cowardly fear." Thinking about death tends to bring it. In battle those who most dread death perish first, and perish almost without exception. Centenarians, on the contrary, have been notoriously indifferent to death. Death disdained does not trouble you much.

We shall never discover the fountain of Juventus, and the Paracelsus of the future is hardly more likely to succeed than the Paracelsus of the past; but M. Finot assures us that modern science has already opened, and is daily opening wider, the way by which we may prolong life to an extent of which we now perhaps can hardly dream.

THE IMMORTALITY OF THE BODY.

"The Philosophy of Longevity" is incontestably a healthy book, and the charge of morbidity which we are so fond of levelling at the heads of the French could never be laid upon M. Finot. Yet he devotes a whole chapter to a subject usually avoided except by the most morbidly minded, that unwholesome minority who love to dwell on gruesome themes-a subject, too, from which most of us at some time of our lives have torn away our shrinking thoughts in horror-the fate of the body after it has been laid to its last rest. It is not the immortality of the soul that M. Finot would teach; that he leaves to others. It is the immortality of the body, "the life in the coffin." Very delicately does he unveil the secrets of the tomb. "Rest in the grave is but a delusion, like that of the dust to which our bodies are supposed to be reduced.” Our custom of laying flowers on the graves of the dead shows our instinctive and persistent belief in the immortality of the body, a touching example of which the author finds in the custom of the ancients who used to pour libations upon the graves and bring offerings of food to lay upon the tombs of their dead. By grafting upon the modern consciousness a belief in the immortality of the body beyond the tomb, our social and intellectual conceptions will be greatly benefited. Adopt this dogma, make it penetrate the mind of our contemporaries, and the result will be one of those moral revolutions which would do more for the elevation of the soul of the living than the most popular moral treatises."

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IF THE EGO DIES, THE MOLECULES LIVE— "The molecules of dead bodies," M. Finot continues, are the same as those of living bodies. And, after all, what is it that terrifies us in the presence of a corpse? The thought of its changes, successive, inevitable, and almost always repulsive. But in these changes, which are summed up in that word which makes us recoil in horror-putrefaction-there is nothing of which to be afraid." We cling to life, we shrink from death; yet life and death always go hand in hand. If the thought of the death and dissolution of the body terrifies us, it is because we have missed its true signification. But what do I care what becomes of the molecules of the twolegged telephone which my soul uses for a few years and then lays aside? Their immortality does not interest me any more than the immortality of the parings of my finger-nails.

-UNLESS THEY ARE CREMATED.

While explaining how Nature does her work, even though her ways may be not our ways, M. Finot is led to talk of cremation. Of this, as the invention of man, he altogether disapproves. Far from being a step forward, it seems to him a mischievous and unreasoning retrogression to the prejudices of the past, brought about by the ignorant propaganda of persons who did not really understand the hygienic principles of which they

prated, and thought they knew how to do Nature's work better than Nature herself. The dangers often attributed to cemeteries are, says M. Finot, purely imaginary; and his interesting arguments against cremation may be commended to the perusal of all who are inclined to fussiness and valetudinarianism. Earth to earth, is M. Finot's conclusion; Nature's way is best. But by whatever means except cremation the dead are disposed of, the life of the body continues.

After reading these chapters, it may be granted that M. Finot has done what he intended to do. His conception of the life-in-death of the tomb may, for some of us at least, deprive death of some of its terrors. Perhaps even the time may come when it has no more terrors for us than "the duality of day and night." Night is the modification of day, as death is the modification of life. "And the dying man, while commending his soul to God, will greet with one of his last smiles the mysterious virtues, the unknown joys, the wayfaring companions awaiting him in the life of the tombs."

WHY SHARPEN THE STING OF DEATH?

Another chapter of this cheery book upon depressing subjects is devoted to proving the continuity of life-"a living being is always a living being." Yet another discusses "the supreme terror of our life." Nothing is more natural, even M. Finot admits, than the dread inspired by death, the dread that he has just been so vigorously combating, for, as he says, "everything tends to make death fearful and feared-religions and their prophets, moralists, priests, popular legends and superstitions, literature, songs, the visions of seers, religious men and even sceptics. Indeed, all humanity since the dawn of thought seems to have engaged in the work of making death the most terrible sight on earth." The belief in the immortality of the soul M. Finot attributes to this fear of death, this recoil from absolute annihilation. Hamlet was not the only one whose will was puzzled by the dread of something after death, of the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns.

"Elect or ordinary souls all have in common the dread of that inevitable moment. Goncourt in his journal asserts that the idea of death poisoned Daudet's life, and that Zola, in spite of his philosophic mind and rare courage, trembled before the obsessing fear of death, which caused him nightmares and sleeplessness. E. de Goncourt for his part told me that if he could banish the idea of death from his consciousness, his life would be relieved of a great burden. Once at a historic gathering at Victor Hugo's house, all the illustrious guests, being questioned as to their conception of death, frankly avowed the terror and sadness with which it continually inspired them."

And yet what trouble does not man make for himself! For the dreaded end, when it comes at last, far from being painful is nearly always painless. There is neither logical nor scientific basis for this fear of death. The true conception of death is that of a gently releasing angel, not of a merciless and cruel spectre.

ARTIFICIALLY MANUFACTURED MEN.

But the most curious and original part of this book is that which discusses "life as an artificial creation." From the time of Prometheus, and perhaps long before, men have tried to steal from the gods some portion of their celestial fire. The old books of mysticism and occultism, of which M. Finot seems to have been unearthing a considerable number, have extraordinary accounts of man's attempts to imitate the Creator. In the time of Paracelsus there were men who boasted to have seen other men, the work of men's hands-homuncules. The Occult writings of that time are full of allusions to a

miraculous man. Count Kueffstein, of course reputed to have bartered away his soul to the devil, who, with his factotum-a kind of servant and private secretary in one -travelled Europe from end to end learning all that was to be learnt of occult sciences. Some abbé, an occultist of repute, was persuaded to teach the Count the art of making homuncules, and the private-secretary-factotum (who with his hair standing on end appears to have witnessed the process) has left us full details of how these homuncules were produced. It seems to have taken about five weeks, working night and day, for the three worthies to bring them into existence-ten of them-a king, a queen, an architect, a monk, a miner, a nun, a seraphim, a cherubim, a blue spirit, and a red spirit; and then they were, with one exception, such destestable sprites that the wonder is their creators did not at once wring all their little necks. They seemed to have none of the virtues of mankind, but a double quantity of the vices instead. And this in spite of the abbé having blessed them all as they came into the world! Fortunately they never grew bigger than sprats, else there is no knowing what would have been done with them. An attempt was also made to create an admiral, but it only resulted in the production of a miserable leech-not quite the same thing. These vicious little wretches were exhibited, so says the account, in many towns in Europe, and if so, must have been seen by thousands of persons, one of whom probably expressed an unbiassed opinion when he called them frightful toads," whereupon their offended creator withdrew them from circulation. Fortunately they all died, one after another, and the world was plagued with them no longer.

THE COMING HOMUNCULE.

But M. Finot, who is, of course, not credulous enough to believe such tales as this, argues nevertheless that we need not be discouraged by anything or from anything, not even from the creation of homuncules. We now know that all living beings may be reduced to four simple elements, with small proportions of other materials, and that these are the only elements, which nature uses to create every substance, animal or vegetable. By combining these four simple bodies the scientist Berthelot has managed to create various organic compounds; and in the modern laboratory albumen is made which is in every way like living albumen, except that the chemically prepared product has not the same activity as protoplasm. "Shall we ever contrive to bridge over the gap?" M. Finot asks. And this modern Paracelsus dares to think we may. From simple to compound-up and up, till we reach the finished human product!

Doubtless we shall have our own ideas as to how the new man and woman of the inconceivable future are to be constituted. We could all suggest many improvements which could be advantageously effected-in our fellows. Think of all the boundless possibilities opened up for the progress and development of the human race! They will not be like us," says M. Finot, "and that alone is a great thing. . . . They will not have our vices, nor, above all, our virtues, which is very consoling for pessimists.... Their mental condition, altogether different from that engendered by our prejudices, will perhaps allow them to penetrate those mysteries of the world beyond, which have caused humanity the sacrifice of so many ingenious minds!" And as a last supreme consolation this consoler adds that humanity may even come to be divided into monkeymen and homuncules," the ideal of the day after to

morrow.

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II. THE PROLONGATION OF LIFE.
BY DR. DUDGEON.

It is curious that at the time when M. Finot was preaching his philosophy of longevity in Paris, an English octogenarian physician, who has practised sufficient of that philosophy to prolong his existence far beyond the three-score years and ten, should have published another book dealing with the Prolongation of Life. Dr. Dudgeon deals with the subject from the more practical point of view of an experienced physician, and, without indulging in speculations as to the prolongation of life beyond a century, advises his fellow-men as to how best they can secure health and happiness until they are well on to the eighties.

In one respect, at any rate, M. Finot's English rival runs him hard, for while the philosopher of longevity is still a young man, twice forty winters have besieged Dr. Dudgeon's brow. He can therefore say what M. Finot cannot say-crede experto. But one of the most striking things about the doctor's book is that it bears no trace of being written by an old, even a very old, man. Its style is singularly fresh, clear, vigorous, and direct; and in common with M. Finot's book, it has one great qualitycheerfulness. Throughout it is distinctly a cheering and not a depressing book, and it is also sometimes an exceedingly humorous one. Indeed, it might be wondered whether in writing his famous tirade against “Beards,” Dr. Dudgeon quite knew how funny he was. At any rate, the chapter is to be recommended to anyone who wants to be genuinely amused.

The doctor not unnaturally approaches his subject rather from the practical than from the idealistic standpoint. "My object in this work," he says, "is to show how the faculties and essential functions of the body can best be preserved so as to make life, even in its most advanced stages, worth living." The conception of his book is, it is true, far less original than that of M. Finot's work; but few will dispute with the doctor when he opines that it may be found that he has considered the matter from a different standpoint from that usually adopted, "and the experience of an octogenarian physician still engaged in practice" undoubtedly is not without a certain value."

66

The doctor doubts whether old age in itself is so much to be desired. The old man, he remarks, but without cynicism or bitterness, is apt to fall a little behind these fast-moving times :-

Though he may not feel very old, and may think himself quite as fit as ever he was to conduct a business, lead an army, cut for stone, or take command of the Channel Fleet, he is painfully aware that others do not estimate his powers so highly-think it is high time he retired from affairs, and rather resent his continued presence among his juniors. But as an old man is seldom so obliging as to depart this life when others think he has lived long enough, he naturally wishes his declining years. may be pleasantly spent. This he can best do by adopting measures to maintain some of the vigour of manhood, and engaging in some work that shall keep his mind interested.

This, indeed, is one of the doctor's strongest points. Whoever wishes to live to be old, must not be idle either in mind or body.

Another point about this book which cannot fail to strike every one, is that it often runs directly contrary to the orthodox accepted beliefs on the subject of health. Dr. Dudgeon, indeed, seems to take a malicious pleasure in knocking some reverend old stagers on the head. might have had more respect for their grey hairs. instance, we have most of us had the advantages of wool clothing dinned into our ears until perhaps we felt inclined

He

For

never to wear a stitch of wool again. You had much better wear linen or cotton, says Dr. Dudgeon. Our valetudinarian friends will make large eyes indeed at this. Again, many of us think a little pastry is occasionally very nice, and are quite convinced it does us no harm, only our doctors insist that it is so very unwholesome. Nonsense, says Dr. Dudgeon; eat pastry if you like it and it suits you. Indeed, what chiefly differentiates this book from the ordinary books on health is that Dr. Dudgeon's eighty years have made him much less dogmatic than most people who, with less reason, have laid down the law on the subject of longevity. In other words, the book is written with a vast deal more common sense than ninetynine out of every hundred similar works.

But unorthodox as Dr. Dudgeon is in many respects, he is thoroughly orthodox in one-that we nearly all of us eat far too much and too often. Again, it is astonishing to be told that it would be better for us to eat more of the unwholesome but nice sweets and less of the wholesome and nasty salt; but so we are told by Dr. Dudgeon. Moderation, moderation, is his great doctrine, after that of work; and in this his conclusions agree with those arrived at by M. Finot, after furnishing his numerous and interesting statistics of longevity. Wine and all forms of alcohol the doctor condemns as poisons when used habitually; but on tobacco smokers he is not unduly severe.

In the chapter on exercise he has some remarks to make which are interesting in the present state of affairs. In spite of the thousands who flock to see, but, as we are reminded, not to take part in football and cricket matches, he doubts whether "the present generation contains a greater proportion of strong and capable young men than the previous generation did." Witness the “general air of weariness and depression in the great majority of those who shamble along the streets of our towns

The war we have been carrying on in South Africa affords melancholy proof of the inferior quality, as regards health and stamina, of the soldiers who have been fighting our battles with leonine courage, but with physical unfitness, sadly contrasted with the vigour and endurance of their numerically inferior enemies... With equal numbers I doubt if our military science would have compensated for the inferior stamina and defective physique of our soldiers. While our men succumbed in thousands to the hardships and privations to which they were exposed, the hardy Boers, accustomed to outdoor life and inured to fatigue, seem to have escaped the sickness that decimated our ranks, though they were exposed to the same, or even greater, hardships than our troops.

In the epilogue to this brief, bright and witty book Dr. Dudgeon concludes that :

:-

"LEST WE FORGET."

THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS ANNUAL.

I AM glad to find from many letters from correspondents in England and on the Continent, that the pleasure which I experienced in writing my Annual, "Lest we Forget," has been shared by many readers whose judgment I most highly value. It was an arduous task, to compress into such a short space a survey of the history of a century, so much crowded with incident, so momentous in its influence on the destinies of mankind as that which closed on the 31st of December. While I am painfully conscious of its many imperfections, on the whole I have been pleasantly surprised by the generous and enthusiastic appreciation which it has called forth from many quarters. One correspondent, who is universally regarded as one of the most eminent critics among modern men of letters, writes me :

"I have read your survey of the century with lively interest and much admiration for its union of compression with large atmosphere and well-spread wings."

Mr. John Burns, while writing warmly in praise of the summary of the century's history, points out an obvious omission in my failure to refer to the creation of the London County Council. He writes:

"You have done very well indeed, but you avoid all reference to the London County Council. The London County Council is one of the greatest facts of the century, and if not curtailed or suppressed ought to be one of the brightest features of the coming century.'

Some of the portraits were curiously misplaced; by some blunder the portrait of Friedrich Karl was substituted for that of the Emperor Frederick. These errors, inseparable from the haste with which the Annual was produced, can be fortunately rectified in a subsequent edition.

More serious is the criticism of a Bishop of the Church of England, who writes to me :

"I naturally turned at once to your summary of the religious movement of the century. You seem to me to describe justly man's mission, but you omit to notice the only power by which he can fulfil it. To the words 'Be a Christ' (1 John 2, 20) we must add In Christ.' So, so only, the call is fulfilled."

This criticism, I am afraid, is just, and reminds me of a conversation that Canon Liddon and I had in bygone days, when our Monday afternoon stroll along the Embankment used to be one of the treats which I enjoyed. I had been telling him of my visit to Miss Fowler, the phrenologist at Ludgate Circus. He was very much interested, especially in a remark made by Miss Fowler (who was a total stranger to me at the time), after feeling my head, that it would be inevitable for me always to approach every problem from the human rather than from the divine side. "I do not say," she said, "that you do not believe in God, but you will frame your conception of God from your intense sympathy with the needs of man." I had almost forgotten the remark, and was expounding with customary vehemence my ideal of the Church, and the essential soul of the Christian religion, when Canon Liddon, who had been listening very quietly, said, in reply to a question as to how that conception struck him, "It reminds me," he quietly replied, with a smile, "of what the phrenologist said to you."

WAR UNDER A MICROSCOPE.

SOME SOLDIER AUTOBIOGRAPHIES.

THE REV. W. H. FITCHETT has rescued from the oblivion of the great public libraries, in which so many admirable books are buried, four of the most graphic and stirring pictures of war at the beginning of the century that have ever been published. To the orthodox historian, as Mr. Fitchett points out, a battle is as completely drained of human emotion as a chemical formula. And yet it is in the fierce clash of battle that the lowest and the sublimest passions of which mortal man is capable are aroused. Mr. Fitchett has an eagle eye for picturesque incidents and for scenes which stir the human emotions. In the four soldier autobiographies which he has edited in his latest book entitled "Wellington's Men" (Smith, Elder, 6s.), he has found pictures, palpitating with human life, seen through living, human eyes, of the great battles of the Peninsular and Waterloo campaigns. Stripping these descriptions of the tedious details in which they are buried, Mr. Fitchett has compiled a narrative which makes his reader's heart throb faster, and almost makes him hold his breath as he sees, through these soldier-penmen's eyes, the onward rush of thousands of horsemen upon the thin lines of the British squares at Waterloo, or the deadly hand-to-hand fighting in the breaches of Ciudad' Rodrigo and Badajos.

FOUR TYPICAL SOLDIERS.

The four soldier writers-Captain Kincaid, "Rifleman" Harris, Captain Mercer, of the Artillery, and Anton, of the Royal Highlanders-were all good fighters, and linked knowledge with literary expression. Kincaid led a forlorn hope up the breaches of Ciudad Rodrigo, and has left a vivid account of the hardships of a soldier's life in the Peninsula. Harris was one of he unconquerable, much-enduring rearguard in Moore's retreat to Corunna, and his pictures of the miseries of that march may be compared for vividness with those of Sergeant Bourgoyne's ghastly story of the retreat from Moscow. Anton shared in the wild fighting around Toulouse, and gives an interesting sketch of the sufferings of soldiers' wives who followed their husbands to the wars. Captain Mercer fought his battery at Waterloo until out of 200 fine horses in his troop 140 lay dead or dying, and his story of that great battle is the best that there is to be found in English literature.

WAR A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

War at the beginning of the century was much more picturesque and human than at its close. Khaki has robbed war of the rainbow-hued garments in which it was wont to deck itself.

"Brown Bess" was short of range, and the fighting lines came so near each other that each man could see his foeman's

face, and hear his shout or oath. War appealed to every sense. It filled the eyes. It registered itself in drifting conti

nents of smoke. It deafened the ear with blast of cannon and clash of steel.

Captain Mercer records a typical instance of how war was fought in the days of our grandfathers. In order to restrain his men from replying to the French fire at Waterloo, he rode back and forth in front of his battery. The French sharpshooters were within speaking dis

tance :

This quieted my men; but a till, blue gentleman, seeing me

thus dare them, immediately made a target of me, and commenced a very deliberate practice to show us what very bad shots they were and verify the old artillery proverb, "The nearer the target, the safer you are." One fellow certainly made me flinch, but it was a miss; so I shook my finger at him and called him coquin, etc. The rogue grinned as he reloaded and again took aim. I certainly felt rather foolish at that moment, but was ashamed after such bravado to let him see it, and therefore continued my promenade. As if to prolong my torment, he was a terrible time about it. To me it seemed an age. Whenever I turned, the muzzle of his infernal carbine still followed me. At length bang it went, and whiz came the ball close to the back of my neck, and at the same instant down dropped the leading driver of one of my guns.

VANISHED INCIDENTS OF WARFARE.

Smoke, too, that pall which shrouded the battlefield of the Napoleonic period, has vanished at the command of science. A soldier knew no more what was happening around him than the dead which had fallen by his side. "Rifleman" Harris, describing the fighting at Vimiera,

says:

I myself was very soon so hotly engaged, loading and firing away, enveloped in the smoke I created, and the cloud which hung about me from the continued fire of my comrades, that I could see nothing for a few minutes but the red flash of my own piece amongst the vapours clinging to my very clothes.

The British soldier was not without a rough chivalry which, however, did not restrain him from rifling a dead Frenchman's jacket or stripping the clothes from a corpse. Kincaid, who had a grim sense of humour, remarked, “ I was grieved to think that the souls of deceased warriors should be so selfish as to take to flight in their regimentals, for I never saw one with a rag on after battle."

AT CLOSE RANGE.

The culminating point of all these soldier narratives is Waterloo. They each describe what they saw with their own eyes, looking neither to the right nor to the left, but straight before them. Yet this fourfold story of the great battle bites itself into the memory of the reader and cannot be erased. The fascination of personal human interest is in each line. I have only space for three brief quotations, but these will suffice to show what war looked like to the victims of Wellington who had found death on a score of battlefields. Anton, the Lowland Scot, who had joined a Highland regiment, was in the thick of the fight at Quatre Bras. This is his description of the way in which a British square shattered a charge of French cuirassiers. They were dashing full on two of its faces :

A moment's pause ensued; it was the pause of death. General Pack was on the right angle of the front face of the square, and he lifted his hat towards the French officer, as he was wont to do when returning a salute. I suppose our assailants construed our forbearance as an indication of surrendering; a false idea; not a blow had been struck, nor a musket levelled; but when the general raised his hat, a most destructive fire was opened; riders, cased in heavy armour, fell tumbling from their horses the horses reared, plunged and fell on the dismounted riders; steel helmets and cuirasses rang against unsheathed sabres as they fell to the ground; shrieks and groans of men, the neighing of horses and the discharge of musketry, rent the air, as men and horses mixed together in one heap of indiscriminate slaughter. Those who were able to fly fled towards a wood on our right, whence they had issued to the attack.

A DUEL BETWEEN GUNS AND CAVALRY.

The grimmest passage in the whole volume is that in which Captain Mercer tells how G battery swept into utter rout and annihilation the serried ranks of the French cavalry, which advanced to the destruction of the hollow squares upon the hillcrest of Waterloo. The first charge had been hurled back, but the French once more advanced to the attack :

SO

numerous

On they came in compact squadrons, one behind the other, that those of the rear still below were the brow when the head of the column was but at some sixty or seventy yards from our guns. Their pace was a slow but steady trot. None of your furious galloping charges this, but a deliberate advance at a deliberate pace, as of men resolved to carry their point. They moved in profound silence, and the only sound that could be heard from them amidst the incessant row of battle was the low thunder-like reverberation of the ground beneath the simultaneous tread of so many horses. On our part was equal deliberation. Every man stood steadily at his post, the guns ready, loaded with a round shot first and a case over it; the tubes were in the vents; the port fires glared and spluttered behind the wheels; and my word alone was wanting to hurl destruction on that goodly show of gallant men and noble horses. I delayed this, for experience had given me confidence. The Brunswickers partook of this feeling, and with their squares-much reduced in point of size-well closed, stood firmly with arms at the recover, and eyes fixed on us, ready to commence their fire with our first discharge. The column was led on this time by an officer in rich uniform, his breast covered with decorations, whose earnest gesticulations were strangely contrasted with the solemn demeanour of those to whom they were addressed. I thus allowed them to advance unmolested until the head of the column might have been about fifty or sixty yards from us and then gave the word, "Fire!" The effect was terrible, nearly the whole of the leading rank fell at.once; and the round shot penetrating the column, carried confusion throughout its extent.

ON THE MORROW OF VICTORY.

Fighting at such close quarters was nothing short of slaughter, "I had never yet heard of a battle in which everybody was killed; but this seemed likely to be an exception," Kincaid, who fought with the Rifle Brigade, records. He says:

The field of battle next morning presented a frightful scene of carnage; it seemed as if the world had tumbled to pieces and three-quarters of everything destroyed in the world. The ground running parallel to the front of where we had stood was so thickly strewed with fallen men and horses, that it was difficult to step clear of their bodies, many of the former still alive and imploring assistance, which it was not in our power to bestow. The usual salutation on meeting an acquaintance of another regiment after an action was to ask who had been hit? but on this occasion it was "Who's alive?"

Mr. Fitchett, by his careful editing of these longforgotten volumes, enables us to see Wellington's campaigns with the eyes of the men in the ranks. In this book we have war placed under a microscope; we live in the ranks, share the hardships, suffer the privations, listen to the rude jokes and coarse oaths, feel the excitement of the charge, the depression of the retreat, and, in short, live the life of the men who by their endurance and stubborn courage saved Europe from Napoleonic despotism.

THE principal feature in the January Young Woman is the paper on Women who Fail, wherein Miss Friederichs deals very faithfully with would-be literary ladies who think their sex and their excuses will exempt them from the elementary duties of punctuality, regularity and hard work.

A TALE OF AFGHAN LIFE.

No book that has yet been published contains so intimate and complete a picture of Afghan life as that which Dr. Lilias Hamilton gives us in her story, "A Vizier's Daughter" (Murray, 6s.). Nothing is more difficult than for a writer to enable a stranger to look at life from the standpoint of the inhabitants of a foreign country. This is, however, what Dr. Hamilton has succeeded in doing. As we read her book we live for the time being in that mountainous tract of country which divides the Asiatic possessions of Britain and Russia. The restless, warring life of the tribesmen, the constant intrigues of the officials, the unhappy, joyless existence of the people, are all set before us with the vividness of the kinetoscope. Dr. Hamilton has torn a leaf out of the nation's book of life. No one is better qualified to interpret Afghan life to the British public. For several years Dr. Hamilton was Court Physician to the Amir. She lived at the very centre of government in a state which probably presents the most perfect example of paternal rule which exists to-day. She lived the life of the people, she doctored them, and came to understand them as probably no European has done before. Her experiences in the Afghan capital would make one of the most interesting books of modern travel. But we fear that as long as Abdur Rahman lives Dr. Hamilton will refrain from lifting the veil which shrouds the inner life of Cabul from Western eyes.

It

Dr. Hamilton has preferred to give her impressions of Afghanistan and Afghan life in the form of a story. is, however, a true story. All the characters are modelled on living men and women whom Dr. Hamilton knew intimately when she lived in their country. All the incidents recorded actually occurred, with the exception of those in the few concluding chapters. Gul Begum, whose lifestory is the personal link which connects all the characters in the book, is the Vizier's daughter. She is a fine character, finely drawn. The child of the chieftain of a hill tribe, she falls a victim to the feud which rages between her people and the Afghan Government. She becomes a slave, and her experiences are a terrible example of the lot of an Afghan woman. She finally enters the household of the Amir's chief secretary. Dr. Hamilton's account of life in Cabul is written from intimate personal knowledge. Speaking of the power the Amir exercises over his countrymen, she says :~

He is gentle and sympathetic as a woman amidst the fury of a nature stronger and fiercer than most men's. And therein lies the charm which binds men to him. In a storm of passion that seems unrestrainable, boundless, he will lay his hand soothingly on a wound or aching head, or turn and comfort a little frightened child, the furrows on his thundery brow all smoothed out, the fire in his eye subdued, his set jaw relaxed, a smile upon his lips.

The human interest of the tale centres in Gul Begum and her self-sacrificing, unrequited love for the Chief Secretary. It is a sad and joyless story brightened by the girl's devotion and fidelity, which, however, lends a still deeper pathos to her untimely death.

The Girl's Realm.

THE January Girl's Realm, containing the series on "How I Began," also contains an interview with Miss Clara Butt, the well-known singer. Another curious little paper is on "Hand Shadows"; and there is also a "seasonable" paper on fancy dress.