it, but unless we are prepared to return to the Zenana stage of civilisation, the consequences which Marcella so bitterly deplored will always result. Given the two factors as Mrs. Ward paints them-Marcella and Sir George Tressady-Sir George could no more help falling in love with Marcella than steel can resist the attraction of the magnet. And, indeed, it would be a great misfortune for the Sir George Tressadys in the world if they could. This, indeed, Sir George himself recognises in his meditations which I have just quoted. Marcella was to him the enchantress who roused his better nature, and who enabled him to see the world from a truer and nobler standpoint. She broke through the superficial cynicism in which he had masked himself against the divine promptings which come to all men, and she had done all this without doing, so far as Mrs. Ward has shown, anything excepting that which it was her plain and simple duty to do, both to herself, her husband, her cause, and Sir George Tressady himself. With the exception of ten minutes on the eve of a great political crisis, the issue of which depended on Sir George's action, she never was guilty of showing him sufficient sympathy for even her own conscience to feel uneasy. During these ten minutes in which, if at all, the transgression of Marcella lay, she acted in a manner to which it would be difficult for the most fastidious moralist to object. They talked about politics. They were in a garden together, other people were near them, and she did not say one solitary word which she would not have said if her husband had been standing by her side. Indeed, it was all for her husband, and her husband's career, and her husband's bill, that she went as far as she did. To use her own phrase when she told her husband about it immediately afterwards

"

He wanted sympathy desperately. I gave it him. Then I urged him to throw himself into his public work. I believe I threw myself upon his feelings. I felt that he was very sympathetic, that I had a power over him. It was a kind of bribery. It was quite different from any other time. I did try to influence him just through being a woman. There! It is quite true."

As if the poor dear creature had ever been doing anything else all her life than trying to influence men, and using the great gift of her womanly fascination as her chief weapon in all her campaigus. During the conversation they talked about nothing but politics, and the nearest approach to the verge of anything in the shape of affectionate emotion was in the following sentence:

"I suppose one is tired and foolish after all these weeks,' she said, with a breaking voice; 'I apologise. You see that when one comes to see everything through another's eyes, to live in another's life.' Tressady felt a sudden stab, then a leap of joy, hungry, desolate joy that she could thus admit him to the sanctuary of her heart, let him touch the pulse of her machine, at the same time that it revealed the eternal gulf between them. It gave him a passionate sense of intimacy of privilege. You have a marvellous idea of marriage,' he said under his breath."

And therewith that interview of transgression ended. Now what in all the world could possibly be more innocent than that? At the very supreme moment, when, if ever, the transgression occurred, what Marcella does is to convince the man who was full of wild, hopeless, passionate love for her, that the very pulse of the machine in the very sanctuary of her heart was the absolute oneness which existed between herself and her husband. She saw everything through her husband's eyes, lived in her husband's life, and the last words with which

poor Sir George took his leave was an outburst of involuntary homage to the divine splendour of her ideal of married life.

Now, if we are to go in sackcloth and ashes all our days, and to be saddled to the end of life with responsibility for the moral and spiritual education and salvation of the husband or wife of any person who falls in love with us in this fashion, there is a bad lookout for most of us. Better by far the Zenana, than to expose our Marcellas to such pains and penalties when their conduct has been so irreproachably correct. If Marcella had flirted with Sir George, if she had allowed him to make love to her, if she had made love to him; if she had in any single word or act done anything to which the most devoted husband could take exception, it would be different. As it is, it is to be feared that an unregenerate world will shrug its shoulders and envy Mrs. Ward the privilege of living in a realm where men and women act habitually with such scrupulous regard to the austerest standard of exclusive devotion. Of course the question as to how far a man or woman is right in using their personal charm or influence to secure a political end is one that can be debated endlessly, not to much profit. Mrs. Butler, I know, rather inclines to Marcella's view of the case, saying she hates influence; what she loves is friendship and comradeship.

That is all very well. It really amounts to little more than saying that you prefer to gain your end by exercising your influence unconsciously rather than conciously. It may be well to shut our eyes to it, and for Marcella and Mrs. Butler to imagine that they win adherents by the cogency of their logic, or the fervour of their eloquence. As a matter of fact, neither they nor any one else mould the lives of men or women solely by logie or eloquence. Religions are founded, revolutions accomplished, by the magic of personal influence.

You cannot eat your cake and have it, and we cannot send our charming Marcellas out into the midst of a world crowded with Tressadys without having to take the consequences, and one of those consequences is that the Tressadys will fall in love with the Marcellas, and they will do it as Sir George did, all the more certainly if Marcella never feels for them a single scintilla of any emotion warmer than friendly comradeship.

There remains the question of Tressady's wife. And here Mrs. Ward's solution is more attractive because less impossible, although it is to be feared that very few women indeed, who had given so little cause for jealousy, would have laboured so sedulously to relieve the pain which they had unwittingly occasioned. Letty was a foolish, mean little thing, utterly unfit for the position to which she had been raised by her marriage with Sir George. She gave her husband neither love, sympathy, nor help. Her flirtations with odious admirers were infinitely worse than the utmost that had taken place between her husband and Marcella. Yet because she got mad with jealousya jealousy which for the first time made her realise that she needed her husband's love-Marcella, the great, glorious, resplendent leader of society, and social, political queen alike of Mile End Road and of London society, must spend hours every day petting her, soothing her, flattering her, and coddling her up, to be rewarded by having her thrown upon her hands to be cared for to the end of her life!

The cloven foot of this theory of life comes out clearly in the last interview between Marcella and Sir George. Marcella, we are told, felt that if Letty cared for her

I

HAVE now for the fifth year to prepare the REVIEW OF REVIEW'S ANNUAL, which has come to be regarded as the necessary supplement to the REVIEW itself. The topic, as in previous years, has been dictated by the events of the previous twelve months. My first, "From the Old World to the New," pivoted on the World's Fair at Chicago; my second, "Two and Two make Four," turned on the crash of the Liberator; the third, "The Splendid Paupers," on the advent of the Yellow Man with the White Money as a competitor in English industry; and the fourth, "Blastus, the King's Chamberlain," dealt with the position of the new Colonial Secretary. This year the topic of the hour compels me to fall back upon Mr. Chamberlain again, in order to put into its proper setting one episode in the career of Blastus which had not been foreseen when I published my last Annual. The title of the Annual is "The History of the Mystery; or, the Skeleton in Blastus's Cupboard." The cover, of which a reduced reproduction appears on this page, will give the reader a fair idea as to the drift of the political romance, the chapters of which, when this number appears, I shall be busily engaged in weaving together into what will, I believe, be a valuable contribution to the history of the inside track of the great recent events in South Africa. The mystery, of course, the history of which is to be explained, and will be explained for the edification of all, is how it came to pass that such stout Imperialists as Mr. Rhodes and Dr. Jameson should have ventured to undertake the 'ominous responsibility of launching their Transvaal adventure without apparently taking any steps whatever to ascertain whether such an enterprise would harmonise with the general policy of the Empire as a whole. That is the mystery which points to the skeleton in Blastus's cup

REVIEW

board, and it is this that, as my illustration shows, is in process of revelation.

I need hardly disclaim the slightest hostility to the original of Joseph Blastus, for I hope the Annual will help him over a very awkward stile. No one has watched his career with closer and more critical interest. The present phase in his evolution is one which is more absorbing, and if mismanaged, may be fraught with more tragic results than any of those through which he has passed in his eventful career. A great deal can be said in the guise of fiction which could not be published in any other shape, but the political importance of "The History of the Mystery" will lie in the fact that it will, for the first time, enable many of the friends of this country, at home and in South Africa, to understand the true inwardness of much that has hitherto been shrouded in the densest obscurity.

100 Blastus's Cupboard.

TEAD

W.T. SPIAD,

D

EAR MR. SMURTHWAYT,-The autumn rush of new books has fairly commenced. For the wise publisher, taking time by the forelock, has already issued, in order to escape the deluge of distinctively "gift-book literature," a fair proportion of what is most valuable in his season's announcements. Just now there is more than a chance of a good book getting some share of attention; later, all but the most important have to take their turn. But in the following list of "volumes most in demand" the first two books, at least, are hardly likely to be beaten, from the point of view of sales, this side of Christmas:

Sir George Tressady. By Mrs. Humphry Ward. 6s.
The Murder of Delicia. By Marie Corelli.

53.

66

You will have read "Sir George Tressady" (Smith and
Elder, 6s.) in its unrevised form (for since its serial
publication Mrs. Humphry Ward has made considerable
alteration) as it appeared in the Century, so I need waste
no time in referring to it here. Nor need I dilate at
length on Miss Corelli's new story "The Murder of
Delicia" (Skeffington, 5s.), which, like its more recent
forerunners, has not been sent out to the press-so that
you will be able to attack it with appetite unsated with
the suggested detail of a hundred reviews. That this
policy has not saved Miss Corelli from her critics is
evidenced, however, by a recent article on "Our Lady of
Pars" in the Saturday.
The Reds of the Midi," by
M. Félix Gras, deserves the success it has gained. I
sent it you, with some comment, last month.
Mr.
Wintle's "Armenia and Its Sorrows" (Melrose, 1s.)
is not by any means the only book that the crisis
has called forth, as you will see when I come to describe
the other contents of your box, but it is the cheapest
and handiest, and as it contains a number of illus-
trations and a good map, its popularity is well-earned.
The author's attempt has been "to present a concise
account of the Armenians and their recent sufferings."
The next book, "Songs of Travel and Other Verses
(Chatto, 5s.), brings a thrill to the lover of literature
that is not likely to be often equalled before the end of
the century. Certainly it contains passages that I, for
one, shall always remember as among the most charming,
the most characteristic, and the most truly beautiful of
all the fine passages that their author produced. For
instance, there is that insistent, appealing "To My Old
Familiars," which appeared first in a rather obscure
antipodean annual, with its powerful description of
Edinburgh, "our inclement city":-

Do you remember-can we e'er forget?—
How in the coiled perplexities of youth,
In our wild climate, in our scowling town,

We gloomed and shivered, sorrowed, sobbed and feared?
The belching winter wind, the missile rain,
The rare and welcome silence of the snows,
The laggard morn, the haggard day, the night,

The grimy spell of the nocturnal town,

Do you remember?-Ah, could one forget!....

Victoria, Her Life and Reign," you had from me a month ago. It would make a particularly opportune prize in your village school.

Now to attract your attention at once to two volumes, so small that they may not be noticed, but large with temperament and interest. Who is there who has forgotten The Sunless Heart," that bitter-sweet firstfruit of the talent of a young Scottish authoress, and the evidence which it afforded of power, originality and intensity of feeling? You will therefore be glad to receive Miss Johnstone's second book, "The Douce Family," which Mr. Fisher Unwin has just published in his Century Library (1s. 6d.). I do not suppose you will like the theme, although it is one that seems to have some attraction for women writers nowadays. We have had novels enough in which the brilliant and clever hero is enslaved by some wanton whose physical_charms constitute her sole capital. In "The Douce Family" the plot is the same, but the roles are reversed. It is the woman who has the brains and the man the physique. But since Queen Titania loved ass-healed Bottom, there was never such an inversion of the fitness of things as the sacrifice by the winsome but wilful Winona at the shrine of such a stupid, vulgar, selfish brute as John Douce. It is a sad story, and the saddest thing about it is that Edith Johnstone should have written it. There is no radiance in "The Douce Family" to cast a gleam of light over a Suniess Heart.

Mr. Coulson Kernahan is developing into a veritable Fidei Defensor. In his latest little book "The Child, the Wise Man, and the Devil" (Bowden, 1s.), we have a quaint, vivid and striking presentation of the desolation, moral, social and human, which would follow if God wiped out, as a child wipes out an unworked sum from a slate, all that the great name of Jesus means and has meant for humanity. I will not spoil your pleasure in reading Mr. Kernahan's finely conceived vision, but merely commend to you one sentence headed "The Child a Soldier of the Cross." The little child in the arms of Jesus has, says Mr. Kernahan, "struck deadlier blows at the enemies of the Cross than all the arguments of all the theologians. That child is the most powerful foe whom the armies of unbelief have to fear."

As I suggested just now, there have been quite a number of books owing their appearance to the gangrene in the near East. The largest and the most valuable is "Turkey and the Armenian Atrocities" (Unwin, 10s. 6d.), the work of a young American missionary, the Rev. Edwin M. Bliss, who has treated his subject with knowledge and ability. Miss Willard commends his work in a brief introduction, and there are several illustrations of a novel character, and a good map. With somewhat different object appears the anonymous Historical Sketch of Armenia and the Armenians in

66

Ancient and Modern Times, with Special Reference to the Present Crisis" (Stock, 5s.); but a book which will interest far more readers in the movement for the relief of the Armenians is Miss Edna Lyall's "The Autobiography of a Truth" (Longmans, Is.), a tale built on the plan of her " Autobiography of a Slander," published nearly two years ago. All the profits that are made by the sale of this story are to be devoted to the Armenian cause, so, though it is rather sentimental than powerful, it deserves success.

There is no really serious or original history in the parcel, although you will find Mrs. Hawtrey's "Outline History of Germany" (Longmans, 3s. 6d.), and Mr. F. H. Cliffe's" Manual of Italian Literature" (Macqueen, 6s.), useful; while Mr. Tighe Hopkins's sensational "Kilmainham Memories: the Story of the Greatest Political Crime of the Century" (Ward and Lock, 1s.), with its interesting illustrations and its fresh information about No. 1 and his fellow-conspirators, could not appear more opportunely. To the series devoted to By-Ways of Bible History has been added the late William Knight's "The Arch of Titus and the Spoils of the Empire" (R. T. S., 2s. 6d.); and Mr. W. J. Gordon's "The Story of Our Railways" (R. T. S., 1s. 6d.), is of its kind a remarkably able, comprehensive, and well-illustrated volume. The only English biography is Mr. W. J. Wintle's "The Story of Florence Nightingale, the Heroine of the Crimea" (S. S. U., 1s.); but, although I do not often send you French books, I must make an exception now and then, and one of these exceptions you will find in your parcel. It is "Le Cardinal Manning," by Francis de Pressensé (Perrin, 3 fr. 50 c.). An English translation is to appear shortly, but you had better read the charmingly limpid French of the author. M. de Pressensé is the son of the famous Protestant pastor, and this book about our Cardinal is not so much a literary as a religious event. It consists of three hundred pages, one-third of which are devoted to a preface, in which the author, with exquisite candour, sets forth his conviction as to what he considers the collapse of the Protestant defence against unbelief. While it could offer an infallible guide in the shape of the printed Word of God, as an alternative to the Infallible Church, it survived. But as the authority of the written Word crumbles before the assaults of the higher criticism, Protestants are beginning to see their position untenable and are falling back on the citadels. You will not agree with him, neither do I, for Rome appears to be no citadel, but a fortress long ago swept by the guns of the enemy. But that does not matter. The important thing to note is, that M. de Pressensé says he believes it; and, although he does not definitely execute his retreat, he has virtually given the signal for the abandonment of the position which his father so brilliantly defended. In his "Sketch of the Cardinal" he reprints the two articles which he contributed to the Revue des Deux Mondes shortly after the appearance of Purcell's book. They are a veritable outburst of devout delight over the character of Manning, mingled with a cry of horror that such a saint should have had such a biographer as Mr. Purcell.

"The New Charter: a Discussion of the Rights of Men and the Rights of Animals" (Bell, 2s.), is the only volume of a social and political kind I have to send. Issued under the auspices of the Humanitarian League, it contains six addresses by men as dissimilar as Mr. Frederic Harrison, Mr. G. W. Foote, of the Freethinker, and Mr. J. C. Kenworthy.

In art there is the third and final volume of the translation of Professor Muther's "History of Moderu

Painting (Henry, 18s. 6d. net), which deals more particularly with The Painters of Life," and "The New Idealists," and with the most recent developments of modern art. The small reproductions of well-known paintings by each master are admirably executed, and will be extremely useful as reminders of their arrangement and composition. The publishers deserve congratulation on so successful a termination of so valuable a task. Then you will find a rather sumptuous volume, edited by Mr. Lawrence Housman, himself a draughtsman of renown, and entitled "Arthur Boyd Houghton: a Selection from his Work in Black and White" (Paul, 15s. net), a book of extreme interest and value to those who fancy themselves on a knowledge of the history and capabilities of illustration. It would be well indeed if some of our modern black and white artists would study Houghton's drawings-most of which are here printed from the original wood-blocks.

To the Warwick Library, the two preceding volumes of which I have already sent you, has been added a useful collection of "English Essays" (Blackie, 3s. 6d.), selected and edited by Mr. J. H. Lobban, whose introduction, a good piece of work, extends over some sixty pages. The scheme has excluded "professedly critical papers," but room has been found for many examples besides those of Bacon, Cowley, Defoe, Steele, Swift, and Hazlitt-the names that are most prominent.

There are plenty of works of travel and topographical interest. The largest, Mr. Ling Roth's "The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo " (Truslove, 50s. net) is in two big volumes, is "based chiefly on the MSS. of the late Hugh Brooke Low, Sarawak Government," and contains a rather irrelevant preface by Mr. Andrew Lang. Anthropologically the value of this work cannot be overestimated: as Mr. Lang remarks, it is "a mine from which everybody can draw, in accordance with his needs"; and its usefulness is largely increased by its hundreds of illustrations-reproductions of photographs and of native art, for the most part. Coming nearer home, we have Dr. David Murray's "An Archæological Survey of the United Kingdom" (Maclehose, Glasgow, 1s.), a reprint of an address delivered at Glasgow with the object of attracting attention to the necessity for the preservation and protection of our ancient monuments. One would have thought that English and Americans between them have said all that was worth saying about Stratford-on-Avon, and its connection with Shakespeare, but there is always room on the top," and Mr. and Mrs. Snowden Ward's "Shakespeare's Town and Times" (Dawbarn, 7s. 6d. net.) is a delightful volume which more than justifies its existence. The authors' aim has been to state plain fact, both with pen and camera, and as a result their letterpress is readable and valuable, and their illustrations, all reproduced from photographs in the most admirable manner, help to give the untravelled reader a better idea of the environment in which the poet lived than anything of the kind I have seen.. Two books there are on Paris-one, historical and archæological simply, is Mr. Walter F. Lonergan's "Historic Churches of Paris" (Downey, 21s.), whose chief value lies in illustrations by Mr. B. S. Le Fanu; and the other, a great deal more modern, Mr. Stuart Henry's" Paris Days and Evenings" (Unwin, 7s. 6d.), a collection of short papers, evidently the work of an American very much at home in Paris, on different phases of life and art in the French capital. It is a thoroughly readable volume, and one that helps to a better appreciation of the Parisian temperament to-day. And I send you new editions of