No More Learning

HARRIS, LL. D. ,
United States Commissioner of Education,
BUREAU OF EDUCATION, Washington, D. C.
MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, A. M. , LL. D. ,
· Professor of Literature in the
mid
CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, Washington, D. C.


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## p. 9607 (#15) ############################################

V
TABLE OF CONTENTS
VOL. XVII
LIVED
PAGE
9617
XAVIER DE MAISTRE
1764-1852
The Traveling-Coat (Journey round my Room')
A Friend (same)
The Library (same)
1849-
9623
WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
An Evening's Table-Talk at the Villa (The New Re-
public)
SIR THOMAS MALORY
Fifteenth Century
9645
BY ERNEST RHYS
The Finding of the Sword Excalibur (Morte d'Arthur')
The White Hart at the Wedding of King Arthur and
Queen Guenever (same)
The Maid of Astolat (same)
The Death of Sir Launcelot (same)
9655
Sir JOHN MANDEVILLE
Fourteenth Century
The Marvelous Riches of Prester John (“The Adven-
tures')
From Hebron to Bethlehem (same)
1803-1849
9664
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN
The Dawning of the Day
The Nameless One
St. Patrick's Hymn Before Tarah
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
1785–1873
9671
BY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN
An Unwilling Priest (“The Betrothed')
A Late Repentance (same)


## p. 9608 (#16) ############################################

vi
LIVED
PAGE
ALESSANDRO MANZONI — Continued :
An Episode of the Plague in Milan (The Betrothed)
Chorus from The Count of Carmagnola
The Fifth of May
9703
MARGUERITE D'ANGOULÊME (Margaret of Navarre)
1492-1549
A Fragment
Disains
From the Heptameron'
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE
1564-1593
9715
The Passionate Shepherd to his Love
From "Tamburlaine) (Three Selections)
Invocation to Helen (Doctor Faustus ')
From Edward the Second
9729
CLÉMENT Marot
1497-1544
Old-time Love
Epigram
To a Lady who Wished to Behold Marot
The Laugh of Madame D'Albret
From an "Elegy”
The Duchess d'Alençon
To the Queen of Navarre
From a Letter to the King; after being Robbed
From a Rhymed Letter to the King
C
9737
FREDERICK MARRYAT
1792-1848
Perils of the Sea (Peter Simple)
Mrs. Easy Has her Own Way (Mr. Midshipman Easy')
MARTIAL (Marcus Valerius Martialis)
50 ? -102? A. D.
9750
BY CASKIE HARRISON
The Unkindest Cut
Evolution
Vale of Tears
Sic Vos Non Vobis
Silence is Golden
So Near and Yet So Far
The Least of Evils
Thou Reason'st Well
Never Is, but Always to Be
Learning by Doing
Tertium Quid
Similia Similibus
Cannibalism
Equals added to Equals


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vii
LIVED
PAGE
MARTIAL (Marcus Valerius Martialis) — Continued :
The Cook Well Done
But Little Here Below
A Diverting Scrape
E Pluribus Unus
Diamond Cut Diamond
Fine Frenzy
The Cobbler's Last
Live without Dining
The Two Things Needful
9759
JAMES MARTINEAU
1805-
The Transient and the Real in Life (Hours of Thought
on Sacred Things')
ANDREW MARVELL
1621-1678
9770
The Garden
The Emigrants in Bermudas
The Mower to the Glow-Worms
The Mower's Song
The Picture of T. C.
MASQUES
9777
BY ERNEST RHYS
From "Tethys's Festival, or the Queen's Wake)
From The Temple of Love'
From the Masque of the Gentlemen of Gray's Inn'
From the Dance of the Stars'
JEAN BAPTISTE MASSILLON
1663–1742
9780
BY J. F. BINGHAM
Picture of the Death-Bed of a Sinner
Fasting
Hypocritical Humility in Charity
The Blessedness of the Righteous
One of His Celebrated Pictures of General Society
Prayer
Philip MASSINGER
1583–1640
9797
BY ANNA MCCLURE SHOLL
From The Maid of Honour)
From A New Way to Pay Old Debts)


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viii
LIVED
PAGE
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
1850-1893
9803
BY FIRMIN ROZ
The Last Years of Madame Jeanne (“A Life')
A Normandy Outing: Jean Roland's Love-Making ( Pierre
and Jean')
The Piece of String (The Odd Number')
9828
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE
1805-1870
From a Letter to Rev. J. de La Touche
From a Letter to Rev. Charles Kingsley
The Subjects and Laws of the Kingdom of Heaven
Joseph MAZZINI
1805–1872
9843
BY FRANK SEWALL
Faith and the Future (Essays')
Thoughts Addressed to the Poets of the Nineteenth Cen-
tury (Giovine Italia')
On Carlyle ('Essays)
9853
JOHANN WILHELM Meinhold
1797-1851
The Rescue on the Road to the Stake ('The Amber-
Witch)
9867
HERMAN Melville
1819-1891
A Typee Household (Typee')
Fayaway in the Canoe (same)
The General Character of the Typees (same)
Taboo (same)
9886
Felix MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY
1809-1847
From a Letter to F. Hiller
From a Letter to Herr Advocat Conrad Schleinitz, at
Leipzig
Hours with Goethe, 1830 ('Letters from Italy and Swit-
zerland)
A Coronation in Presburg (same)
First Impressions of Venice (same)
In Rome: St. Peter's (same)
A Sunday at Foria (same)
A Vaudois Walking Trip: Pauline (same)
A Criticism (Letter to his Sister, of September 2d, 1831)


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ix
LIVED
PAGE
9900
CATULLE Mendès
1843-
The Foolish Wish
The Sleeping Beauty (Contes du Rouet'
The Charity of Sympathy
The Mirror
The Man of Letters
GEORGE MEREDITH
1828–
9915
BY ANNA MCCLURE SHOLL
Richard and Lucy: An Idyl (“The Ordeal of Richard
Feverel')
Richard's Ordeal is Over (same)
Aminta takes a Morning Sea-Swim : A Marine Duet
('Lord Ormont and his Aminta')
From Modern Love)
Evening
PROSPER MÉRIMÉE
1803-1870
9941
BY GRACE KING
From Arsène Guillot)
THE MEXICAN Nun (Juana Iñez de la Cruz)
1651-1695
9956
BY JOHN MALONE
On the Contrarieties of Love
Learning and Riches
Death in Youth
The Divine Narcissus
1825-
9965
KONRAD FERDINAND MEYER
From the Monk's Wedding'
MichEL ANGELO
9977
A Prayer for Strength
The Impeachment of Night
1475-1564
Love, the Life-Giver
Irreparable Loss
Jules MichelET
1798-1874
9982
BY GRACE KING
The Death of Jeanne D'Arc
Michel Angelo (“The Renaissance')
Summary of the Introduction to (The Renaissance


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х
LIVED
PAGE
ADAM MICKIEWICZ
1798–1855
9995
BY CHARLES HARVEY GENUNG
Sonnet
Father's Return
Primrose
New Year's Wishes
To M
From "The Ancestors'
From Faris)
JOHN STUART MILL
1806-1873
10007
BY RICHARD T. ELY
Of the Stationary State of Wealth and Population (Political
Economy')
Of Competition (same)
Mill's Final Views on the Destiny of Society (Autobiography)
Justice and Utility (Utilitarianism)
10027
JOAQUIN MILLER
1841-
From The Ship in the Desert'
Kit Carson's Ride (“Songs of the Sierras')
JOHN MILTON
1607-1674
10037
BY E. S. NADAL
On Shakespeare
On His Blindness
To Cyriack Skinner
On the Late Massacre in Piedmont
The Hymn on the Nativity
Lycidas
From Comus)
L'Allegro
Il Penseroso
The Appeal of Satan (Paradise Lost')
Milton on His Blindness (same)
Adam and Eve (same)
Eve Relates Her first Meeting with Adam (same)
Song of the Pair in Paradise (same)
Invocation to the Muse (same)
For the Liberty of Printing (Areapogitica')
On Errors in Teaching ('Treatise on Education')


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xi
LIVED
PAGE
MIRABEAU
1749–1791
10077
BY FRANCIS N. THORPE
On the Removal of the Troops Around Paris
The Elegy on Franklin
A Letter to the King of Prussia
A Letter to Vitry
From the Letters
From a Letter to Chamfort, 1785
FRÉDÉRIC MISTRAL
1830-
10097
BY HARRIET WATERS PRESTON
The Invocation, from Miréio'
The Tunny Fishing (Calendau')
The Ballad of Guibour (same)
The Scaling of Ventour (same)
The Epilogue, from Nerto'
The Aliscamp (same)
IOIIO
Donald G. MITCHELL (Ik Marvel)
1822–
Over a Wood Fire ('Reveries of a Bachelor'): I. Smoke,
Signifying Doubt; II. Blaze, Signifying Cheer
10123
S. Weir MITCHELL
1829-
André's Fate (Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker')
Lincoln
Dreamland
Song (From Francis Drake')
MARY RUSSELL MITFORD
1787–1855
I0143
The Neighborhood (Our Village)
MOLIÈRE
1622-1673
10153
BY BRANDER MATTHEWS
Peace-Making, Reconciliation, and Robbery (L'Avare')
Alceste Accuses Célimène ("The Misanthrope')
A Sincere Critic Seldom Pleases (same)
Orgon Proposes Marianne's Marriage with Tartuffe (Tar-
tuffe)


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xii
LIVED
PAGE
MOLIÈRE -- Continued :
The Family Censor (“Tartuffe')
The Hypocrite (same)
The Fate of Don Juan (Don Juan: or, The Feast of the
Statue')
The Sham Marquis and the Affected Ladies ('Les Pré-
cieuses Ridicules')
THEODOR MOMMSEN
1817-
10206
BY WILLIAM CRANSTON LAWTON
The Character of Cæsar (History of Rome')


## p. 9615 (#23) ############################################

LIST OF PORTRAITS
IN VOL. XVII
Xavier De Maistre
William Hurrell Mallock
Alessandro Manzoni
Marguerite d'Angoulême (Margaret of Navarre)
Clément Marot
Frederick Marryat
Martial
James Martineau
Andrew Marvell
Jean Baptiste Massillon
Philip Massinger
Guy de Maupassant
Frederick Denison Maurice
Joseph Mazzini
Herman Melville
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
Catulle Mendès
George Meredith
Prosper Mérimée
The Mexican Nun
Konrad Ferdinand Meyer
Michel Angelo
Jules Michelet
Adam Mickiewicz
John Stuart Mill
Joaquin Miller
John Milton
Mirabeau
Frédéric Mistral
Donald G. Mitchell
S. Weir Mitchell
Mary Russell Mitford
Eduard Mörike
Molière
Theodor Mommsen
Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
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Full page
Vignette
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Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
Vignette
Full page
Full page


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9617
XAVIER DE MAISTRE
(1764-1852)
Bec
LO STUDENTS of French literature the name De Maistre suggests
first, Joseph Marie de Maistre,— brilliant philosopher, stern
and eloquent critic, vain opponent of revolutionary ideas;
the general reader is far better acquainted with his younger
brother Xavier.
He was a somewhat dashing military personage,
a striking contrast to his austere senior, loving the æsthetic side of
life: an amateur artist, a reader of many books, who on occasion
could write charmingly.
Born in Chambéry in 1764, of French
descent, he entered the Sardinian army,
where he remained until the annexation of
Savoy to France; when, finding himself an
exile, he joined his brother, then envoy to
St. Petersburg. Later he entered the Rus-
sian army; married in Russia, and lived
there to the good old age of eighty-eight.
Perhaps the idea of authorship would
never have occurred to the active soldier
but for a little mishap. A love affair led
to a duel; and he was arrested and impris-
oned at Turin for forty-two days. A result XAVIER DE MAISTRE
of this leisure was the Voyage autour de
ma Chambre' (Journey round my Room); a series of half playful, half
philosophic sketches, whose delicate humor and sentiment suggest the
influence of Laurence Sterne. Later on, he submitted the manuscript
to his much-admired elder brother, who liked it so well that he had
it published by way of pleasant surprise. He was less complimentary
to a second and somewhat similar work, L'Expédition Nocturne'
(The Nocturnal Expedition), and his advice delayed its publication
for several years.
Xavier de Maistre was not a prolific writer, and all his work is
included in one small volume. Literature was merely his occasional
pastime, indulged in as a result of some chance stimulus. A conver-
sation with fellow-officers suggests an old experience, and he goes
home and writes 'Le Lepreux de la Cité d'Aoste (The Leper of
Aoste), a pathetic story, strong in its unstudied sincerity of expression.
XV11—602

(


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9618
XAVIER DE MAISTRE
Four years later he tells another little tale, Les Prisonniers du
Caucase) (The Prisoners of the Caucasus), a stirring bit of adventure.
His last story, "La Jeune Sibérienne (The Siberian Girl), best
known as retold and weakened by Madame Cottin, is a striking pre-
monition of later realism. There is no forcing the pathetic effect
in the history of the heroic young daughter who braves a long and
terrible journey to petition the Czar for her father's release from
Siberian exile.
The charm of De Maistre's style is always in the ease and sim-
plicity of the telling. In his own time he was very popular; and his
work survives with little loss of interest to-day.
THE TRAVELING-COAT
PUT
I
From the Journey round My Room. Copyright 1871, by Hurd & Houghton
on my traveling-coat, after having examined it with a
complacent eye; and forth with resolved to write a chapter
ad hoc, that I might make it known to the reader.
The form and usefulness of these garments being pretty gen-
erally known, I will treat specially of their influence upon the
minds of travelers.
My winter traveling-coat is made of the warmest and softest
stuff I could meet with. It envelops me entirely from head to
foot; and when I am in my arm-chair, with my hands in my
pockets, I am very like the statue of Vishnu one sees in the
pagodas of India.
You may, if you will, tax me with prejudice when I assert
the influence a traveler's costume exercises upon its wearer. At
any rate, I can confidently affirm with regard to this matter that
it would appear to me as ridiculous to take a single step of my
journey round my room in uniform, with my sword at my side,
as it would to go forth into the world in my dressing-gown.
Were I to find myself in full military dress, not only should
I be unable to proceed with my journey, but I really believe I
should not be able to read what I have written about my travels,
still less to understand it.
Does this surprise you? Do we not every day meet with peo-
ple who fancy they are ill because they are unshaven, or because
some one has thought they have looked poorly and told them
so ? Dress has such influence upon men's minds that there are
valetudinarians who think themselves in better health than usual


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XAVIER DE MAISTRE
9619
how many
:-
when they have on a new coat and well-powdered wig. They
deceive the public and themselves by their nicety about dress,
until one finds some fine morning they have died in full fig, and
their death startles everybody.
And in the class of men among whom I live,
there
are who, finding themselves clothed in uniform, firmly believe
they are officers, until the unexpected appearance of the enemy
shows them their mistake. And more than this, if it be the
king's good pleasure to allow one of them to add to his coat a
certain trimming, he straightway believes himself to be a general;
and the whole army gives him the title without any notion of
making fun of him! So great an influence has a coat upon the
human imagination!
The following illustration will show still further the truth of
my assertion:
It sometimes happened that they forgot to inform the Count
de some days beforehand of the approach of his turn to
mount guard. Early one morning, on the very day on which this
duty fell to the Count, a corporal awoke him and announced the
disagreeable news. But the idea of getting up there and then,
putting on his gaiters, and turning out without having thought
about it the evening before, so disturbed him that he preferred
reporting himself sick and staying at home all day. So he put
on his dressing-gown and sent away his barber. This made him
look pale and ill, and frightened his wife and family. He really
did feel a little poorly.
He told every one he was not very well, - partly for the sake
of appearances, and partly because he positively believed himself
to be indisposed. Gradually the influence of the dressing-gown
began to work. The slops he was obliged to take upset his
stomach. His relations and friends sent to ask after him. He
was soon quite ill enough to take to his bed.
In the evening Dr. Ranson found his pulse hard and feverish,
and ordered him to be bled next day.
If the campaign had lasted a month longer, the sick man's
case would have been past cure.
Now, who can doubt about the influence of traveling-coats
upon travelers, if he reflect that poor Count de thought
more than once that he was about to perform a journey to the
other world for having inopportunely donned his dressing-gown
in this?


## p. 9620 (#28) ############################################

9620
XAVIER DE MAISTRE
A FRIEND
I
From the Journey round My Room. ' Copyright 1871, by Hurd & Houghton
HAD a friend.
Death took him from me. He was snatched
away at the beginning of his career, at the moment when
his friendship had become a pressing need to my heart. We
supported one another in the hard toil of war. We had but
one pipe between us. We drank out of the same cup. We slept
beneath the same tent. And amid our sad trials, the spot where
we lived together became to us a new fatherland. I had seen
him exposed to all the perils of a disastrous war. Death seemed
to spare us to each other. His deadly missiles were exhausted
around my friend a thousand times over without reaching him;
but this was but to make his loss more painful to me. The
tumult of war, and the enthusiasm which possesses the soul at
the sight of danger, might have prevented his sighs from pier-
cing my heart, while his death would have been useful to his
country and damaging to the enemy. Had he died thus, I should
, I
have mourned him less. But to lose him amid the joys of our
winter-quarters; to see him die at the moment when he seemed
full of health, and when our intimacy was rendered closer by
rest and tranquillity,-ah, this was a blow from which I can
never recover!
But his memory lives in my heart, and there alone. He is
forgotten by those who surrounded him and who have replaced
him. And this makes his loss the more sad to me.
Nature, in like manner indifferent to the fate of individuals,
dons her green spring robe, and decks herself in all her beauty
near the cemetery where he rests. The trees cover themselves
with foliage, and intertwine their branches; the birds warble under
the leafy sprays; the insects hum among the blossoms: every-
thing breathes joy in this abode of death.
And in the evening, when the moon shines in the sky, and I
am meditating in this sad place, I hear the grasshopper, hidden
in the grass that covers the silent grave of my friend, merrily
pursuing his unwearied song. The unobserved destruction of
human beings, as well as all their misfortunes, are counted for
nothing in the grand total of events.
The death of an affectionate man who breathes his last sur-
rounded by his afflicted friends, and that of a butterfly killed in
a flower's cup by the chill air of morning, are but two similar


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XAVIER DE MAISTRE
9621
epochs & in the course of nature. Man is but a phantom, a
shadow, a mere vapor that melts into the air.
But daybreak begins to whiten the sky. The gloomy thoughts
that troubled me vanish with the darkness, and hope awakens
again in my heart. No! He who thus suffuses the east with
light has not made it to shine upon my eyes only to plunge me
into the night of annihilation. He who has spread out that vast
horizon, who raised those lofty mountains whose icy tops the sun
is even now gilding, is also he who made my heart to beat and
my mind to think.
No! My friend is not annihilated. Whatever may be the
barrier that separates us, I shall see him again. My hopes are
based on no mere syllogism. The flight of an insect suffices to
persuade me. And often the prospect of the surrounding coun-
try, the perfume of the air, and an indescribable charm which
is spread around me, so raise my thoughts, that an invincible
proof of immortality forces itself upon my soul, and fills it to the
full.
THE LIBRARY
From the Journey round My Room): Copyright 1871, by Hurd & Houghton
I
PROMISED to give a dialogue between my soul and the OTHER.
But there are some chapters which elude me, as it were; or
rather, there are others which flow from my pen nolens volens,
and derange my plans. Among these is one about my library;
and I will make it as short as I can. Our forty-two days will
soon be ended; and even were it not so, a similar period would
not suffice to complete the description of the rich country in
which I travel so pleasantly.
My library, then, is composed of novels, if I must make the
confession - of novels and a few choice poets.
As if I had not troubles enough of my own, I share those of
a thousand imaginary personages, and I feel them as acutely as
my own. How many tears have I shed for that poor Clarissa,
and for Charlotte's lover!
But if I go out of my way in search of unreal afflictions, I
find in return such virtue, kindness, and disinterestedness in this
imaginary world, as I have never yet found united in the real
world around me. I meet with a woman after my heart's desire,


## p. 9622 (#30) ############################################

9622
XAVIER DE MAISTRE
free from whim, lightness, and affectation. I say nothing about
beauty: this I can leave to my imagination, and picture her fault-
lessly beautiful. And then closing the book, which no longer
keeps pace with my ideas, I take the fair one by the hand, and
we travel together over a country a thousand times more delight-
ful than Eden itself. What painter could represent the fairyland
in which I have placed the goddess of my heart? What poet
could ever describe the lively and manifold sensations I experi-
ence in those enchanted regions ?
How often have I cursed that Cleveland, who is always em-
barking upon new troubles which he might very well avoid! I
cannot endure that book, with its long list of calamities. But if
I open it by way of distraction, I cannot help devouring it to
the end.
For how could I leave that poor man among the Abaquis ?
What would become of him in the hands of those savages ? Still
less dare I leave him in his attempt to escape from captivity.
Indeed, I so enter into his sorrows, I am so interested in him
and in his unfortunate family, that the sudden appearance of the
ferocious Ruintons makes my hair stand on end. When I read
that passage a cold perspiration covers me; and my fright is as
lively and real as if I were going to be roasted and eaten by the
monsters myself.
When I have had enough of tears and love, I turn to some
poet, and set out again for a new world.


## p. 9623 (#31) ############################################

9623
WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
(1849–)
ILLIAM HURRELL Mallock is the interesting product of the
interesting period in which he was educated and the inter-
esting conditions of his social life. Well born, well bred,
well fed, well read, well supplied with luxuries, well disciplined at the
wicket and the oar, the son of a clergyman of the Church of England
(Rev. Roger Mallock) and the nephew of James Anthony and Richard
Hurrell Froude, he was educated at home by private tutors till he
entered Balliol College, Oxford. There he took a second class in final
classicals, and in 1871 the Newdigate poet-
ical prize, the subject of his poem being
(The Isthmus of Suez. '
In 1876 he published 'The New Repub-
lic, which first appeared in a magazine.
The first impression of the book is its
audacity, the second its cleverness; but
when one has gotten well into its leisurely
pages, and has found himself in what seems
to be the veritable company of Huxley,
Matthew Arnold, Ruskin, Professor Clifford,
Walter Pater, Professor Jowett, and Mr.
Tyndall, he is penetrated with the convic-
tion that the work the perfected flower WILLIAM H. MALLOCK
of the art of delicate characterization. The
parodies are so good that they read like reminiscences enlivened with
the lightest touch of extravaganza.
The sub-title of “The New Republic) —'Culture, Faith, and Phi-
losophy in an English Country-House) - indicates its plan. A young
man of fortune and distinction assembles at his villa a party of vis-
itors, who under thin disguises represent the leading thinkers of the
day. The company plays at constructing an ideal republic, which
is to be the latest improvement on Plato's commonwealth. To facil-
itate the discussion, the host writes the titles of the subjects to be
talked about on the back of the menus of their first dinner: they
prove to be such seductive themes as “The Aim of Life,' (Society,
Art, and Literature,' Riches and Civilization,' and The Present and
the Future.
In the expression of opinion that follows, the peculiarities and
inconsistencies of the famous personages are hit off with delicious

-


## p. 9624 (#32) ############################################

9624
WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
appositeness. The first principle of the proposed New Republic is to
destroy all previous republics. Mr. Storks (Professor Huxley) elimi-
nates a conscious directing intelligence from the world of matter.
Mr. Stockton (Professor Tyndall) eliminates the poetry and romance
of the imagination, substituting those of the wonders of science.
The materialist, Mr. Saunders (Professor Clifford), eliminates the foul
superstition of the existence of God and the scheme of salvation
through the merits of Christ. Mr. Luke (Matthew Arnold) who is
represented as mournfully strolling about the lawn in the moonlight,
reciting his own poems, — poems which puzzle us in their oscillation
between mirth and moralizing, till an italicized line warns us to be
wary,- Mr. Luke eliminates the middle classes. Mr. Rose (Walter
Pater) eliminates religious belief as a serious verity, but retains it
an artistic finish and decorative element in life. Dr. Jenkinson
(Professor Jowett) in a sermon which he might have preached in
Balliol Chapel, and his habitual audience have heard without the
lifting of an eyebrow, eliminates the “bad taste” of conviction on
any subject. Finally Mr. Herbert (Mr. Ruskin), descending upon the
reformers in a burst of vituperation, eliminates the upper classes,
because they neither have themselves nor furnish the lower orders
any object to live for. The outcome of the discussion is predicted on
the title-page:-
as
«All is jest and ashes and nothingness; for all things that are, are of
folly. ”
So much space has been given to Mr. Mallock's first book because
it is representative of his quality, and discloses the line of his sub-
sequent thinking. Only once again does he permit himself the
relaxation of an irresponsible and clever parody,- that on Positivism
in «The New Paul and Virginia'; wherein the germ revealed in the
sketches of Huxley and his fellow scientists is more fully developed,
to the disedification of the serious-minded, who complain that the
representatives of Prometheus are dragged down to earth.
But the shades of the mighty whom he ridiculed have played a
curious trick on Mr. Mallock. As Emerson says of the soul of the
dead warrior, which, entering the breast of the conqueror, takes up
its abode there,—so the wraiths of doubt, materialism, discontent,
Philistinism, and the many upsetting emotions which the clever satir-
ist disposed of with a jest, entered his own hypersensitive organism,
and, for all the years succeeding, sent him about among the men
of his generation sharing with Ruskin the burden of their salvation.
Nor does he propose to let any sense of his own limitations as a
prophet interfere with the delivery of his message. In a volume of
several hundred pages he asks a nineteenth-century audience, Is
Life Worth Living? Can we, he demands in substance, like his own


## p. 9625 (#33) ############################################

WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
9625
(
Mr. Herbert, go on buying blue china and enjoying the horse-show
and the season, and our little trips to Paris, and first editions in
rare bindings, if we are not sure that these tastes will be gratified
in another world ? In his mind, the reply to this question resolves
itself into the necessity for a final authority,- an authority which he
himself discovers in the voice of the Church of Rome.
He is an indefatigable worker. As a novelist he belongs to the
sentimental school, in which a craving for sympathy and a marked
tendency to reject conventional standards characterizes all his men
and many of his women. Because he has written them, his stories
are never dull; they abound in epigram, sketches of character, and
wise reflections: but the plots are slightly woven and hang at loose
ends, while a dénouement is as deliberately ignored as if the author
were a pupil of Zola. His novels or romances are A Romance of
the Nineteenth Century,' (The Old Order Changeth,' A Human Doc-
ument,' and 'The Heart of Life. )
As an essayist he is widely read. He was one of the famous
five who took part in the Christianity vs. Agnosticism controversy, in
which Bishop Wace and Mr. Huxley were the champions. He has
written two volumes of poems, translated Lucretius; and his varied
magazine articles, collected in book form, have been published under
the titles of Social Equality' (London, 1882), Property, Progress,
and Poverty' (1884), and Classes and Masses; or, Wealth and Wages
in the United Kingdom' (1896).
In the last-named volumes, all on social topics, Mr. Mallock pre-
sents himself as a sedate Conservative, committed to hereditary legis-
lation, the sacredness of the game laws, the Doomsday Book, and the
rest of mediævalism. Against democratic theories concerning social
equality, labor, and property, he sets up the counter proposition that
labor is not the cause of wealth, and of itself would be powerless to
produce it. As for social equality, he sees that diversity of station is
a part of the framework that holds society together.
These books are written in a serious manner. But it is interest-
ing to mark the characteristics of the author's individual and original
genius, as obvious in a blue-book as in a novel. It is an axiom that
the successful advocate must give the impression that he himself has
no doubt of his cause. This Mr. Mallock almost never does. The
more positive his plea, the more visible between the lines is the
mocking, unconvinced expression of the author's other self. More-
over, his fastidious discontent, and the subtlety of mind which is the
greatest perhaps of his many charms, point him toward some un-
explored quarter, where, as he has not investigated it, he fancies the
truth may lie. The reader of Mallock goes to him for witty com-
ment, satire, suggestion; and to get into a certain high-bred society


## p. 9626 (#34) ############################################

9626
WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
where the scholar is at home and the gospel of good-breeding is
preached. But that reader will never know in what social system of
the past - in slavery, feudalism, or absolutism - Mallock's Utopia is
-
to be sought.
AN EVENING'S TABLE-TALK AT THE VILLA
From The New Republic)
N°
PROPOSAL could have been happier than Lady Grace's, of
the garden banquet in the pavilion. It seemed to the
guests, when they were all assembled there, that the lovely
summer's day was going to close with a scene from fairy-land.
The table itself, with its flowers and glowing fruit, and its many-
colored Venetian glass, shone and gleamed and sparkled in the
evening light, that was turning outside to a cool mellow amber;
and above, from the roof, in which the dusk was already dark-
ness, hung china lamps in the shape of green and purple grape
clusters, looking like luminous fruit stolen from Aladdin's garden.
The pavilion, open on all sides, was supported on marble pillars
that were almost hidden in red and white roses. Behind, the eye
rested on great tree trunks and glades of rich foliage; and before,
it would pass over turf and flowers, till it reached the sea be-
yond, on which in another hour the faint silver of the moonlight
would begin to tremble.
There was something in the whole scene that was at once
calming and exhilarating; and nearly all present seemed to feel
in some measure this double effect of it.
Dr. Jenkinson had
been quite restored by an afternoon's nap; and his face was now
all a-twinkle with a fresh benignity, that had, however, like an
early spring morning, just a faint suspicion of frost in it. Mr.
Storks even was less severe than usual; and as he raised his
champagne to his lips, he would at times look very nearly con-
versational.
" “My dear Laurence,” exclaimed Mr. Herbert, “it really
almost seems as if your visions of the afternoon had come true,
and that we actually were in your New Republic already. I can
only say that if it is at all like this, it will be an entirely charm-
ing place — too charming, perhaps. But now remember this:
you have but half got through the business to which you first
addressed yourselves, - that of forming a picture of a perfect


## p. 9627 (#35) ############################################

WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
9627
>>
aristocracy, an aristocracy in the true and genuine sense of the
word. You are all to have culture, or taste. Very good: you
have talked a great deal about that, and you have seen what you
mean by it; and you have recognized, above all, that it includes
a discrimination between right and wrong. But now you, with
all this taste and culture,- you gifted men and women of the
nineteenth century,- what sort of things does your taste teach
you to reach out towards ? In what actions and aims, in what
affections and emotions, would you place your happiness? That
is what I want to hear,— the practical manifestations of this
culture. ”
“Ah,” said Mr. Rose, “I have at this moment a series of
essays in the press, which would go far towards answering these
questions of yours. They do indeed deal with just this: the
effect of the choicer culture of this century on the soul of man;
the ways in which it endows him with new perceptions; how it
has made him, in fact, a being altogether more highly organ-
All I regret is that these choicer souls, these Xaplevtes, are
as yet like flowers that have not found a climate in which they
can thrive properly. That mental climate will doubtless come
with time. What we have been trying to do this afternoon is, I
imagine, nothing more than to anticipate it in imagination. ”
“Well,” said Mr. Herbert, with a little the tone of an Inquis-
itor, “that is just what I have been asking. What will this
climate be like, and what will these flowers be like in this cli-
mate? How would your culture alter and better the present, if
its powers were equal to its wishes ? »
Mr. Rose's soft lulling tone harmonized well with the scene
and hour, and the whole party seemed willing to listen to him;
or at any rate, no one felt any prompting to interrupt him.
"I can show you an example, Mr. Herbert,” he said, “of
culture demanding a finer climate, in— if you will excuse my
seeming egoism - in myself. For instance (to take the widest
matter I can fix upon, the general outward surroundings of our
lives),- often, when I walk about London, and see how hideous
its whole external aspect is, and what a dissonant population
throng it, a chill feeling of despair comes over me. Consider
how the human eye delights in form and color, and the ear in
tempered and harmonious sounds; and then think for a moment
of a London street! Think of the shapeless houses, the forest of
ghastly chimney-pots, of the hell of distracting noises made by
»


## p. 9628 (#36) ############################################

9628
WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
»
the carts, the cabs, the carriages; think of the bustling, common-
place, careworn crowds that jostle you; think of an omnibus,
think of a four-wheeler — »
"I often ride in an omnibus,” said Lord Allen, with a slight
smile, to Miss Merton.
"It is true,” replied Mr. Rose, only overhearing the tone in
which these words were said, “that one may ever and again
catch some touch of sunlight that will for a moment make the
meanest object beautiful with its furtive alchemy. But that is
Nature's work, not man's; and we must never confound the
accidental beauty that Nature will bestow on man's work, even
at its worst, with the rational and designed beauty of man's
work at its best. It is this rational human beauty that I say
our modern city life is so completely wanting in; nay, the look
of out-of-door London seems literally to stifle the very power of
imagining such beauty possible. Indeed, as I wander along our
streets, pushing my way among the throngs of faces, — faces
puckered with misdirected thought or expressionless with none;
barbarous faces set towards Parliament, or church, or scientific
lecture-rooms, or government offices, or counting-houses, - I say,
as I push my way amongst all the sights and sounds of the
streets of our great city, only one thing ever catches my eye
that breaks in upon my mood and warns me I need not de.
spair. ”
“And what is that ? ” asked Allen with some curiosity.
« The shops,” Mr. Rose answered, “of certain of our uphol-
sterers and dealers in works of art. Their windows, as I look
into them, act like a sudden charm on me; like a splash of cold
water dashed on my forehead when I am fainting. For I seem
there to have got a glimpse of the real heart of things; and as
my eyes rest on the perfect pattern (many of which are really
quite delicious; indeed, when I go to ugly houses, I often take
a scrap of some artistic crétonne with me in my pocket as a
kind of æsthetic smelling-salts), — I say, when I look in at their
windows, and my eyes rest on the perfect pattern of some new
fabric for a chair or for a window curtain, or on some new de-
sign for a wall paper, or on some old china vase, I become at
once sharply conscious, Mr. Herbert, that despite the ungenial
mental climate of the present age, strange yearnings for and
knowledge of true beauty are beginning to show themselves like
flowers above the weedy soil; and I remember, amidst the roar
»


## p. 9629 (#37) ############################################

WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
9629
-
and clatter of our streets, and the mad noises of our own times,
that there is amongst us a growing number who have deliber-
ately turned their backs on all these things, and have thrown
their whole souls and sympathies into the happier art ages of the
past. They have gone back," said Mr. Rose, raising his voice a
little, «to Athens and to Italy; to the Italy of Leo and to the
Athens of Pericles. To such men the clamor, the interests, the
struggles of our own times become as meaningless as they really
are. To them the boyhood of Bathyllus is of more moment than
the manhood of Napoleon. Borgia is a more familiar name than
Bismarck. I know, indeed, and I really do not blame them,
several distinguished artists who, resolving to make their whole
lives consistently perfect, will on principle never admit a news-
paper into their houses that is of later date than the times of
Addison: and I have good trust that the number of such men
is on the increase; men, I mean," said Mr. Rose, toying tenderly
with an exquisite wine-glass of Salviati's, who with a steady
and set purpose follow art for the sake of art, beauty for the
sake of beauty, love for the sake of love, life for the sake of
life. ”
Mr. Rose's slow gentle voice, which was apt. at certain times
to become peculiarly irritating, sounded now like the evening air
grown articulate; and had secured him hitherto a tranquil hear-
ing, as if by a kind of spell. This, however, seemed here in
sudden danger of snapping.
«What, Mr. Rose! ” exclaimed Lady Ambrose, "do you mean
to say, then, that the number of people is on the increase who
won't read the newspapers ?
"Why, the men must be absolute idiots ! ” said Lady Grace,
shaking her gray curls, and putting on her spectacles to look at
Mr. Rose.
Mr. Rose, however, was imperturbable.
“Of course,” he said, "you may have newspapers if you will;
I myself always have them: though in general they are too full
of public events to be of much interest. I was merely speaking
just now of the spirit of the movement. And of that we must
all of us here have some knowledge. We must all of us have
friends whose houses more or less embody it.
And even if we
had not, we could not help seeing signs of it-signs of how true
and earnest it is, in the enormous sums that are now given for
really good objects. ”
>>>
(


## p. 9630 (#38) ############################################

9630
WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
-
((
“That,” said Lady Grace, with some tartness, “is true enough,
thank God! ”
“But I can't see,” said Lady Ambrose, whose name often
figured in the Times, in the subscription lists of advertised chari-
ties,— «I can't see, Mr. Rose, any reason in that why we should
not read the newspapers. ”
« The other day, for instance,” said Mr. Rose reflectively,
“I heard of eight Chelsea shepherdesses picked up by a dealer.
I really forget where,- in some common cottage, if I recollect
aright, covered with dirt, giving no pleasure to any one, - and
these were all sold in a single day, and not one of them fetched
less than two hundred and twenty pounds. ”
"I can't help thinking they must have come from Cremorne,”
said Mrs. Sinclair softly.
“But why,” said Mr. Rose, "should I speak of particular
instances ? We must all of us have friends whose houses are
full of priceless treasures such as these; the whole atmosphere of
whose rooms really seems impregnated with art, — seems, in fact,
Mr. Herbert, such an atmosphere as we should dream of for our
New Republic. "
« To be sure,” exclaimed Lady Ambrose, feeling that she
had at last got upon solid ground. By the way, Mr. Rose,
"”
she said with her most gracious of smiles, “I suppose you have
hardly seen Lady Julia Hayman's new house in Belgrave Square ?
I'm sure that would delight you. I should like to take you there
some day and show it to you. "
"I have seen it,” said Mr. Rose with languid condescension.
“It was very pretty, I thought, — some of it really quite nice. »
This, and the slight rudeness of manner it was said with,
raised Mr. Rose greatly in Lady Ambrose's estimation, and she
began to think with respect of his late utterances.
"Well, Mr. Herbert,” Mr. Rose went on, “what I want to
say is this: We have here in the present age, as it is, fragments
of the right thing. We have a number of isolated right interiors;
we have a few, very few, right exteriors. But in our ideal State,
a
our entire city—our London, the metropolis of our society –
would be as a whole perfect as these fragments. Taste would
not there be merely an indoor thing. It would be written visi-
bly for all to look upon, in our streets, our squares, our gardens.
Could we only mold England to our wishes, the thing to do, I
am persuaded, would be to remove London to some kindlier site,
-


## p. 9631 (#39) ############################################

WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
9631
»
(c
that it might there be altogether born anew. I myself would
have it taken to the southwest, and to the sea-coast, where the
waves are blue, and where the air is calm and fine, and there — »
"Ah me! ” sighed Mr. Luke with a lofty sadness, cælum non
animam mutant. "
« Pardon me,” said Mr. Rose: “few paradoxes — and most para-
doxes are false — are, I think, so false as that. This much at
least of sea-like man's mind has: that scarcely anything so dis-
tinctly gives a tone to it as the color of the skies he lives under.
And I was going to say,” he went on, looking out dreamily
towards the evening waves, “that as the imagination is a quick
«
workman, I can at this moment see our metropolis already trans-
planted and rebuilt. I seem to see it now as it were from a
distance, with its palaces, its museums, its churches, its convents,
its gardens, its picture galleries,- a cluster of domed and pillared
marble, sparkling on a gray headland. It is Rome, it is Athens,
it is Florence, arisen and come to life again, in these modern
days. The aloe-tree of beauty again blossoms there, under the
azure stainless sky. ”
“Do you know, Mr. Rose,” said Lady Ambrose in her most
cordial manner, "all this is very beautiful; and certainly no one
can think London as it is more ugly than I do. That's natural
in me, isn't it, being a denizen of poor prosaic South Audley
Street as I am ? But don't you think that your notion is-
it's very beautiful, I quite feel that — but don't you think it is
perhaps a little too dream-like – too unreal, if you know what I
mean? ”
"Such a city,” said Mr. Rose earnestly, is indeed a dream;
but it is a dream which we might make a reality, would circum-
stances only permit of it. We have many amongst us who know
what is beautiful, and who passionately desire it; and would
others only be led by these, it is quite conceivable that we might
some day have a capital, the entire aspect of which should be
the visible embodiment of our finest and most varied culture, our
most sensitive taste, and our deepest æsthetic measure of things.
This is what this capital of our New Republic must be, this
dwelling-place of our ideal society. We shall have houses, gal-
leries, streets, theatres, such as Giulio Romano or Giorgio Vasari
or Giulio Campi would have rejoiced to look at; we shall have
metal-work worthy of the hand of Ghiberti and the praise of
Michel Angelo; we shall rival Domenico Beccafumi with
pavements. As you wander through our thoroughfares and our
our


## p. 9632 (#40) ############################################

9632
WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
gardens, your feelings will not be jarred by the presence of
human vulgarity, or the desolating noise of traffic; nor in every
spare space will your eyes be caught by abominable advertise-
ments of excursion trains to Brighton, or of Horniman's cheap
tea. They will rest instead, here on an exquisite fountain, here
on a statue, here on a bust of Zeus or Hermes or Aphrodite,
glimmering in a laureled nook; or on a Mater Dolorosa looking
down on you from her holy shrine; or on the carved marble
gate-posts of our palace gardens, or on their wrought-iron or
wrought-bronze gates; or perhaps on such triumphal arches as
that which Antonio San Gallo constructed in honor of Charles V. ,
and of which you must all remember the description given by
Vasari. Such a city,” said Mr. Rose, would be the externaliza-
tion of the human spirit in the highest state of development that
we can conceive for it. We should there see expressed openly
all our appreciations of all the beauty that we can detect in the
world's whole history. The wind of the spirit that breathed
there would blow to us from all the places of the past, and be
charged with infinite odors. Every frieze on
Every frieze on our walls, every
clustered capital of a marble column, would be a garland or nose-
gay of associations. Indeed, our whole city, as compared with
the London that is now, would be itself a nosegay as compared
with a faggot; and as related to the life that I would see lived
in it, it would be like a shell murmuring with all the world's
memories, and held to the ear of the two twins Life and Love. "
Mr. Rose had got so dreamy by this time that he felt him-
self the necessity of turning a little more matter-of-fact again.
« You will see what I mean, plainly enough,” he said, “if you
will just think of our architecture, and consider how that natur-
ally will be
“Yes,” said Mr. Luke, "I should be glad to hear about our
architecture. ”
« — how that naturally will be,” Mr. Rose went on, "of no
style in particular. ”
The deuce it won't! ” exclaimed Mr. Luke.
“No,” continued Mr. Rose unmoved; “no style in particular,
but a renaissance of all styles. It will matter nothing to us
whether they be pagan or Catholic, classical or mediæval. We
shall be quite without prejudice or bigotry. To the eye of true
taste, an Aquinas in his cell before a crucifix, or a Narcissus
gazing at himself in a still fountain, are — in their own ways,
you know - equally beautiful. ”
(
>


## p. 9633 (#41) ############################################

WILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK
9633
«Well, really,” said Miss Merton, “I can not fancy St. Thomas
being a very taking object to people who don't believe in him
either as a saint or a philosopher. I always think that except
from a Christian point of view, a saint can be hardly better de-
scribed than by Newman's lines, as-
(A bundle of bones, whose breath
Infects the world before his death. ) »*
"I remember the lines well,” said Mr. Rose calmly, “and the
writer you mention puts them in the mouth of a yelping devil.
But devils, as far as I know, are not generally — except perhaps
Milton's - conspicuous for taste; indeed, if we may trust Goethe,
the very touch of a flower is torture to them. ”
“Dante's biggest devil,” cried Mr. Saunders, to everyone's
amazement, "chewed Judas Iscariot like a quid of tobacco, to all
eternity. He, at any rate, knew what he liked. ”
Mr. Rose started, and visited Mr. Saunders with a rapid
frown. He then proceeded, turning again to Miss Merton as if
nothing had happened.
"Let me rather,” he said, “read a nice sonnet to you, which
I had sent to me this morning, and which was in my mind
just now. These lines ” (Mr. Rose here produced a paper from
his pocket) “were written by a boy of eighteen,-a youth of
extraordinary promise, I think,— whose education I may myself
claim to have had some share in directing Listen,” he said,
laying the verses before him on a clean plate.
»
« Three visions in the watches of one night
Made sweet my sleep - almost too sweet to tell.
One was Narcissus by a woodside well,
And on the moss his limbs and feet were white;
And one, Queen Venus, blown for my delight
Across the blue sea in a rosy shell;
And one, a lean Aquinas in his cell,
Kneeling, his pen in hand, with aching sight
Strained towards a carven Christ: and of these three
I knew not which was fairest. First I turned
Towards that soft boy, who laughed and fled from me;
Towards Venus then, and she smiled once, and she
Fled also. Then with teeming heart I yearned,
O Angel of the Schools, towards Christ with thee! »
* Vide J.