THE GALAXY. (continued 4)

On the other hand, the breaking up of acts into three or more scenes offers one great advantage, that of variety, and prevents many a play from dragging. If there are two sets of characters in a play, the virtuous and the wicked, it is a very good device to keep them apart, acting simultaneously in different scenes, during the action of a play, to be brought together only at the climax; and such a method has been employed by the best artists, with a gain in interest that could not have been obtained with the single-scene act for a basis.

The greatest masters of dramatic construction that have made their appearance in the present century are probably Bulwer Lytton and Dion Boucicault; and each has left good examples of treatment in both schools. Bulwer, in the "Lady of Lyons" and "Richelieu," both romantic plays, with the regular villanous element, has used the front scene to advantage wherever he found it necessary. In "Money," on the other hand, a scientific comedy of the very first order, the five pictures succeed each other with no disturbance but that of the curtain. The plot of "Money," be it observed, is quite simple, the characters few, the intention that of the old Greek comedy—a satire on manners.

Boucicault, in his latest success—the "Shaughraun"—and in his other Irish dramas, notably the "Colleen Bawn," uses three and even five scenes in an act, with perfect freedom, while in others, almost as successful in their day, such as "Jessie Brown," "Octoroon," the French form seemed to him to be preferable. Some principle must have guided him in this distinction, as it did Bulwer, and the same elements probably decided both to tell one story in one way, the other in another. It is observable that both treat a romantic and complicated story, with numerous characters and considerable of the villanous element, in numerous scenes, whereas a realistic picture of actual manners, such as "Money," "Octoroon," "Jessie Brown," falls naturally into few scenes. The climax of each of these last mentioned plays, be it observed, is produced by the operation of general causes, the laws of society in "Money" and "Octoroon," the operation of a historical fact in "Jessie Brown," while in the romantic plays the climax depends on the action of the characters, determined by accidental circumstances, irrespective of general laws. The respective rank of "Money" and the "Lady of Lyons" in the lapse of years can hardly, I think, be doubted. The first will hold its own with the "School for Scandal," when the "Lady of Lyons" is forgotten, along with "The Duenna." The recent success of Augustin Daly in adapting the "School for Scandal" to mono-scenic acts shows how readily that form lends itself to the exigencies of legitimate comedy. The single fault of that adaptation is that the first act drags, just as Sardou's first acts always drag, but the audience forgets that as the story progresses. The result of our ramble through the instances mentioned seems to be this canon:

XIV. Mono-scenic acts are best for high comedy, realistic and society dramas; multi-scenic acts succeed best with romantic and complicated plots.

We have now explored, with more or less success, some of the general and broad principles that underlie dramatic construction taken as a whole, without regard to particular forms and instances. It would seem that a brief excursion into the domain of particulars may not be out of place, partly as a recreation, partly to test the accuracy of our past conclusions. Let us take, for instance, the greatest popular successes of late years, and try to find wherein lies their secret, following these by an inquiry into the cause why some stock plays hold the boards while others are dead. What is the secret of the "Black Crook"? Of Boucicault's Irish dramas? Of Bulwer's renowned trio, "Lady of Lyons," "Richelieu," "Money"? Of "School for Scandal" and "Rivals"? Of "Richard III.," "Macbeth," "Othello," "Lear," "Hamlet," and the Shakespeare comedies? I put out of the question now such plays as the "Dundreary" drama, depending as those do on a different element of success, apart from the drama itself, to which we shall come before we finish.

First, what is the secret of the "Black Crook"? No other drama ever had such a run in the United States, in spite of all sorts of abuse, in spite of numerous literary faults, and it has always succeeded wherever it has been properly put on the stage. What is its secret? The stereotyped answer of the disappointed dramatist and carping newspaper critic used to be "legs"; but that answer will not do now. There have been plenty of "leg" dramas put on since that day, and as far as the display of feminine anatomy is concerned, the "Black Crook" was a paragon of prudery compared with many of its followers; yet they only ran a few weeks, while the "Black Crook" ran nearly three years, all over the Union, with hardly a serious break. It was not the dancing, for we have had better since, as far as gymnastics are concerned; it was not the dresses and scenery, for both have been excelled since that day; it was not the beauty of the tableaux, for they also have been excelled; it was something in the drama itself, quite different from its predecessors and followers. The "Black Crook" was a strong, exaggerated melodrama, with plenty of the weird element in the incantation scene, relieved by the broadest of broad farce in the person of the magician's comic slave. It was full of variety. There was a little of everything, and nothing very long at one time. When it first came out I remember very young gentlemen making learned criticisms on the powerful acting of the man who played the "Black Crook" himself. The same class also raved about the "terrible" incantation scene, which was worked up till the passion was torn to tatters. But I feel convinced that the incantation scene, the dances, the novelty of ladies in tights, would have failed to make the "Black Crook" a success but for the broad humor and farce of that comic slave and the old housekeeper and steward. That humor was so simple, so like the well remembered ringmaster and clown of our childhood, that we all laughed at it, wise as well as foolish. I remember well during the second run of the venerable Herzog and his slave, talking to a very acute and learned gentleman—a man of the world too—who actually had never seen the "Black Crook" till the previous evening, and he was convulsed with laughter every time he recalled the figure of the man who shouts, "I want to go home!" That figure remained with him out of all the play, in his memory, as something irresistibly comic, just as the weird and uncanny elements remained with the minds of smaller calibre. For the children who saw it, I will venture to say that the parts which pleased them most were the parts which made the success of the play, the obtrusion of broad farce in one place, the beauty of the grotto scene and really poetical dancing of Bonfanti in another. Strange that of all the dancers, many more agile and supple, no one should ever have replaced Bonfanti, or even come near her in the "Black Crook." She gave the play what it lacked, poetical beauty and grace, and thus completed the secret of its success, which was—variety. Its rivals and followers tried to beat up the narrow channel that leads to public favor, in one or two long tacks, and ended by running aground, while the "Black Crook" kept hands at the braces all the time, and "went about" as often as the water showed a symptom of shoaling.

The same secret of variety accounts for the great success of Boucicault's Irish dramas as compared with those of other dramatists, and even with his own plays on other subjects. The regular old-fashioned Irish drama had interest only to an Irishman. It dealt with rebellions of half a century and more gone by, stamped out, and in which few took interest outside of Ireland. A certain element, that of traditional abuse of the traditional Briton, who was supposed to be always wandering over the United States with his pockets full of Berrritish gold, trying to corrupt patriotic Americans and regain King George's colonies, gave a certain interest to the Irish drama in America for the half century before the dedication of the Bunker Hill monument, but that faded out as time obliterated early jealousies. Then came Boucicault and did a wonderful thing, taking hackneyed and ridiculous Fenianism and making out of it one of the greatest successes of modern times, that bids fair to remain a stock play for years—the "Shaughraun." In "Arrah-na-Pogue" he took the old thin story of the Irish patriot of '98, and achieved an equal success, while in the "Colleen Bawn" he made a tremendous hit with even poorer materials. The secret of the success of all three plays is found in variety, produced by contrasting the broad unctuous humor and sharp wit of the Irish peasant, familiar to the English-speaking world, with the quiet delicacy and refinement of the Irish upper classes, by using a few strong melodramatic situations, but nothing very long, the pathos always relieved by humor before it drags. The whole play—any of the three—rattles off without a hitch. In the last and most perfect, the "Shaughraun," a very happy hit is made with the comic villain, a new creation in the drama, though as old in the pantomime as Clown and Pantaloon.

If variety be the leading element of success in the "Black Crook" and the Irish dramas of Boucicault, wherein lies that of Bulwer's trio of stock plays by which he will be remembered? The first of his successes was the "Lady of Lyons," and we have already seen how skilful is the mechanical construction of this play, leading the suspense from act to act; but that will not account for the whole of the interest. A saying of Boucicault as to this play gives us also a key to the whole three Bulwer plays, for we find the same element pervading them all—the central idea of two, and only slightly modified in the third. Boucicault has remarked that the interest of the "Lady of Lyons" really depends on the fact that the completion of Claude's marriage is delayed from the second to the end of the fifth act; and a little reflection will show this to be the case. The whole interest of the play before the close of the second act turns on whether Claude will obtain his lady-love; the interest thereafter on his resistance to the temptations that draw him toward Pauline against honor. Look at "Richelieu," and the same element intensified pervades it. Adrian de Mauprat marries Julie at the close of the first act, only to be separated from her all the rest of the play till the climax. Richelieu himself, as far as the main action of the play is concerned, is secondary to Adrian, the end of all plays being "to make two lovers happy." In "Money" nearly the same motive runs through the play. In the first act Evelyn finds that Clara loves him, and all real obstacle to their marriage is removed by his sudden accession to fortune; yet all the rest of the play sees them kept apart by the most flimsy obstacles, just to tantalize the audience, and make them wonder if those two fools will ever come together. The means are very simple, and yet quite powerful enough, as much so as the first part of "Romeo and Juliet," where, by the by, almost all the interest dies out after the balcony scene. The main secret of Bulwer then reveals itself, like that of flirtation, to reside in the art of tantalization.

We next come to Sheridan, the man who wrote the best comedy in the English language, "School for Scandal." The secret of that play and the "Rivals" has been thought by some to consist in the dialogue, but dialogue alone never made a play run before a mixed audience. The worst dialogue in the "Black Crook"—and God knows it was bad enough—could not kill that play any more than the finest dialogue could make Tennyson's "Queen Mary" into a real play, or galvanize it into a semblance of interest before an audience. Sheridan has more than witty dialogue. His situations are always capital, and his characters are without exception real living beings, only very slightly caricatured. To be sure they are rather too sharp and clever as a class, for we seldom or never meet in society such a perfect galaxy of smart, keen-witted people, Mrs. Malaprop not excepted; but the secret of Sheridan lies below dialogue and character. It lies, I think, in the natural sympathy felt by all mixed audiences in favor of youth and high spirits, through all their pranks, as exemplified in Captain Absolute, Charles Surface, Lydia Languish, and Lady Teazle, against respectability, honest or the reverse, embodied in Sir Anthony Absolute, Sir Peter Teazle, and Joseph Surface. It is the protest of honest animal spirits against conventionality, ending in the reconciliation of the rebels to society. Some people talk of the bad moral of the "School for Scandal," never thinking that it is identical in spirit with that of the parable of the Prodigal Son. A broad feeling of charity and toleration for honest error, with a grimly sarcastic treatment of all shams, pervade Sheridan's work just as they do those of all the great satirists, whether novelists or dramatists. Goldsmith, Fielding, Dickens, Thackeray, all run in the same track when they once get started, and we must confess that they have pretty high authority for their kindness toward the returning prodigal and their sneers at his eminently respectable brother, Joseph Surface, Esq.

This secret of Sheridan in the "School for Scandal" is the main element of only one modern drama that I now remember—"Rip Van Winkle"—but it is quite common in the "old comedies," as they are called. These old comedies generally make their appearance at least once in two years at such theatres as Wallack's and Daly's of New York and the Arch Street at Philadelphia. I forget the name of the Boston "legitimate" place. When well acted they always "take," and there are so many stage traditions of how to act them that they are seldom badly done. The forgiveness of repentant prodigals, it will be remembered, forms the basis of most of them, an element which has gradually disappeared from the modern drama in deference to the increasing Philistine element, represented by the Y.M.C.A. and the T.A.B.

Ascending from the modern English drama to its parents in the Elizabethan era, we encounter the only dramatist of those times whose works still hold the stage, and ask what is the secret of "Richard III.," "Macbeth," "Othello," "Lear," "Hamlet," and the Shakespeare comedies. The first general answer that most people will give is—the genius of Shakespeare; his power of drawing character, his wonderful language, his mastery of human passion. All these, it seems to me, are true, but it is to the last element that the success of Shakespeare's plays on the stage is mainly due. No other dramatist, French, English, or German, with the single exception of Goethe in "Faust," has succeeded in making men and women, under the influence of tremendous passion, talk and act so truly, so realistically. We notice this on the stage when we see "Richard III." well acted. The man becomes a real live man, a great scamp no doubt, but an able scamp, so able that he actually excites our sympathy, when a really good actor plays him. The main power of Shakespeare's tragedies to-day, and their superiority to the tragedies of any other dramatist, lies in their realism. Where a modern dramatist like Boucicault confines his realistic treatment to matters with which most of us are familiar, Shakespeare flies at any game, no matter how high, and impresses us with the presence of real men and women, whether they be kings and queens or only common folk. This seems to be Shakespeare's one secret which makes his plays hold the stage to-day in spite of faulty construction, in spite of all the modern advances in stage management. Modern dramas are realistic, but they deal with common emotions, cramped by the restraints of an artificial state of society, where all our feelings are more or less artificial. Shakespeare takes human nature untrammelled, and paints it as it is, unshackled by the commonplace laws of modern society. Compare his pathos with modern pathos, and see the difference. The staple element of modern pathos is the contrast between poverty and riches, hunger and fulness, cold and warmth. The greatest pathos of Shakespeare, in "Lear," comes out not in the storm scene, but in the meeting of Lear and Cordelia amid luxury and comfort. The old king hurls curses and contempt at the mere physical discomforts of the tempest; they serve to divert his thoughts from the far greater torture of his mind; but when his conscience makes him crave pardon of his own child, then indeed the limit of human pathos is reached. There is nothing artificial there. Lear might be any old man as well as a king, and the situation would be just as terrible in its justice of atonement. It is truth.

That realism is the whole secret of Shakespeare's success as a dramatist, is made more evident by the fact that he avows it himself in "Hamlet," as the mainspring of dramatic success, in the celebrated "advice to the players." This being the only passage on record in which Shakespeare lays down his principles of art, has always been held as of great value, and has probably done more to improve the English stage than most people imagine. It has been always available as a canon to which to refer unnatural ranters, and to prevent the robustious school from tearing a passion to tatters. It sobered down Forrest in his old age into a model Othello, and constitutes the secret that has placed Lester Wallack and Joseph Jefferson at the head of their respective lines of light comedy. I think, however, it has hardly been recognized fully enough as the principle on which Shakespeare worked, for here at least he does seem to have held to a rigidly defined and artificial principle of action. This was to take a given passion and treat it with the utmost realism from every point of view, making that the motive of a play, being otherwise careless of construction.

This principle appears very clearly in "Lear," the most artificial in construction of all Shakespeare's tragedies. His theme was filial ingratitude, and hardly a scene in the whole drama turns aside from that theme. It appears in the two plots about Lear and Gloucester, both having exactly the same lines of actors, the last obviously a reflex of the first. It is perhaps the only play of Shakespeare in which the moral obtrudes itself forcibly all through the action, as plainly as in the stories of an old-fashioned primer, and I cannot help thinking that if the whole story of Edgar and Edmund had been left out, the play would have gained in unity and nature.

In "Richard III." ambition is the ruling passion, treated in the same realistic fashion, conjoined with the extreme sensitiveness of personal deformity to strictures on itself. In "Macbeth" ambition pure and simple is treated from every point, first in man, then in woman; afterward remorse is dissected with equal skill. The ruling passion in "Hamlet" is somewhat more difficult to analyze than the rest, but I think that the renowned soliloquy of "To be or not to be" discloses it more clearly than any other part of the play. It is fear. Fear appears in Hamlet all through the play, from the first ghost scene to the death of Ophelia—an excessive caution, a hesitation, a timidity, a want of resolution, mental more than physical, which lasts till he returns from his travels and is stung into manliness over poor Ophelia's grave. Then at last he does what he ought to have done at first, but for his lack of good, honest pluck—gets savage and breaks things, and so works poetical justice.

If the tragedies of Shakespeare reveal their principal secret to be the realistic treatment of master passions, what shall we say to such comedies as "Midsummer Night's Dream," "As You Like It," "Much Ado About Nothing," and such? It is very difficult to define in what consists their success, apart from the beauty of their love stories, their dainty language, their charming feminine characters, and a cloud of accessories, none of which can properly be called the main secret. The first two, I think, owe their beauty principally to the dissection of that passion of love which forms the motive of "Romeo and Juliet." The author treats us to nothing but love scenes and scenes in mockery of love, and yet we never tire of them. In "Much Ado About Nothing," to be sure, there is an artificial plot of villany to hinder the love-making, but after all it is Benedick and Beatrice, making fun of love and getting caught in its toils, that make the charm of the piece, and the same device, minute analysis of love, makes "Twelfth Night" what it is. When we come to look below the surface we find, in the comedies as in the tragedies of Shakespeare, that the realistic treatment of some ruling passion forms the ultimate secret on which he works.

To sum up in the aphoristic form the secrets affecting the motives of the greatest dramatic successes of the English stage, we can, I think, partially agree on one more canon:

XV. Variety, suspense, satire, and realistic analysis of human passion are the secrets, so far discovered, of lasting dramatic successes.

The subject of dramatic success, however, has one more very important branch, still to be considered. As an artist cannot work without colors and brushes, so a dramatist cannot work without actors. Good actors cannot permanently lift a bad play out of the mud, but bad actors can murder the best drama ever written, and even the best actor cannot make a hit if his part does not fit him and his physical appearance. I remember once a ludicrous instance of this, with Boucicault's "Flying Scud," which I happened to see in Buffalo. Nat Gosling, the venerable jockey, was there played by a man weighing at least a hundred and eighty pounds, in the dress of an old farmer; and the absurdity was so glaring that the whole play fell as dead as ditchwater, though by no means badly played. The same play in New York was first fitted exactly with Young for its Nat Gosling—a little, dried-up, weazen-faced man, who identified himself so perfectly with the character that the piece became quite a furore. It is a very common superstition among actors that a good actor can act anything, and can "make up" to look like anything, and no doubt this is partially, but only partially, true. There are actors, with flat, commonplace faces, figures of medium size, voices of no particular character, who, by dint of a little paint and pomatum, some false hair, some padding, and considerable study, can adapt themselves to play almost any character after a fashion; but it is a significant fact that such men are not to be found among the leaders of their profession, but only in the second rank. Great actors take a line and stick to it, one that exactly suits their individuality, and such find their mark. If they leave it, they deteriorate, if they stick to it, they become identified with it, and no one can rival them in their specialty. They become real "stars." Jefferson found in Rip Van Winkle his fit, and has been wise enough never to leave it. Sothern did the same in Lord Dundreary. Lester Wallack has his own recognized line, the blasé man of the world, which he never leaves, save to his misfortune. Edwin Booth keeps his face, figure, and voice the same in all his characters, and people crowd to see him. Why? Because he has a delicately handsome face and figure, a melodious voice, and a clear, intellectual conception of every part. They go to see Booth, not Bertuccio, or Brutus, or Othello, and it is noticeable that his Hamlet is one of his most successful pieces, because in it he is less disguised than anywhere else. The greatest success Barrett ever made was in Cassius, because the part fitted him, and no one has ever come near him in that part, where his face and figure appeared as nature made them. Any one who has ever seen Charles Fisher act Triplet in "Masks and Faces" must have realized the same sense of entire completeness and fitness which attended Barrett's Cassius, Jefferson's Rip Van Winkle, Lester Wallack's Elliott Gray, Sothern's Dundreary, Harry Placide's Monsieur Tourbillon, Booth's Iago and Richard III., Mrs. Scott-Siddons's Viola, Fanny Davenport's Georgette in "Fernande," Mary Gannon's "Little Treasure," Maggie Mitchell's "Fanchon" and "Little Barefoot."

In all these undoubted successes, old and new, with the sole exception of Sothern's Dundreary, the actors and actresses appeared and appear undisguised, talk in a natural voice, and fit their characters like a glove, face, figure, and all. This essential of fitness between character and physique is sometimes ignored by managers, with disastrous effects, while its observance has made a success of many a play, bolstered up by the influence of a single character. T. P. Cooke's Long Tom Coffin in the "Pilot" was such an instance of phenomenal success attained by the physique of one actor, carrying a rubbishy play through. Charlotte Cushman's Meg Merrilies was another such instance, the mere power of face, figure, and voice making a triumph, spite of poor play, and even spite of unmitigated and unnatural rant on the part of the actress. I have mentioned one instance in my own observation of the consequences of putting actors into ill fitting parts, in "Flying Scud." If the reader can imagine Lester Wallack in Rip Van Winkle, Jefferson in Elliott Gray or Hugh Chalcote, Barrett in Dundreary, Sothern in Cassius, Booth as Monsieur Tourbillon or Solon Shingle, Owens as Iago, he will have the salient points of our argument in strong light. The best example of a well fitted play I ever saw was Lester Wallack's "Veteran," as first acted, with James W. Wallack for Colonel Delmar, Mrs. Hoey for Amina, Mary Gannon for the other young woman, Mrs. Vernon for Mrs. MacShake. Every part, down to the very slaves, was perfectly fitted, and nothing has since come near it in completeness except Boucicault's plays, written at different times for the same theatre, "Jessie Brown" and the "Shaughraun." The full consideration of all these facts, and especially a retrospect of the relative rank of versatile actors and of specialists, has led to the following further aphorism:

XVI. If the actors fit the play, expect success; if they do not, disaster.

The consideration of actors as affecting the success of a play brings us to the last branch of the whole subject affected by the dramatic canons, which is the qualifications required by the dramatist to secure success. When we have considered them we shall have finished our task—the completion of an essay to arouse thought in others. When we consider the literary construction of such plays as "Black Crook," "Buffalo Bill," as well as the hosts of nameless dramas that are constantly making their appearance at minor and first-class theatres, their flat dialogue and general insipidity when merely read, not acted, we begin to realize that genius or even talent in the author are not the first requisite. He may lack both and still succeed. He must, however, have one thing, or he might as well keep out of the box office altogether, for his plays will be there pigeon-holed for good if he possesses it not. This something is stage experience. He may be an actor, no matter how bad, a scene painter, a carpenter, a musician, but he must have been about a theatre in some capacity, no matter how humble, to see how things work. One week behind the curtain is worth a year in front. The mere acquaintance with the ways of managers and actors is worth a good deal of time, but the familiarity with the working of a piece is the main thing. The most successful American comedy that has yet appeared was written by a walking lady who never would have made an actress if she had staid on the stage forty years, but who utilized her experience to some purpose on quitting the stage. The most successful money-making sensational piece of late years was written by a scene painter, and the poorest actors frequently write very good pieces, while good actors who possess talent for scribbling, almost always do well as playwrights. Only one fault do they all exhibit, without any exception, so far as my experience has run: they are all utterly oblivious of the meaning of the eighth commandment, and seem to regard plagiarism not as theft, but as a favor to the author whose literary property they steal. This is the worst that can be said about actor-authors, and to the rule there are no exceptions that ever I heard of. Actor-authors are unmitigated pirates of the most utterly unscrupulous sort, who crib whole chapters out of novels, word for word, without shame or acknowledgment, and write successful plays by filching other men's ideas, making a patchwork. Perhaps the most shameless of the whole raft of these actor-authors is Lester Wallack, whose two plays, the "Veteran" and "Rose-dale," are marvels of patchwork of this sort. In the first all the Arab characters and several scenes, language and all, are taken straight out of Captain James Grant's nearly forgotten novel of the, "Queen's Own," and in the second most of the plot and the most successful comic scene of the play come bodily from Colonel Hamley's "Lady Lee's Widowhood," another military novel. The provoking part of all this thieving in Wallack is, that other parts of his plays show that the man has talent enough to write, if he were not too lazy to work; but this preference of theft to labor is so common among actor-authors that nothing will ever check it but an extension of the copyright law in the interests of justice; for moral sense in the direction of the eighth commandment seems to be utterly unknown among them. The truth of the old adage about "hawks pikeing out hawks 'een" is, however, curiously exemplified in the scruples which the same men display as managers toward appropriating a play, no matter how much of a piracy in itself, without payment to the playwright, unless he be a Frenchman, when the case at once becomes altered. Novelists and foreign dramatists having no legal rights, actor-authors appear to think they have also no moral rights entitled to respect. This is the one stain on the character of actor-authors from which not one of them is free, or ever has been free, no matter what his time and nation. From Shakespeare to Brougham, from Molière to Boucicault, the lustre of all their talents has been dimmed by this one dirty vice of filching the product of other men's brains; and the only dramatists free from the reproach have been those who have come to the boards from outside, like Bulwer and Sheridan. I do not here mean to include avowed translations like "Pizarro" and the "Stranger," nor avowed dramatizations of novels like Boucicault's "Heart of Mid Lothian." Such things are not thefts, any more than the use of history for the basis of a novel; they are open to all. But the unavowed stealing of unknown French plays, the surreptitious filching of chapters from forgotten novels, no more becomes right after quoting Shakespeare and Molière as exemplars, than cowardice and treason become noble because St. Peter sneaked out of Caiaphas's petty sessions once on a time.

Spite of this degrading meanness, however, there is no doubt that actor-authors have so far written the greatest number of good plays that hold the stage, in consequence of just one thing, their experience, which reveals itself as the first quality necessary in the dramatist. After experience of the stage, the next qualification that meets us in such dramatists as Shakespeare, Dumas, Lope de Vega, and Boucicault, is their marvellous fecundity of invention, implying an amount of information on various subjects simply amazing. Nothing comes amiss to them, and they seem to have a smattering of every science, to have skimmed the private history of the whole world. Variety of information comes next after stage experience. A man may be a great fool on most subjects, and yet write a fair acting play from stage experience alone, if he filches enough, but if he have plenty of general information, he will be able to double the value of his play, while some plays have been made quite successful by the use of nothing but stage experience and some special line of information, by men who could not have written an original story to save their necks.

Last of the qualifications for dramatic success come ideas, and the possession of ideas implies also genius or at least talent, without which, after all, the really successful dramatist cannot work and leave enduring work behind him. All the ephemeral successes of the stage lack this one element, the one thing that cannot be taught, but must be born in a man. With genius, with real talent, everything is at last possible to a writer ambitious of stage success. Like Bulwer, he may make failure after failure, before he gets the entrée to theatrical life, but once there he will get past the portal and command success at last. Experience and information will be acquired with more or less labor, but he will get them at last, and then will be content to add his voice to the last canon of theatrical conditions to success:

XVII. Stage experience, varied information, and talent, are the sine quâ non of the dramatist who hopes for success.

Frederick Whittaker.

SAINT LAMBERT'S COAL.

Margaret J. Preston.

ENGLISH TRAITS.

One of the earliest records of modern history in regard to the race which peopled the old England and the New refers to its beauty. Most of us have heard the story: how three young captives, brought from an almost unknown island on the verge of civilization, and indeed at the western limit of the then known world, were exposed for sale in Rome, and how Gregory the Great, not yet Pope, seeing them, was struck by their beauty and asked what they were, and being told, Angli (English), replied "Non Angli, sed angeli" (not Angles, but angels); which was a tolerable pun for a future Pope and saint. This was twelve hundred years ago; and since that time the English race has enjoyed the reputation (subject to some carping criticism, due to the self-love of other peoples) of being the handsomest in the world. It is well deserved; indeed, if it were not, it would long ago have been jealously extinguished. Not improbably, however, the impression made upon Gregory was greatly due to the fair complexion, blue eyes, and golden brown hair of the English captives, which, indeed, are mentioned in the story. For southern Europe is peopled with dark-skinned, dark-haired races; and the superior beauty of the blonde type was recognized by the painters, who always, from the earliest days, represented angels as of that type. The Devil was painted black so much as a matter of course that his pictured appearance gave rise to a well-known proverb; ordinary mortals were represented as more or less dark; celestial people were white and golden-haired; whence the epithet "divinely fair." When therefore the good Gregory saw the fair, blue-eyed English youths, his comparison was at once suggested, and his pun was almost made to his hand. And I am inclined to believe that it is of much later origin, although he ought to have made it; just as Sidney Smith ought to have said to Landseer, when he asked the Reverend wit to sit for his portrait, "Is thy servant a dog that he should do the thing?" and as the innkeeper ought to have said to Mr. Seward that he was not Governor of New York, but "Thurlow Weed, by thunder?" but did not. In each of these cases, however, and in all such, a significant fact is at the bottom of the story, which otherwise would have no reason for its being.

It is hardly true, however, that other races do not produce individuals approaching as nearly to an ideal standard of beauty as any that are seen among the English. These are found, as we all know, among the various Latin races, the Celts and the Sclaves, and even, as Mr. Julian Hawthorne himself would hardly venture to deny, among the Teutons, the very Saxons themselves. Who has not seen French women and French men, Italians, Spaniards, Russians, Poles, Irish, and even Germans of both sexes, distinguished by striking and captivating personal beauty both of face and figure? But the average beauty of the English race appears to be in a marked degree above that of all others. Among a thousand men and women of that race there will not only be found more "beauties" than among the same number of other races, but the majority will be handsomer, "finer," more symmetrically formed, better featured, with clearer skins, and a more dignified bearing and presence than the majority of any other European race with which they may be compared.

A notion was for some time in vogue that this English distinction did not obtain in America, but that the race had degenerated here. It was a mere notion, having its origin in a prejudiced perversion of isolated facts; in the desire of book-writing travellers to find something strange, and also derogatory, with which to spice their pages; and in a craving, which amounts to a mild insanity, among European people, and particularly among all classes of the British nation, to lay hold of some distinctive "American" quality, whether physiological, literary, political, or other, and label it, and file it away, and pigeon-hole it for reference by way of differencing "Americans" from themselves.

The notion, I venture to say, was essentially absurd. That a race of men should materially change its physical traits in the course of two centuries, under whatever conditions of climate or other external influence, is inconsistent with all that we know upon that subject. The very pyramids protest against it by their pictured records. According to the history of mankind, as it is thus far known to us, such a change could not take place within such a period, unless to external influences of great modifying power there were added such an intermingling of races as has not yet taken place here more than in England itself, although plainly it is to come in future generations. Up to thirty years ago the intermarriage of Yankees—by which name, for lack of another, I designate people of English blood born in this country—with Irish and Germans was so rare as practically, in regard to this question, not to exist; and at that period there was not in England itself a more purely English people than that of New England.

This notion of English degeneracy in "America" has, however, been rapidly dying out in Europe, and even in England during the last ten or fifteen years. The change has been brought about partly by the events of our civil war; for the blindest prejudice saw that that war was not fought by a physically degenerate people; and partly by the increase of knowledge obtained, not from carping travellers writing books to please a carping public, but from personal observation. This I know, not by inference, but from Englishmen and others who have been here, and who have not written books. The belief, formerly prevalent, that "American" women had in their youth pretty doll faces, but at no period of life womanly beauty of figure, is passing away before a knowledge of the truth, and I have heard it scouted here by Englishmen, who, pointing to the charming evidence to the contrary before their eyes, have expressed surprise that the travelling book-writers, who had given them their previous notions on the subject, could have so misrepresented the truth. A colonel in the British army, who had been all over the world, and with whom I was in New England during the war, at a time when a large number of our volunteers were home on furlough, expressed constantly his surprise at the "fine men" he saw going about in uniform, the equals of whom he said that he had never seen as a whole in any army; although he did not hesitate to express his dislike of their uniform, or his disgust at the slouchy, slovenly way in which they carried themselves. I was ready to believe what he said; for I had then just seen the Coldstreams in Montreal; and I had before seen the Spanish regular troops in Cuba, who, even the regiment of the Queen, were so small that they looked to me like toy soldiers to be kept in a box; and a very bad box they soon got into. During my recent visit to England, after I had been in London a week or two, having previously visited other places, a London friend who had twice visited "the States," said to me, "Well, I suppose you've been looking at the people here and comparing them with those you've left at home?" "Yes, of course." "Do you find much difference in them really?" "No; very little; almost none." "You're right—quite right. There may be a little more fulness of figure and a little more ruddiness; but it's been greatly exaggerated—greatly." One reason for this exaggeration I learned from the remarks of two English friends to me in this country. Some years ago I took one, a gentleman who had travelled a good deal, and who held an important position in the Queen's household—and a very outspoken man he was—to a "private view," at which for a wonder there was not a miscellaneous throng, but just enough people to fill the rooms pleasantly. As we sat together after a tour, looking at the company, I asked him to tell me the difference between the people he saw there and those he would see on a like occasion at the Royal Academy. He sat looking around him in silence for so long a time that I thought he was going to pass my question unnoticed, when he said, "I can see no difference; none at all; except that there would not be quite so many pretty women there, and that there would be more stout old people." The other, a lady, who also did not hesitate in her criticisms, remarked that the chief difference in appearance between people of the same condition here and in England was that here she "didn't see any fat old men." She said nothing about fat old women; not, however, that she herself was either fat or old.

There is this difference among old people; although even this has been exaggerated; and it is this which gives a certain color of truth to the notion I have referred to. English men and women do not always grow stout and red-faced as they grow old; but after they have passed middle age more of them do tend to rubicundity and to protuberant rotundity of figure than people of the same age do in "America." The cause, I am quite sure, is simply—beer. Both the color and the rotundity come to a large proportion of the Americans who live in England and drink English beer, in English allowance; which, it need hardly be said, could not be the case if there had been any essential change in the type of the race. But among men under forty and women under thirty, the difference either in complexion or figure is almost inappreciable.

As to the women, there are at least as many in England who are spare and angular of figure as here, and of those who have not passed thirty I think rather more. The London "Spectator" said some years ago, in discussing the Banting diet, I believe, that "scragginess was more common in England among women than stoutness"; and it is remarkable that the French caricatures of Englishwomen always represent them as thin, bony, and sharp-featured. In this of course there is a little malice; but it shows the impression left upon the French people by their near neighbors. I cannot do better here than to offer my readers, in the following passage, a share in one of my letters written home; it has at least the advantage of recording on the spot impressions received by me after careful examination under the most favorable circumstances. I was writing about the beauty of the parks:

"It is amazing to see the great space of this little island that these English folk have reserved for air, and health, and beauty; and it is for all, the poorest and meanest as well as the richest and noblest; there are no privileged classes in this. As to the effect upon their health, I suppose it must be something, but it shows for very little. G—— [a gentleman who is very strong upon the subject of degeneracy, which I have always doubted] will laugh and say that it was a foregone conclusion with me, but to set aside my inference he will be obliged to take the position that there is nothing so misleading as facts, except figures. I have now seen many hundreds of thousands of Englishmen and Englishwomen of all classes. I have placed myself in positions to examine them closely. At the great Birmingham musical festival my seat gave me full view of the house, chorus and all. The vast hall was filled with people of the middle and upper middle classes, and at one end with members of the highest aristocracy, who occupied seats roped off from the rest, and called 'the President's seats'—the President being the Marquis of Hertford. At the end of the performance, both evening and morning, I hastened to a place where a great part of the audience would pass close before me. At Westminster Abbey I stood again and again at the principal door and watched the congregation as they came out; I have done the same in swarming railway stations; I have walked through country villages and cathedral towns; I know the human physiognomy of all quarters of London pretty well; I have seen the Guards and the heavy dragoons, and I say without any hesitation that thus far I find that the men and the women are generally smaller and less robust than ours, and above all that the women are on the whole sparer and less blooming than ours. The men are ruddier on the whole; that is, there are more ruddy men here; but the number of men without color in their cheeks seems to be nearly the same as with us. The apparent inconsistency of what I have said is due to the fact that the ruddy men and women here are generally so very red that they produce a great impression of redness, an impression that lasts and remains salient in the memory. A delicately graduated and healthy bloom is not very common. And so the fat women are so very fat that they seem to take up a great part of the island. But the little London 'gent,' with whom Leech has made us so familiar, you meet everywhere in the great city. Sunday before last, loitering in the cloisters of Westminster, I stopped to look at a tablet in the wall. There were three of these men before me, and the number soon increased to seven. I looked over the hats—round felt hats—of the whole seven without raising my chin. I remember that like Rosalind I am 'more than common tall,' but I never did anything like that at home. At the Horse Guards they put their finest men as sentinels, mounted, on each side of the gate. Well, they are fine fellows, and would be very uncomfortable chaps to meet, except in a friendly way; a detachment of them riding up St. James's street the other morning, with their cuirasses like mirrors, and the coats of their big black horses almost as bright, was a spectacle which it seemed to me could not be surpassed for its union of military splendor and the promise of bitter business in a fight; but Maine, or Vermont, or Connecticut, or Kentucky can turn out whole regiments of bigger and stronger men. Colonel M——, whom I met in Canada, said the same to me when he thought he was talking to an Englishman. I wonder that he ever forgave me the things he said to me during his brief self-deception; for they were true. But he was a good fellow and bore no malice. Nevertheless, you sometimes meet here a very fine man, or a big, blooming beauty, and in either case the impression is stronger and more memorable than in a like case it is apt to be with us; chiefly, I think, because of their dress and 'set up,' which in such cases—as in that of the Guards and Dragoons—is apt to be very pronounced."

I will add here, in passing, that this English "set up," particularly in the case of almost all Englishmen of any pretensions, is distinctive, and is in a great measure the cause of the impression of superior good looks and strength on their side. It appears in a marked degree in all military persons, rank and file as well as officers, and in the police force, the men of which are on the whole inferior in stature and bulk to ours—leaving the big Broadway squad, most of them Yankees, out of the question—and yet it is far superior in appearance to ours, owing to the "set up" of the men, and the way in which they carry themselves. I observed that although the upper classes contained a fair proportion, although no notable excess, of large and well-formed men and women, the burly men and the big-bodied, heavy-limbed women were generally of the lower and the lower middle class. This made me wonder where all the pretty housemaids and shop girls came from; for the prettiest faces, the most delicately blooming complexions, and the finest figures that I saw in England were among them. In a letter written from the Rose Inn at Canterbury, a cosy comfortable old hostlery, I find the following passage, which is to the purpose:

"I ate my bacon and eggs this morning in the coffee room, where at another table were three queer Englishwomen, yet nice looking—apparently a mother and two daughters. The elder daughter was, I will not say a lathy girl, but very slim not only in the waist, but above and below it. The mother and the younger were plump and rosy, absurdly alike, and with that cocked-up nose which is one of the very few distinctive peculiarities of figure that you see here, but even this very rarely; and their black hair was curled in tight curls all over their heads. I was struck by this, because curling hair is comparatively rare here, and I had expected to find it common. It was cut just like a man's, and plainly so because it would have been impossible to dress it if it were allowed to grow long in woman fashion. They were very jolly and pleasant, chaffing each other in low, soft voices, and breaking out in rich, sweet laughter. They looked just like boys masquerading in women's clothes; for the eldest was quite young looking and may have been an elder sister. The youngest, who was some seventeen or eighteen years old, looked very fair and blooming across the room, but when I came close to her, which I had an opportunity of doing, I found that her color, both white and red, was coarse, which is very often the case here when there is color. In the mother, or eldest sister, this coarseness was apparent even at a distance. But see, Lady —— and her daughters, although pretty and elegant, had no tinge of color in their cheeks, and they were all as thin as rails, and the girls' hair, as well as their mother's, was as straight as fiddle strings. I came here expecting to see golden curls in plentiful crops, or at least not uncommonly. But it seems to me that I haven't seen a dozen curly-haired children since I have been in the country; and I have seen them—the children—by tens of thousands, and examined them closely, making memorandums of my observation. Nor have the ladies of this family (I am now at ——), Lady —— and Mrs. ——, any more bloom than this paper, and they are both as thin as Lady —— and her daughters; Mrs. —— painfully so. The men, belonging of course to another family, are stout, well-built fellows enough, but the two other guests are as lean as greyhounds. I went to a little dinner party the other evening, and the carriage sent to the station for me (for they think nothing here of asking you fifteen or twenty miles to dinner even when you are not expected to stay over night) took also a Major General Sir —— ——. I was told that he would join me, and I expected to see a portly, ruddy man of inches, with sweeping whiskers and moustache. I found a short, slender, meek-looking, pale-faced man; but his bearing was very military; he was a charming companion and the pink of courtesy. We entered the drawing-room together of course; but notwithstanding his rank, he waved me in before him, and my plain Mistership was announced before his titles. I have seen no men here at all equal in face or figure to General Hooker, General Hancock, General Augur, or General Terry, to say nothing of General Scott, who was something out of the common even with us. And Burnside, and McDowell, and Grant, and McClellan are all stouter men than you are apt to find here. The biggest men that I have seen were from the north, Yorkshire and Northumberland. Those of the south, particularly in Kent, are the shortest; although, as a Kent man said to me, they are generally 'stocky.'"3

A New England man now living in England, who made his house very delightful to me, first by the presence of himself and his family, and next by the kindest and most considerate hospitality, is an ever present rebuke of the stoutest sort to the British notion of the physical degeneracy of the English race in "America." He, a Yankee of the old Puritan emigration, is five feet ten and a half inches high, is forty-eight inches, four good feet, in girth around the chest, weighs two hundred pounds, and yet has not the least appearance of portliness, rather the contrary. He is the only man I ever met whose friendly grip was rather more than I liked to bear. I spoke to his wife about his strength and his figure, and she told me that when he went to get his life insured here the surgeons said that they very rarely saw such a powerful, finely formed, and perfectly healthy man as he is, and never any finer or healthier. That would be impossible. And as he is so was his father. Were they exceptions? Only of a sort that constantly occur among real Yankees—"Americans" whose families have been in the country for generations, and who are the only proper examples of the influence of the climate and the social conditions of the country.

I have, perhaps, said too much upon this subject of the comparative physical condition of the race in the two countries; but I have been led to do so because of the very great inconsistency I found between the facts and the common notion as to stout Englishmen and lean "Americans," blooming, buxom Englishwomen and pale, slender "American" women—a notion which one writer has repeated, parrot-like, after the other, until even we ourselves have accepted it without question. Like many other notions which no one disputes, it is false. But the world has gone on accepting it and assuming it to be true until it has so taken possession of the general mind that if in a room full of English people only one man were found ruddy and burly, and only one woman blooming and well rounded (and this or something very like it I have seen more than once), they would be picked out and spoken of as English-looking, to the disregard of all the others. The exceptions would be taken as examples of the rule; and this even by the English themselves, so swayed are we by tradition and authority, even in such an everyday matter. Nay, even I myself, skeptical and carping, was thus misled. The steamer, going out, was filled chiefly with English people. Two of my fellow passengers I selected in my mind as notably and typically English, not only in person, but in bearing. They proved to be, one a Massachusetts Yankee and the other a Western man; but both had from association contracted English habits of dress and of manner. Two Englishwomen, however, attracted my particular attention. One was, I think, the very largest human female I ever saw outside of a caravan. She was a fearful manifestation of the enormous development of solid flesh which the British fair sometimes attain. As she stood by her husband she was the taller from the ear upward. She weighed about twenty stone. I think that a plumb line dropped from the front of her corsage would have reached the deck without touching her skirts. Her tread was hippopotamic. And yet she showed traces of beauty, and not improbably had been a fine fair girl; and even at the present time she managed to effect a very palpable waist. I mused wonderingly upon the process by which she did this; but still more upon that sad gradual enormification by which she passed from a tall blooming beauty into her present tremendous proportions. The other was exactly the reverse. She could hardly be called ill looking in the face, but her pale, blank, unfeatured countenance reminded one instantly of a sheep. She was a washed-out, and although young, a faded creature, with no more shoulders or hips than my forefinger. And yet she was a perfect English type, and so like some of John Leech's women that I could not look at her without internal laughter. Her husband—for even such women by some mysterious process known to themselves will get husbands—was like unto her in face, in feature, and in expression; and yet he was so strikingly, so aggressively British in look and in manner that I heard some Yankees on board say that they would like to kick him. And I somewhat shared their prejudice; of which before we landed I learned to be ashamed; for I found him a very intelligent, well-informed, pleasant man, reserved in his manners, and although firm in his opinions, which were strongly British, very respectful of other men's, and very careful of giving offence. His union of firmness and courtesy seemed to me worthy of admiration; and if he did wish to kick any of the Yankees on board, for which in one or two cases I could have forgiven him, I am sure that he never let the desire manifest itself in their presence.

Another prevalent notion, which is reciprocal between the people of the two countries, is mistaken according to my observation. It is generally believed, or at least very often said in "America," that the men in England are very much handsomer than the women; and conversely it is commonly believed in England, or said, that the women in "America" are handsomer than the men. An absurd and truly preposterous notion, as will be seen upon a moment's reflection. For the women in both countries are the mothers of both the men and the women; and the men are the fathers of both the men and the women; and as some of the women are of their fathers' types and some of the men of their mothers', the imputed difference of the two in personal beauty could not be brought about. It is physiologically impossible that the women of a race should be handsomer than the men, and vice versa.

It is nevertheless true that the men in England are on the whole more attractive to the eye than the women, and that the women in "America" are generally much more attractive than the men. The cause of this is a fact very distinctive of the social surface of the two countries. I have spoken of the "set up" and the bearing of the men in England. It is very remarkable, and is far superior to anything of the kind that is found even among the most cultivated people in this country, except in comparatively rare individual cases. But in England it is common; it is the rule. There, from the middle classes up, a slovenly man is a rare exception. There men are almost universally neat and tidy, and they carry themselves with a conscious self-respect. They do not slouch. They do not go about, even in the morning, with coats unbuttoned, skirts flying, and their hands in their overcoat pockets. They dress soberly, quietly, with manly simplicity, but almost always in good taste, and with notable neatness. They are manly looking men, with an air of conscious manhood. Moreover, in England the man is still recognized as the superior. England has been called the purgatory of horses and the paradise of women. But that saying came from the continent of Europe, where women, except in the very highest and most cultivated classes, are not treated with that tenderness and consideration for their weakness and their womanly functions which I am inclined to think is somewhat peculiar to the English race. I should call England the paradise of men; for there the world is made for them; and women are happy in making it so. An Englishman who is the head of a family is not only master of his house, but of the whole household. His will is recognized as the law of that household. No one thinks of disputing it. It is not deemed unreasonable that in the house which he provides and keeps up his comfort and his convenience should be first considered, or that, as he is responsible for his household both to the law and to society, authority should go with responsibility. And yet—perhaps for this very reason—wives there have the household affairs more absolutely in their hands than they have here. A man whose absolute authority is acknowledged, practically as well as theoretically, is very ready to make concessions and to rid himself of what at any time he may assume. Real monarchs, like the Czars or like the Tudors, are careless of the protection of royal etiquette. The consciousness of this acknowledged or rather unquestioned superiority shows itself in the men's faces, and in their bearing, simple and unpretending as their manner is. Besides all this, men in England (I am leaving out of consideration the lower classes) show the effect of cultivation, of breeding, of discipline. Even in the middle classes they are well informed, and, what is of more importance to the present question, they have been taught to behave themselves respectfully to others. They do so behave; they feel that they ought to do so and that they must. There are two gods worshipped in England, and one is propriety; and a very good god he is, when he is not made a Juggernaut. The result of all this is a very different man in appearance from him who generally pervades "America." The latter may be, and generally is, as handsome physically as the former; he may be, and generally is, as good morally; but the one generally shows for all that he is and perhaps for more, and the other does not, and frequently does for less. And yet again; among such men in England another sort who, for example, say "hadn't oughter," and "have came," and who spit upon the floor, are not generally found mingling. They are kept in social pens by themselves. And thus in judging of English society they are left out.

A comparative estimate of Englishwomen is too serious and far too complicated a subject to be treated except in an article by itself.

Richard Grant White.

A DEAD VASHTI.

Do we indeed desire the dead should still be near us, at our side?

"I do not know how it is with others," said the spirit, looking away from the Sunday child to the red and spectral moon that was arising from the tossing ocean into a mass of heavy, broken clouds; "for since my death I have been alone; but when I left my human form I left few of the affections, the passions of life, and thus death has made but little change in me. I cannot believe, however, that all the dead carry as much of their old life into the new as I have, for few can be cursed as I have been with a granted prayer. What my life in the world of spirits might have been I cannot tell you; but I know that all I have suffered comes from my folly, my wickedness in praying for my own will! But my life upon earth had been so complete, so happy, it seemed as if I might be justified in thinking that it ought to give me the same bliss if it was made eternal. My love for Philip was so pure and true that it seemed as fit that it should govern me in one life as in the other! Other women, I suppose, have loved their husbands as well; but few would have had the temerity to stake their eternal happiness on human fidelity as I did! But my love was a part of my being, and I thought no more of its extent or duration than of the density of the air I breathed. It was never put to the test of neglect or misunderstanding, and was never subject to question. Looking back now, it seems impossible that I ever lived without Philip; for all my days before I knew him are but fragments of a half-forgotten time. Of his love I had no doubt. It satisfied me. And we were not only lovers, but also comrades. I was but an amateur where he was a master, but I followed him attentively, eagerly. I like to remember those days, when we wandered like children through the woods, when we climbed, sketched, laughed, and sang together, and I often wonder if any mortals are as happy now. At home we had our hours of work, of merry talk, and happy plans. We had the excitements of the exhibition days, the pleasures of social life, and then we had also my dear little girl, our Nellie! Sometimes I fancy that such happiness cannot die; that if our words and actions perpetuate themselves, such vivid experiences cannot fade away, and that I may some time find it all passed into an eternal form! But these are dreams; for every thing has changed, and I know that nothing can be eternal that is not based upon truth, upon faithfulness.

"You can understand, although you are so young, and are just learning how love transfigures everything, that my life with my husband was so complete that we did not dream of any change; we did not comprehend that we could ever be parted. I have heard women say that they have trembled when they were very happy, knowing that there must be an end to their joy; but I had no such fears. Still it came to me, and in a horrible shape.

"I knew that I was very ill, and that Philip was anxious and wretched, but I never thought that I might die. My fierce pain gave me no hint of death, and so it came almost without warning. I would not believe that I must go away, and that this brief illness meant death was incredible, preposterous! I shrank from thinking of it; I cried out that I would not die; I would not leave Philip! I begged my physicians for life; I entreated Heaven to spare me; I almost broke my husband's heart by my wild cries for life. It was a bitter struggle! I prayed for annihilation—for anything but the knowledge that we were separated. Do not think that I forgot Nellie, or that I did not grieve to part with her; but other mothers have loved their children for the father's sake, and I could have surrendered anything to have kept him. I could trust her to a Higher love, but for us there was nothing but daily, hourly union.

"The night before I died—for who can thrust away the inevitable!—I lay close in Philip's arms as he knelt by my bedside. I was almost helpless, but I clung body and soul to him. It was poor comfort to tell each other that this was but a temporary separation; that we had yet an eternity in which to live together. Eternity was indefinite and far away, while our parting, his lonely life, my waiting hours, were so near. I cannot forget how he wept as he held me close, closer to him, and how his courage failed as he realized how fast my hour of departure was hastening to us! I do not now know how it was that we did not die together that night! We talked of it, and it seemed so easy and natural that we thought we could not help it; but the daylight came, and we were still alive, clinging to each other.

"But this night of agony did more than death alone could have done, for it shaped my future. Out of our frantic grief there came a prayer that has fixed me here, and which has taught me of what love is made! Together that night we besought Heaven to give me no other happiness than that I had known in life, but to let me linger near my home, and be with my husband until he died. I cried out that any other existence would be hell to me; and with desperate hands we beat against the doors of prayer, and pleaded for power to choose our own future.

"The next night I died. All day I had laid on my bed passive and quiet. My grief had worn me out, and I could not have spoken had I wished. Philip sat by me holding my hand, but he too was silent. I felt vaguely that mine was the easier task; that living could be harder than dying; but I had no words with which to comfort or strengthen him. I could faintly smile when he would bend his head, and kiss my nerveless hand, and I wondered if he knew how much I liked to lie quietly and look at him. Yet I did not care for it all! I remember the watchful indifference with which I regarded my physician's face, and followed the motions of the nurse about the room. I remember my sister's tears, and how little Nellie sat by me on the bed with her doll, until she fell asleep on my pillow. I remember how the hours measured themselves away, how the sunshine deepened and faded, how the night came, and all grew dim and silent. An absolute hush rested upon the earth. The fire blazed, but it had ceased its crackling; the watchers moved noiselessly about the room, the street had become quiet, and everything seemed awaiting some coming, some solemn change. As Philip leaned over me, and I saw his lips move, but heard no sound, I fancied that perhaps my hearing had gone from me, but I cared nothing for it! Then the fire grew dim, the room seemed full of shadows, the lights faded away, and my eyes became heavy, but I did not care to shut them, or to brush away the film that covered them. My breath gained substance, and began to push its way through my lungs, my throat seemed closing, and then suddenly everything changed!

"It is not to my purpose, even were I allowed, to tell you anything of the conditions of my present life, or to explain to you how I can reveal myself to you, and why it was that Philip could never see me. All that I am to tell you is connected with this earth.

"After the first surprise was over I turned to Philip, who was kneeling by the bed. He could not believe that I was dead, but called vehemently on me to look at him. I remember the joy with which I sprang to his side, and putting my arms around, tried to turn his head away from the dead body to my living, happy face! But it was all in vain, in vain! He was deaf, he was blind to me! Our prayer, our compact was as nothing: he knew only the dead wife! I was as indifferent to the body as to a shadow on the wall; but to be clinging to him unrecognized, unfelt, terrified me, shocked me! I cannot dwell on this, but after all was over, and the body carried away, he was still ignorant of my presence. I followed his aimless steps through the house; I stood by his chair as he sat idly at his easel; I watched with him through the long nights, but he never suspected that I was there! How often when he has called me have I answered, and when he has prayed for one glimpse of me have I clung to him, but had no sign from him to tell me that he even blindly guessed that our prayer might have been granted! I have put my arms around him; my head has lain upon his shoulder; I have passionately called upon him, but still been as empty air! Yet it comforted me to be with him, and I could not doubt that some time he would come to know of my presence. It was impossible, I thought, for him to dwell in such an atmosphere of love and always be unconscious of it. Why, we thought only of each other, we longed only for each other, and so he must at last come to know how near I was, and then, I thought with joy, waiting would lose its pain!

"I could laugh as I now think of this fond and foolish fancy—of my trust in time, in a man's intuition! Why, I did not even know that men do not nurse grief as we do; and I was surprised by Philip's resolute bravery in turning to work, and trying to forget in study all he had lost in love. But do not think it was easy for him! I was much too intimately connected with his art not to be always suggested by it; and my dumb and unknown presence awakened none of the old inspiration of our talks, our mutual sympathy and interest. Sometimes his desire for me became so intense that I felt that my time for recognition had surely come, and I have knelt, clinging to him, waiting for that blessed smile of knowledge, but all in vain!

"Time, however, smoothes all griefs for mortals, and soon life began to run tranquilly in the house. Nellie was happy in my sister's care, and Philip became absorbed in work. The old sparkle and gayety was gone, but youth and vigor were left, so they lived pleasantly enough, and I wandered through the rooms lonely, but not forlorn. I could not be miserable, for I was ever with them. And I could not but be happy in seeing how tenderly I was remembered, how constantly I was thought of by them all. Nothing was changed, for even my work-basket kept its place in Philip's room, and some of my ribbons were still tumbled in with his collars! Thus some years passed away. Nellie grew tall and pretty, and Philip became graver, more studious, and was as famous as he was popular. I do not believe that he ever thought of making any change in his life, of filling my place in his home or heart. I never dreamed it was possible! But ignorance is a poor safeguard, and at last the time came when the shadow began to lift from off his life, to deepen over mine. I do not know how to tell you more; the thought of speaking of it almost strikes me dumb; but I must, I must! I am compelled to do it! And it all came of a picture—a picture of youth and beauty; and she—Esther—came to sit for it! You need not expect me to tell you much of her, for some things are impossible; but she had been as a schoolgirl a pet of mine. She was the daughter of a friend, and she was pretty; she was rich; she was good and loving: what else could any mortal ask for? These quiet hours in the studio were pleasant to both of them, and one day Philip broke the silence of years and spoke of me to her. She was glad to talk of me, for she had been fond of me; and she told him of what I had said to her; she brought him a little drawing I had made of Nellie for her. They spoke of me lovingly and gently, but I stood off and wrung my hands in anguish. The most cruel silence would have been better than these confidences which brought them so close together.

"But what a wonderful picture he painted! How fair, how lovely she looked upon the canvas, and how happy she was when the painting was praised! She danced for joy when she first saw it in its frame; but I—I who knew so well what a success it was—I did not rejoice! I did not look at the picture, but instead I watched the soft and tender smile with which Philip regarded her! Need I tell you more?" she said in a husky voice, standing up and clenching her hands. "Must I repeat the history of these days as though it was a story I was telling you! Have I not suffered penance enough in witnessing a grief I could not comfort, a resignation that I could not share, and a happiness that has made me desperate; but must I also put it all into words? But there was one trial spared me. I did not have to witness the growth of this new love, for I rarely saw them together during the days of courtship. She did not come often to the house after the picture was finished, and so I escaped this much. Yet I knew when they saw each other, and he was no laggard wooer. I never followed him or her, for I could not leave the home where we had lived; but in thought I was never parted from him. How often have I paced the floor in lonely agony, waiting for his return from her house. I have crouched in the corner, fearing, yet eager to see him enter with the new happiness in his eye, the new elasticity in his step. I saw him grow brighter and gayer; and as he whistled or sang at his work I have fled away in helpless agony. Yet he had not forgotten me; and in the midst of the new life that was thrilling through him I was still dear to him. I cannot pretend to understand a man's love, nor to tell you how faithfulness to an old affection, and desire for one that is new, can dwell in the same heart. He thought of me tenderly. I was a part of a past too dear to be forgotten; but I did not belong to the present. He had lived without me, and I was no longer necessary to him, but this younger love was very near and real to him.

"At last he brought her home, and with many smiles and happy glances he led Nellie to her new mother. It seemed very proper to the people who filled the house that her grace and youth should mate with his dignity and reputation, and that they should love each other; but none of them saw, few thought of the disembodied wife who was still chained to his side by links he had helped to forge, and who, standing unsuspected in their midst, cursed—not the bride nor her husband—but her own immorality.

"Yet as I watched the merriment with a most bitter scorn of my suffering, and a fancy how Philip might well paint a love dancing on a coffin for his next picture, I yet felt glad to know that I had not been the one who was false to that dreadful night of vows and prayers. If he had died, I would have been faithful. My need of love would have been as great; I might have longed for protection, for even bread; but I would have had no other husband. I was glad, for it is well to be faithful. A new love may bring new sweetness and content, but constancy has its own sweet rewards, and the widowed heart would seek no strange hand if it did but know what remains to those who are true.

"This was years ago as you count time; but until to-night I have lingered around my home—my old home that was changed and beautified for another mistress. I have nothing to tell you of their life, that does not seem to men to be pleasant. They have been prosperous. They have known many joys and few sorrows. They have travelled. He is famous and he is also rich. Is that not enough? And Nellie, too, has been content. Esther has not allowed the child to miss me; and although other children claim equal love from her father, they have never robbed her. Is not this best? your questioning eyes ask me. Perhaps it is. I have often taken my jealous heart to task; and remembering how solitary Philip's home would have been, how much he has gained in these new loves, I have tried to say it was the best. But he was not bound to me only for life—for my life. Our love reached out toward the other world and swore eternal fidelity, and I—I have not been freed from him.

"But this is not all. I might reconcile myself to this and be content. I love Philip so truly that I think I could sacrifice my dearest, most selfish wishes to him, and be satisfied to see him prosperous and happy. But whether it is a keener sight that I possess, whether it is a natural change that comes to all who submit to the influence of the world, I know not; but Philip is not the same artist—he is not the same man; but this, I think, no one knows; that his pictures have changed is clear to all. Once he worked for the sake of the best; now he works for 'success'; and Esther rates his paintings at the price they bring. But had I lived even this might have been. Yet this is not all. The sting, the bitterness of my bereavement is in my knowledge that we are parted for ever. If Philip had not grown so far away from me in the years in which he has not known me, I could expect some happy reunion with him; but this man will need me no more in Heaven than he now does upon earth. If I could now return to him and take Esther's place by his side, I would jar upon him, displease him. He might love me, but there would be little affinity between us. And I—have I not changed? has not my ignorance turned to bitterness, my confidence to disbelief? But it seems to me that a little sunshine would bring back all that was sweet or good in me—yet I cannot tell. But this I know: in the future the soul of this man will lay no claim to mine. We get nothing without its price, and Philip has paid for a second love by the loss of all he once thought dearest. Still it may be best, it may be right.

"As for myself, some change is coming to me. It must be so, or I would not be here to-night. You know what perhaps is to occur; you know how long I was to linger; but of this I cannot speak. If I shall never see him again, do you think I can talk of it?

"But, child, it fills me with wonder as I think that the spirit world in which I have so long dwelt, of which I know nothing, is now, perhaps, to be revealed to me. I have no fear of it. I believe that when I enter Paradise—and I cannot believe that its doors are for ever closed against me—that in some way the lost love of my husband, the misled affection of my child, will be made up to me. Heaven defrauds us of nothing; and as we are created to love and be loved, is it not true that there must be compensation somewhere if it is torn from us, or denied to us?

"But be that as it may," she said, looking down upon her companion with sad and tender eyes. "You are a woman, and I have a charge to give you. I warn you, child, that your love to Heaven cannot be too strong; your love for man too true; but while you give to man the sweetness and comfort of your life, you must look to Heaven alone for faithfulness."

When the girl looked up again, the morning star shone over the sea, a fresh wind blew out of the yellowing sky, but she was alone upon the sands.

Louise Stockton.

ON BEING BORN AWAY FROM HOME.

Reading, the other day, in Mr. Stigand's interesting "Life of Heine," about the young poet's discontent in Germany, about his long desire to quit that country and to live in France, and of his final hegira to Paris, it occurred to me that he might be described, not too fancifully, as having been born away from home. How many have had the same fortune, whether for good or ill. But the happier class is the contrasting one, that of persons who have never suffered from the stress of the migrating instinct; and surely it is a fortunate thing to be born in one's own place, as Lamb was born in London, to grow in the fit soil, to lose no time in striking root. Lamb was the happiest of men in this respect. A true child of the city, he held that London was a better place to be born in than any part of the country. "A garden," he writes to Wordsworth, "was the primitive prison, till man, with Promethean boldness and felicity, luckily sinned himself out of it." For garden if we read farm in this passage, we have, perhaps, a statement of the feeling which prompts our own country people, and more and more with successive years, to leave the country and come to the city—to crowd the towns and desert the fields. Lamb says again—and one almost trembles to see him thus defying the "poet of nature" to his face—"Separate from the pleasure of your company, I don't much care if I never see a mountain in my life.... I do not envy you. I should pity you did I not know that the mind will make friends with anything." But Wordsworth, the Laker, was quite as clearly born at home as Lamb, the Londoner; and, as we know, he came back to his native hills after no long wanderings, not to quit them again. It is because Lamb hardly wandered at all that he seems so truly autochthonous, so peculiarly a child of the soil. He struck deep root into the intellectual alluvium of London, and until he was fifty years old he suffered nothing from transplantation except when he changed his lodgings or paid his somewhat reluctant visits to friends in the country; and when, at fifty, he ventured away from London, it was no further than to the margin of the city of Paradise—to Enfield, Edmonton—the latter a place which he calls "a little teasing image of a town," where "the country folks do not look like country folks," and where "the very blackguards are degenerate." It was only in London that Lamb's spirit really nourished itself and grew.

And why is it in old countries that the mind seems to strike its most vigorous fibres into the soil, to draw up its most potent juices, bringing to blossom such flowers as Wordsworth's "Poems of Childhood," such pansies as Elia's thoughts? Lamb suggests country images; even though he was of the city, his essays have an outdoor freshness and tenderness. They take us into the open fields, and show us the soft counterchange of shadows and sunlight, bright spaces and pursuing swarths of shade. And where did he learn the longing homesickness of a child for the country? "How I would wake weeping," Elia says, "and in the anguish of my heart exclaim upon sweet Calne, in Wiltshire!" Whether in country or city, surely it is in old lands that one gets the fullest home feeling, the complete benefits of soil, and atmosphere, and acquaintance with the various geniuses of the place. Would that we had been Londoners, we say, to know the ancient streets, or Parisians for the sake of the great libraries and of Notre Dame!

That, however, is but a melancholy utinam; there has been no lack of fortunate migrations among people who have been born far away from their fitting homes, and who have found their way thither in course of time. So the "rising young men" of our own colonial days returned to England to make their career; and sometimes we may trace the features of their childhood's "environment" in their developed genius. Our painters, for whom the new country was not yet a quite satisfactory place, displayed perhaps the strongest homing tendency. Copley, West, and Stuart, for instance, all American born, had to seek an older home of art. West returned in youth to England, and Copley in early manhood; there they made their careers, there they lived and died; while Stuart, after passing fifteen years in Europe, came back to settle in America. But none of these artists quite severed himself from his native country. American themes served each of them for some of his best known works: as in Stuart's famous "Washington," West's "Death of General Wolfe," and Copley's first historical picture, so called, the "Youth Rescued from a Shark."4

There, too, was Copley's son, born, like his father, in New England. In 1774 he was taken to London, where he too made his career, a distinguished one; for the Boston boy lived to become Baron Lyndhurst and Lord Chancellor. But as the eminent nobleman to be, at the time of his demigration, was but two years old, it is difficult to point out any traits of distinctively American statesmanship in his career.

And that other American nobleman, Count Rumford, of whom Mr. Ellis has recently written the first good biography—his was a notable case of birth away from home. It is a little odd to think of the famous Count Rumford, Franklin's compeer in genius, and born but a few miles from Franklin's birthplace, as plain Benjamin Thompson of North Woburn, Massachusetts. His parents were plain New England people, but he was ambitious, and had a handsome person; he had, too, what his neighbors might have called "uppish" ways; for he pretended to peculiar knowledge, and was always making strange researches and experiments; in short, I fear that he was not quite enough of a democrat to suit his neighbors. There was a distinction about him that they did not like; he was too original in his character and tastes; and consequently he was a marked man in that community. His fortunes seemed well enough, I presume, when, at twenty, he quitted school-teaching to marry a rich widow, thirteen years older than himself, Sarah Rolfe of Concord, New Hampshire; appearing on the wedding day, it is noted, in a splendid scarlet suit, to the astonishment and scandal of the young man's friends. But that was in 1772, and his troubles were not far ahead. At the outbreak of the colonial quarrel he was accused of being a Tory, and charged with disloyalty to the American cause. He protested his innocence in vain. He was arrested, tried—and acquitted; for nothing could be proven against him. Indeed, there was nothing to prove; it was his character that was the real cause of offence to the good people of Concord. They were not tolerant of superiority; and there must have been an intolerable superiority in young Thompson's personal beauty, in his manners, in his passion for study and scientific experiment. In spite of his acquittal, he remained un homme suspect; and finally the Concord mob visited his house to take their will of him; but he had fled, never to return. Had he not been forewarned, I fear there would never have been any Count Rumford. The patriots of Concord might not have put him to death, but one does not easily make noblemen of persons who have been tarred and feathered. It is better to admit a tradesman now and then, or even a dentist, to the ranks of the nobility, as it has happened to some of our countrymen more recently. Very luckily, then, young Thompson escaped the tar and feathers; at twenty-two he left family, home, and estate, and fled from the Concord mob, never to return. His property was confiscated, and in August, 1775, after having suffered imprisonment as a Tory, he decided to quit the country. One would think that he had sufficient reasons. He wrote thus to his father-in-law: "I am determined," he says, "to seek for that peace and protection in foreign lands, and among strangers, which is deny'd me in my native country. I cannot any longer bear the insults that are daily offered me. I cannot bear to be looked upon and treated as the Achan of society." Thompson showed a true instinct for the opportunity in choosing this course. He entered the British service, and thenceforward, says Mr. Ellis, "the rustic youth became the companion of gentlemen of wealth and culture, of scientific philosophers, of the nobility, and of princes." Perhaps it gives a wrong impression to speak of him as a "rustic youth"; for besides a winning address, we are told that he had "a noble and imposing figure," and that he was a natural courtier; so that the familiar story of his rapid promotion is not surprising. Under-Secretary of State at twenty-eight, he was knighted by George III. at thirty; and eight years later, by the pleasure of the King of Bavaria, Benjamin Thompson, of Woburn, Massachusetts, was transformed into Count Rumford, having already taken rank as a European celebrity. But he did not forget his early home and friends, and it is pleasant to find him deriving his title from the name given to Concord by the early settlers—a name, by the way, that these patriots misspelled from Romford, the village near London whence some of them came.