjeon’s books. Blade-o’-Grass and its sequel, Golden Grain, seem to me the best of the London stories. The picture of the poor little girl, with the tiger “ in her inside,” crawling to the lamp-post for its friendly light, stealing meat from the Cat’s-meat man, telling lies deftly, and sleeping in gate-ways is pathetic; the story of the same child grown to womanhood, loving a thief devotedly and passionately, and happy with hint in her miserable home, is powerfully touching. The end of the poor, mournful little baby, who died silently in the darkness, all alone, while the wretched girl-mother scoured the streets in search of food, is something one cannot forget.

It is a pity that this undoubtedly strong writer cannot prune his branches a little. Did any one ever behold such a collection of plots! Most of the stories are short, but so crowded with characters and incidents that there is time only for a statistical mention of them; like the catalogue of a picture exhibition. Take The Duchess of Rosemary Lane: how well it opens!—the beautiful child living in the cellar, with her faithful Sally and the reasoning cobbler. We are interested at once, and expect a romance in which poor thin Sally can play a part also, as the gypsy distinctly predicts. But nothing of the kind happens; after childhood nobody does or is anything that you expect, and Sally has no chance at all. The duchess herself turns out a soulless young creature, without force enough to be anything clearly, either good or bad; and she is enveloped in a whirl of mixed-up people, among whom the “ lovely lad,” playing on a tin whistle and cherishing a sentimental affection for a baby throughout long years of vagabond life, and Arthur Temple, who, on the last page, passes his arm around Mrs. Lenoir, turns his back upon his father (his mother, too? one wonders), and takes “ the road which justice points out,” whatever that may be, are the most fantastic. Breadand-Cheese and Kisses is a kaleidoscope picture of people and places, in which Totty’s fig grandfather with cinnamon legs, and death in thousands of tons of snow, are thrown together, but with about as much connection as the phantasmagoria of a dream.

There is a good deal of Australia in Farjeon’s stories, some strong pleas for the wretched London poor, some life pictures of that brutal English crime of wife-beating, —comparatively unknown among us, thank Heaven! — and a curious insistence upon the terms “ lady ” and “ gentleman.” He will have it that his heroines are distinctly ladies, although they may be waistcoat-makers, singing chambermaids in a poor traveling dramatic company, or girls brought up in a cellar, who have never been to school a day in their lives. This is a Haw, and resembles one of our worst local Americanisms. Farjeon has been compared with Dickens; but Dickens never proclaimed that Dot in The Cricket on the Hearth, Little Dorrit, and Emily in David Copperfield were ladies. He cared nothing at all for the title, but showed us the women as they were, and taught us to love them.

It does not seem to me that Farjeon is in the least like Dickens. He writes Christmas stories, and he describes the homes of the poor; but that is all. Where is the unfailing humor which shines on almost every one of Dickens’s pages? Where are Dick Swiveller, Mr. Guppy, Chadband, Mrs. Todgers, and a hundred others? No; Farjeon is serious, and in earnest. If he must be likened to somebody, I should liken him to Charles Reade; he belongs to that school. Take what is, in my opinion, his best story, At the Sign of the Silver Flagon; how it recalls the quick, vivid work of Reade! It is a brilliant, exciting, splendid tale, which is fairly hot in the telling, so that you breathe quickly as you read (that is, as far as the death of Philip and the end of part first. After that, Farjeon’s evil genius in the shape of Plot appears, and spoils all the rest). I have never seen anywhere a more striking picture of Australian gold-fields, and of life there. The love of Philip for the “ singing chambermaid,” his gallop after the flowers, the “ pray for rain, darling,” the christening of the stamping-machine and the midnight ride of the two partners from the ball to the Reef to see the sparks flying and hear the iron feet at work; the terrible, tragic end of poor burned Philip, lying there motionless, trying to whisper “Margaret,” are told with wonderful force, which is all the stronger for being so simple. If the story ended with part first, I should put it up on a line with Christie Johnstone; it has the same vivid narration of deeds and words, — a positive story, a story of action, and not the explanation of motives and thoughts, the psychological analysis, and slow movement of the style so much in vogue to-day. “ Do? ” said an old woman, laying down her spectacles the other day, when asked about the characters in a late novel she was reading, “do? They don’t do anything, that I can make out; but they think a deal! ’ ’

Analysis is interesting; but are we not in some danger of going too far in that direction, and becoming one-sided? Let us pardon some of Farjeon’s faults, therefore, for the sake of his positiveness and this Silver Flagon; the story can go into the other side of the balance, and restore our equilibrium.

— I wish to confide to the Club a paradox in the philosophy of Household Art which has troubled me a good deal. I have got so far as to know that I ought to be “ sincere; ” but I also hear the virtue of economy extolled as sincere, and there are various points in which economy and Decorative Art are not reconcilable. Threadbare carpets and defective wall-papers and damaged paint on the wood-work are all sincere enough, if you have n’t got the money to pay for anything better; but there is a want of picturesqueness in them, at times. Now, poetic papers and elevated furniture are expensive. I know of a conscientious young couple who, on setting out in life together, wished to be both sincere and economical. Accordingly, when the question arose of having a new border along part of the parlor wall, the bridegroom arose too, and said it must be a frieze; and the frieze must be painted by hand. Very well; a man was consulted, who agreed to take the contract for the painting at five dollars. But the young enthusiast thought he could do it cheaper, himself, with some paints he had on hand, and fancied that this would somehow be more “sincere.” He mounted his ladder and began work. All at once the ladder breaks, and down falls the bridegroom with a paint-brush and a broken tooth in his mouth, and the contents of the paint-pot impartially distributed over his best clothes. A doctor had to be sent for, to begin with; and the result of the whole experiment was footed up in the following items:-

Doctor (two visits) $4.00

Broken paint-brush .35

Dentist’s bill 3.00

Value of clothes damaged 18.00

Repair of ladder .87

Total $26.22

After which the frieze remained to be painted.

— While reading that very entertaining sketch, Count Pulaski’s Strange Power, in the June Atlantic, the following bit from out the count’s quotation from Cicero — “The soothsayers, while awake, could detach their minds from their bodies, and wander away among the minds of departed men and among superior intelligences, holding communion with them, and retaining the knowledge thus acquired after returning to the body ”—reminded me that I once heard substantially the same thing, and in quite similar words, too, from the lips of a medium, with whom I fell into conver sation on a railway journey; and who, although a rarely intelligent woman for her class, could hardly know anything of Cicero. Of course she spoke thus in explanation of her own power, and added (and this I tell for the consolation of those who may be disappointed in their quest after hidden knowledge) that in no case was she ever balked in her desire to give satisfaction except where the visitor or the spirit invoked was vastly her (the medium’s) mental superior; the same law which in all mundane affairs enables the higher intellect fully to measure the wants and aspirations of the lower, while no amount of intuition on the latter’s part can put him into full communication with the former, holding equally good in all disembodied intercourse.

How the spirits of several departed worthies, whom we have suspected of deteriorating in the other world, must rejoice to have this doctrine fully understood! Does it not also explain why disembodied Indians and broken-English tongued foreigners are so fond of coming to the front in the average spiritual séance ?

— In your February number a contributor suggests that friends adopt the phonic system in their correspondence with each other, as a method of promoting the spelling reform. But why should not our literary writers organize a club, not only for the promotion but for the introduction of this reform? Let six of our acknowledged leaders in literature agree among themselves upon the best attainable system, and henceforward use it exclusively in their published writings, and the whole question would be solved. The authors making use of the new system, as well as the papers and magazines publishing their articles, could not fail to receive largely increased popularity. The “ immortal six ” would soon have followers enough willing to share their popularity, and if their system was one that would commend itself to the people they would doubtless live to see its adoption.