It was founded for an ideal. Its scope is national, and its objects to regenerate the race, to remedy injustice, and to proclaim the brotherhood of mankind. It is for the poor against the plutocrat, and for the slave against the tyrant, and for democracy against feudalism. It is, in a word, of the kingdom of heaven. It was born amid immense collisions, and in the holy war it is the official headquarters of those who are on the side of the angels. In its gigantic shadow the weak and the oppressed sell newspapers and touch their hats to the warriors as they pass in and pass out.

The place is as superb as its ideal. No half measures were taken when it was conceived and constructed. Its situation is among the most expensive and beautiful in the world of cities. Its architecture is grandiose, its square columned hall and its vast staircase (hewn from Carrara) are two of the sights of London. It is like a town, but a town of Paradise. When the warrior enters its portals he is confronted by instruments and documents which inform him with silent precision of the time, the temperature, the barometric pressure, the catalogue of nocturnal amusements, and the color of the Government that happens to be in power. The last word spoken in Parliament, the last quotation on the Stock Exchange, the last wager at Newmarket, the last run scored at cricket, the result of the last race, the last scandal, the last disaster-all these things are specially printed for him hour by hour, and pinned up unavoidably before his eyes. If he wants to bet, he has only to put his name on a card entitled "Derby Sweepstake." Valets take his hat and stick; others (working seventy hours a week) shave him; others polish his boots.

He

The staircase being not for use, but merely to immortalize the memory of the architect, he is wafted upwards in a lift into a Titanic apartment studded with a thousand easy chairs, and furnished with newspapers, cigars, cigarettes, implements of play, and all the possibilities of light refection. lapses into a chair, and lo! a bell is under his hand. Ting! And a uniformed and initialled being stands at attention in front of him, not speaking till he speaks, and receiving his command with the formalities of deference. He wishes to write a letter-a table is at his side, with all imaginable stationery; a machine offers him a stamp, another licks the stamp, and an Imperial letter-box is within reach of his arm-it is not considered sufficient that there should be a post-office, with young girls who have passed examinations, in the building itself. then chats, while sipping and smoking, or nibbling a cake, with other reclining warriors; and the hum of their chatter rises steadily from the groups of chairs, inspiring the uniformed and initialled beings who must not speak till spoken to, with hopes of triumphant democracy and the millennium. For when they are not discussing more pacific and less heavenly matters, the warriors really do discuss the war, and how they fought yesterday, and how they will fight to-morrow. If at one moment the warrior is talking about "a perfectly pure chianti that I brought from Italy in a cask," at the next he is planning to close publichouses on election days.

He

When he has had enough of such amiable gossip he quits the easy chair, in order to occupy another one in another room where he is surrounded by all the periodical literature of the entire world, and by the hushed murmur

of intellectual conversation and the discreet stirring of spoons in tea-cups. Here he acquaints himself with the progress of the war and the fluctuations of his investments and the price of slaves. And when even the solemnity of this chamber begins to offend his earnestness, he glides into the speechless glamor of an enormous library, where the tidings of the day are repeated a third time, and, amid the companionship of a hundred thousand volumes and all the complex apparatus of research, he slumbers, utterly alone.

Late at night, when he has eaten and drunk, and played cards and billiards and dominoes and draughts and chess, he finds himself once more in the smoking-room-somehow more intimate now-with a few cronies, including one or two who out in the world are disguised as the enemy. The atmosphere of the place has put him and them into a sort of exquisite coma. Their physical desires are assuaged, and they know by proof that they are in control of the most perfectly organized mechanism of comfort that was ever devised. Nought is forgotten, from the famous wines cooling a long age in the sub-basement, to the inanimate chauffeur in the dark, windy street, waiting and waiting till a curt whistle shall start him into assiduous life. They know that never an Oriental despot was better served than they. Here alone, and in the mansions of the enemy, has the true tradition of service been conserved. In comparison, the most select hotels and restaurants are a hurly-burly of crude socialism. The bell is under the hand, and the labelled menial stands with everlasting patience near; and home and women are far away. And the world is not.

Forgetting the platitudes of the war, they talk of things as they are. All the goodness of them comes to the

surface, and all the weakness. They state their real ambitions and their real preferences. They narrate without reserve their secret grievances and disappointments. They are naked and unashamed. They demand sympathy, and they render it, in generous quantities. And while thus dissipating their energy, they honestly imagine that they are renewing it. The sense of reality gradually goes, and illusion reigns--the illusion that, after all, God is geometrically just, and that strength will be vouchsafed to them according to their need, and that they will receive the reward of perfect virtue.

And their illusive satisfaction is chastened and beautified by the consciousness that the sublime institution of the club is scarcely what it was, is, in fact, decadent; and that if it were not vitalized by a splendid ideal, even their club might wilt under the sirocco of modernity. And then the echoing voice of an attendant warns them, with deep respect, that the clock moves. But they will not listen, cannot listen. And the voice of the attendant echoes again, and half the lights shockingly expire. But still they do not listen; they cannot credit. And then, suddenly, they are in utter darkness, and by the glimmer of a match are stumbling against easychairs and tables, real easy-chairs and real tables. The spell of illusion is broken. And in a moment they are thrust out, by the wisdom of their own orders, into Pall Mall, into actuality, into the world of two sexes once more.

And yet the sublime institution of the club is not a bit anæmic. Within a stone's-throw is the monumental proof that the institution has been rejuvenated and ensanguined and empowered. Colossal, victorious, expensive, counting its adherents in thousands upon thousands, this monument scorns even the pretence of any ancient ideal, and adopts no new one. The aim of the

club used ostensibly to be peace, idealism, a retreat, a refuge. The new aim is pandemonium, and it is achieved. The new aim is to let in the world, and it is achieved. The new aim is muscular, and it is achieved. Arms, natation, racquets-anything to subdue the soul and stifle thought! And in the reading-room, dummy books and dummy book-cases! And a diningroom full of bright women; and such a mad competition for meals that glasses and carafes will scarce go round, and strangers must sit together at the same table without protest! And, to crown the hullaballoo, an orchestra of red-coated Tziganes swaying and yearning and ogling in order to soothe your digestion and to prevent you from meditating.

This club marks the point to which

The Nation.

the evolution of the sublime institution has attained. It has come from the shore of Lake Michigan; it is the club of the future, and the forerunner of its kind. Stand on its pavement, and watch its entering heterogeneous crowds, and then throw the glance no more than the length of a cricket-pitch, and watch the brilliantly surviving representatives of feudalism itself ascending and descending the steps of the most exclusive club in England; and you will comprehend that even when the House of Lords goes, something will go something unconsciously cocksure, and perfectly creased, and urbane, and dazzlingly stupid-that was valuable and beautiful. And you will comprehend politics better, and the profound truth that it takes all sorts to make a world.

Arnold Bennett.

Mr. Pearce's Bill to reform the Calendar will, we hope, prove as effective as Mr. Willett's Daylight Saving Bill in providing food for agreeable discussion and conjecture. Not that we are disposed to admit the necessity for reforming the Calendar. It does perhaps look a little absurd "on paper," as they say-even a little far-fetchedbut in practice it has always seemed to us to work fairly well, so long as one clings to its great guiding principlethat thirty days hath September. is probable that the late Julius Cæsar devoted not a little thought to his ingenious arrangement. Certainly, apart from slight modifications, it has had a long and uninterrupted run, and if it is at last to be suspended, if the hereditary principle is to be abandoned, so to speak, we are inclined to ask: "Who is Mr. Pearce that he should elect to supplant the Conqueror of Gaul? Why

It

Mr. Pearce? We also have our plan of Calendar Reform."

His (Mr. Pearce's) plan, it will be remembered, is to eliminate a day-we like that idea; it is full of possibilities -which shall not belong to any week or month, but shall be called simply New Year's Day. Thereafter he divides the year into 52 perfect weeks, every month having 30 days, except the last month of each quarter, which shall have 31. Our first objection to this proposal is taken on artistic grounds.

Thirty-one days hath September, March, June and December, cannot be made even to scan, and will hardly be accepted with equanimity by those of us who have been brought up on the authorized version, and have become attached to it through long association. But let that pass.

Of course we see Mr. Pearce's diffi

culty; that has not escaped us. We ourselves have been trying to figure it out, and we also got up against a very awkward fact-namely, that 365 is divisible only by five and 73. Clearly you can't do much with that without getting yourself involved in recurring decimals. But we find Mr. Pearce's solution-of dropping only one dayrather timorous and half-hearted. What we want is to lay the foundations of a thoroughgoing and comprehensive scheme, which shall at least stand the wear and tear of nineteen centuries, as its predecessor has done. And here let us say that the details of the plan are open to amendment in committee. We invite discussion. We are always prepared to receive suggestions from any part of the House.

We begin boldly, then, by eliminating five days, and at once we have a workable figure to start on. Nothing could be better than 360. This we divide into 12 months of 30 days each. So far, so good. The critic has probably observed, however, that we cannot divide it into weeks of seven days. But we have thought of that. We are going to drop a week-day and make it six. By this device we have five weeks in every month. Rather happy, we think. The seven-day week, if you come to examine it, has been a very clumsy instrument. You cannot divide it in half. That in itself is an enormous drawback. Life is full of things that fall due to be done twice a week, and as the matter stands they cannot be done at equal intervals. take only one instance:-there many of us who make a practice of changing our white waistcoats twice a week, and are guiltily conscious that those which begin their career on

Punch.

To

are

Thursday morning must drag out a protracted existence till Sunday night. One day has got to go, and our proposal is that a plébiscite be taken as to which it is to be. It is an admirable case for the introduction of the Referendum. For our own part we should be inclined to sacrifice Thursday-a day we have never cared for, somehow. But doubtless the wide-spread and bitter feeling against Monday as the day of return to work will prove strong enough to result in its annihilation.

There still remains the question of the five extra days. No, we have not forgotten them. Here we have several suggestions to offer. Perhaps they could be slipped in with advantage, in late and backward seasons, between the 11th and 12th of August-to give the birds a chance. Or they might be handed over to the M.C.C. for the last test match, or sprinkled through the year as Bank Holidays. No doubt they would prove to be a very powerful instrument in the hands of the Government of the day, if used for Parliamentary purposes. But we think this would be a risky experiment. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer got hold of them at the close of the financial year they might lead to a prodigious cooking of accounts.

On the whole we are inclined to save up these five days till we have a whole month in hand-to be called a Leap Month. This could be allotted for any important national purpose. It would be invaluable in a year like the present to carry out a complete and protracted celebration of the Coronation, for the whole populace could go on holiday without any actual loss of time.

We are leaving over the consideration of Leap Year till a future occasion.

The first quarter of the nineteenth century seems a long way off now. People looked and behaved so differently that sometimes one is tempted to believe that they felt differently. The letters of the period reveal an extraordinary change of sentiment-a change in the fashion of emotion. These reflections will occur, we think, to anyone who reads Mrs. Earle's "Memoirs and Memories" (Smith, Elder and Co., 10s. 6d.). The public should be very grateful to Mrs. Earle for publishing the family papers which make up the first sixty pages of her volume. They are highly entertaining and afford us an intimate insight into the domestic life of the upper class a hundred years ago; we get a glimpse of relations between parents and children, and husbands and wives, together with some pictures of happy and unhappy love affairs.

Mrs. Earle's maternal grandmother, Lady Ravensworth, had sixteen children, all of whom lived to grow up. It is with the childhood and youth of these young people that the "Memoirs" (as distinct from the "Memories") now before us deal. When they were in London they lived in Portland Placethen a new street-and twice a year they travelled along the Great North Road, through Durham to Ravensworth, "275 miles of turnpike." Lord Ravensworth was accounted a "kind father," but it was said of him that he did not know all his children by sight, and had upon one occasion remarked on the beauty of a baby whom he met in charge of its nurse without realizing that the child was his own. Parental feeling, we suppose, must have been the same since the world began, but it found other expression in those days than in these. Mrs. Earle's mother, who came in the middle of this

large family, left it on record that one of the most vivid recollections of her childhood was that of hunger, and of a tank in the yard in which the chil. dren were bathed, unless the ice was unbreakably hard. She says she was thankful to eat "crusts from the floor which had fallen from the baby's hand," and more thankful still when the frost precluded ablution. Later, when she grew up and began to go out, "she wondered what her parents would think of her, they had seen so little of her." Lady Ravensworth was, however, a careful mother in some particulars, and seems to have been very diligent in scolding her sons and guarding her daughters as soon as they began to attain years of discretion. On one occasion, we are told, she marshalled her family upon "The Grand Tour," as it was then called, visiting Germany, Italy, and France. Cannot one imagine the family coaches, the courier, the servants, the luggage, with which a rich Englishman travelled in those days? I was told that when at Rome they visited St. Peter's, and went up on to the dome. They found when they reached the top they would have to pass Lord Byron, who was also visiting the roof; their mother pulled down the veils of her beautiful young daughters and placed herself in front of them for fear his gaze should contaminate them." No doubt she knew how romantic and sentimental--to our modern eyes-these "beautiful daughters" One of them was soon plunged in despair by a love affair, and accounted by the doctors to be at death's door. What is now considered "a proper pride" was evidently unknown at this period. Fathers and mothers were proud of their daughters' sensibility, while suffering at the same time acute agonies of sympathy. The

were.