ters to Cassandra; for one in particular, age and never had more than five or which describes, if I remember aright, six hundred a year. a certain Mrs. So-and-so who appeared Those endings of Jane's, how approat an assembly “the same as ever-pink priate they are! How well one knows husband, fat neck, plain daughters and that everything will ultimately come all." In this the commentator detects right, and that all the couples will pair signs of impending shrewishness, and off in the most satisfactory manner opines that the removal of Jane and possible. But this does not in the least her family to Bath came only just in spoil one's interest--one is curious till time to avert that calamity. Dear the very last chapter to know exactly Jane, how she would have laughed at how Jane will manage it, in what man. such an idea! The same chronicler ner that deft hand of hers will remove compares her humor with that of Dick- obstacles and create stepping-stones. ens, to the disadvantage of the latter. But she never leaves one in doubt. On But why Jane Austen and Dickens? the very first introduction of Mr. Elliot, The theory would seem to be worked though he is represented as a very out on much the same principle as that pleasant and charming man, and, more. apparent in certain phrases with which over, a person “of consequence," we we are familiar in the pages of Ollen- are made to feel that Jane does not apdorff: "The tooth-pick of the uncle is prove of him, and that Ann will never more valuable than the pincushion of be persuaded into accepting him. In the aunt.” Jane Austen was quick. the same way we are · not deceived witted indeed, ready of tongue no when Catherine is ignominiously ex. doubt, and marvellously felicitous in pelled from Northanger Abbey; and ber power of drawing a character by a though she is but a poor parson's mere stroke of the pen; but ill-natured daughter, and the subsequent mention -unkindly-satirical! One has but to of her portion of three thousand pounds glance at the pages of "Emma" to real- takes us somewhat by surprise, we are ize what she herself thought of such a quite prepared to read on the last page: fault. "Henry and Catherine were married, Among all her heroines there is but the bells rang and everybody smiled.” one perhaps who is unsympathetic It is the old story over again: the the terribly sensible Eleanor Dash- story familiar to nursery hearers, how wood. Miss Austen has shown her Sister Ann did see somebody coming, wisdom in mating her with Edward and how the woodcutter came in time Ferrers, who admires a fine country to prevent Red Riding Hood from be“because it unites beauty with utility," ing devoured by the Wolf. Perhaps and who, looking upon a picturesque that is why Jane Austen's company is valley, remarks that "it must be dirty so acceptable during an illness; for the in winter." One feels a certain satis- sick, as I have said, have many traits faction in realizing that this couple of resemblance to the old, and the old finally settled down in a small parson have much in common with little The Academy. children. M. E. Francis. AMERICA AT THE CROSS-ROADS. No one can visit the United States old optimism, of that buoyant, unreathese days without becoming conscious soning, but invigorating confidence that of a pervasive social unrest. America, in Mr. Morley's phrase, will ple seem to be losing sometbing of their "pull through.” They are questioning The peo themselves and their future and their visions. Federated Labor, fired by the If there is discontent, they say, it is Mr. Roosevelt who is primarily responsee that under the forms of popular sible for it. It was he who fomented, self-government, political equality has and in fact originated, the agitation become the sport of "bosses" and eco- against the Trusts. But for him the nomic equality the jest of a voracious clamor for Government regulation of plutocracy.., The Courts to an alarm- railway rates would never have arisen; ing degree are losing the confidence of and his eternal insistence upon the the masses; the Senate has already lost eternal platitudes of morality and jusit. The old parties, the old catch-words, tice, by encouraging the notion that he are ceasing to attract. The people per- is the only honest man in Washington, ceive their emptiness and are palpably and that whoever opposes him is a purtiring of them, as people always tire of chased tool of the plutocracy, has added political arrangements that have ceased fuel to the very fire he professes to be to correspond either to the instincts of anxious to quench. Such, so far as we the human temperament or to the facts can gather, is the burden of the Repubof economic conditions. Republicans lican complaint against the President, and Democrats with their obsolete the complaint that high Toryism always mummeries will soon mean less than and everywhere prefers against the nothing to a nation that is girding it. Progressive Conservative. At Washself to wrest its liberties from the gripington it is complicated and embittered of organized wealth. That social pro- both by Mr. Roosevelt's personality and test which was the backbone of Bryan- by his tactics. The long fight over the ism has stripped itself of the currency Rate Bill has been neither shortened heresies that cramped its progress and nor softened by that strain of imperais now sweeping across the country, tive masterfulness which the President over all sections, and with an utter. is temperamentally incapable of keepheedlessness of the traditional party di- ing out of his intercourse with individ ual Senators. Still less has it been railways today, the people will inshortened or softened by his readiness, sist on its owning them in the fuif the bulk of the Republicans turned ture. Mr. Roosevelt believes neiaga inst him, to throw himself upon the ther in doing nothing nor in doing Democrats for assistance. The specta- too much. The immobility of official cle that has been visible these many Republicanism angers him more than months at Washington of a Republican anything else because of its stupid President striving to pass a Radical blindness to the reaction it is inevitably measure by the help of Democratic provoking. But he is not a Socialist, votes and against the opposition of his nor does he believe in Government own party leaders, aptly illustrates the ownership. His rate Bill fairly reprepresent transitional stage of American sents his economic policy-a policy that, politics and parties. In the end the while proving to the masses that the President has scored a modified tri- plutocracy is not all powerful, is cauumph. The Rate Bill has been tious in its assertion of popular conpassed by the Senate, and the con- trol and aims at a readjustment, but currence of the House of Representa- by no means at a reversal, of the relatives in the amendments that have been tions between the rights of capital and added to it may almost be taken for the rights of the people. No one, howgranted. Mr. Roosevelt, therefore, bas ever, can have followed the debates in succeeded in clothing the Inter-State the Senate without perceiving that his Commerce Commission, which is as policy squares neither with Republican much a Government department as the views as such nor with Democratic Board of Trade, with power to annul views as such. The old formulæ of the any rate made by an Inter-State rail- parties had no bearing on or application way and substitute therefor a rate to the Rate Bill. Those who were made by itself. On the other hand, Mr. against it spoke the universal language Roosevelt has not been able to secure of Conservatism; those who favored it for this substituted Commission-made did so not in the least as Democratsrate an immediate effectiveness. The to Democrats of the Jeffersonian cast railway company may at once appeal of thought, indeed, such an extension against it in the Federal Circuit Courts, and centralization of the functions of and the Courts may suspend its opera- government must be wholly repugnant tion by injunction, pending a final adju- —but simply as Radicals. Moreover it dication of its “reasonableness" has been made clear that all the Repubotherwise. Government regulation of licans are not Conservatives nor all the railway rates, subject to the broadest Democrats Radicals, and that therefore kind of judicial review, is, therefore, the the irruption of issues which appeal measure of Mr. Roosevelt's victory. more to men's fundamental opinions But whatever its practical value, the about politics and society than to their passage of the Rate Bill is a consider- party affiliations must hasten that procable step towards the policy for which ess of regrouping on which both ReMr. Roosevelt has consistently stood. publicans and Democrats are unconHe has always urged that the Govern. sciously embarked. Indeed it has been ment must exercise some moderate, but charged against Mr. Roosevelt that out real and tangible, supervision over the of the wreckage of the old parties he is great corporations, trusts and monop- purposely seeking to construct a party olies. Inaction in the matter now of his own. We do not believe it, means blind action hereafter. If the though our opinion is unshaken that Government does not supervise the the President's efforts to save the plu or tocracy at once from itself and from of the two organizations that will ultipopular vengeance must inevitably lead mately evolve themselves. He is more to a re-alignment of existing parties. likely to find himself and to be found It does not however follow that Mr. by others not Radical enough for the Roosevelt will be the leader of either one and too Radical for the other. The Outlook. BOOKS AND AUTHORS. Mr. Heinmann, the London publisher, He had studied at Leipsic and Jena, announces a new and complete edition and derived bis degree of Ph.D. from of the works of Henrik Ibsen, in eleven the latter university. volumes, edited by W’illiam Archer, who is also the translator of most of There has just been published a book them. by Mr. Lionel Decle, called “The New Russia." Mr. Decle is a distinguished Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. announce a traveller; he undertook one of the most new book by Rev. Charles F. Dole, en- remarkable journeys in South Africa titled “The Spirit of Democracy," which ever successfully carried through, an is described as a clear and searching account of which he published in his study of popular government. The well-known volume "Three Years in book was published serially last winter Savage Africa.” He was the first travin The Springfield Republican. eller to cross Africa from the Cape to the Nile, and also from the Cape to There is clearly a revival of interest Cairo. The present volume is the rein Trollope. Two American editions of sult of a journey to Russia in the early bis works are in course of publication: part of this year. "Everyman's Library” gives a place to “Barchester Towers"; and an English Rex E. Beach's Klondike story, "The publisher announces a new edition of Spoilers," opens excitingly enough with the entire Barset series. Now why a pretty girl flying from a Behring Sea does not some publisher test the public steamer just quarantined for small-pox, with a good edition of Mrs. Oliphant's and helped to the deck of another by stories? Some of the best of them two stalwart miners returning to the are wholly out of print, but their charm Klondike. Next comes the attempt of would certainly win for them a new a daring rascal from the States, who generation of readers, if they were holds a judge in his pay, to get possesrigbtly presented. sion of a group of mines by fictitious legal processes and take his fortune out The recent death of Dr. W. G. of them before his claims can be disBlackie, of the Glasgow publishing firm allowed. The manifestations of outof Blackie & Son, at the age of ninety- raged public sentiment are vividly deone, removes one of the best specimens scribed, and the book makes a strong of the old-fashioned type of publishers. protest against moral wrong done in Dr. Blackie was a man of fine taste, the guise of legal right. But in spite and had a remarkable linguistic fac- of the talent which it shows and the ulty, being able to read German, striking scenes which it contains, it French, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Norse, must be classed as sensational, Harand Dutch, besides Latin and Greek. per & Bros. BEVENTH SERIES No. 3236 July 14, 1906. Feox BEGINNING . Valentine CONTENTS. NATIONAL REVIEW 67 II. Eugenics and St. Valentine, By Havelock Ellis NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER 81 III. Wild Wheat. Chapter XV. Probation-Time. By M.-B: Francis (To be continued.) LONGMAN'S MAGAZINI 88 IV. Some Literary Recollections of Golden Age. By Alexander Innes Shand SATURDAY REVIEW 92 The New Humility. By G. K. Chesterton INDEPENDENT REVIEW 102 VI. Paudoen in the Woods. By W. M. Letts TEMPLE BAR 106 VII. Michael Davitt: A Personal Recollection. By Wilfrid Scaven Blunt SPEAKER 110 VIII. The New Canada OUTLOOK 115 IX. Greek at the Universities. By Professor Robert Y. Tyrrell ACADEMY 117 x. The Leisured Class . SPECTATOR 120 XI. Some Types of Modern France. MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE 129 A. PAGE OF VERSE XII. Triolets of June. By R. E. Black PALL MALL MAGAZINE XIII. The Day. By May Doney SPECTATOR SPEAKER 66 66 66 127 PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY THE LIVING AGE COMPANY, 6 BEACON STREET, BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. For Six DOLLARS remitted directly to the Publishers, THE LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage, to any part of the U. S. or Canada. Postage to foreign countries in U. P. U. is 3 cents per copy or $1.56 per annum. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post office or express money order, if possible. 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