PAGE PAGE NOTESOF THE WEEK...... 25 UNEDITEDOPINIONS : Money-changers in Literature ...... 35 VERSE: The Hypocrite. By Gilbert Thomas ...... 26 AMERICANNOTES. By Juvenal ...... 36 FOREIGNAFFAIRS. By S. Verdad ...... 27 BOOKSAND PERSONS. By Jacob Tonson ...... 37 THE DECLINEAND FALL OF THE LABOURPARTY. By Cecil CHRISTINA ...... 38 Chesterton ...... 28 THEREAL MEANING OF PRAGMATISM.By Professor Albert VERSE: Field Grasses. By Ruth Pitter ...... 29 Schinz ...... 41 OLD LAMPSAND NEWWICKS. By T. H. S. Escott ...... 30 THE“ BLUEBIRD ” AND BERGSONIN PARIS. By Huntly Carter 43 RURALNOTES. By Avalon ...... 31 LETTERSTO THE EDITORFROM Walter Jerrold, Frederic Hillers- PUBLICHOUSES II. By Stephen Reynolds and Robert Woolley 32 don, C. J. Whitby, M.D., Hugh Blaker, J. M. Kennedy, A CLARIONCRITIC. By Alfred E. Randall ...... 33 S. Verdad, E. H. Visiak, Norreys Connell ...... 45 SPECIALNoTE.-All communications, whether re- Eating to the editorial, business, advertising or to consolidate the series of measures which Mr. Lloyd George has condensed into a single Bill have so far publishing departments, should be addressed to THE failed. On one other point also it appears to us that NEWAGE, 38, Cursitor Street, London, E.C. the Government are acting wisely. They intend if possible to pass the’ whole measure in the present session. That is quick work indeed for English NOTES OF THE WEEK. politicians; but it may be noted that the famous Ghent No great Bill was ever better received than Mr. Lloyd scheme, which Mr. Lloyd George quoted so approv- George’s National Insurance Bill. From the most un- ingly, was carried after only half an hour’s discussion. expected quarters the praise showered upon both the *** Bill and its author has been lavish. Reserve of a We may be sure that not only the economic but the friendly character has been made in regard to the de- political consequences of the Bill have been taken into tails of the Bill; but in regard to its principles no voice account. These are obviously extremely favourable has been raised in opposition up to the moment of our from the Liberal Party standpoint. Indeed, Mr. Lloyd writing these notes. This is by no means remarkable, George may be said to have come by means of this since, in spite of all the discussion of the last twenty Bill in the very nick of time to extricate his Party from years, the distinction between Social Reform and Social what promised to be a difficult position. Enthusiasm Amelioration has yet to be generally realised. for the Parliament Bill has, as everybody knows, de- Generally, do we say? Not more than half a dozen clined rather than increased in the country at large; publicists in England, partisan, non-partisan, Collec- and it is quite probable that with the imminence of tivist or Socialist, have the faintest notion of the direc- Home Rule and Welsh Disestablishment, the fortunes tion in which legislation by sentiment without science is of the Liberal Party would have been still further de- carrying the country. Nor is it likely that for some pressed. Exactly as by his Budget Mr. Lloyd George time this handful of thinkers will be increased; for the lifted his Party from the Slough of Despond, so now he social drift of the age involves not merely England, has lifted them again. The prestige of the Government but the Continent and the English-speaking world. It in the public mind has been suddenly renovated; and would require a Galileo to discover and to proclaim that for the first time for some months Mr. Maxse’s unceas- in fact the world moves in a contrary direction. ing diatribes in the “ National Review ” appear comic. *** We by no means imply that they cease to have their There need be no fear whatever that the Bill, when usual truth. But in appearances, at any rate, which finally passed, will not work. In several towns in are half the battle in that subtle power we call prestige, France, notably Dijon, Orleans and Paris, it is true the Government has already gained enormously by Mr. that a contributory scheme of insurance has so far George’s new Bill. A secondary consideration, which failed to command the adhesion of workmen; but in however, has not been neglected, is the effect of the Germany, Belgium, and elsewhere, schemes quite as Bill upon the fortunes of the new Tory Democracy. elaborate as Mr. Lloyd George’s run on oiled wheels. Mr. F. E. Smith has been generous enough to welcome Germany, indeed, may, and does, feel immensely the Bill with both hands; and, indeed, Unionists every- flattered that her own schemes have been the chief where have been loud in its praises. But the observa- model of Mr. George’s. In some respects, however, tion may be ventured that in so doing these Unionists the Government has bettered the instruction. What have driven a nail into the coffin of their hopes. If, as was initiated by the German Imperial Rescript of 1881 we believe, the country is actually set upon social required at least ten years and half a dozen Bills to amelioration, the present Government has now plainly carry out. Mr. George’s Bill proceeds to their conclu- established its right to power. A very different pro- sion by a single bound. Nor do we share Mr. Austen qramme from that of Mr. F. E. Smith’s Committee will Chamberlain’s view that this course is to be regretted. be needed to dislodge it. Doubtless the Government Bill is immensely compli- *** cated, and equally without doubt the two subjects with Superficial observers will say at once that the National which it deals, namely, sickness and unemployment, Insurance Bill is a great piece of Socialist legislation. ’have little in common; but sooner or later, if they had Once upon a time we should have said the same thing ‘been introduced separately, their administrations would ourselves. What leading Socialists have advocated for have become mutually involved, and a Consolidation years and what the majority of them now declare to be Bill would be necessary. But, as Germany has dis- an instalment of Socialism should surely be at least covered, a Consolidation Bill, of all Bills, is the most Socialist in character. Besides, has it not been gener- difficult to draft and pass. The attempts in Germany ally admitted that Laissez-faire is at last dead,-killed 26

by this Bill? Mr. Garvin himself has said it. And is is fast becoming that society; and the abandonment of not Laissez-faire the very opposite of Socialism? If Laissez-faire means no more than that the Society is Laissez-faire be dead, it is Socialism that must have is now formally incorporated. We readily admit the killed it. Contraries alone exclude contraries, as Plato need; but to statesmen we should a5 certainly have de- pointed out. But, at the risk of appearing as an nied the necessity. The stereotyping of status involved Ishmaelitish Mrs. Partington, we must deny all the in Social Reform is the greatest obstacle both to assumptions involved in this line of reasoning. Laissez- Humanism and Socialism that the modern world has faire is not the contrary of Socialism, nor is Laissez-faire ever known. dead. State responsibility for the worker is not *** Socialism, nor under the present Bill or all the Bills We will not, however, leave our readers quite com- together of the Government, is even State responsibility fortless. Our gloomy forebodings are shared, as we for the worker established. Finally, the stereotyping of say, by no more than a small handful of perhaps status now rapidly in progress and almost completed negligible thinkers. We are not only few ; we may by the National Insurance Bill, is in our opinion as con- be wrong. It is true that wages have tended to trary to Socialism as it is at the same time contrary to decline by just so much as the State has spent in Laissez-faire. These distinctions may and doubtless provision for distress. It is true that the law of will appear to most people as altogether too fine to be economic rent is iron. It is true that Bills of the same of the smallest importance, but what appear as fine good intent as Mr. Lloyd George’s have hitherto only distinctions in the initial stages of a long controversy piled up wealth and aggravated poverty. But perhaps often appear at its close as the only distinctions that with so much enthusiasm for Social Reform as now really mattered. We are convinced that it is necessary, seems burning in all parties, these iron laws may be for pioneer historians and students at any rate, to keep melted in this last instance. Besides, more mundane their minds clear on these points. considerations will show that if we are to retain the *** party system-and there seems no escape-the Unionists must find an alternative and an opposing That Laissez-faire is not the contrary of Socialism programme of Social Reform. And this may just as may be made clear to the dullest mind by a simple well be Socialist as not. They have at any rate the illustration. If a theory called Socialism arose with prior claim to a land policy and to the leadership of the the declared intention of abolishing by equalising the country parishes ; where, indeed, Socialism can alone respective statuses of domesticated horses and their vitally begin. It is the cities and city men who have present human employers, it would be no application of misled England. It may be the parish squires who the theory to transform the practice of turning out the will lead us back. horses to grass when they were not wanted or leaving them to die when they were sick, into the practice of providing them with a stable and oats when unem- THE HYPOCRITE. ployed or ailing. The relative status of the two parties, One night in Portman Square there died which it was the object of this theory to disestablish, A man of riches, fame and pride. remains the same. Now Socialism in human society He headed many a “free-will ” list. has as its main object the abolition of the profit and “ Death of the Great Philanthropist ! ” wages system-no doubt of that whatever. Whoever The newsboys cried, and people said, does not realise that the objective of Socialism is the “What shall we do now he is dead? ” abolition of private capitalism is a tyro with whom it But they dreamt not-how could they tell?- is not worth discussing. Consequently, no mere That even then he was in Hell. amelioration of the conditions of labour in the form of And had they known it, their surprise provision for labour’s food, shelter and comfort is in Were less than glistened in the eyes the smallest degree Socialist in character unless at the Of the rich man himself when he same time it diminishes the area over which private Awoke to his catastrophe. capital rules. There is not the smallest sign, as we He asked of Satan : “Sir, how’s this? have often pointed out, that recent Liberal social legis- They booked me for the Realms of Bliss! lation has diminished this area by a single rood; and I paid to God a million pounds ; there is not the smallest hope that Mr. Lloyd George’s I opened recreation grounds ; National Insurance Bill will do any more. On the con- Endowed of hospitals a score, trary, as it has become clear that, despite legislation, Of public libraries still more ; the gulf between the rich and the poor has widened And, out of my unfathomed pity, within the last ten years, so it is clear enough to us that Took poor slum children from the city Mr. Lloyd George’s great Bill will tend to widen it still Twice every year, and gave them buns further. Where the shy Thames by Richmond runs. *** And when the Sabbath morn came round In church I always might be found- The trinity of powers under the régime of Laissez- I dropped my sovereign in the plate, faire was, it is now well known, the employer, the And, what is more, I ne’er was late. labourer and the devil; and the motto of the band was : They called me ‘ Patron of the Poor,’ Each for himself and the devil take the hindmost. With I thought my seat in Heaven secure.” what Mr. Garvin triumphantly announces as the death of Laissez-faire, only one person of this trinity is And Satan said : “Now teIl me, friend, changed, and its motto changes accordingly. Now the Of that foul factory near Mile End, trinity is the employer, the labourer and the State; Where, in unmitigated gloom and the motto runs : Each for himself, and the State Deep as the shadow of the tomb, take the hindmost. No change, it will be observed, Weak women stitched their sight away- has been made in the one human relation that exists, For a few wretched pence a day- namely, that between the man who owns the instru- That your name might adorn a list, ments of production and the men who use them for And you be dubbed ‘ philanthropist. ’ ” his profit, interest and rent and their own wages. Nay, more, their relationship has been still further de- There was a moment’s awful hush ; humanised and strained by the gradual substitution for The wealthy man could only blush. the personal employer of the impersonal shareholder, Then Satan spake again : “Come, sit and by the necessity the State is under to provide means Upon my right; a hypocrite for its charity by taxing the shareholders, who in turn Is of all souls most welcome here- must tighten the screw on their wage-slaves. In Myself of hypocrites am peer- ancient Rome, we understand, there existed, when Around, my lesser angels stand ; slavery was at its height, a Society for the Prevention Sit you, my friend, at my right hand ! ” of Cruelty to Slaves. In modern England, the State GILBERTThomas. 27

Who, then, will replace Count von Aehrenthal? Foreign Affairs, Most likely the Marquis Pallavicini, now Austrian Ambassador at Constantinople. He is a friend of Ger- By S. Verdad. many, and may, on the whole, be relied upon to do the right thing by the Triple Alliance, whatever injury he those readers who have carefully followed recent To may wittingly or unwittingly do to the Young Turk events connected with international politics I need hardly say that the question which is at present exercis- régime. But he is stupid, somewhat lacking in fore- ing the minds of European statesmen is, Who is to sight, and unwilling to act on his own initiative. To get Pallavicini into the Austrian Foreign Ministry and succeed M. Sasonoff at the Russian Foreign Office? There are many candidates with strong claims, there Hartwig into the Russian Foreign Ministry is at the moment the main object of German diplomacy. are others with no claims at all; but at the time of writing only two men are seriously in the running. Let us come to actualities: Morocco. The German One of these is M. de Hartwig and the other is M. threats to France, through the medium of the semi-official Kokofftseff. Press, are absurd in view of the Treaty signed in M. de Hartwig may stand in need of introduction. February, 1909, with reference to Morocco. They are likewise insolent, in view of the Anglo-French Agree- He is at present Russia’s representative in Servia, and ment of 1904, in which Morocco is specifically referred he was formerly Russian Minister at Teheran. When to and by which Great Britain is bound to render in Persia his relations with the British Embassy became assistance to France in the event of trouble. At this so strained that M. Iswolsky, then Foreign Minister, moment the whole weight of British diplomacy is being thought it advisable to recall him. M. de Hartwig, thrown into the scale against German intervention in indeed, is a German in everything but nationality. It this affair. I see that a section of the Radical Press will thus be understood that his qualifications include here is beginning to protest at the very idea of Eng- a certain amount of brusque forcefulness sufficient to lish support being given to France in connection with render him dangerous, and a certain amount of stupid cunning, or cunning stupidity, if you prefer, sufficient Morocco : but it is called for by our Treaty. The same newspapers “ went for’’ Germany in because she to render him contemptible. A significant feature is 1908 that German influence, including the German influence tore up the Treaty of Berlin. Are we in our turn to be attacked, and with reason, for tearing up the Anglo- in the Tsar’s entourage, is moving heaven and earth to French Agreement ? have M. de Hartwig appointed to the post, partly be- cause his sympathies ûre thoroughly German, and Now, supposing a quarrel did ensue between France partly also because he detests England. and Germany over Morocco, and supposing Great Britain refused to aid France: what do these Radical As for M. Kokofftseff, he is the man for the job, in papers think would become of our prestige all over the so far as any leading Russian statesman of the present Continent? day can be said to be fit for it. In tact, insight, and knowledge of men and things he is miles ahead of M. I am glad to say that assurances have reached me de Hartwig; and he is more disinterested. He knows from Downing Street to the effect that the situation, as the difficulties of the post, however, and is in no hurry I have expressed it in the last paragraph, is fully to thrust himself forward unless he can be sure of appreciated by Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Asquith. getting a freer hand than his two immediate pre- Moreover, the German Foreign Minister, Herr von decessors. Kiderlen-Wächter, has just left for two or three weeks’ holiday. Of course, it may be remarked that M. Sasonoff, the About Easter I mentioned that German money and present Foreign Minister, has not yet resigned. It German agents had something to do with the revolt in must be remembered, however, that he has not re- Morocco. I knew this for a fact at the time I wrote, covered from his severe illness; and it is probable that, and since then I have come into possession of the name if he does not show distinct signs of improvement, his of at least one German army officer who went to physicians will order him to the Riviera or the Crimea Morocco several months ago and incited several for a long time to come. As a force in Russian politics, Kabyle chiefs to revolt. I have also seen copies of therefore, he must be counted out for an indefinite certain Notes which have passed between the period. authorities of Madrid and Berlin and which would cer- I wish to direct attention to the state of affairs at tainly stagger M. Monis or M. Delcassé if they came the Russian Foreign Office, because the balance of to his attention. Perhaps by the time these lines are power depends upon what is done there in the near in print I shall have arranged for their communication future. If the Tsar appoints M. Kokofftseff all will be to the Quai d’Orsay. well. But if he appoints M. Se Hartwig we shall have Briefly, the Spanish Government, intensely jealous to take this as a definite indication that German in- of France’s action, which may result in a decline in fluence has triumphed, and that Russian sympathies Spanish prestige, invited the German Government to will become overtly and privately distinctly more pro- interfere. The latter, while willing, would make no German than they have been for years past. The reper- definite statement in view of the fact that the British cussion is bound to affect France, Italy, Turkey and Government appeared to favour France. Spain is de- ourselves. sirous of establishing once and for all her express Two months ago I called attention to a statement claims to Tetuan and Ceuta. She cannot do so in the in the “ Westminster Gazette ” of March 4 to the present circumstance. Hinc clamor. effect that Count von Aehrenthal, the Austrian Foreign As for the rebellion itself, it was nasty look- Minister, would remain at his post. I at once denied ing at first, but is not nearly so serious now. this in these columns. Time has shown that my in- Of course, it is the aim of the French Im- formation was more correct than that supplied to the perialists, who want to remain at Fez in- “ Westminster Gazette,” for two months have lapsed definitely, to make it appear that the situation is very and Count von Aehrenthal is still absent. I knew that grave and that it calls for extreme measures. It is, on this would be so, and I likewise hinted at my reason for the other hand, the aim of the Spaniards, who want to saying so. The truth was, of course, that the Kaiser get the French out of Morocco, to make it appear that had, and has, a sort of lien on Count von Aehrenthal, things are quiet and that there is really no reason for andcan do as he pleases about him. If he stands in any unusual precautions. Hence a comparison of the “ ” the way of a Russo-German friendship he must go. French and Spanish “ inspired ” Press during the last Ifnot, he may come back, which latter event I regard few days has afforded several amusing moments to a at the present moment as extremely improbable. (I certain rather cynically-disposed person. may say in passing that I am penning these lines in Berlin ; not, however, without having previously taken I may state, however, that Germany has no desire counsel with certain high authorities). to go to war over Morocco; but she may show her 28

teeth, as, indeed, she is doing, for the purpose of a real instrument of democracy and would almost driving a bargain with France in some other direction. certainly have prevented the stupendous growth of Again, in view of the coming Reichstag elections, a corruption which our age has witnessed, will probably slight indication of a diversion abroad will do no harm. be passed now that the increased expense of elections, As for the composition of the next Reichstag and what the creation of huge secret funds at the disposal of it expects to do, and what France hopes to gain from the plutocratic parties, and the multiplication of Morocco, these are points which I must leave over “places ” for the reward of good party men has made until next week. its effect almost nugatory. The Chartists failed ; the oligarchy triumphed ; and the workers for the most part sullenly turned from political to economic organisation. The two decades The Decline and Fall of the which followed the fiasco of 1848 saw to a great extent the building up of the great Trade Unions. Labour Party. But the political issue could not be evaded, for the By Cecil Chesterton. Unions soon found themselves in sharp conflict with the State. 1 .-Labour Politics before 1906. The English Trade Unions grew up under the THEidea of an independent working-class party is as sharpest persecution. In the eye of the law they were, old as modern English democracy. It was in the apart from their cognate acts, essentially illegal bodies. minds of Cobbett, Carstairs, Hunt and the other If they ordered a strike they became conspiracies in Radicals of the Reform era. Indeed, the Radicals of restraint of trade, and their members were criminally that time were quite as much opposed to the Whigs punishable. Such a state of things was intolerable, as is any Socialist to the Liberals, sometimes even and, as soon as the workers were enfranchised, the combining with the Tories against them as in the case demand for a change in the law began to make itself of Disraeli’s first candidature at Wycombe. heard. When the Reform Bill had taken from the workers The Liberals acted after their kind. They promised such few franchises as they possessed, and its redress, and so obtained the support of the workers. originators had shown their true temper, not only by Once safely in power, they did what they tried to do their neglect of the workers, but by passing the in 1906. They brought in a sham Bill, which actually monstrous and brutal Poor Law of 1834, an attempt put the Trade Unions in a worse position than ever. to organise the labouring class politically was made There was no Labour Party in the House in 1871, and by a man at the opposite pole of politics from Cobbett the Liberals had no difficulty in passing their Bill. and Hunt. Richard Oastler was one of those to whom But indignation of the Trade Unionists found vent in posterity has done something less than justice. He the demand for an independent working class party. was a wealthy man and a High Tory, but indignation Several candidates were run on independent lines, and at the oppression of the poor-then perhaps in its worst two were actually elected. Meanwhile the anger of phase-was with him a consuming passion, and the the workers had helped to turn out the Liberals and agitation to which he freely gave his life and fortune put the Tories in power. The keen eye of Disraeli laid the foundation upon which Shaftesbury and others saw the danger of leaving the grievance of the Unions afterwards built. But the most interesting of his unredressed. He passed the Act of 1875 which gave experiments to us is his attempt to form a workmen’s Trade Unions the freedom and security they desired. organisation pledged to absolutely independent political The result justified his foresight. The Trade Unions action with a view to forcing a Ten Hours Bill upon ceased for a time to interest themselves in politics. Parliament. The association was to support candidates The new Labour members were quietly absorbed. The pledged to its programme without distinction of party, question of Trade Union law slept a long steep, from and to oppose all candidates, Whig, Tory, or Radical, which only the Taff Vale decision woke it. So ended who would not accept it. In a word, it was to be a the episode which so curiously anticipated the events genuine independent Labour party. of 1906. The ’thirties and ’forties saw the rise and progress The ’eighties saw the advent of Mr. Hyndman and of Chartism. The direct demands of the Chartists Socialism and of the Democratic Federation, which were, of course, not economic, but political ; but a he founded, first, as an independent demcocratic cursory reading of the famous petition will show that organisation and afterwards .converted into a Socialist they asked for political power avowedly in order that organisation under the name of the Social Democratic they might sweep away monopolies-the land monopoly Feder ation. being especially mentioned-and secure an equalisation That remarkable body did almost all the pioneer of wealth. Whether the Chartists, if they had got work of Socialism in this country, and has received what they asked for, would have got also what they perhaps but scant gratitude from those who have really wanted is a question which men will answer entered into its labours. Its members were energetic, differently. Many will answer it, as I should once have enthusiastic and self-sacrificing and utterly devoted. done, in the negative, and will point as evidence to They had a clear dogma, which they proclaimed the subsequent enfranchisement of the working class continually and without compromise, and they were and their failure to secure economic advantage from it. perfectly aware of the plain fact that Socialism would But such a view seems to me to ignore one of the most never be obtained from the present rulers of England, important facts in modern English politics-the effect and that their overthrow was a necessary preliminary of mere delay, and the opportunity which delay affords to its establishment. They preached incessantly the to the defensive party. It is the constant policy of the Class War-that plain piece of realistic cormmon- English governing class to keep back reforms until sense which so annoys the sentimentalists--and they the lapse of time makes them useless, and their own saw clearly that the arousing of the righteous anger means of resistance are perfectly organised. Had the of the poor against the rich was the necessary condition working classes obtained the franchise in 1832, I am of that confiscation of the latter’s property which inclined to think that a frankly revolutionary party Socialism involves. would instantly have appeared in the House of Commons, The fault of the S.D.F. was not its revolutionary and would have become formidable if not irresistible. By ardour or its uncompromising independence. These 1867 the governing class had made their preparations, were the sources of its strength. Its weakness may the revolutionary ardour of the masses had been killed be expressed in one word-“ Sectarianism.” I may by hope deferred, the machinery for drilling the workers illustrate my meaning by referring to the long list of into subservient soldiers under the leadership of the men who were once members of it and subsequently politicians was in working order, and they could safely left it. That list includes Morris, Bland, Champion, be enfranchised. In the same way the payment of Burns, Mann, Tillett and Curran and many more. members and of election expenses, which twenty years Now in its quarrel with some of these men the S.D.F. ago would perhaps have made the House of Commons was in the right, and in every instance it might be 29

possible to make out a plausible case for it. But it which to work. The secessions from the S.D.F. which is no good saying that there is nothing wrong with occurred about the same time set free the men who a society that sheds its most distinguished members were to work upon it. The Independent Labour Party in this way. It is like the man who said that he had was the joint product of the two. been five times on a jury, and every time there were Henry Hyde Champion, one of the ablest men the eleven obstinate men who would not listen to reason, Socialist movement ever produced, the waste of whose or, like Froude’s portrait of Henry VIII., as a gentle- talents is one of its tragedies, was one of the leaders man of the noblest character quite inexplicably of the new departure. With him were Mann, Tillett unfortunate in his choice of wives! Something there and Curran, all veterans of the Dock Strike. The was that made the S.D.F. unendurable to men of new party had also the good fortune to secure the widely different types, some of them certainly not support (though, I believe, he never joined it) of the lacking in sympathy with revolutionary violence. most brilliant master of popular controversy and I have called that something “ Sectarianism.” exposition since Cobbett. The “ Clarion ” was founded, What I mean is that the S.D.F. did not merely affirm and the articles and pamphlets of Mr. Robert Blatch- a dogma ; it attempted to dictate its phraseology. ford carried the new gospel everywhere. A new and Expressions like “ class-conscious proletariat,” “ surplus most valuable recruit appeared in the person of Mr. value,” “the materialist conception of history ” were Keir Hardie. taken as sort of signs of election. The result was that The policy of the I.L.P. was, like that of the an ordinary workman attending a meeting of the Fabians, a policy of permeation. But its aim was to S.D.F. would go away with simply the feeling that permeate, not the politicians, but the Trade Unionists, he had been in the company of a queer sect, using especially the mass of new Trade Unionists created by strange symbols and talking a secret language. the Dock Strike. It was a sound policy, and it ought Over against the S.D.F. stood the Fabian Society. to have succeeded. To the Fabians also the Socialist movement owes a Success, of course, came slowly. The energy off the considerable debt of gratitude. Mr. Shaw’s first essay Socialists carried them everywhere into administrative in “Fabian Essays ” still holds the field as the best positions from which they ousted the old-fashioned popular exposition of Socialist economics ; the Fabian Unionists. They found it easy enough to carry tract, “Facts for Socialists,” is the best weapon ever resolutions at Trade Union Congresses. But it was provided for the Socialist’s armoury, and some, of the another thing at election times to make any impress other Fabian tracts will be found invaluable to the upon the inert mass of working men. Again and again Socialist statesman of the future. Moreover, the the Congress under Socialist leadership passed resolu- Fabian temper, the contempt for mere washy sentiment, tions in favour of an independent Trade Union party. the insistence on the necessity of facing facts and But as persistently the rank and file voted for the accommodating oneself to them was needed in those nominees of the oligarchical parties against the can- times when Socialists tended to be either too senti- didates of the I.L.P. Mr. Hardie got elected for West mental or too rigidly righteous. Ham in 1892 by the aid of Radical votes, and was The Fabian policy of “permeation ” has been much defeated in 1895 when these votes were withdrawn. misunderstood. The other Fabians were certainly Eventually something was done. Labour Represen- never foolish enough to suppose that the Liberal Front tation Committees were formed, on which both the Trade Bench would carry through a Social Revolution. Unions and the Socialist Societies were represented, What they said was this : “We are too few and too and candidates brought forward under their joint weak to take the field yet ; but if we can fill the left auspices. A Central Labour Representation Committee wing of the Liberal Party with Socialist ideas, their came into existence. But still the electorate hung back. new convictions will inevitably bring them into conflict It might have been long before anything definite with their chiefs. An explosion will inevitably result ; happened if the governing class had at that moment the Liberal Party will be shattered ; and a Socialist held their hand. But that precise moment was chosen Party will find the path open for it.” That was the to strike a blow at the elementary rights of Trade true Fabian doctrine of permeation as set forth in Unionists. The decision of the House of Lords in Mr. Hubert Bland’s masterly contribution to “ Fabian the Taff Vale case upset the settlement which Disraeli Essays.” Permeation was not to be a constructive had made more than thirty years before. In the teeth but a destructive operation ; it was loading the Liberal of the obvious meaning of the law and the unquestion- Party up with dynamite. The failure of the policy was able intention of those who framed it, the judges due to the fact that the Fabians underrated the power decided to place every Trade Union absolutely at the of the Liberal leaders over their followers. That power mercy of the employer. An employer had only to was indeed by no means so great as it is to-day, but induce a single member of a union to commit an it was sufficient to spoil the Fabian game. When it illegal act in order to be able to break the strike and came to the point the “permeated ” Radicals did not smash the union. Immediately all the passion of 1871 revolt ; they abandoned the Fabians and followed their revived. The skeleton of the Labour Representation leaders. It is significant that some of those who had Committee was covered with flesh. All over the country joined Radical associations at the bidding of the Fabian the Trade Unionists sprang to arms. England saw a Society afterwards left the Fabian Society at the thing which she had hardly seen for two centuries-a bidding of the Radical associations. genuine popular mandate. Towards the end of the period of which I am speaking And the Labour leaders who had toiled so many two events combined to bring Socialism and Labour years through darkness and winter looked up and saw politics prominently before the country. One was the the fields white with harvest. depression of trade of the later ’eighties, with its accompaniment, a vigorous unemployed agitation, organised mainly by the S.D.F.; the other was the FIELD GRASSES. great Dock Strike. The effects of the unemployed agitation were temporary ; it advertised Socialism, Purple and brown are they, frightened the propertied classes, and taught the leading Purple and brown, Socialists to handle great masses of men. It died of Yellow and silver-grey, the revival of trade. The Dock Strike was historically Clothing the down. a much more important incident. It was a strike of Dancing and nodding wise, casual labour, the class that the older Trade Unions Gravely they go : had neglected. The generalship was in the hands, not Bow to the wide blue skies, of the old-fashioned Trade Union officials, but for the Stately and slow. most part of prominent Socialist agitators. Finally Purple and brown are they, it was entirely successful, and ended in a complete Purple and brown, victory for the men. All little ladies gay, The triumphant issue of the Dock Strike brought Treading the down. into existence a new mass of human material upon RUTH PITTER(aged 13). 30

of his personal popularity in the Chamber to which he Old Lamps and New Wicks. belonged, or of the golden opinions his universal courtesy had won from the lineal descendants in to-day’s By T. H. S. Escott. Parliament of the well-dressed young men upon the Conservative benches, whose whole business, it used to ‘‘ MY dear Billy, look at me. I am old, I am deaf, I be said, in being there was to shout down J. S. Mill. am blind, I am lame, all my farms are unlet, I owe If, it was said by the intensely aristocratic maiden ladies thousands at my bankers, my heir has just made the catered for especially by the most patrician of the half- very marriage that I didn’t wish, and yet I am happy; penny prints, the plebeian sons of low dissenting teachers I really wonder you should let yourself be worried by were to find places on the Speaker’s right, the sooner the Mother of Parliaments closed her doors the better ; such an event as an elopement in your family which you for such appalling personal innovations could not be couldn’t possibly have prevented. ” So the second Duke long survived by Downing Street, Whitehall, and the of Wellington to his one really intimate friend and ancient Palace of Westminster. Of course, a little counsellor, Russell, of the “ Times,” when on a visit to acquaintance with the personal aspects of our political Strathfieldsaye. This was that one of the Waterloo story might have silenced the talkers of nonsense conqueror’s descendants, whose duchess was once Mis- such as this. It was not less stale, too, than it was ridiculous and ignorant. What was said of Mr. Lloyd tress of the Robes to Queen Victoria, who himself had George in the twentieth century had been said at passed for a Conservative, but whose erratic voting different points of the nineteenth about Canning first, brought him a request from the committee of the Carl- about Sir Robert Peel and Gladstone afterwards. The ton Club to resign. This communication only elicited actress’s son, as they called Canning, Pitt’s political

the characteristic reply : “ I shall do no such folly ; for heir and the first man of genius whom, since Pitt, the some reason I find the Carlton the most convenient Tories had, was reviled equally by Tory and Whig, house in London.” His second Grace of Wellington less because of his no doubt trying sarcasm at the expense of followers and opponents than because he had little enough of the reformer’s enthusiasm; though was a new man. When someone ventured to point essentially of the Tory temper, he deserves mention at out that the ancient Bristol stock of Canynges had the present time as a pioneer of the movement for found a laureate in the poet Chatterton, that, it was widening the representative character of the magisterial said, only made things worse. By and bye his enemies bench. In the duke’s days, the Lord-Lieutenant of the changed their tune, Canning had become Foreign Secretary, and must, it was known, eventually fill the county’s recommendation went a longer way with the place of First Minister. The East Anglian squires Lord Chancellor towards making a man a J.P. than it who were his chief enemies now explained his tergiver- has, perhaps, generally done since. These appoint- sations in another way. The man, they said with one ments, he argued in his blunt, bluff way, were origin- accord, was stark, staring) mad. No charge of that ally popular, vested practically in the people without sort could conceivably be made by his detractors on reference to the sovereign or any powers that be. I either side against the decorous Peel. After much am therefore reverting to the true constitutional prin- thought they struck out for him an entirely novel nick- name of reproach, the Ratcatcher, partly in allusion ciple in finding my nominees elsewhere than among to his apostacy from Protection, partly because Lord titled or wealthy nobodies. Of those thus recommended Derby had discovered that he brushed his hair in the by the ducal Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex the most approved Whitechapel manner. intellectually distinguished was perhaps the happily still Is there, it may instructively be asked and examined, surviving Mr. W. S. Lilly, even then making his mark anything at all in all the cant, parrot-cry charges, at among philosophical historians and critics. The whomever levelled, of novel monstrosities in our political life? So far from there being any ground of amiably eccentric host at Strathfieldsaye would fain complaint for personal innovation, each stage of have seen the late Sir Henry Irving and the present Sir personal development is in strict accordance with the Squire Bancroft seated on the Bench; these, however, most ancient tradition. Mr. Asquith’s purse-holder declined the notion, but the duke had the satisfaction belongs to the class of those who, in the seventeenth of submitting to the Chancellor with his strong and suc- century, created the constitution under which we live, cessful approval a gentleman who afterwards became a Eliot, Hampden, and Pym were small squires and lawyers. Mr. Lloyd George is a lawyer, too ; there Labour M.P., and who was one among the earliest of is plenty of time for him to develop the taste for rural working-man magistrates. Less, therefore, of the sport, becoming a country gentleman also. The truth, interest arising from novelty attaches to the Prime however, is that the growing prosperity enjoyed by the Minister’s recent repudiation of the idea that the Bench professional classes for generations has already ought in any way to be reserved for the privileged placed them to-day in a social position as nearly as classes. possible identical with that of considerable squires, There is something more than an accidental connec- probably all but the greatest territorial magnates, in tion of time between comparatively recent changes in the Stuart and Cromwellian epochs. the magisterial personnel and the cordial welcome given This, of course, is only one among the innumerable to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on his reappearance instances of levelling up, noticeable through all sections at St. Stephen’s for the purpose of introducing his new of the community since the wide distribution of pros- Bill. Both events are, in their different ways and perity and of every opportunity for social or intellectual degrees, significantly suggestive of the English progress culture, whether in the great capitals abroad, or in towards democracy made within little more than half a schools and universities at home. The “new man ” century. The House of Commons has always had the is therefore merely the absurd figment of ill-informed merit of being the fairest assembly in the world. None and superstitious imagination. So far from being new, unmasks pretenders with such fatal accuracy, explodes he is really as old as Parliament itself, and, of course, impostors, or pricks windbags. None, on the other a source of strength, not weakness, to our entire hand, as it did in the case of once unpopular members national being. There could only be danger if the like Sir William Harcourt, revises more generally its living representatives of those who built up our parlia- estimate of men who did not originally enjoy its full mentary life should prove incapable of amalgamating favour when they have changed their temper towards with the later arrivals in the councils of the State. it, and frankly admitted they, as well as their audience, Mr. Lloyd George’s welcome from the families on his may be fallible, At the time when the feudally-minded side traditionally symbolising the principle of exclu- spokesmen of suburban villadom and the high-flying siveness is in wholesome conformity with what, in the Tory critics of the butler’s pantry and the housekeeper’s cases now considered, has always happened, as well as, room were consigning Mr. Lloyd George to infamy as for all classes of the community and all interests, an an underbred and thieving upstart, they did not know omen of good. 31

is extremely shortsighted, since in local elections he Rural Notes. who owns the houses mostly own the votes. **c By Avalon. But the labourers and small men who want land and THErural awakening has gone so far that it has at cottages, not tied to a farm or some great industry, last become a live thing. It is but a tender weakling are tiring of these local party bosses and windbags, and, that it may grow on to a sturdy youth, it is well whose motives, at best, are envy of the squire and a to consider the many kinds of authorities by which it desire to cheapen his land. Here then is the chance will be guided and controlled. of the Young England Tories: let them accept the These are about eight in number: The Woods and facts of recent legislation loyally and resume their Forests, the Board of Agriculture, the Development natural place as leaders of the countryside. English Commission, the Road Board, the Local Government land, if wisely developed, can more than pay for its Board, and the Board of Education. There are also improvement, so that intelligent landlords will stand to semi-official societies like the National Fruit and Cider gain rather than lose money. Socialists, too, should Institute and minor official bodies, such as the River develop a land policy of their own, free both from the Conservancies, Drainage Commissioners, and the Office extravagances of the Social Democratic Party and the of Works. vote-catching insincerities and the ignorant cant of the In short, the name of this monstrous regiment is Liberal Party. This, however, is unlikely, for, as recent legion. It leads to waste, overlapping, and a starved publications show, the bulk of the, intelligence and husbandry. The work could well be shared between sympathetic understanding of rural questions is on the two great departments of State, viz., Agriculture and Conservative side (see recent books by Messrs. Rider Public Works. In future notes I hope to deal with the Haggard and Christopher Turner). Neither the Inde- question whether it is possible or advisable to create pendent Labour Party nor the Fabian Society has any them. One thing is certain ; they ,would have to be ideas on the subject less than five years old. staffed by a new type of officials not selected as personœ *** gratae to the landed interest. The good will of the local squire and his relations *** are needful for the success of land banks, without which There is a great boom in small holdings. That the farm hand will be unable to secure and work a acute, if hitherto minor, politician, Sir Edward holding, or for existing small holders to adopt new Strachey, had the wit in his Crewkerne speech to place and paying ventures such as fruitgrowing, where himself at its head. Six new Small Holdings Com- capital is wanted. No village bank can afford highly- missioners are to be made. But if their work is to be paid full-time managers, nor would a small man and fruitful, the whole body of eight will need to form a intending borrower have confidence in a committee distinct side of the Board of Agriculture with its own composed of his own class; still less in a large farmer. permanent secretary dealing directly with the President. There remain, then, the squire, the parson, and the And this secretary should be the Commissioners’ ser- schoolmaster ; without their help little can be done. vant and not, as hitherto, their master. The worst of The success of the local credit banks in Ireland is pro- this boom, headed by certain rebellious Radicals sitting bably due to the fact that the priest is trusted by his for rural constituencies, is that in its organised form flock. The Church of England has here a magni- it is a move for cheap land for business purposes, and ficent opening for doing sorely needed social work apart there is a danger that the land hunger of the labourer from all political partizanship : it is to be feared that will be exploited to this end. Still some organs of the it will not rise to the occasion. This is a pity, for Cocoa Press, notably the “Daily News” and the there is much to be said from the Socialist standpoint “Nation,” .are showing signs of grace at last after a for the State support of an independent educated man barren period of ill-informed criticism. Liberal agita- in every village. If Anglican clerks were less pro- tors for small holdings will do well to weigh this advice vincial and more learned they would know that the rural revival in Denmark was started by Grundvig, a by the “ Nation ” : Lutheran pastor and bishop, and that its success was The mere sparse sowing of our broad acres of pasturage and corn-crops with groups of isolated small-holders will due to the religious and ethical spirit with which it not redeem the new society both from material failure and was informed. from moral poverty and listlessness. Co-operation is an *** essential engine of such a renovating process : co-operation Not only with small holdings, but in education it combined with the educative and, where necessary, the is the large farmer who blocks the way. Many of the coercive powers of the State. county schemes for rural technical education and the *** better instruction of small farmers in modern scientific However, as a purely party move, this Radical agi- methods have been starved or mutilated owing to their tation is bound to fail in many Liberal constituencies ; opposition. This selfishness must be broken down, and and for this reason: As a party they have very few if the country gentlemen were not so blind to the local leaders of any force, weight, or public spirit in economics of the countryside, they would be less willing rural districts, though many windy talkers. These to shoulder the political vices of their leading tenants. men shirk the hard work of organising any popular The landlord is not so loved that he can safely rely on movement on a sound business basis-it is with them the support of what is, after all, a not very large class. a case of, why does not somebody else do something But if the truth were known, it might turn out that it is instead of doing the work themselves? Moreover, they the dislike of privileged tenants to coming changes that are intensely jealous and afraid of the growing forces has caused many owners to part with their estates. And of Socialism and political Labour which is drawing away it is cheering to know that when the farmer has thus many of their best workers. The result is their party lost the support of the more far-seeing landlords he will is woefully short of good candidates for local authori- have to mend his ways. Nothing would bring this about ties. There are constituencies where Conservatives more quickly than the building of cottages by local make no indecent efforts to capture seats for their own authorities. England in this cannot do better than party so long as they are not opposed when standing follow Ireland’s example. for the local councils. The spoils are shared on these ** * lines by something more than a tacit agreement. It is surprising that the business interests which are Successfully to contest local elections means hard work hindering the introduction of co-operative methods on and money; the local men dislike the former, and the sensible lines are not more alive to the possibilities of rich men of the party will not provide the latter. How- afforestation. Cheap timber is a necessary factor in ever, the chief aim of the local politicians, the manu- nearly all cheap production, and its price is rising rapidly facture of political capital, is served by timely abuse of and likely to go higher. Radical land reformers hither- the faults of local councils which they are too lazy and to have neglected the opportunities given by the insincere to remove. For instance, many who loudly Development Act. Initiative is needed, but this is just welcomed the Housing and Town-planning Act are what they lack. Their chief use being to voice the helping to make its administration a dead letter. This discontent of the landless man, they cannot as a body 32

be more farsighted than he. Meanwhile the Board of right. There’s many a poor man falls into the hands Agriculture, advised by one forest inspector and an of the police, not because he’s drunk too much, but assistant of whom no one has ever heard, is rejecting because the scoundrels have sold him rank liquor. And the recommendations of the Royal Commission, which, the poorer he is the more likely he is to be served with with all its faults, was at least based on the best expert what’s no better than poison. I’ll tell you what hap- evidence to be had, in favour of a scheme whose out- pened to me one day : I shall never forget it. My mate lines have often been promised in Parliament but never and me went into Exmouth to do some business and yet disclosed. In this matter, as in others, it seems then we were going up to Exeter to see a lady friend clear that the permanent officials have not been serving of mine. We were too early for our business, so we the Parliamentary secretary loyally. A grant of went into the “ X.” and had a drink. My mate had £25,OOO has been made to Ireland, but nothing so far two rums, hot, and I had two gins. I always drink gin has been decided for England, where agricultural in- in a strange place, because, being cheap, it’s the least terests are always neglected by comparison. The work likely to be adulterated. Those drinks we had in the in Ireland is to proceed on the only possible lines of bar-parlour, and, naturally, we were as right as rain acquiring vacant lands in different parts of the country, after them. Well, we did our business, and then, as on each of which a scheme of afforestation is to be we were too early for the train up to Exeter, we called carried out. There is plenty of land to be had in back at the “ X.” But the second time we met some England and Scotland, too, judging from the advertise- fishing chaps we knew, and went into the tap-room, ments of estates offered for sale. It is to be hoped that where we had two more rums and two gins, rather when Mr. Lloyd George returns to work he will realise quick. I could smell the rum was rank while he was how the promise of his Development Act is being drinking it. brought to nought and will take steps to improve “Anyhow, he came out perfectly all right. But after matters. Since it would not be decent of him to going a little way, all in a moment he fell up against increase land taxes for a few years, his political reputa- some railings. He was pretty nearly blind ! I got him tion will become more and more bound up with the to the station; got him into the train. He started hug- success or failure of this Act. *** ging one of ’em there, and telling him he’d got nineteen children. Said he always paid twenty-five shillings in There is much to be done to improve unprofitable the pound, and was paid ten. They all got out at arable land by bringing water to it. Owing to these the next station. islands’ evenly distributed rainfall, minor irrigation “ Luckily my lady friend didn’t come to meet us. works have been more neglected than in any other My mate lurched up and down Exeter platform calling civilised country. This question fits in very well with out, Miss B. ! Miss B. ! Miss B., where are you? afforestation, and it might not be a bad plan to copy ‘ ’ until I got him into the refreshment room and gave .the French and set up a single department of Eaux et him a couple of cups of coffee. Then I took him out Forêts. A new motor road is to be made through the into Queen Street. He simply went unconscious. Black Country, and here, too, there are many opportuni- I had to put my arm round him and carry him; and as ties for afforestation on a small scale, of the size beloved soon as could, I dived into a side street. It’s not good by cautious officials who are, I believe, employing I twelve men and a boy on the Inverleiver estate. This liquor, mind you, that acts like that; it’s poison; has been proved by the pioneer work of the Midland nothing more nor less. I’d seen it before. He’d only Reafforesting Society, which, unlike the others, has a had four rums, spread over a whole morning. That good record of experimental work behind it. won’t hurt a man if its good. Doesn’t hurt him, I know. “ A fish-hawker came along and said, ‘ Why don’t you give him some coffee? ’ Public-Houses. “ ‘ I have,’ I said. ‘Two cups.’ “ ‘ Well,’ he said, ‘ for God’s sake get him in some- By Stephen Reynolds and Robert Woolley. where. It looks so bad in the street.’ II. “ But I couldn’t see anywhere; and up the top of

“ ANYWAY,”Dave went on, “proper pubs isn’t so bad the street I did see a puliceman standing. ‘ It’s all as clubs an’ side-bars. If they wants to make drinking up ! ’ I thought ; and I was just wondering whether better, why don’ ’em do away wi’ back entrances an’ twould be safe to give the bobby five shillings and tell such-like? I don’t blame anybody for having a drink him to fetch a cab, when I caught sight of a little if they wants it, but the worst does it slyly, an’ there’s eating shop. In I goes, like a rabbit. A rather nice more harm done in little side-rooms an’ boxes, where old woman gave us the ham and strong tea I ordered peopIe makes a hidey-peep O’ theirselves, than in all in a little back room, out of sight. the big bars. Women goes there most especially, “No sooner’d my mate eaten a morsel and drunk a what’d know how to behave theirselves in the open. sup of tea, than-well, the old woman hurried in with I’ve a-see’d respectable young girls half up the pole in a bucket; and for two solid hours, in that little room jug an’ bottle places, wi’ chaps tickling, o’em, an’ without a fire, I held him over the bucket. Couldn’t them leading the chaps on; and then-well-us knows lay him back. Couldn’t let him fall forward on his what happens. They’d ha’ been all right in a proper face. And, oh Lord, how that infernal rum did stink, open bar like a coffee tavern. Only that’s it; they’ve and my arm ache fit to break! He wasn’t properly a-made drinking into a sort O’ disgrace, an’ they’ve conscious all the time. a-drove people into side-bars an’ the like. An’ that’s “ In the end I laid him back on a little sofa to sleep. the sort O’ thing they do do, I tell thee, wi’ their what The old woman lighted the fire and took away the they calls temperance an’ their interfering ways. bucket. Suddenly, again, he began urging. I felt for ‘Tisn’t to their credit that drinking isn’t so bad as it used the nice old woman’s floor after she’d been so kind. I to be. Lord! what they there 01’ men could put down looked round for the bucket. I rushed into the shop. when they was minded an’ had the money. An’ they I ran up a dark, narrow, corkscrew staircase. At the was admired for it. A man used to be proud to be top there was a little upstairs kitchen with bright pots drunk. Now they calls ’en a nuisance, an’ says he’s a and pans hung all round it, and standing there a little, fool to hisself an’ other people. I s’pose ’tis rents old-fashioned, old lady with her black hair smoothed is dearer and there’s more to spend your money on down in a sort of curl over her ears. I can see her nowadays, an’ people finds that ’tisn’t no advantage to plainly now-how she turned round inquiringly. ’em. ’Tisn’t temperance chatter, that’s a sure thing. “ ‘ Have you got the bucket? ’ I asked. They won’t tackle drink by trying to do away wi’it. “ ‘ What is it you want? ’ she said very gently. Better ’fit they made ’em sell proper good drink. . . .” “ ‘The bucket, please.’ A quiet man, who had been sitting in one corner of “ ‘ Your poor friend below, is he any better? ’ she the bar, broke suddenly in upon the conversation. asked, as if there was plenty of time to spare. ‘ Is he “ You’re right ! ” he said, very emphatically. “You’re still bad? ’ 33

“ ‘ Oh, bad-damn bad-the bucket ! ’ I blurted out. “ I was just in time. . . . In the evening I got him A Clarion Critic.* home. We travelled in the guard’s van, and I mind By Alfred E. Randall. the guard saying, ‘ Two pretty boys you are, I know ! ’ My mate wasn’t sober; he wasn’t sober all next day ; OF Mr. Blatchford’s books, it has been my misfortune but he wasn’t drunk; he never was drunk; he was to read only those that have made him notorious. Of poisoned by cheap liquor. If it hadn’t been for the old his novels, except the awful “Sorcery-Shop,” I know

woman giving us shelter, we should have been run in nothing. When he tells me that he “ could write two for a sure thing, and spent the night in the lock-up. novels with less labour than he has spent upon this “And there’s many a poor chap run in simply on imperfect, but he hopes not wholly useless, book,” I account of bad liquor, but it isn’t any use to tell the magistrate that, of course. . . . I’ve been in public- can only wonder what the novels would be like. For houses where if you ask for, and pay for, special, they “ My Favourite Books,” although abominably printed give you common stuff after the first two or three, on bad paper and published for sevenpence, is not a because they think then that you’re too far gone to classic of criticism. Mr. Shaw has just been honest taste the difference. ” enough to ask sixpence for his masterpiece, and we “ Aye,” said Dave, “ I’ve a-see’d it, too. If ’twas may well haggle over a penny when Mr. Blatchford open to anybody to keep a public-house, then they’d reprints; for not every cheap reprint is a classic. hae to sell good liquor, ’cause people wouldn’t go to Neither Harry Lowerison, who wrote the preface, nor where ’twas bad. ’Stead O’ that they closes ’em and Cecil Chesterton, who trumpeted two columns of gives all their own way to them that stays open. panegyric in a recent number of the “Clarion,” can There’s lots things concerning drink that they an’t o’ convince me that Mr. Blatchford is “ a great critic,” or ‘worked out eet, for all they tries to force from it. ’ee that this book “ is a book in a million.” When Mr. And if they closes public-houses, they’ll only lead people Blatchford wrote to Harry Lowerison (who is Harry to take it in house ’long wi’ ’em, which is ten thousand Lowerison?) asking him to write a preface, he added a times worse, ’cause they nips at it all day till ’tis gone. postscript which is most unwisely reprinted : “ You They says that drink is the ruin of thousands, don’ ’em; may send all your praise of this great book to me but if you looks into it you’ll generally find there’s privately. See? ” But I cannot accept even Mr. summut besides the drink, summut that drove ’em or Blatchford’s estimate of the book. Stevenson I know, led ’em into it, some worry or trouble on their and Birrell I know; but who is Blatchford? minds. . . . You can’t tell; and that’s why I never We know that Mr. Blatchford has a manifold reputa- likes to run down anybody, only for getting drunk. tion of greatness-in the “ Clarion.’’ He is poet, Among women, I’ve a-noticed, ’tis often them as an’t novelist, economist, and philosopher to the readers of got no kids, or their babies has died. Can ’ee blame that paper; and to that proud array of titles the name ’ern much? They’m took that way, that’s all. An’t of critic is now added as a crowning glory. “ Hardly ’ee never noticed what nice, free-hearted people ’tis, anyone seems to realise,” says Mr. Chesterton in a very often, what takes to drink; an’ they strong tee- phrase of doubtful meaning, “ that but for the public totalers, what mump-heads they be, or else they chatters spirit and the hunger for justice which drove him into as if they was the only people right, till ’tis sickening these polemics, he might have long ago gained an for to listen to ’em? abiding name as a great critic of letters.”. We are told “I don’t think people mostly drinks for drinking’s that “ criticism is one of the most difficult of the arts, sake. You goes in for the company-for to see a bit O’ and that a great critic is probably rarer than a great life. There’s a lot to be learnt in pubs, an’ ’tis a fine creative artist. ” A little later, Mr. Chesterton speaks affair, I reckon, for to hae a good chatter over a glass of ‘’ Blatchford’s genius ” with a trumpeter’s temerity. or two O’ beer. If you didn’t do that, you’d go to bed It is recorded in profane history that a certain person an’ sleep. And that’s all some O’ em wants ’ee to do, named Pot declared Dr. Johnson’s “ Irene ” to be the seems so-work an’ sleep-an’ never enjoy no life. finest tragedy of modern times. When Johnson was “ They says ’tis good for truth to come out. Well, . . . told of this, he was heard to mutter, “ If Pot says so, there’s lots of things comes out over a pint or two Pot lies.” If that unfortunate postscript had not set that wouldn’t never come out no other way. Men don’t my mind at rest, I should wonder if Mr. Blatchford seem to fear who’s listening to ’em. They tells, too, ever muttered a similar judgment of the heralds of his about what drink makes men do. . . . ’Tisn’t right. fame. He is modest enough in his text, whatever we It don’t make ’em do it ; it only bucks ’em up for to do may think of his postscript; and the three essays what they’ve had in their mind beforehand; and if a mentioned by Mr. Chesterton do not support these ex- man’s nasty to you when he’s had a glass-I don’t travagant claims. At the end of his essay on Gilbert mean if you has an argument wi’en, that’s another White, Mr. Blatchford says : “ As for criticism, I have thing--but if he’s nasty to ’ee straight away, then you none to offer.” Of Sir Thomas Browne, he says : knows that man has had an ill-feeling for ’ee all along “ I am to give the reasons of my love for this book.’’ in his mind, only he an’t showed it. An’ if you likes Of Bunyan, he says: “As I bethink me, however, I anybody genuine, then you thinks the world o’em after am not asked to criticise, but to expound.” In other a few drinks, an’ all the little bothers atween ’ee all words, Mr. Blatchford writes about literature for John goes for nort, as if they never hadn’t happened. Drink, Smith of Oldham, as he wrote about economics, theo- I reckon, don’t really alter a man from what he is, logy, and philosophy for the same person. I have unless, O’ course, he goes in for it headlong : it unlocks not a word to say against elementary education; but ’en out O’ hisself, an’ makes ’en more alive ; an’ that’s I must remark that we do not call an elementary the attraction o’it. Only thing is, when a man goes teacher a great scholar. Professors have written home to his ol’ woman a bit tin-hats, what thinks he’s primers, and Macmillan has published them; but their got enough kids and don’t intend to have no more, universities demanded other proof of their fitness for then he’s liable to say, ‘ Oh, hell about it ! Let ’em all the chair. Judged as a writer of short studies, Mr. come! ’ And they do come. Which isn’t a bad thing, Blatchford is a failure. “The writer of short studies,” I s’pose. They praises ’ee for having kids so long as said Stevenson in the preface to his “ Men and Books,” they an’t got to work ’an pay for ’em, an’ you ’9 “ having to condense in a few pages the events of a have. . . . whole lifetime, and the effect on his own mind of many “ Mr. Perring,” said the barmaid, “ shut up ! ” various volumes, is bound, above all things, to make “ All right, my dear: I will if you’ll call me Dave.” “ that condensation logical and striking. For the only “ Well, Dave. . . . justification of his writing at all is that he shall present “ There now ! you owes me a kiss, because you’ve a brief, reasoned, and memorable view.” Mr. Blatch- a-called me Dare, or else I shall change me pub, an’ go to the ‘ Blue Light.’-Fill up these here glasses, * “My Favourite Books.” By Robert Blatchford. please, if you won’t gie a fellow a kiss ! ” (Clarion Press. 7d. net.) 34

ford is neither brief, reasoned, nor memorable. He is it was), and his writing had the charms which are so as prolix as a pupil teacher, and as profound. The pleasing in Sir Thomas Browne, John Smith of Old- reason is obvious. Mr. Blatchford writes for people ham will be puzzled to know of what White was who do not know that “ all criticism is comparison,” master, and why “ artist” should be a term of re- who have to be told the difference between matter and proach when applied to Thoreau and of approval when manner, who need to be instructed in the use of broad applied to Sir Thomas Browne. and short vowels and the meaning of alliteration. In- Of Mr. Blatchford’s taste in literature, Mr. Chester- stead of the brief, reasoned, memorable view, we have ton truly writes : “ The writers whom Mr. Blatchford the elementary teaching of a primer of prosody. I loves and writes of are the great masters of creative offer one example. Mr. Chesterton commends to our art, whose work all the world can understand, Shake- notice a certain passage which illustrates Mr. Blatch- speare and Rabelais, Sterne and Defoe, Scott and ford’s extraordinary “ capacity for analysing the effect Dickens.” This is strange praise; for if all the world of works of art.” I quote the passage in full :- can understand these works, Mr. Blatchford’s laborious Let us now take a passage of Sir Thomas Browne’s and explanation of their beauties is unnecessary. “ The examine it. Speaking of some bones discovered in a tomb, only justification of his writing at all is that he shall he says they have outworn strong and spacious buildings, present a brief, reasoned, and memorable view ” ; and and quietly rested under the drums and tramplings of three Mr. Blatchford does not attempt to do this. But when conquests. we find that Mr. Blatchford’s highest praise of a book “ This is melody. Let us see if we can find whence is that it is fit to read in bed, “ with a clear light, a the melody arises. Nearly all words holding the sound pipe, and something in a tumbler,’’ we may well wonder of ‘ q .’ are melodious -- as ‘ quaint,’ ‘ quarrel,’ what service he has rendered to literature. “ After ‘ antiquity,’ ‘ sequestered.’ And in this line we find dinner,” wrote Mr. Birrell, “ when disposed to sleep, ‘ quietly ’ and ‘ conquest.’ Then we have four alli- but afraid of spoiling our night’s rest, behold the terative r’s in res, rum, ram, and ree; we have the witching hour reserved by the nineteenth century for humming ‘ m ’ in ‘ drums ’ echoed sharply in ‘ tramp- the study of poetry. This treatment of the muse de- lings ’ ; we have ‘ rest ’ and ‘ quest,’ and we have a serves to be held up to everlasting scorn and infamy pattering series of short vowels suspended and pointed in a passage of Miltonic strength and splendour.” I by the long ‘ e ’ in ‘ three.’ make a few quotations, and leave Mr. Blatchford to the “ So much for the melody. Sir Thomas’s art makes wrath of my readers. “ The best bed book I know is the line sing like a tune. Now for the quality of Spenser’s poem. . . . Next to Spenser, I should picturesqueness. place Sir Thomas Browne-especially ‘ Urn Burial.’ “ Sir Thomas might have said ‘and have rested peace- Then of poets, Omar Kháyyám; ‘The Earthly Para- fully for a thousand years,’ or, ‘ and have rested dise ’ ; Shakespeare’s ‘ Sonnets ’ ; Browning’s ‘Lyrics’ quietly for ages during which the land they lay in was -especially “ Fra Lippo Lippi ’ and ‘ Andrea del thrice conquered.’ But he is an artist in pictures as Sarto ’ ; and Shelley’s ‘ Alastor. ’ What nobler night- well as in sounds, and he suggests the dead men sleep- cap could man desire than the magnificent invocation : ing quietly under the drums and tramplings of three ‘ Earth, ocean, air, beloved brotherhood ; etc, conquests.’ So the quiet is broken to our ear by the drums and tramplings, and we see the mail-clad horse- It is the perfection of bedside music.” men whirling, struggling, and stabbing, the dip and The final test is language. Mr. Blatchford, we are swoop of the banner, the sunlight flashing on spear told, is a ‘‘ master of English ”; and he was brought and crest, and our ears are filled with the roll of drums up on Bunyan. “ The homeliest English,” says Mr. and clash of steel, and our minds take in thelarge idea Blatchford, “ is good enough for every purpose of the of long duration, of deeds and destinies sweeping over poet, the orator, and the divine ” ; and “ Bunyan’s the earth like turbulent seas. while at the same time English is tinker’s, and soldier’s, and preacher’s Eng- we feel the presence only a few feet under the sod of lish. It is the English of the Bible, of the Ironsides, those stark, still figures, blind and dumb, sleeping and of the village green.” But the English language ‘ quietly,’ in a kind of sad, ironic silence. How much does not progress on Bunyans. It is the Shakespeares, more expressive is the phrase ‘ three conquests ’ than the Sir Thomas Brownes, the Dr. Johnsons, who have any statement of time in bald figures; and the thought made such variable music of our language; and their of the dead sleeping quietly under the drums and English is not that of Bunyan. Speaking of elemen- tramplings, what contrast it gives, what meaning it tary education, Matthew Arnold said years ago that carries, what suggestion and picture in a few words.” children could be made receptive to new knowledge I apologise for the quotation. I made it because it only by enlarging their vocabulary. As an instructor is characteristic of Mr. Blatchford’s method, and be- of the ignorance of John Smith, Mr. Blatchford again cause I needed to prove my statement. The technical fails. He would restrict us to Bunyan. “ Sir Thomas instruction of this passage is given by any literary Browne’s sonorous and melodious sentences are a primer, and we can judge Mr. Blatchford as a critic source of delight to scholars and to authors; but when only by this fact, that he never praises the effect of art a book is intended to appeal to the man in the street, it without destroying it. When he applauds the selection should be wrought out in hard-bitten, clean-cut Saxon and reticence of a writer, he does so by carefully English.” The dilemma is obvious. John Smith stating everything that is omitted by the artist. cannot be instructed in the beauties of the “hyper- Mr. Blatchford’s purpose is plain. He writes not to latinistic ” English -of Sir Thomas Browne if he is to present a brief, reasoned, and memorable view of these know only tinker’s English; and he will die in his writers, but to instruct John Smith of Oldham in the ignorance. rudiments of literary art. But even as an instructor, he I conclude that the claim to the title of critic on be- is not above reproach. Sir Thomas Browne wrote “for half of Mr. Blatchford is not established. As a the love of writing,” and is wholly commendable. Gil- primer of literature, his book is not to be compared bert White “ described a thing either to inform the with the one written by Stopford Brooke; on the sub- reader or to glorify Nature,” and Mr. Blatchford has ject of composition and prosody, Nichol and Meiklejohn no criticism to offer. Thoreau, who attempted to com- are more complete. His studies present no brief, rea- bine the art of Sir Thomas Browne with the simplicity soned, and memorable view of the men or of their of Gilbert White, is not commended. After quoting books, as Stevenson’s did; and as Mr. Birrell offered Thoreau’s description of a merlin’s flight, Mr. Blatch- in his essays on Carlyle, Dr. Johnson, Milton, Pope, ford says : “ Which again is very fine-writing. But and Burke. Literature is not dignified by his babbling it is writing, with an artful employment of alliteration of it, and John Smith is not comprehensively instructed and cadence, of which our good old Gilbert was as in its mysteries. Mr. Birrell’s interrogation of the innocent as a meadow lamb is of the wiles of a Covent general public, and his commination, may be adapted Garden dancer.” He concludes that “ White is a for my conclusion. What in the name of the Bodleian master; Thoreau is only an artist.” But if Thoreau’s has John Smith to do with literature? Beshrew John observation was as exact as that of Gilbert White (and Smith ! 35

culture displayed by the popular writers that exiles Unedited Opinions. Art. A great artist could get along with the indifferent masses ; they at least let him alone. What he cannot Money-Changers in Literature. survive is the active treachery of the usurping dema- I SEE it has been stated that at least forty of our gogues. They poison his atmosphere. novelists are making a thousand or more a year each. But what on earth would you have them do? What do you think of that? Nothing that I could say would they be likely to do If that stood alone I should be indifferent. What are since their nature is to be what they are. But I would have them known for what they are, for the reassurance novelists to us? But unfortunately it does not. At of such real artists as are eating out their hearts with least forty more writers, non-novelists, boast their slay- neglect. That is the work of critics. Critics cannot ing of a thousand a year. The facts together are alarm- be too severe. In the interests of the future, new culture ingly vulgar. must be accumulated now. It is the business of critics Do you then object to writers making a large income? to prepare an atmosphere for the artists of to-day and I do, and I object still more to the amount being to-morrow. stated as if it were to their credit. Once upon a time, Do you entirely despair of popular artists? Can they the most honourable distinction of the artist was that not be prevailed upon to pay some heed to intense culture? he remained poor. Artists nowadays positively brag The live and succeed, alas, by stuffing their ears about their income. Artists, did I say! But, of against the admonitions of intense culture. For course, they are not. No artist would allow himself example, Art for Art’s sake is, as I have said, a by-word to be measured in money. among them, and must be. Again, the artist listens In what, however, can a writer measure his influence only to the criticism and judgment of artists. If he has in these days if not in the universal medium? their appreciative tolerance and may be numbered Now you’ve hit it! The universal medium! But among them, his satisfaction is sufficient though the public know him not. Can you expect the popularity will you observe that this precious universal medium is hunter to be similarly satisfied? You know you can not. of quantity alone? The one thing that cannot be Then, again, I imagine the very life and conduct of the measured ,in this medium or, in fact, in any medium is popular writers are antagonistic to the interests of quality. And it is, I should have thought, with quality artists. They serve to lower the status and prestige that artists are concerned. of literature beyond calculation. But have you any reason for supposing that the What new charge against them is this? quality of literature has suffered ? I am thinking of the way in which these capitalists My dear friend, what a question! Saving for the of the pen spend their money. What a display of classics, popular literature is a contradiction in terms. vulgarity they make! Even if homage to literature and Every writer earning a thousand a year is a charlatan. culture were loud on their lips their contempt for it The value of the art is inversely as the sum paid for it. would be visible in their acts. Have you observed any- That is axiomatic. thing particularly magnificent in the lives they lead? By no means. I indignantly deny it. You are assum- They differ in no respect from successful stockbrokers. ing that the popular judgment is invariably wrong and Why, I positively know stockbrokers whose respect for consequently that large sales mean small art ; but there art goes to the length of buying works of living art, and are a hundred examples to the contrary. of patronising poor living artists. Do you know any Not so many, however, that the critic’s first assump- popular writer who has done the same? A hundred tion on hearing that a book is a popular success is not or so of these are making between them hundreds of that the book is vulgar. You cannot deny that. thousands of pounds a year. Contemporary with them Besides, we have no right to expect that in a country are scores of artists starving to silence or death, what like England of to-day, a large number of people will time the boomstering bagmen of letters are scorching like anything really good. They would be a different the country in their own motor-cars! Think of the people if they did. grandiose conception of the community of interests Has not education made great strides ? among artists which the world’s greatest artist, Faugh ! All we have done in education is to spread Leonardo, had. Our own Bacon, if I dare venture the out, very thin, over many the culture that before was guess, had and practised the same idea. Wit and concentrated in a few. Everybody now has a scraping beauty should not go a-begging when there are princes of culture, but there is no cultured class. That is what of literature in the land. Neither would they if there I complain of. Writers have watered down their art were princes, but our literary princes are merely mag- to the thickness of the veneer of culture in the largest nates. Why, in appreciation merely, which, goodness class. They measure their work by its extension, and knows, is cheap enough, they are penurious to the no longer by its intensity. degree of fanaticism. When Stevenson was alive, the But you have surely no objection to this diffusion of most obscure young writer who showed promise was culture. sure of a friendly letter. He and Henley between them None whatever,-on one condition, namely, that the “fathered ” half the young artists of their day. You supply of intense culture at the source is maintained. see they felt communally and personally responsible. Against popular writers (shall we call them sophists?) Knowing that the public could not discern good work at I should have no grievance if they were not so inimical once, they employed their genius and position to dis- to pure literature. Unfortunately they are its bitterest cover and encourage it. Even Shaw quotes to-day with enemies. To pure literature the public generally is pride a letter which Stevenson wrote about him before indifferent ; but popular writers are hostile. he fell into popularity. What powerfully placed writer Come, come ! Is not that entirely without warrant? of to-day has taken Stevenson’s great office of disin- Would it were; but the facts are there to prove it. terested patronage? I know of none. But Stevenson Who jeer most effectively at every attempt to had the instincts of an artist, and the sense of responsi- restore the first condition of culture, the doctrine of bility to his guild that our individualists have not. Art for Art’s sake? The popular writers of the day. Well, after all, it’s a matter for writers. I do not see Who teach the world to measure success by circula- what the public has to do with it. tion, to regard literature as a commodity to be adver- Not for the moment perhaps. There is still enough tised and boomed like pills, to despise poor artists as virtue in the diluted art provided by popular writers to living out of touch with their times, to attach to litera- satisfy the needs of the many. But I am looking a ture the meretricious adjuncts of contemporary gossip, generation ahead. It is on the visions of dead artists social utility, fashionable crazes, topical discussions ? that the world is living to-day ; but what of the morrow Popular writers. It is not the diffusion of culture among if our living artists are now neglected? Our popular the many that necessarily ruins culture, but it is the con- writers are killing the goose that lays the world’s golden tempt, neglect, and hostility towards the sources of eggs. 36

cicadae and the wild nightingales, and with fractions An Englishman in America. and demi-semi-fractions of tones never written down in By Juvenal. the musical language ***of the West.” WITHthe closing of the Opera the fashionable season The other evening at one of those cafés haunted by in New York came to an end and the smart sets, the merry Teutonic hordes, we were talking of Opera as fast sets, and the would-be sets, will be off to the “she is sung ” in New York. Four of us were engaged country, to show off their best patent smiles, each try- in a rather spicey war of words when a loud voice just ing hard to fool the other, each trying to look radiantly behind me cried out the word, “Bluster.” The man happy while dying of ennui. For there is nothing behind me was a Berliner, and he had a right to speak. fashionable New Yorkers hate so much as life in the Take the “bluster ” out of the German music of the day country. They know as much about nature as crows and there would be little left. This German never knew know about singing. what real singing was till he went to live at Milan, and *** there, he said, “I got my ears open as to singing, and Town life is the only thing they care for. In town my eyes open as to acting.” there are always plenty of occasions for the display of ** * jewellery. When there are no balls there is the Opera The Berliners are supposed to be great Shakespeare ready to hand, although but few of them have even a enthusiasts ; they boast of their admiration, but the faint notion of what is wrong with the singers. When fact is, no dramatist is so full of bluster as Shakespeare, a tenor sings wobbly, how are, the good people in the and it is this element the Berliner loves most in the boxes to know whether he has lost his tone or his teeth; dramas. They find King Richard’s hump most humpful how are they to judge whether the prima donna is in and satisfying. Macbeth they find is a swaggerer who need of a long rest, a throat specialist, or a full stop? dies game, that is, with military “harness on his back.” The Opera in New York is “ run ” by the millionaires His spouse they find is what a good Frau ought to be, for the display of family jewels. The music lovers are four-square, solid on her feet, and refusing to die “here- rarely to be found in the most expensive seats; they after.” Othello is a swashbuckler, and poor Desde- are scattered over the house, usually in the upper parts, mona a simple house frau who is not missed when her and it is they who support the artists by applause and light is snuffed out, while the Merchant of Venice enthusiasm. clamouring for his pound of flesh reminds the audience *** of the dearness of good beef and the cheapness of tough Opera in New York is now a sort of musical hippo- horse meat, while the military officers scent from afar drome for singers with the most powerful lung bellows. the fumes of grilling beefsteaks cut from the living If Wagner killed melody, he also did his best to make hams of their gallic enemies on that great day of singing impossible. But the Italians have not for- armageddon, when dog shall eat dog and Greek devour gotten that Italian operas are made to be sung, and this Greek. explains the great success in New York of a singer *Y+ like Tetrazzini. The Opera season that has just closed New York at this moment is crowded with people in has proved that deep down in the hearts of the people search of amusement and new sensations. The rich there exists the same love of melody as existed before who leave town are not missed in the surging crowds. the advent of the bawling German opera; it has proved All the popular cafés and restaurants and the big hotels that Wagner killed good taste in the lyrical world in are alive with visitors looking for pleasure, and one so far as the Germans are concerned, but not at all would suppose that America was made up of hotels, in regard to France and Italy. Without the patronage cafes, restaurants, and theatres. Official reports give of the New York Germans there would be few occa- more than eighty theatres devoted to drama, opera, sions for the production of Wagner’s works here. Most spectacles, concerts, circuses and other kinds of arena opera singers in New York learn to shout because of entertainment, and the number of such places will soon exceed a round hundred. April and October are perhaps the bad taste of the New York audiences. “ Made in Germany,” ought to be pasted on the backs of the the best months to see New York. In April and May majority, for there, indeed, was the vulgar bawling Manhattan assumes an air that is strangely foreign, un-American, almost fantastic. invented. *** *** It is the season when the New York bohemians are to In spite of all the drawbacks the people get samples be seen in their merriest moods, when the adulterated now and then of real singing in real opera, but it will wines giveth their colour in the cups, and headaches in take a whole decade for them to get back to the normal the kops, and good or bad humours according to the level of musical culture. The revolt against Wagner “strength ” of the decoction. It is the season when has begun. Two or three of the most competent all Bohemia walks forth in search of fresh fields and musical critics of New York are speaking out pretty pastures to say nothing of fresh drinking troughs, for plain, and I expect to see before long an end to the New York affords all beers that are made in Germany reign of the most astounding manifestation of snobbery and elsewhere. To see the way beer is drunk here the world has ever seen.*** one mould take Manhattan to be a large imitation of Munich. In a few weeks New York will be given If I were asked to state where musical taste is at its over to the mixers of iced drinks and the drinkers lowest, I should say Berlin first and then New York. thereof, and the hotter the weather becomes the colder In many respects New York makes one think of the drinks will be. Berlin. There is the same going and coming between *** the two cities as there is between Manchester and Lon- Who brings all the superstitious notions to New don. The raw Berliner, when he finds himself planted York? I heard the question posed the other evening in New York, finds himself so free that he can hardly at a certain café noted for its interesting characters. realise his freedom. What with the electric air, the elec- The typical American is not superstitious, but there is tric lights, the fizzle-rigged wines, and the eclectic no denying that the New Yorkers are, at least the modes, he feels like shouting the whole time, but he majority are, and I think the English speaking fears to “bust ” something if he shouts too much, so he Americans of Manhattan become superstitious from goes to the opera and lets his compatriots do the shout- contact with so many foreigners who bring with them ing on the stage. The German singers, knowing well from all parts of the world, not a score, but a thousand what is wanted, bawl out their rôles in the true military superstitious notions and rites. spirit in which Wagner wrote them. *** ** * One obscure proprietor who kept a small eating- It would be impossible for the German singers of our house under the ground floor, made a fortune in a day to imitate, even in the roughest manner, the blind singular way. He had in his employ a young foreigner singer in Japan, described by Lafcadio Hearn, who who was a hunchback, whose business it was to clean “sang with vocal rhythms learned perhaps from the up the place, sweep out, and wash the cups and glasses. 37

One day the proprietor was surprised to see enter three interfere with their perusals ? Possibly because the fashionably dressed men. They ordered coffee, and it streets, the newspapers, and the unintelligent insist happened that it was the little hunchback who served on ramming it down their throats. But possibly the them. When the three men left they tipped the waiter perusals of intelligent persons are not disturbed by liberally. In a few days other fashionably dressed the Coronation . Possibly-- horrible surmise !-the young men descended on the obscure underground success of the publishing season depends largely on place,and in a few days*** others. the co-operation of the*** unintelligent. The amazed proprietor soon found his two small Anyhow, a modified gloom reigns behind the counters rooms crowded with people who seemed to have but of bookshops and in the private parlours of publishers, one ambition: to tip the hunchback in sums often as though hope is still cherished for the autumn season. large as the amount of the meal they had eaten. In six Publishers are naturally always incensed against book- weeks time the delighted proprietor, a Hungarian, found sellers. But I have noticed lately that booksellers are himself installed in larger premises with the hunchback getting very incensed indeed against publishers. as leading waiter, and in six months time he moved They have, in fact, become quite rude about publishers. again, this time into handsome quarters, for his name One City bookseller, and an important City bookseller, became identified with all sorts of lucky omens and ha5 said roundly that , at this instant there are not influences, while the little hunchback was making a more than half a dozen really solvent publishers in fortune in the tips he received from stockbrokers and London. When certain famous and grandiose names others who regarded him as a marvellous mascot. were named to him, he laughed scornfully, and pro- *** duced evidence in support of his pessimism. His There are lucky Chinese restaurants, Turkish coffee general attitude was that English publishers were rooms which are supposed to confer certain fortunate growing stupider and stupider. Further, I had a radiations, and as for negro superstitions, no city in ’heart-to-heart talk with one of the very first publishers America, not even New Orleans, can show such an in the West End, and he, too, had an homicidal array of Hoodoo adepts. The belief in “charms ” and attitude towards publishers. He said that so far as “mascots ” is all but universal here, yet if you ask his experience went, the brain of the average publisher these superstitious people what they know about the was such that, had he been in any other profession, spiritual things you will get a blank look for an answer. he would have been kicked out of it for incompetence All these people will tell you how sceptical and critical and general crassness. Not merely did publishers not they are, how hard they are to fool, while they are understand the art of choosing matter fit and proper being led by the nose by Indian Fakirs and al! sorts to publish-they did not understand even their own of impossible faddists with lucky secrets to unfold, and particular business, that of producing the physical book ways by which you can bring others under your control. and putting it on the market. Assuredly there are only Meanwhile the men and women who do succeed, who about two publishers in London who know how to rise above the superstitious millions, go their way with- advertise. And there are only about three who know out mascots. But it is just these successful people that how to produce a book with taste and dignity. The the votaries of superstition most try to imitate. The great majority have never studied typographical com- yoke of superstition forbids them success. position, the building of a page, the qualities of ink and of paper, the design of bindings and the processes of stitching and binding. They are grossly and Books and Persons. shockingly inexpert, with the forced result that they Jacob Tonson. offer to the public books which are offensive both to By the eye and the hand. This is especially true of some COMMERCIALLYthe publishing season is not very of the largest and oldest established firms. SO spoke good. This interesting fact I have learned from my bookseller! I thoroughly agreed with him, and I several chats with booksellers. Of course, the blame was charmed at his outspokenness. Bookselling is in is laid on the Coronation. Probably quite rightly. a bad state, but publishing is in a worse state. Thoughts of the Coronation, it is said, are occupying ** * the mind of the reading public to the exclusion of My bookseller registered considerable changes in the books and bookish subjects. Yet I have not yet met public taste, and predicted others. He said that there a single intelligent person in London who either has was now no market, in London at any rate, for verse, not decided to leave London for the Coronation or and he saw no hope of a market for verse. He was expressed keen regret that he cannot leave London for dead against long books of all sorts, including novels. the Coronation. Londoners are already sick of the But he admitted that novels would be the last to Coronation, and scarcely any people can be found even shorten themselves. He did not give the reason. I to regard for any length of time workmen practising can give it. The libraries are the reason. The libraries the art of putting up Coronation stands round want long novels because a library subscriber could churches. On the other hand, all the Colonies are nut change long books so frequently as short books. coming to London for the Coronation. I was talking A library subscriber can, and does, read a sixty- to an author the other day who has a brother who is thousand-word novel-say, “ Mr. Ingleside ”-in a day. paying sixty guineas a week for three rooms and In twenty-four hours she wants a fresh book, and as three bathrooms at a hotel in Northumberland Avenue her subscription entitles her to change her book once in order to see the Coronation. The brother, I need a day there is nothing to stop her from having one. scarcely say, is not an author. If he were, he would But she cannot read “The New Machiavelli ” in a day ; not be in a position to pay sixty guineas a week for it will occupy her probably three days. “The New three rooms, and he most certainly would not require Machiavelli” will keep a subscriber quiet for a longer three bathrooms ; one bathroom would amply suffice period than “Mr. Ingleside,” and it costs the libraries him. Moreover, authors and artistic friends generally not a cent more. Hence the preference of the libraries can see the Coronation at quite reasonable rates if for long novels. When asked whether he thought they choose. The most popular device at the moment that memoirs, biographies and quasi-historical works is to get yourself into the Abbey choir. The reason would ultimately be cut down to sixty thousand words, why the choral singing is so weirdly unusual at he said : ‘‘Yes, and even shorter than that ! ” And, Coronations and Royal funerals is that the choir although his clientele is a wealthy one, he wanted consists largely of notabilities and notorieties, largely cheaper ones. He was right, too, for only by means musical, who have no knowledge of singing whatever. of cheap books will the libraries be deprived of their ** * sinister importance. He foresaw-if publishers will This has nothing directly to do with the publishing only contrive to be a little less stupid-short, absolutely season, but it does offer some reasons why the Corona- unpadded books on all subjects, much better printed tion should not disadvantageously affect the enterprise on better papeï and better bound, than the book of of publishing. If intelligent persons have already had to-day, and priced at three or four shillings. This was a surfeit of the Coronation, why should they let it the bright dream that irradiated his Coronation gloom. 38

in England, and which an Englishwoman who had CHRISTINA. been better off and who had been obliged to take a “combined room” at a very low rent, would find [AN APOLOGYAND AN AP0REME.-The following sketch of what “might or would or could or should” possibly have “ so depressing.” Showing that the difference in happened to Nora Helmer after she left her husband’s house classes is more marked in London than in Christi- is advisedly not called “a sequel,’’ which might have been ania, which is more cultured as well as democratic taken to imply that this crude attempt pretended to move on than any city in England. the same plane as the most celebrated play of modern times. After MRS. LINDENhas made sure that the soup The mere perplexity in which Ibsen has left us must ever will remain hot, she turns and looks at a small remain unsolved. Let it be understood that the following suggested realisation of Mrs. Linden’s hopes may go no travelling clock standing on the cupboard, which further in the direction she desires, and that Helmer, with she then takes up and carefully winds, setting it his sudden desperately childish and courageous wilfulness by her watch and saying as she does so, may enable Nora in her utter life-weariness to rebel finally “ Three o’clock ! ” Then, as she picks up her against the enforced bondage into which fate seems to knitting from the table and carries it carefully to be driving her. For all we know the pair may turn down the cupboard, she gives a little happy laugh, in- towards the black icy water instead of going quietly home, which would be a most unusual ending for Ibsen. However, stantly checked-the half-laugh of a woman who “The Lady from the Sea” is in Mrs. Linden’s favour. has not laughed often in her life. It is evident It is said that Ibsen at times contemplated writing “A that she has lately been living a good deal by Sequel” to “A Doll’s House,” and the fact of not doing so herself, for she has a habit of murmuring short may be considered by his most ardent worshippers to con- sentences. She now says: “ Fancy my forgetting stitute a very strong reason why other people should refrain my knitting! ” After she has carefully put the from taking liberties with his work. But, after all, in a knitting into an upper shelf in the cupboard, she sense, each new actor or actress of distinction who “ creates” an important part in a drama which outlives its author, con- looks very grave again, and goes to her trunk, tributes something to the character which could not have from which she brings some work with needles and been in the author’s mind. Occasionally such a contribution cottons. As she does this she murmurs, putting strengthens, dignifies and fills out the character, even gives them on the table with great decision.] it new life and vigour, carries us a little further on, One MRS. LINDEN: Yes !--She must !--And yet its- [Go. of the main difficulties in “producing” works of genius on the stage is that though “the great parts)’ are sometimes ing to the clock once more.] Ah! I knew she adequately filled, those in a ‘‘ subordinate position” are would. [At this moment a timid and agitated ring almost of necessity handed over to actors and actresses of is heard at the street door, and she goes to the lesser talent. For instance, Christina Linden may for this window, cautiously opening it, after putting on her reason have been accused by the more hostile- among Ibsen’s fur cloak. Even so, as the cold air comes through “critics” of being what actors call ‘‘ a feeder,” a “ confidante” the window, she catches her breath.] Is that you, without character who is used solely to help forward Nora’s self-revelation. A great debt there is due by playgoers to Nora ? Madam Lydia Yavorska for having broken through the usual NORA[in the street below] : Yes; bow did you know? treatment of such a part as Mrs. Linden, and to Miss Janet MRS. LINDEN: I’ll tell you when you come up. But who Achurch for having enabled her to carry out this very is that with you? [A pause.] I’ll be down in a remarkable innovation. For no one who has not seen the minute, and let you in. [She goes quickly once more play in other circumstances than as played at the Kingsway to see that the soup is ready, and, wrapping a thick Theatre could regard Mrs. Linden as “a feeder.” She lives scarf round her head and neck, goes out.] A short and moves with as full an individuality as Nora herself. True, in the scenes with Nora she listens while Nora talks. pause. Then a heavy lock is heard to turn at But attend to any duologue in real life: it will be found that some distance, and voices are raised in conversa- in almost every case the talking is done by one person, not tion, which ends abruptly. Another short pause, always the same person, of any selected pair. Which person and NORAHELMER comes into the room. She is speaks will depend on the relative moods of the two, the looking much as she was a few minutes ago when subject they are discussing, and many other reasons than the she left Helmer’s flat, except that she shivers importance of the characters. Wherein stage convention is once more in the wrong. However this may be, it was the violently. She makes for the stove at once, and, performance of Miss Janet Achurch, who twenty years ago sinking on the ground close to it, tries to get some broke a far stronger barrier, that suggested to the writer warmth into her half-frozen body. Presently MRS. a scene in which Christina would remain less silent. He LINDENcomes into the room, a little breathless, presents the aporeme-as the philosophers used to call an and after listening a moment at the door to ascer- insoluble problem-in fear and trembling, with the con- tain that no one has been disturbed, comes to sciousness of a stern shade with tight-closed lips at his elbow. The essay will probably be regarded by lovers of NORA.] Ibsen as a piece of insignificant impertinence. The Apolo- MRS. LINDEN:I’m afraid we have waked the land- gist fully admits his insignificance, but the impertinence, lady. I heard her voice. She’s a German, a Mrs. with all the humility in the world, he would venture to Schmidt, and is very particular indeed about the question. ] conventions. SCENE. NORA:I know; Helmer often recommends people to [MRS. LINDEN’Sroom at MRS. SCHMIDT’Slodgings. It her. [MRS. LINDENhelps her take off her hat and is three o’clock in the morning, and MRS. LINDENis later on her cloak.] What did Mr. Krogstadt want discovered feeding the stove and. putting a bowl of here ? soup, with a lip to it, into the oven. The stove is MRS. LINDEN:Krogstadt? Oh, Nils was always on the left side of the room. At the back there is romantic. an alcove bed, which has not been slept in. There NORA: Mr. Krogstadt romantic ! [Bitterly] You’re is a window on the right side of the room. It is laughing at me, Christina, like everyone else. rather a large window, and its panes are white [MRS. LINDENdoes not reply, but merely chafes with frost. A thermometer hangs at the side NORA’Shands.] of the window. There are several rather poor NORA: I nearly ran away when I saw him looking up chairs in the room, a small arm-chair standing at the house. ut the left of an oblong deal table. A cupboard MRS. LINDEN: He saw me home, and he’s been walking made of pine touches the back of the room up and down there ever since-more than an hour. to the left of the alcove. The only entrance to [Goes to the thermometer.] It’s twenty-three de- the room is from the left. MRS. LINDEN’Strunk, grees below zero. I scolded him well. He’ll have half-unpacked, lies beyond the window against the a frightful cold to-morrow. wall. Although the room is scantily and poorly NORA~contemptuously] : A cold ! Don’t talk of such furnished there are none of the pictures and orna- trifles. ments (cheap chromo-lithographs or funeral-cards MRS. LINDEN: It isn’t a trifle to me, I can tell you. or wax fruit or crinkled pink paper, etc.) which NORA: You don’t mean to say that you love that man ! would shock the taste of a person of MRS. LINDEN’S You heard what Rank said of him? particular kind of education and position if she lived MRS. LINDEN: Dr. Rank is not so good a judge as you 39

of Krogstadt’s life. If his father behaved badly, asked me to marry him. He was a bright young at any rate he left him plenty of money. I must fellow then-rather wild and passionate. I hadn’t have a talk to Dr. Rank about Nils. actually accepted him, but we understood each NORA: You will never do that, Christina. [Shuddering) other. Perhaps we might have married in ten He is invisible now. years or so-but there were four of us at home to MRS. LINDEN:Don’t be so fanciful, Nora. It’s easy keep, and I was at my wits’ end-and then Linden for Dr. Rank to talk. He was never pressed for proposed. What could I do? money as Krogstadt was- NORA: I could have told you yesterday. NORA[wearily]: I dare say you are right. I suppose MRS. LINDEN: And you might have been right. I could Krogstadt was no worse than I am. at least have kept Nils straight and- [She MRS. LINDEN: It’s hard to say, and I’m not a fair judge turns quietly away and is silent for a moment or either, because I’m fond of him. When I saw him two.] two days ago so changed, and when I heard how NORA[with some of her old impetuous affection] : Dear, people spoke of him, I felt as though I was the dear, Christina! You are going to be happy at criminal. But I don’t want to talk about myself, last. Im sure Nils will make you a good husband. only you mustn’t be hard on Krogstadt. [Slowly] I think I understand him better now. NORA: I have no right to be hard on anyone. [Humbly] MRS. LINDEN: But your husband is turning him out of It’s very good of you to take me in to-night, the bank ! Christina. To-morrow I must try to get some- NORA[impulsively] : No, no, he shan’t ! I’ll- [Stops.] thing to do. No, I can’t help you Christina. I can have nothing MRS. LINDEN: But now come into my arms, Nora, and further to do with Torwald. let me warm you. [NORAdoes not respond, but MRS. LINDEN: And the children? MRS. LINDENembraces her and keeps the shaking NORA[with a cry of agony] : Ah ! don’t torture me, body still.] So you are only going to be hard Christina ! on Helmer? MRS. LINDEN: Everyone will call you a heartless NORA:If you knew everything you wouldn’t talk like mother. that. NORA[scornfully] : Just what Helmer says. MRS. LINDEN: You’ve left him for good? NORA:I had to. MRS. LINDEN: But isn’t he right? MRS. LINDEN:Why? NORA: Heartless ! Because I won’t let such a creature as I know myself to be, ruin their lives? NORA: Can I live in that way with a man I don’t know? MRS. LINDEN:So you leave them to Helmer? A man who is totally different from what I thought You say that he is right, and that I am wicked -mean, hypocritical, cowardly-He called me a NORA: and heartless ! thief and a liar. What is he? MRS. LINDEN:No, not wicked, Nora. MRS. LINDEN:Not very ‘different from other men. NORA: No, I wish I was. NORA:Perhaps not. But I am not thinking of him. MRS. LINDEN:Nora! The worst of it is I am what he calls me-no, that’s NORA: I should be something. As it is I’m nothing- not the worst, either-I am nothing at all. A a puppet-a bought toy. Oh, I keep on going poor creature who has been bought and paid for round and round in my cage-[very bitterly]-like like the women Dr. Rank’s father lived with. -yes, like a squirrel. When I think of the life I’ve Agh! [She breaks away from MRS. LINDEN’S led-the trap I am in-I could throw myself out arms, hides her face in her hands, and her body is of that window, Christina ! [Goes towards the shaken by dry sobs.] window.] MRS. LINDEN: Ah ! I was waiting for that. [Going to the stove and bringing out the soup, some of which MRS. LINDEN[a little anxious; intercepts her, and leads she pours into a cup which she has fetched from her back to the table] : You wouldn’t do that now, the cupboard. Then she deftly lays a small table- Nora, if only for the sake of those three children. cloth and brings bread and salt and spoons, knives, YOU can’t alter the past. But if you take yourself etc., to the table. As she does these things she out of your children’s lives, you owe it to them to goes on talking.] I told Mrs. Schmidt I was ex- leave no stain on your memory. pecting a friend who was at a ball, and that I had NORA: That’s how Krogstadt beat me. Or perhaps promised to take care of her till her own house I- was open-that she didn’t want to disturb the ser- MRS. LINDEN:Besides, think of me, Nora! vants so late. I had to tell a few falsehoods. She NORA[with a flash of her old-time fun] : Oh, come ! is so particular. You are not so fond of me as all that, Christina. NORA:Tell me, how did you know I should come to Besides, you have your Nils now ! you ? MRS. LINDEN: It isn’t that, Nora, though I do love you MRS. LINDEN: Where else should you go? dearly, and I think I’ve proved it. But if I had NORA: I meant to kill myself, Christina. not been raised above myself by happiness, I could MRS. LINDEN: No, you didn’t, Nora. Nils would never not have dared to let that letter go. Think of my have risked that. feelings, Nora, if I had been mistaken after all! NORA[rising very wearily and going to the table] : No, NORA[darkly] : You are a bold woman, Christina ! he told me I hadn’t the courage. MRS. LINDEN: I’ve had experience, Nora-and I knew. MRS. LINDEN:Now you must sit down and take this, [Stops and listens.] What’s that? Nils can’t Nora [placing things before her] or you will really have broken his word. [She goes to the window.] be ill. You know Nils wanted to get his letter NORA: What’s the matter? back ? MRS. LINDEN[turning quickly] : Nothing. I thought I NORA: Then why didn’t he do it? heard footsteps, but- [At this moment there is MRS. LINDEN:I wouldn’t let him. a knock at the room door.] NORA[looking at her wonderingly] : How dared you, Christina ? NORA [going to the stove with her back towards MRS. LINDEN: Eat your soup, Nora [putting the spoon the door. All through the following scene she in her hand. NORA mechanically takes a few keeps her back to the speakers]: Oh, Christina! spoonsful.] You see, I’ve been used to thinking I couldn’t bear to see anyone just now, I- for other people ever since I could remember. My MRS. LINDEN[carrying the soup over to her and putting father was the same. When he was alive I had it on the ledge of the stove] : Very well; I’m afraid to go to school-the school where we met. Please it’s quite cold, but try to finish it. You’re still go on eating. [Cuts up bread and puts it in soup.] shaking a little. But I was only seventeen when he died, though I MRS. SCHMIDT[outside] : Now, madam ! Please open look so much more than my age now. Then Nils the door at once! 40

MRS. LINDEN: Very well. I’m just coming, Mrs. Helmer. Perhaps you’ve spoilt him, Nora. Flat- Schmidt. [To NORA] : It’s only the landlady. I tered him, fibbed to him-saved him from things suppose we were talking too loud. [She opens the that would have done him good? door and MRS. SCHMIDTbursts in. She is a stout, NORA[bitterly] : Often ! red-faced woman about forty, with tight grey curls MRS. LINDEN:Poor Mr. Helmer ! What did he say und dull eyes. She is dressed in a pink dressing- when you left him? gown, evidently hastily thrown on. She looks cold NORA:Oh, I don’t know i He seemed heart-broken. und shivers occasionally.] Then he talked nonsense about living as brother MRS. SCHMIDT: Really, madam ! I didn’t expect all and sister. this noise and disturbance in the middle of the MRS. LINDEN:You see, he’s not very old. At any night, when I let my room to you. I thought I rate, you’ve given him a severe lesson, Nora. was letting it to a respectable lady ! NORA:I’ve had one myself. I seem to see the world MRS. LINDEN[drawing herself up stiffly] : And what has with quite different eyes. I don’t love him or any- made you change your opinion, Mrs. Schmidt? one else, even the children, any more. I’m MRS. SCHMIDT:I wonder you have the face to ask. numbed and bewildered, and hard and con- First of all you walk home with a man that every- temptuous. And yet I feel humble and wretched body knows is no better than he ought to be. enough. Can’t you help me, Christina [shaking MRS. LINDEN[instantly losing her stiffness] : Oh ! Is her]-soften me-teach me? his character so bad as that? MRS. LINDEN[looking at her earnestly] : You can help MRs. SCHMIDT:Well, you ought to know. I saw him me, Nora. Prove to me that I was right in letting kiss you at the door. I’m sure you’re both old things take their course. enough to know better. Mr. Krogstadt, indeed ! NORA:Of course you were. Anything rather than a He thinks he’s getting on, but I hear he’s dis- life of shams. missed from the bank, and serve him right. MRS. LINDEN:But Mr. Helmer, too, hates shams and MRS. LINDEN [keenly]: Why do you hate him so much? subterfuges. MRS. SCHMIDT: How do you know I hate him? But NORA: In other people. And yet, when Krogstadt all the same, I have my reasons. Seven years ago sent back the bill, he seemed not to care for the Nils Krogstadt lived in this very room and-” thing itself-only about its being found out. And then, as I was changing my things, I heard him MRS. LINDEN: You wanted to marry him? boasting how he would protect me and take care MRS. SCHMIDT[somewhat alarmed at MRS. LINDEN’S of his property. I had never thought of it before- astucity] : I know he kept me waiting for my he looks on me as a piece of property, Christina! rent- MRS. LINDEN: Yes, that’s how most men look on MRS. LINDEN: I’ll pay you mine to-morrow, and I give us--if we Iet them. What right had you to let you notice now. him do so? Ignorant as you are, you know more MRS. SCHMIDT: Oh, I daresay. No you don’t, madam ! than he does. You had your first lesson months I came up to give you notice, so I was first. ago, when you signed your father’s name. Poor MRS. LINDEN:As you please. Mr. Helmer is still at the alphabet. Will you let MRS. SCHMIDT:And who’s this lady, I should like to him struggle on quite alone? And the children, know ? [Going towards NORA.] Nora-the children? are they to be brought up as MRS. LINDEN[interposing] : I told you I was expecting you were brought up by your father? As Helmer a friend, and now please leave the room. was brought up? MRS. SCHMIDT: Leave my own room, indeed. Not till NORA: My first duty is towards myself. That is quite I’ve said what I’ve got to say. I got up be- clear to me, Christina, and nothing you can say cause I heard that man come back. He hid his will shake it. I told Torwald so, and he said face when he saw me, but I knew him, and I I’d no religion or morality. And he was quite ordered him off. Now, don’t you call him back right. But I won’t have a sham religion and again, for I won’t have it. Marry you, indeed ! morality. The faithless scoundrel. I shall go straight off to MRS. LINDEN:Am I a sham, Nora? Mr. Helmer to-morrow and let him know what sort NORA: No; but what is right for you may not be right of a person he’s recommended. I thought you for me. You like working for other people, and were going to take Krogstadt’s place at the bank. you are satisfied with so little, like Anna. I want If Mr. Helmer hadn’t recommended you, you --I don’t know what I d,on’t want. wouldn’t have been a tenant of mine. So good- MRS. LINDEN: I suppose you want to think things out? night to you both. [She goes out angrily.] [MRS. LINDENstands a moment in thought.] NORA: Yes; how did you know? That’s exactly what NORA[coming towards her] : I’m so sorry, Christina, I told Helmer, I want to think things out, and try to have brought all this on you. to get clear about them. MRS. LINDEN:Oh, it’s not that. But just think what MRS. LINDEN:Ah! it isn’t done that way. We can’t an escape poor Nils must have had. How angry get at the best of things by thinking, Nora. But she was. [Then brightly] : But we shall be we sometimes learn very quickly if we get a good married in a few weeks and then I can take care shock, and I can see that you’ve already learnt of him. more than you know. NORA: Perhaps. I’m so utterly tired to-night. NORA: I wish I could help you. I MRS. LINDEN:You could, Nora, if-” only want to rest. [Suddenly.] What’s that? NORA[quickly] : If I asked Torwald totake him back. Listen ! That woman’s voice again ! But that’s impossible. [Bitterly]: Just fancy, MRS. SCHMIDT[outside and knocking violently] : Let me Christina, he actually calls Torwald by his Christian in at once, Mrs. Linden. This is scandalous! name before all the clerks. MRS. LINDEN: What can she want now? [Goes to the Mrs. LINDEN: He never had any tact. Poor Mr. door and opens it.] Helmer ! MRS. SCHMIDT[coming into the room] : Now, I just have NORA: I thought he was joking at first. But he really this to tell you-both of you. If you’re not out of meant it. Can you understand anyone being so my house by nine to-morrow morning, I shall petty, Christina ? send for the police to turn you out. MRS. LINDEN: Oh, yes ! Bob is exactly like that. MRS. LINDEN:Why.. what have we done now? NORA: Bob? MRS. SCHMIDT: You come home with a gentleman of MRS. LINDEN:Yes, my youngest brother. I’m afraid shady reputation and he kisses you at the door. I’ve spoilt him. He’s sixteen now. Ugh ! NORA:But that’s a mere child, Christina. MRS. LINDEN: The gentleman to whom I am engaged. MRS. LINDEN : James, his brother, is only seventeen, MRS. SCHMIDT:Oh, I daresay. Mr. Krogstadt has and he’s twice as old. Much older than Mr. been engaged to others before now. 41

MRS. LINDEN: Poor fellow ! MRS. SCHMIDT[bursting into the room once more as MRS. SCHMIDT[suddenly] : If you wouldn’t freeze to NORAslowly takes up the cup] : I won’t have it. death, I’d turn you out now, you brazen The man will certainly be dead in the morning, creature! You bring a woman here at three right in front of my house. There’ll be a scandal in o’clock in the morning-with some story about the neighbourhood. [Seeing NORA for the first a ball-and then a man comes and waits out- time.] Why, it’s Mrs. Helmer! I’m sure I’m side my house looking up at it as if he was going very sorry if- {NORApasses her without a to commit a robbery. I shall let the manager of word, MRS. LINDEN going to her and wrapping the the Joint Stock Bank know of your way of going fur coat round her.] on, I can tell you. There won’t be much of a MRS. SCHMIDT[coming up to MRS. LINDEN as NORA place for you at the bank. You pretended to send goes out] : I promise you I can’t turn you out in the fellow away, but he came back again and I this weather, my fine lady ; but she’s not my tenant, had to order him off. and I won’t be treated like the dust under her MRS. LINDEN: But what’s the matter now? We knew feet either. Let her go home with that fellow. He all about this before. only lives round the corner. He! he ! I always MRS. SCHMIDT [with great exasperation] : Well, now thought Helmer was a fool. But I’ll open his he’s come back again! eyes to-morrow morning. First it was the doctor MRS. LINDEN: Oh, no ! no ! He’ll be frozen to death. and now this scamp. I know one thing-she MRS. SCHMIDT:Serve him right! There he is [at doesn’t come into my house any more. [She goes window]. I watched him steal back, and now he’s out, and presently the door downstairs is heard to sitting on the door-step opposite. bang and the lock to turn.] MRS. LINDEN:Ah! I can only just see him, but its- MRS. LINDEN[at the window] : Good-night, Nora! Oh, he’s covered with snow! I’m sorry, but Mrs. Schmidt won’t let you in MRS. SCHMIDT: Yes, the fool has been sitting there for again. What do you say?-Can he stand?- the last ten minutes. What, Mr. Helmer?-I can’t hear. I’m afraid MRS. LINDEN[looking at the thermometer] : And it’s you’ll get some serious complaints from Mrs. gone down lower still. I must speak to him. Schmidt to-morrow morning.-What ! Your voice [Opens the window. She shrinks back as the cold is so faint.-The miracle of miracles. [A pause.] blast comes into the room.] Oh, this is terrible ! Good-night ! [Shuts down window. Comes into MRS. SCHMIDT[intercepting her as she is putting on her room. Begins to undress, stops suddenly, and cloak] : He doesn’t come in here, mind ! A pretty says, as if enlightened] : Ah! the miracle of scene in my respectable house! You don’t let a miracles. man in here at this hour. Poor Mr. Helmer. He CURTAIN. must have been deceived in you. But even the best of men are like children : they’re so easily deceived. MRS. LINDEN: That’s true enough [looking at NORA]. The Real Meaning of the Contro- MRS. SCHMIDT:Well, you can go to him if you like. But he doesn’t come in here; and out of my house versy Concerning Pragmatism. you pack by nine to-morrow morning. Professor Albert Schinz. [Exit very excitedly.] By MRS. LINDEN[at window] : The child! Just a great TRUTHis and remains always the same. But each stupid child ! philosophical movement, that is to say, each conception of truth, each special aspect of truth which man chooses NORA [indignantly]: You call him a child because he loves you well enough to brave this common to emphasize at various epochs and under various woman’s contempt and jealousy-to run the risk climates, can be explained by contingencies, one can say even more precisely, by moral and social causes. Ah, take of being starved to death in the cold. It would be easy to demonstrate-and it is strange him some soup, Christina; comfort the poor fellow that it was never done as yet-that each system since [going to the bowl which has the remains of the the time when philosophy parted with mythology, has soup which is still warming on the stove and been clearly an adaptation of human reason and of the pouring it into another cup on the table.] If he scientific knowledge of any epoch in history, to social mayn’t come in here, at any rate he shan’t starve. requirements. This, the writer would not have space A child ! I call him a man. If only Helmer--- enough to do here, but he can give at least some indica- Take him the soup and send him home, Christina. tions as regards the pragmatic movement, and in so MRS. LINDEN: Take it to him yourself, Nora. doing, point out the real meaning of the controversy NORA: But-I should have thought-that you- concerning Pragmatism, while at the same time offering MRS. LINDEN [very quietly] : It’s Helmer! [NORA an equitable test by which to measure the value of its stands for a moment with the soup in her hand, philosophical claims. then puts it resolutely on the table and turns away But, first of all, what is Pragmatism? to the stove.] Pragmatism is a. philosophy which judges of the value MRS. LINDEN: Won’t you go to him? of theories and ideas by their consequences, by the NORA:He ought not to have followed me here. results they yield to the thinker when he proceeds to MRS. LINDEN[looking out] : He hasn’t moved ; and now apply them to reality. the snow has almost completely covered him. If he It would seem that this could hardly claim to be a stays there much longer he will be frozen to definition of a new philosophy, for, Pragmatists would death. [NORAremains stonily silent.] evidently be much embarrassed if they were to point out MRS. LINDEN: Neither you nor Krogstadt dared to end one single philosopher or scientist who did not judge things that way. [NORAis still silent.] of the value of a theory from the results it yields to the MRS. LINDEN:I knew that you wouldn’t, and so did thinker. he, or we daren’t have risked it. A hard life and So we must go a little further. What is meant by a bitter experience has taught me something of “ result ” ? Pragmatists will then answer : “ useful character, Nora. Beneath all the crust of foolish results.” William James says : “You say of it (truth) forms and habits there is something that one can’t . . . . either that ‘ it is useful because it is true,’ or measure, but one gets to know it. that ‘ it is true because it is useful.’ Both these phrases NORA: What do you mean by that, Christina? mean exactly the same thing, namely, that here is an MRS. LINDEN:You asked me to teach you. And now idea that gets fulfilled and can get verified.” (“Prag- I’ll tell you something you may not know. matism,” p. 204.) NORA: Well? This is better. Still, we are not satisfied. What do MRS. LINDEN: Mr. Helmer is stupider and more helpless you call useful? Here the Pragmatists will fight shy than you or Krogstadt, but he has more courage and avoid answering directly. But we can make them than either of YOU. tell. 42

There are two sorts of “useful ” : the “scientifically such precautions regarding astronomical beliefs are no

useful,” and the “ socially or morally useful.” longer necessary ; but one can easily imagine that Let us first give an example of the scientific useful. similar conflicts may arise in our days in other domains In. 1743 Franklin founded in Philadelphia a society of science-they will be pointed out later ; for the present which developed into the American Philosophical it was enough to show clearly the possibility of a Society for “ promoting useful knowledge. ” Now, in conflict. the very interesting sketch of the history of that body, We have the two “ usefuls” thus opposed to each recently published by Mr. G. J. Rosengarten, we are other; we are now very near our problem: Why do Pragmatists to-day advise us to choose social results recalled that the first great undertaking of that “ society for promoting useful knowledge” was to organise on rather than scientific results in case of conflicts? a great scale astronomical observations with a view Before answering, it will not be out of place to to determining the distance of the earth from the sun. remark that the pragmatic attitude is by no means In the ordinary sense of the word, it is useful to nobody new, even in philosophy. The whole philosophy of to know anything about this question, or at any rate it the middle-ages was pragmatic : Scholasticism was the would be of very indirect use, and life and society philosophy which endeavoured to prove that the on our planet will go on, whether the experiments just dogmas of the Church were to be true not so much in mentioned be made or not. They are useful only to themselves, but because they allowed directly or in- the scholar who wishes to investigate further in directly to uphold social order. Then, there are such astronomy. thinkers like Pascal, Rousseau, and Kant who clearly It is evidently not that useful which Pragmatists advocated what the latter called “ practical reason ” as advocate; or, if they did, that philosophy would be so opposed to “ pure reason.”* The question before us commonplace that nobody would pay any attention to then would be : Why is it to-day that Pragmatists have it. They mean the “socially or morally useful.” Here so paradoxically taken sides against scientific truth ; is the way Professor James develops his definition : “the and why is it to-day that such an attitude creates such a true, to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the stir, while it did not in the middle ages? Or, in one way of our thinking ” (“ Pragmatism,” p. 222); he word, why can people be induced to-day better than says : “On pragmatic principles we cannot reject any before to choose pragmatic or biased “ truth,” instead hypothesis if consequences useful to life flow from it. . of scientific or plain “truth ” ? . . They (universal conceptions) have no meaning and There are two reasons chiefly. no reality if they have no use (use for life as just said). The first is that science has grown and spread enor- But if they have any use (for life) they have that mously in our days. No need of insisting on a fact amount of meaning ” (p. 273). This is perfectly clear : so well known. But the result of it is that if there is what is useful to us, to life, not what is of import to a conflict between science and morality, this conflict will become more apparent, and as the enemy (science) impersonal science, must be considered our “ truth ” in Pragmatism. If something is not useful in this grows stronger, the necessity of open and vigorous sense, we must quietly ignore it. Here is also the fight imposes itself. Without going into detailed famous pragmatic question, the criterion of truth, as examples, which anyone can easily imagine for himself, expressed by William James : “Grant an idea or belief let us only recall that the very spirit of scientific Investi- to be true, what concrete difference will its being true gation is fatal to morality. The essence of science is determinism. Science does no€ admit of anything make in anyone’s actual life? ” (p. 200). And here, as a concrete application of the principle, is the way the happening without a cause, and this cause itself is same author speaks of religion : “The whole defence explained by another, and so ad infinitum. Nothing of religious faith hinges upon action. If the action begins. This is the credo, the sine quâ non of science. required or inspired by the religious hypothesis is in Even if we know not all the causes, we go on the no way different from that dictated by the naturalistic assumption that they are there, all natural causes, none hypothesis, then religious faith is a pure superfluity, outside the stream of determined events. And this better pruned away, and controversy about its legiti- credo of science isbeing verified day by day, by millions macy is a piece of idle trifling, unworthy of serious of facts. To make my argument short, this applies to minds.” (“ Will to Believe.” pp. 29-30.) human will as well ; and if people realise it, they will Now these two (‘truths,” or rather these two ((use- be prone to give up fighting low instincts, and their fuls ”-the scientific and the pragmatic-are not only energy for the good will have lost one of its best stimuli. different, but they may conflict. An illustration has Society needs the illusion of freedom of the will. been chosen already from the field of astronomy ; let This is not all. In past times the strictly scientific us borrow another one from the same source. We prevailed only in what we still call natural sciences, will transport ourselves for one moment, by Imagina- physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology. Elsewhere, tion, to the sixteenth century. The scientific world either data were too hard to get, or they were too com- was then beginning to discuss Copernic’s idea regard- plex for the means of investigation at one’s disposal. ing the motion of the earth around the sun, as opposed Now science has invaded physiology, psychology, to the so-called Ptolemaic idea according to which it is ethics, everything; and everywhere everything is not the sun that is revolving around the earth. I may only supposed to be subjected to determinism, but assume that we all agree now that Copernic was right proved to be. History itself can show that great men in advocating the heliocentric system ; that was the are just the result of circumstances. Modern art also “ scientific truth ” according to the terminology which makes it a point no longer to praise determination, but we have adopted. Unfortunately the geocentric system to prove determinism, in characters. had already been adopted by the Church, which was All such manifestations, as can easily be understood, then the only dispenser of science to the world-and render the pragmatic problem more urgent. the Church claimed to be infallible in its teachings. And what has just been said leads us up to the Now, it must be born in mind that the Church was second reason why to-day was the time when Prag- trying to solve the gigantic problem of civilising the matism, the anti-scientific theory of life, was bound people that had taken the place of the Roman Empire ; to be formulated by men anxious to keep up the the Church could not afford to lose its prestige, and standard of morality in society. It is no longer the any one contesting the orthodox belief in the cosmo- special property of one class of people, viz., scholars, logical system then adopted by this Church, would be but, owing to the means of communication, to the use sure to shake the power and its influence. To unsettle of popular languages instead of Latin as organs of this civilising force might have terrible consequences, science, the idea that everything is pre-determined, and replunge the masses into a state of barbarity from that man’s will is not freer than the course of the stars which they were still “pawing to be free.” It was, in the sky, is heralded to all. Who has not heard and therefore, pragmatically desirable or expedient that for read thousands of times that a drunkard by heredity is some time still the sun should continue to revolve around the earth. This, then, is “pragmatic truth,” * For all this part I can refer directly to the writer’s which, as one sees, can be in conflict with “scientific book, “ Anti-Pragmatism.” (Boston : Small, Maynard and truth.” To-day we have passed beyond that point, and Co. 1910.) 43

a hopeless case, that most crimes are the result of loftiest sources of happiness for men, but in many ways moments of insanity which render the individual actually useful for the moral progress of humanity, irresponsible? People cannot not know of the unavoid- although in an indirect fashion ? ability of heredity, or of the inexorable course of Such another solution, in the writer’s opinion, exists passion. Even should they consent to be inconsistent and it can be formulated thus : Instead of stop- and acknowledge a certain amount of free will, the ping science, let us conceal its results from unworthy latter is surely conceived as limited. or immature minds to whom it will prove harmful. People need not even realise that they have all those Let us encourage further development of science, but ideas in their head, for those ideas act automatically on be very cautious in spreading the results abroad. Thus our behaviour ; they are in the air ; we blame at times we will achieve the same results as Pragmatists do- people who forget them ; a judge must take into avoid the danger .of deterministic convictions in lower account what we call extenuating circumstances, also minds ; and yet not be obliged to propose such undesir- a physician, and even a clergyman, in his dealings with able and impossible things which a consistent prag- people. But if you allow people to apply such theories matist must do-limit science. I say a “consistent ” in a charitable fashion to make them lenient for the pragmatist, for so far none has dared to be so openly sins of our neighbours, how can you prevent them from to the end; they always manage to stop when the applying the same theories in an egoistic fashion to conclusions to their premises become compromising. their own cases and excuse themselves on the same All this has been developed fully by the writer else- grounds ? where. Therefore only a few words will be added to In short, all we do in order to form the character of parry hasty criticism. men, our churches, our exaltation of free humanity, Is it possible to conceal science? Yes ; why not? our hero worship and glorification of “ deserving ” People are not at all so eager to learn as some enthu- actions, is secretly undermined by the scientific theories siasts would like us to believe. One hears, constantly, which say, “No ! Man is impotent,” where we want complaints that the public will go to frivolous plays for the general welfare to believe, and say, “ yes ! ” rather than to good ones. One hears that cycling, Not only do we make no effort to conceal truth from and more recently automobilism make a disastrous the masses, we make it impossible, so to speak, for competition to reading. In spite of all efforts of pro- those who would not think by themselves of applica- fessors, librarians, and well-meaning ladies, our public tions dangerous for their morals. Our newspapers and libraries-even our college libraries-experience a still popular magazines print every bit of scientific news greater demand for the novel of the day than for Kant, they can get, and while they possibly preach that we Spencer or Nietzsche. So, suppose we just stop our can go against our nature and our impulses, they heap misdirected attempts to scientificise the world, and up arguments incessantly which prove the reverse. On scholars will be left alone, and we will no longer need the top of it all, we have the pedagogues of our genera- a pragmatic disguise of philosophy. To children and tion who sing no end of Paeans in honour of university people with delicate stomachs, physicians recommend extension, and such other schemes which provide the milk and crackers, and not heavy meat ; let us apply masses with motives for not resisting the impulsions of the same principle in intellectual life : we cannot put their lower self and gaily entering the path of vice. brain where there is none; and where there is a small They cannot help knowing that drunkards are victims quantity, as in most cases, we can only do harm by and not guilty, that laziness is an illness, that stealing overfeeding it. As to the argument that newspapers is a disease, that sexual love has got to have its way. and periodical editors find too much profit by making They must see in studying history according to scientific sensational statements regarding scientific investiga- methods that the greatest heroes of humanity are tions, it does not seem to be of much value. Those despicable people in some way or other, that the great men are not worse than any others. They simply Caesar was nothing but a political boss, that the poetical follow the impulse given by those above. Notice that lover Cleopatra was an ugly woman and an intriguer, they could still describe crimes, tell stories, without that many saints were rascals. We will not rest, it saying anything about the causes of those crimes. And seems, until we have torn away from humanity all that if they were to give some of the space now given tu can help along its path strewn with thorns. Provided harmful revelations, to more news regarding sports on the masses be scientific, what does it matter whether the one hand and fashions on the other, nobody would they are foul? complain. Nobody can fail to recognise there a great problem, To sum up: Instead of anathematising popular I am willing to say the problem of our age. Truth and amusements, let us protect them, and possibly regulate morality conflict, and when the masses, upon whose them. Vaudeville shows, Chanticler hats, baseball morality the welfare of society rests, know truth, a games may still prove our salvation, in taking away social danger is imminent. Society is threatened to from the masses the desire of looking into books that its foundation. inspire them with all sorts of useless and dangerous This is the meaning of the pragmatic problem ; and notions. They may avoid to us, representatives of Pragmatists, by the organ of their most brilliant repre- science and thought,. the humiliation of hiding the light sentative, William James, step in and say : As conflict under the bushel-I mean the humiliation of pragmatic there is between science and social welfare, let us stop philosophy. science, and choose socially useful truth. Having reached this point, we are in a position to appreciate the value of Pragmatism critically. Pragmatism, if consistently conceived, is not true “ and Bergson philosophy, but expedient philosophy. And, moreover, The Blue Bird” this word true in the sense of socially useful is decep- in Paris. tive. Pragmatism is an attempt to solve a weighty social problem, a generous attempt, but which can By Huntly Carter. hardly be expected to be adopted, since it can fulfil its purpose only by deciding against science whenever Two things fill the air in Paris more completely than conflicts arise between really scientific truth and any other with a foretaste of the union of the lyric theories of social expediency. and the dramatic, and the adding of a new emotional We cannot go here into the question whether this value to life-the “ Blue Bird” and Bergson. The latter‘ pragmatic solution of our modern problem is a possible, has an intense interest in symbolic poetry-a poetry of or even a wise, solution, and whether the moral evil enormous suggestion ; he has indeed been accepted attached to science ought to be taken into consideration by the symbolists as the philosopher of the new idea. rather than the real advantages science gives us in the The former is an expression of the intuitional move- way of a materially more comfortable life. We may ment, and the peculiar beauty of the “Blue Bird ” is simply ask this : Is it the only solution, or could we fed and nourished by the spirit which is vitalising every- not instead of stopping science, find a way of keeping thing, and giving, even to the most opaque things, a this science, which is not only one of the purest and new significance. 44

The intuitional philosophy of Bergson-a system of suggestiveness of the words was brought into sharp philosophy for elevating and making vision more pene- conflict with the artistic poverty of the scene. The tratingly human-has so taken possession of Paris that cottage interior was commonplace. It lacked inspira- the spirit of it seems to fill every place. I have heard it tion and simplicity. It was overcrowded with effects. discussed, when seated at the long glittering café that Everything was too much broken up. The colour, shoulders the perpetual mass of the magnificent instead of being composed in large simple masses, was Renaissance Opera House breasting the broad boule- dabbed on in little meaningless patches. The next vards that flow away in leagues of rhythmical lustre. I scene, the Palace of the Fairy, was an unfairylike have heard it mentioned in unaccustomed places in the arrangement of garden and architecture with the colours “Quarter.” In this city of sex, at this shrine of the of the symbolic figures trying to sort themselves on a satisfaction of senses, with its fretwork of open-air stone seat, the whole being drowned in a glare of cafés carving vibrating pathways of fine gold, into electric light. The Land of Memory scene contained which the mist of women, so graceful yet so graceless nothing more ambitious than a notice board hung on a (“grâces au ciel ! ” as a Frenchman would say), seems tree announcing the locality. The introduction of to change and evaporate, men are everywhere busy, some touches of colour-a little blue in the background consciously or unconsciously, lifting the jewel of human and faint reds and yellows-into the cold and un- vision out of the mire of logic. emotional opening would better have led the child-mind The poets headed by Tristan Derème, the Yellow into the traditional country. For the rest the scenes were Syndicalists by Sorel, the literary critics by Remy de far too real. They showed no appreciation of the new Gourmont, above all, the post-Impressionists- ideas of continuity and rhythm; they were not fantastical who are invading and transforming the theatre- enough ; they were not full of vast and weird sugges- are actively expressing the new idea. Thus they are tions adding an essential emotional value. The Kingdom working in complete harmony with a system that ex- of the Future, for instance, though interesting in a Caley hibits a great mistrust of organisation yet a great trust Robinson way, with its cold, mystical colour relieved by of corporate life ; which emphasises the belief that the touches of warm reddish browns, and its big draped individual must be completely himself and be allowed figures, was a composition in the present, and did not at all times to be completely himself, yet must express stimulate the emotional powers of the observer with a that corporate life of which he is but a part ; which suggestion of coming ages or a prophecy of progress. accordingly demands conscious intuition, clarity of It is the application of modern principles of suggestion, simple and direct expression, and withal a continuity and rhythm, and the fine feeling of tremendous analysis, but not the analysis of academical vastness and fantasy that distinguishes the logic. It aims rather to remove the sluice-house of MOSCOW production at the Théâtre Rejane from such logic from the life stream which flows through the Haymarket production. Though the former is not human beings ; that hard mechanical check which con- completely successful, yet throughout it is fantastic, tinues human existence at the expense of the stream by imaginative, it is living and evolving. The scenery damming its spontaneity and adulterating the purity of and dresses are artistically good, and the two children its elements, and to substitute an emotional aid to con- very interesting, unlike those in London, who did not tinuity through which the stream shall pass freely and suggest figures in a fantasy. Again, though there is an unadulterated without being exhausted in the process. attempt to apply certain traditional principles of unity, Bergson’s system reduced to an aphorism says, mathe- distribution of colour, space, light and shade to the Hay- matical reasoning is the last resort of the intuitionally market production, there is none of the systematic and destitute. complete application of more revolutionary principles to It is not necessary here to indicate further how the be found in the Russian “ Blue Bird.” Thus continuity philosophic, artistic:, and literary value of the and great simplicity mark the first scene, a typical intuitional idea of the assertion of personality, and Russian interior of rough grained timber. Here the the death of dogmatism, is being emphasised, low warm tones of the interior balance the vibrating nor to show how marvellously the idea itself silver-blue exterior, and serve admirably to carry out is changing the trend of thought, and affect- the decorator’s telling figures. The lines, too, are ing artistic aims and methods in Paris. I shall mention well distributed, the window balancing the fireplace, its effect on painting when I deal with the exhibition of the furniture, etc. Even the grains of woodwork con- the Société des Artistes Independants which has just tribute to the wonderful sense of movement. The opened. For the present, then, I may say it is rapidly lighting is cleverly worked from the centre of the bringing new and vital men to the front, while placing stage. Indeed, the lighting effects throughout are others on a receding horizon. extremely ingenious, but are ruined by obsolete con- trivances. Rhythm and vibrating atmosphere are very Among those who occupy the latter unenviable posi- cleverly got in the second scene by means of a vast tion is Maeterlinck. The remarkable group of writers, golden backcloth fretted with revolving lines. The including Maeterlinck and Verhaeren, who were directly Palace of the Fairy, which with its fine colour scheme influenced by Mallarmé, who persistently sought words of yellow and red, and a black and gold profile flight full of music and strange suggestions, using such words of steps, against which the coloured figures move, in dramatic compositions to supply the old crises of the make the Haymarket scene insipid by compari- drama, and totally disregarding the logic of events, are son. It is a favourite idea of the decorator no longer in the high place which they formerly held to move his figures against a black and gold among modern symbolists. A second group has arisen background. A similar attempt to get rhythm is to cast overboard the word association so precious to also discernible in the fretted and swaying towering the first group. Still, the emotional value of Maeter- columns of the very imaginative Kingdom of the Future, linck’s work is considerable, though it was far more where also an interesting mystical effect is obtained by apparent in his masterpiece “Pelleas ” than it is in the the use of a gauze lowered on the footlights. This third-rate “ Blue Bird.” scene, with all its air of glittering mystery, its curving Perhaps it is due to a falling off in quality, or to vaults, its wonderful suggestions of space and Maeterlinck’s too frequent use of the visualising word, infinity, was exquisite. The balancing of colour or to his uncommon visionary mood, or to the abstract is not so successful. Apparently the decorator nature of the subject, that the “ Blue Bird ” is largely is not a colourist. For this reason a great deal’ of unsuitable for dramatic representation, and to treat the interest of a very wonderful scene is lost. “Devant such a subject as Happiness in the pursuit of Truth, on le Rideau,” as it is called is a magnificent flat composi- the stage, is to open up many pitfalls for ambitious tion on a backcloth consisting of a simple outline artists. In any case, neither in London nor in Paris has drawing of a castle with a vast flight of steps. On either the play received an entirely satisfactory setting. In side of the pale bluish stonework is a large, flat, wash London, at the Haymarket ‘Theatre, Mr. Trench’s green sky with parallel arms of crimson gold to relieve attempts to follow the ever evasive Truth into the mists it. Placed on the lowest step of the castle are a number of the past and possible were, for the most part, hope- of figures dressed in colour. But the colours are not lessly bad. At the very outset much of the beauty and pure, and do not balance the rest of the composition. 45

The same fault is noticeable in all the colour arrange- ments. One colour, red, alone stands out clear and LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. full. It kills the other colours. LABOUR AND THE STRIKE. For the rest, the Land of Memory opens very well Sir,-There is no doubt some justification for the state- ment in your “Notes” of last week that the printers4 strike with a mysterious blue atmosphere obtained by is an example of trade unionism successfully using that lowering a gauze with foliage painted on it, out of two-edged weapon to better the condition of the worker. which the simple cottage, with its angular roof, and Examination of the course of the strike, however, does not the figures of the old people gradually emerge and into suggest to thoughtful working men that they have much which they fade again. But the scene when fully lighted to gain from strikes. The “forward movement” for a reduc- tends to be cheap ; it is neutral and character- tion by 41/2 hours of the London printers’ working week of less. The cemetery is a great improvement on the Hay- 521/2 hours was brought to a head in this way. The 48-hour week has been discussed-by the men principally-for many market-Covent-Garden-Market version. It is very years. The Union officials suddenly considered that it was simply treated, just a church front in the centre, and the time to clinch the matter. Vague arrangements were made graves with crosses outlined in black and gold on either between all the London unions, and between these federated side, against a quiet blue sky hung with golden London unions and the provincial men’s societies, with a stars, changing suddenly to a big design of lilies. “national movement” as the objective. Then the bombast The decorator’s favourite black and gold wall reappears commenced. “No going back’’ was the battle-cry, and the for the coloured figures to orchestrate themselves Revolution was dated for January I of this year. The London Masters, with admirable Fabian tactics, asked for against it. In the Garden of Happiness, replacing the a conference, which met in the middle of January. So the Forest Scene, we are introduced to Puvis de Chavannes Revolution was put off until February 4. The conference in a very charming scene delicately and decoratively was noteworthy for one fact only: the Masters put forward treated. There is a tendency, however, to overload the only relevant argument in the whole of the arid discus- it with classical draped Happinesses, reclining on sion. The men’s representatives’ avowed reason for the fewer soft green banks or moving rhythmically beneath a hours was that it would put some of îhe unemployed in broad mass of golden foliage that harbours the faint work, and thus relieve the heavy strain on the Unions’ funds, To this the Masters replied that the last reduction of hours blue sky and architectural landscapes. So in the end it was not followed by any diminution in the number of the loses its bigness. It should be composed throughout unemployed. in simple masses as Puvis de Chavannes would do it. By this time the men’s leaders were out of their depth: It will be gathered that the whole production is they were being out-manœuvred. Many big firms compro- interesting in spite of the fact that it has been adapted misled for 50 hours this year and 48 next. The “no going to a stage apparently too large for it, and is served back” cry was already untenable. The more employers gave by the usual defective machinery. In its way it way, the worse was the position of the unions. Before is a triumph of the personalities of the decora- February 4 the provinces had deserted London. “This makes us stronger ; we know where we are,” was freely said. tor and producer. It reveals, too, that Maeter- Then, so badly were the men led that even one of the linck’s emotional value of suggestion is not obtained London unions went back on its officials by defeating by in London, and it leaves a fine impression of the ballot the proposal to go on with the business. “That made emotional value which may be given to plays of all us stronger still!” On February 4 the notices were handed kinds, the possibilities of which are neither felt nor in, and before the 18th most of the employers had granted understood in England. Mr. J. M. Barrie should see the 50-hour week. The future 48-hour week was practically this production and then set to work with the aid of dropped by this time, and as a substitute a shadowy formula was used : “ 50 hours and anything agreed to in the future. ’’ Mr. Charles Frohman and the Duke of York’s Theatre The men now are able to weigh up their losses and gains; staff to transform “ Peter Pan ” into something akin and there is a widely-spread feeling that it is not such a to a fairy tale. As the setting of the latter now stands wonderful victory after all. it is a credit to no one. It is simply black from As a natural result of the old fallacy of treating every beginning to end and meaningless. “Peter Pan” employer as a blood-sucking capitalist, retaliation followed, badly needs the assistance of M. Stanislawsky. and in many cases the little privileges that made all the difference between work and slavery were knocked off-the The new artistic movement in the theatre is finding human relations between employer and man were broken. further expression at the Théâtre des Arts, run by M. Some firms actually wiped out the advantage of fewer hours Rouché, to stimulate the modern movement in art. by imposing unnecessary and irritating mealtimes. I know Plays are handed out to well-known decorators whose cases where men are actually on the premises longer now temperament and methods he believes are suitable to that their hours are “reduced.” It would be difficult to give them appropriate treatment. Sometimes, as in prove that any more labour has been employed since February 4, in spite of the 21/2 hours less all round. Thus the Nabuchodonosor, the result justifies the experiment. Union officials have been powerless to prevent the modern At other times it is different. “ Les Frères evil of the workshop known as “speeding-up.’’ Karamazov,” adapted from “ Dostoievski,” has As a member of one of the trade unions engaged in the fallen into the hands of M. Dethomas. The latter struggle, certain definite conclusions have forced them- is apparently overweighted with the material, a gloomy selves on me. The “forward movement,” as it was called, melodramatic study of an old debauched dipsomaniac was not the spontaneous will of the workmen. It was not the and his three sons of different temperaments, intel- result of reasoned convictions. It was almost entirely an officially engineered business, entered into without the lectual, passionate and mystic. He has done the ,hest slightest foresight or imagination. All the tactics and fore- he could with it, but the play is far too intense for sight were displayed by the Masters. The men’s leaders the background. M. Dethomas is a realistic illustrator, were blown hither by one wind and thither by the next wind. accustomed to make his drawings on brown paper. The ever-changing and exposed position of the workmen’s He misses the colour. The scenes of the army during January was bad enough to wreck any cause. play, which are treated mostly in low tones On the whole the morale of the men was splendid. What and with very little colour, have the effect of brown would not a born leader have achieved at the head of the London trade unionists last January ! paper drawings. Still, the decorator has a very good This brings me to the painful conclusion, after reviewing background to carry out the gloomy, figures, mostly the facts, that the only hope of the trade unions in the future dressed in black. But the scenes lack continuity and is to import brains into the movement, to persuade men of rhythm ; the masses are dissociated, and there are too exceptional culture and training to come in and lead us. many empty spaces. The lines of the various scenes, It is a humiliating thought for working men, but the sooner typical Russian interiors, are nicely distributed, as we recognise that working is one function and leading is where the lilies of a group of figures placed right are quite another function, the better for us. The knowledge of men and the world necessary successfully to carry through carried on by the furniture centre and repeated in a a forward movement is not to be acquired in a workshop. figure to the left. M. Dethomas’ treatment is realistic I am not denying that there are born leaders amongst us; throughout, and, like Mr. Granville Barker, he is a unfortunately, however, genius is silent. stranger to suggestion, and never gets any emotional Future labour vicitories must be gained by the help of value across the footlights. But, unlike Mr. Barker, sheer weight of reason and common-sense. We have had a ‘he keeps his backgrounds fresh, and does not make the manifestation of divine discontent : a kaleidoscopic manifes- stupid mistake of moving fresh colour against masses tation. This discontent must be trained, pruned, and led into the right paths. And I regretfully repeat that working- of dirt. men leaders, generally speaking, are failures in this im- 46

portant respect. Something more than an authority on trade superstition of superior people who hold that no one should union customs and perquisites is needed to lead a trade criticise unless he can, ai the same time, suggest a remedy- union. WALTERJERROLD. which is generally obvious! Those who call Shaw a self- * * * advertiser are simply quoting Shaw, who, with splendid egotism, has been drumming this fact into our ears for a BARON FURNESS AND THE COMIC SPIRIT decade. HUGH BLAKER. Sir,-The unconscious humour of the heavy rich is one P.S.--Your correspondent’s comparison of Disraeli, the of the few redeeming features of our age. Here is a fine most reactionary old humbug of the Victorian Era, with specimen from a new Liberal (save the mark!) recruit to Shaw is a revelation-of Mr. Randall. the Upper Chamber. * * * Lord Furness, giving his views to the “Times” on the Insurance Bill stated that in the case of one of his firms THE KALENDAR. alone the employers’ contribution would amount to £166 a Sir,-It was perhaps only natural that there should be a week. “He would not say that the Bill would ruin industry slip of the pen in Mr. Wordsworth Donisthorpe’s long and in this country, but . . . .” I wonder if this abstinence from very interesting article on ancient and modem time-reckon- strong language on the part of an oppressed capitalist is ing methods. He refers to “Macrobius, a Greek probably in the conception of meritorious abstinence, for which ignorant of Latin,’ etc. While we know little of Macrobius, political economists have taught us that unearned increment we do know that he was a Latin grammarian, though by is only a fitting reward. But what engaging frankness! birth he may have been Greek. He wrote in Latin, and O si sic omnes. What magnanimity! ! Imperial Rome those of his works which have come down to us are in Latin. learned to worship her emperor. Shall not Hartlepool Mr. Donisthorpe would hardly refer to, say, Mr. W. L. idealise her Furness into a hero, nay, a god? Let us have George as “a Frenchman, probably ignorant of English.” a new Furness-Colossus bestriding the Hartlepool docks, a J. M. KENNEDY. new sacred music drama with Furness as Zeus or Wotan. **Y “He would not say that the Bill would ruin industry in SHAKESPEARE OR BACON. this country. . . .” Shall not a ripple of laughter run round Sir,-The Baconians contend that the writer of the plays even the slums of Hartlepool ? must have been a lawyer. I challenged that contention in But it will not. Else would the Gotterdammerung of a play the plot of which turned upon a point of law as upon capitalism have arrived. For that ripple would be naught a pivot. I showed unanswerably that that point of law was, else than a flash of the Sword of Commonsense! The surest in English law, a ridiculous quibble. I am answered that gift : the sacred chain of man to man. “ the law” (of “The Merchant of Venice”), “with the rest of And it is the birth of the Comic Spirit which will surely the story, is taken from’’ a collection of Italian short stories! doom the ridiculousness of riches, and transform the Fur- Mr. Warrington goes on to say that this collection of nesses into- Italian short stories had not been translated when the play ‘(A band was written; and that, as Bacon’s mother could translate Whom a loose-cheeked, wide-lipped, gay cripple leads Italian, and Shakespeare’s mother couldn’t, Bacon must have At haunts of holiday on summer sand: written the play. A correspondent, Mr. George S. Newson, And lightly he will hint to me that heeds, however, informs me that (‘a play by Gosson (“The School Names in pained designation of them. . . .” of Abuse,” 1579), which contained the double plot, was FREDERICHILLERSDON. exhibited before Shakespeare commenced to write for the * * * stage.” At all events, Shakespeare was as well able to have got the narrative from a friend (from Ben Jonson, for in- SEX AND SUPERMAN. stance) as Bacon was able to have got it from his mother. Sir,-I do not object to Mr. Randall’s calling those men But I find myself in a maze. Bacon not able to read to whom sex is something of paramount interest “fornica- Italian ! ’Why, Mr. Smedley (seconded by Mr. Warrington) tors,” although it does not follow that they are anything of contended that Bacon (being the writer of the plays) pos- the kind. I object to his preceding statement that they are sessed a first-hand and most intimate knowledge of Italian not “ supermen.” My point is that they may or may not be ; cities! Why do the Baconians so furiously knock their for Mr. Randall knows very well that I did not suggest that heads together ? After witnessing Mrs. Nesbit’s remarkable all those to whom, etc., etc., are necessarily supermen. collision with Sir Edwin Durning Lawrence, I must confess In his letter in your issue of May 4, Mr. Randall says that I looked not for another. he is “safe in supposing that the paramount importance of Whether or not Shakespeare got the narrative from a sex was not the qualification for inclusion’’ of Stendhal and translation (it is not certain that no translation existed when others in a list of supermen. He is not altogether safe in the play was written), he assuredly got his classic history supposing this. Fortunately, men have the qualities of narratives from a translation, i.e. , North’s Plutarch--trip- their defects: hence the vices of great mea are a part of ping wherever North (or the printer) tripped. I gave their equipment. Mr. Randall will hardly deny that the instances in my first letter. works of men like Stendhal, Wilde, and Verlaine owe much Mr. Warrington says that Shakespeare could not write so of their excellence to those very qualities from which the much as his name. O, rare Ben Jonson, what a big one you moralist shrinks in horror. That some men of genius are of told when you wrote in your “ Discoveries” :-- celibate or temperate habit is true enough, no doubt. They “I remember the players often mentioned it as an honour are certainly in the minority. C. J. WHITBY,M.D. to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned), * * * he never blotted out a line.” Ben, I took you for a most Sir,--Mr. A. E. Randall’s controversial trick of pretend- honest man ; but, having acknowledged that you are writing ing to misunderstand my statement that Bernard Shaw “is to posterity, you add, as in a fervour :- the man before all others, who has made possible the success “ . . . For I loved the man [Shakespeare] and do honour of such a paper as THE NEW AGE,” is rather below his his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He usual standard. What innocence, too, in his “may I ask for [italics mine] was indeed honest, and of an open and free nature ; had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle an explanation ? “ and his charge of provincialism against a country correspondent is simply the sneer of a man with expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that some- a doubtful case. times it was necessary he should be stopped.” He knows my point of view. He knows that I refer to *** E. H. VISIAK. Shaw’s magnificent work in furthering those forces of pro- gress which we call social reform, moral and intellectual MODERN DRAMATISTS independence, and so forth. The public which Shaw created Sir,--Mr. Charrington cannot appease me by throwing me for himself by sheer force of character is very largely the (regardless of their owner’s piteous request) the bones of public which supports THE NEW AGE. Shaw-.more than William Shakespeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon, Esquire. any other man-in hi5 novels, essays, lectures, journalistic The fierce light which beats upon me, common with two articles and plays has given an intellectual prod to the million more eminent persons, as a member of the Shake- stupid, ponderous British public, and has done much towards speare Memorial Committee does not blind me to the fact widening its mental horizon. Of course, many others have that the adapter of “A Pleasaunt Conceited Historie, called participated in this movement of the last twenty years, which the Taming of a Shrew,” was the wickedest harlot in the has jostled unimaginative editors out of their rut, and opened history of English literature, not excepting Mr. John Cleland the columns of numerous publications to other contributors of the Honourable East India Company, whose masterpiece than those who supply mere “ safe” journalese, and prevailed won him a pension in 1750, and still commands a high price on actor-managers to consider art as well as ignorance ; but in the market. But I cannot admit that even Shakespeare Shaw has been the most prominent figure. The younger was “a mere dramatic huckster”: his genius was for ever men have taken heart of grace, and I dare hazard that even dodging the grip of his tradesmanship and showering gems Mr. Randall has, at some time or other, experieced the upon his paper--though I do not question he was careful to courage of other people’s opinions. cut them out at the first rehearsal. “A mere dramatic Many who were weaned on Shaw now turn round and call huckster” must surely connote a dramatist whose highest him a self-advertiser and a disciple of destructive criticism. art does not go beyond the reproduction of a popular pattern The lattes phrase is the latest fashionable shibboleth-a at the right moment, and in the fashionable colour. The other dramatist mentioned by Mr. Charrington may, from all the evidence I have seen, be an artist of this kind; but even such a tedious sentimentality as “ The Professor’s Love Story” has passages which no ‘‘ mere dramatic huckster” could touch, while ‘’ The Admirable Crichton” appeared to me on the first night of its production at once the strongest OSCAR WILDE satire and one of the most interesting plays I had ever seen in an English theatre. Ten years have passed since then, but the impression remains upon my memory: in self- bY ANNA COMPTESSEdE BREMONT defence I am forced to conclude that the work which so impressed me-vividly as “The Wild Duck” and The Doctor’s Dilemma”--was one of genius. Wedekind’s “ Frühlings Erwachen” I am willing to believe, from Mr. Ashley Dukes’ account of it, to be a valuable con- tribution to dramatic literature, and unquestionably it treats a more serious theme than any of Mr. Barrie’s plays with which I am acquainted. Eut I think Mr. Charrington great delicacy, and has set the real Oscar Wilde momentarily overlooks the point that in Germany such a before us in a new and original aspect. The play can be produced with commercial success, whereas in book contains any interesting reminiscences of England it could not be produced at all, not even in such Lady Wilde andConstance Wilde. a hole-and-corner way as we did “Ghosts.” Of this I am positive. Not long since I heard two friends, men of letters, London: EVERETT & CO., LTD., Oxford men, but liberal minded as the term is understoodin 42, ESSEX STREET, W.C. England, one of them a member of the Fabian Society, discuss this play, and the conclusion they arrived at was that it was an unspeakable example of the grossness of the Teutonic mind. The three plays of Wedekind which I have read for myself, “So ist Das Leben,” “Marquis von Keith,” and “ Erdgeist,” ranged from the just tolerably interesting to the intolerably silly and sensational. In. fine, Wedekind seems to me as anxious to catch pennies as any man with a temperament to war down. That he has a public who allow him lucid intervals per- mitted to no dramatist in the English-speaking world is his THREE PLAYS BY BRIEUX good fortune, not his merit. Who knows what sort of plays Mr. Barrie may not secretly pester Mr. Frohman to produce ? ***NORREYS CONNELL. “A DOLL’S HOUSE” AT THE KINGSWAY. WITH A PREFACE BY Sir,-May I be allowed to advise your readers to see Ibsen’s greatest play, and the greatest play of modern times, performed adequately at the Kingsway? It is well known by students of Ibsen who have taken Mr. Charrington’s advice, Approfondissez les choses, that “A Doll’s House ’’ is a play of spiritual initiation. The crises of soul which it was the mission of the ancient mystery ritual to dramatise for the instruction of the mystae (that is, of those who were BY BERNARD SHAW. aware of the spiritual nature of man) are in Ibsen’s play openly revealed. Nobody can miss the profound significance Cr, 8vo, 378 Pages, Buckram, Gilt-top, of both Nora’s and Helmer’s inward conversions, the one 5s. net,, postage 4d. into a free soul and the other into, at least, the beginning of one. Such conversions are, of course, of daily occur- rence in the lives of people about us; they are generally THE VOLUME CONTAINS:- nowadays the work of circumstance itself, there being no longer the formal temples or teachers for such experience PHOTOGRAVURE PORTRAIT OF BRIEUX. and instruction. Ibsen, however, has in some degree re- stored the public mysteries by his great play, and placed PREFACE OF 44 PAGES BY BERNARD SHAW. them where, for the modern world as for the most ancient, they can best be shared, namely, on the stage. “A Doll’s MATERNITY, 70 PAGES, translated by House” at the Kingsway is enormously assisted in its appeal MRS. BERNARD SHAW. by the excellent playing of Nora by Princess Yavorska. The Princess excels in subtlety and requires an attentive mind THE THREE DAUGHTERS OF M. DUPONT, as well as eye to follow her. There is an almost imper- 100 Pages, translated by ST. JOHN HANKIN. ceptible grading of her appearance, character, expression DAMAGED GOODS, 66 Pages, translated by and bearing from the first act in which she enters as a young and irresponsible child to the conclusion of the final JOHN POLLOCK. act when she leaves the stage a middle-aged responsible And a New Version of MATERNITY, translated woman. Miss Janet Achurch as Christine is similarly JOHN POLLOCK. successful in entering into the ritual of the play. Christine by has no great part, unfortunately, in the development of the drama; and in some respects Ibsen has made her character READY on MAY 10th. 5s. net. self-contradictory. But Miss Achurch concealed these de- fects of the play by assuming a consistent character and defying her audience to discover that she was really improv- London: A. C. FIFIELD, 13, Clifford’s Inn, E.C. ing Ibsen. If only all great dramatists could have such co-operation ! RICHARD M AGUIRE .

Miss ROSALINDTRAVERS, a writer whose name is connected with two successful books of verse, is the author of a book on Finland, which Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. are publishing this week. It consists of. a series of bright, intimate, unconventional letters written from different parts of the Duchy to half-a-dozen correspondents of divers types and tastes, but forming a consecutive narrative. They touch upon every phase of Finnish life and character. Finland, besides being an ideal holiday ground-fascinating especially to those on whom the beauties of Southern Europe have begun to pall-has a peculiar interest for everyone interested in the workings of Social Democracy. Miss Travers devotes special attention to this subject. “ Letters from Finland ” will be the title of the volume, the price of which will be 7s. 6d. net. It will be fully illustrated. DRYDEN HOUSE, GERRARD STREET, LONDON, W. 48

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