all the subjects where difference of opinion is aptest to kindle anger, contempt, and even the horrid and irrelevant imputation of personal sin, and yet somehow held in general honor as a sort of oracle, instead of having presented to him that fatal cup of hemlock which has so often been the reformer's portion. He really succeeded in procuring a sort of popular halo round the dismal and derided name of philosopher, and his books on political theory and sociological laws went into cheap popular editions. Like Locke and Hobbes, he propounded general ideas for particular occasions, and built dykes and ramparts on rational principles for movements that had their source not so much in reasoning as in passions and interests, sectarian or material, and in the confused and turbid rush of intractable events.

Among all the changes of social ordinance in Mill's day and generation, none is more remarkable, and it may by-and-by be found that none cuts deeper, than the successive stages of the emancipation of women. And to this no thinker or writer of his time contributed so powerfully as Mill. Much of the ground has now been won, but the mark made by his little tract on the "Subjection of Women" upon people of better minds among us was profound, and a book touching so impressively the most penetrating of all our human relations with one another is slow to go quite out of date.

In political economy (1848) he is admitted, by critics not at all disposed to put his pretensions too high, to have exercised without doubt a greater influence than any other writer since Ricardo, and as an exposition of the principles on which the emancipating work between 1820 and 1860 was done, his book still holds its ground. With out being tempted into the controversies of the hour, it is enough to mark that Mill is not of those economists who

treat their propositions as absolute and dogmatic, rather than relative and conditional, depending on social time and place. One of the objects that he always had most at heart, in his capacity as publicist, was to set democracy on its guard against itself. No object could be either more laudible or more needed. He was less successful in dealing with Parliamentary machinery than in the infinitely more important task of moulding and elevating popular character, motives, ideals, and steady respect for truth, equity, and common sense things that matter a vast deal more than machinery. Save the individual; cherish his freedom; respect his growth and leave room for itthis was ever the refrain. His book on Representative Government set up the case against Carlyle's glorification of men like Napoleon or Frederick. Within twenty years from Mill's death the tide had turned Carlyle's way, and now to-day it has turned back again. Then in the ten years before his death Neo-machiavellianism rose to ascendency on the Continent of Europe, and a quarter of a century later we have had a short spell of Neo-machiavellianism in England-end justifying means, country right or wrong, and all the rest of it. Here again the tide has now turned, and Millite sanity is for a new season restored. In the sovereign field of tolerance his victory has been complete. Only those who can recall the social odium that surrounded heretical opinions before Mill began to achieve popularity are able rightly to appreciate the battle in which he was in many aspects the protagonist.

In the later years, when he had travelled over the smooth places of a man's life and the rough places, his younger friends never heard a word fall from him that did not encourage and direct; and nobody that ever lived enjoyed more of that highest of pleasures, the pointing the right path for new way

One of the leaders of the revolutionary terroristic party, Ignatius Mejenetsky, the one who attracted Svetlogoub into this activity, was being transferred from the province where he was arrested to St. Petersburg. In the same provincial prison in which he halted was also being retained the old sectarian who had witnessed Svetlogoub's departure for his execution. He was shortly to be sent to Siberia. He never ceased thinking of the true faith and how and from where he could learn all about it, and sometimes he recalled to mind the bright youth who had gone to his death with a joyful smile.

Hearing that in the same place there was confined a comrade of this youth, a man who shared his faith, the sectarian was delighted and persuaded the chief warder to let him have an interview with him.

Mejenetsky, notwithstanding the strictness of prison discipline, had not ceased to maintain communications

1 Editor of "The Free Age Press," Christchurch, Hants.

with his party, and was from day to day awaiting news about a mine he had invented and prepared for the blowing up of the Tsar's train. Now recollecting some details he had overlooked, he was arranging the means of transmitting them to his co-workers. When the chief warder came to his cell, and cautiously, in a low voice, told him that one of the prisoners wished to see him, he was glad, hoping that this interview would be the means of facilitating intercourse with his friends.

"Who is he?" "A peasant."

"What does he want?"

"He wishes to speak about faith." Mejentsky smiled.

"Well, send him in," he said. "These sectarians also detest the Government. Perhaps he may be of use," thought he.

The warder went out, and in a few minutes opened the door and let in a little shrunken old man with thick hair, a thin, grayish beard, and kind, wearylooking blue eyes.

"What do you want?" asked Mejenetsky.

The old man glanced at him, and quickly dropping his eyes stretched out a small, active, dry-looking hand. "What do you want?" repeated Mejenetsky.

"I would like to have a word with you."

"What about?" "About faith?" "What faith?"

"They say you are of the same belief as the youth whom the servants of Anti-Christ strangled with a rope at Odessa."

"What youth?'

"Why the one who was strangled at Odessa last autumn."

"You probably mean Svetlogoub?" "That's the one. Was he your friend?" The old man with every question keenly searched Mejenetsky's face with his kind eyes, and immediately looked down again.

"Yes, he was very near to me." "And of the same faith?" "Apparently so," said Mejenetsky, smiling.

"It is about this I wish to speak to you."

"What is it exactly you require?" "To ascertain your faith." "Our faith... well, sit down," said Mejenetsky, shrugging his shoulders.

"Our faith consists in this. We believe that the power has been usurped by those who torment and deceive the people, and that we should without sparing ourselves struggle with these men in order to deliver the people whom they exploit"-Mejenetsky from habit used this foreign word-"torment," he added, correcting himself. "Therefore, it is necessary to destroy them. They kill and they should be killed, until they bethink themselves." The old sectarian, with his eyes on the ground, kept sighing.

"Our faith consists in overthrowing

the despotic Government, without sparing ourselves, and in establishing a free representative national one."

The old man sighed heavily, got up and, smoothing the folds of his coat, went down on his knees and stretched himself out at Mejenetsky's feet, striking his forehead against the dirty floor. "Why are you bowing?"

"Do not deceive me, tell me what your faith is," said the old man, without rising or lifting his head.

"I have told you what it is. But get up or else I won't talk with you.” The old man got up.

"And this was the faith of that youth?" he said, standing in front of Mejenetsky, and from time to time looking into his face with his kind eyes, and again dropping them.

"That was his faith, and for that he was hanged; and I am now being sent to solitary confinement for the same cause."

The old man made a low bow from his waist and silently withdrew. "No, that was not his faith," thought he. "He knew the true faith, whereas this one either boasts of being of the same belief or else does not wish to disclose it. . . . Well, then, I shall have to persist in my search. Both here and in Siberia, God is everywhere, and there are men everywhere. Once on the road, ask your way," thought the old man, and again took up his Testament, which opened of itself at Revelation, and putting on his spectacles, he seated himself at the window and began to read.

IX.

Another seven years passed. Mejenetsky had concluded his solitary confinement in the Petropavlovsky fortress, and was being transferred to penal labor.

He had undergone much during those seven years; but his opinions had not 2 Russian proverb. (Trans.)

changed nor his energy abated. During the examinations before his confinement in the fortress he astonished the prosecutors and judges by his firm and contemptuous attitude towards those in whose power he was. In the depth of his soul, his imprisonment, and his inability to complete the task he had commenced, caused him much suffering, but he did not show this. As soon as he came in touch with others a fierce defiance arose in him. To the questions put to him he was silent, and only answered when there was an opportunity of spiting those who crossexamined him-the gendarme officer or the prosecutor.

When the usual statement was made to him: "You may alleviate your position by a sincere confession," he smiled contemptuously, and after a silence

said:

"If you hope to force me by advantage or fear to betray my comrades you are judging me according to your own measure. Can you really imagine that, in undertaking the work for which you are judging me, I had not prepared myself for the worst? You can neither astonish nor intimidate me by anything. Do with me what you may, what you like, but I will not speak."

And it was pleasant to him to see the way they looked at each other in confusion.

But when he was taken to the Petropavlovsky fortress and placed in a small damp cell, with a dark pane of glass in a window high up, he understood that it was not for months but for years, and was overcome with horror. Dreadful was the regulated, lifeless silence of this place, and the consciousness that it was not he alone, but that here, behind these impenetrable walls, other prisoners were confined -condemned to ten, twenty years, committing suicide, being executed, going mad, or gradually dying from consumption. Here were both Women and

men, and perhaps friends. . . . "Years will pass, and you also will go mad, or hang yourself, or die, and no one will know about it," thought he.

And in his heart there arose hatred against all men, and especially against those who were the cause of his incarceration. This hatred demanded the presence of some object to hate, demanded motion, noise. But here was lifeless silence and the soft steps of silent men, who did not answer questions, the sound of doors opening and shutting, the arrival of food at regular intervals, the visits of silent individuals, and through the dim glass the light of the rising sun, darkness and the same silence, the same soft steps, and the same sounds. Thus it was to-day, to-morrow And hatred, without finding an outlet, devoured his heart.

...

He tried to communicate by knocks, but received no answer, and his knocks elicited again the same soft steps, and the even voice of a man threatening him with the dark cell.

His only period of rest and refreshment was during sleep, but after this the awakening was dreadful. In his dreams he always saw himself at liberty, and mostly absorbed with interests which he regarded as incompatible with his revolutionary life. He played on some kind of strange fiddle, paid court to young ladies, rowed in boats, went shooting, or else for some strange scientific discovery he was endowed with a Doctor's degree by a foreign University, and in return made speeches of thanks at dinner. These dreams were so vivid, whilst the reality was so dull and monotonous, that the memories of them were with difficulty distinguished from actuality.

The painful feature of the dreams was that for the most part he awoke at the very moment when something was just going to happen towards which he was striving, which he de

sired. Suddenly a shock in the heart and all the pleasant environment disappeared; there remained only the painful, unsatisfied longing, and again this gray wall with damp spots lighted with a little lamp, and under his body hard planks with the straw bed pressed up on one side.

Sleep was his best time. But as his confinement went on he was less and less able to sleep. He sought sleep as the greatest happiness, and the more he desired it the more wakeful he became. It was enough for him to say, "Am I falling asleep," for sleep to be dispelled.

Running and jumping about in his little cell gave him no relief. From this effort he only became weak, and excited his nerves yet more. A pain came in the crown of his head, and if he closed his eyes there would appear on a dark, speckled background, weird faces, dishevelled, bald, bigmouthed, crooked-mouthed, each one more awful than the others, all making the most horrible grimaces. Afterwards they appeared to him even when his eyes were open, and not faces alone but whole figures, and they began to talk and to dance. He would be filled with terror, would jump up, hit his head against the wall and scream; then the little slide in the door would open, and a slow even voice would say:

"Screaming is not allowed."

"Call the Governor!" shrieked Mejenetsky. He would get no answer and the slide would close.

And such a despair would seize him that he desired only one thing-death.

Once when in such a state he decided to take his life. In the cell there was an air regulator to which one might fix a rope with a noose, and mounting on the bed, hang oneself. But there was no rope. He began to tear his sheet into narrow strips, but they proved too few. Then he decided to

starve himself to death, and for two days he ate nothing, but became so weak on the third that a severe fit of delirium took hold of him. When his food was brought in he was lying on the floor, with open eyes, unconscious.

The doctor came, put him on the bed, gave him some rum and morphia, and he fell asleep.

When he awoke next day and found the doctor standing over him shaking his head, the familiar exhilarating feeling of hatred which he for long had not experienced suddenly surged up in Mejenetsky.

"How is it you are not ashamed," he said to the doctor, whilst the latter with bended head was listening to his pulse, "of serving here? Why are you treating me in order to torture me again? It is just the same as being present at a flogging and allowing the operation to be repeated."

"Be good enough to turn over on your back," said the imperturbed doctor, without looking at him, and getting his stethoscope out of a side pocket.

"The other doctors healed the wounds in order that the remaining five thousand blows could be inflicted. Go to the deuce, to the devil," he suddenly shouted, flinging his legs off the bed. "Get away. I'll manage to die without you."

"This is not well, young man; we have answers of our own for

impertinence."

"To the devil with you, to the devil." And Mejenetsky looked so terrible that the doctor made haste to leave.

X.

Whether it was the result of the medicine or that he had passed the crisis, or perhaps the wrath aroused in him against the doctor had cured him -at all events from this time he took hold of himself and began quite another life.