created by it, which Mr. Morrison choly, but whence does its melancholy mainly relies on for his effect. He tells us how the inhabitants of this street are knocked up every morning at half past five by the policeman or the night watchman, and rise and go to their day's labor at the docks, the gas works, and the ship yards; how a little later comes the "trotting of sorrow-laden little feet along the grim street to the grim Board School, three grim streets off;" then silence, save for a subdued sound of scrubbing here and there, and the puny squall of croupy infants;" then, still later on, "a new trotting of little feet to docks, gas works, and ship yards with father's dinner in a bason and a red handkerchief," and so to the Board School again; then "more muffled scrubbing and more squalling;" the return of the children from school, the return of sooty artisans from work; a "smell of bloater up and down;" nightfall; the fighting of boys in the street, perhaps of men at the corner near the beershop; sleep. And this is the record of a day in this street; and every day is hopelessly the same except Sunday, when, however, "one monotony" is only "broken by another." And the day is only symbolical of the life, which has its dawn of birth, its school time, "its midday play hour, when love peeps even into this street;" then more trotting of little feet, this time new and strange little feet; the scrubbing and squalling, the end of the sooty day's work, the last home-coming, nightfall, sleep. Where in the East End, asks Mr. Morrison in conclusion, lies this street? And he answers, "Everywhere." The hundred and fifty yards is only a link in a long and a mightily tangled chain -is only a turn in a tortuous maze. This street of the square holes is hundreds of miles long. That it is planned in short lengths is true, but there is no other way in the world that can more properly be called a single street because of its dismal lack of accent, its sordid uniformity, its utter remoteness from delight. arise? From the meanness of the mean street and the exceptionally dull and narrow lives of its inhabitants? That Mr. Morrison intends to convey that impression is obvious; but the impression is nine-tenths of it false. Why, if I had Mr. Morrison's fine descriptive gift, I would select a street quite other than mean, a street consisting, not of poverty-stricken little houses, but of "eligible" suburban villas, a street inhabited not by hardpressed artisans, but by comfortable, even by "warm" City men; and I would undertake to describe it and the daily lives of its inhabitants-the daily journey of the men to their business; the daily resumption by the women of their burden of household duties and household worries; their Sundays; the growth and departure of their children; their old age; their death-I say that had I the pen of Mr. Morrison I would undertake so to describe these things, that the heart of the reader should sink and shrink within him at the thought of man's lot upon earth, and, perhaps, burn with anger at the spiritless patience in which man endures it, with the "quietus" of the "bare bodkin" always within his reach. The power of suggesting these emotions is not a property of mean streets; it is a property of all streets, a property of life itself, with its unresting but aimless flow. If Mr. Morrison has not yet felt that himself, he will feel it before he passes middle age, and he will know then, if he does not already know, the true composition of the bitter draught that he has here brewed and presented to us. He will admit that he has been trying to pass off upon us a mixture of Weltschmerz and tedium vitæ as genuine "Essence of Mean Street." Measured out in minim glasses and copiously diluted, it is not an unpleasant potion, though it is enervating if too often indulged in and positively deadly in large doses; but always, and in any case, it is a subjective product, a way of looking at things, not a qualThe people Yes, it is a picture of infinite melan- ity of the things seen. who thus depress you with the intense monotony of their lives, do not, except by moments, feel it themselves any more than, except by moments, you feel the monotony of your own. Writers who bear this in mind are safeguarded from exaggeration; but Mr. Morrison is not of them. For sce how he proceeds with the account of the mean street. "Nobody laughs here," says he, "life is too serious a thing! Nobody sings." Is that true of any street in London or elsewhere? nay, is it true of any assemblage of buman beings, numbering children among them? Again, "Nobody from this street goes to the theatre. That would mean too long a journey, and would cost money, which might buy bread and cheese and boots." Indeed? It is from the daughters of these families that domestic service (when they will condescend to it) is largely recruited further west. If Mr. Morrison will ask the next housemaid he meets if she ever went to the theatre, I can promise him that elle lui dira des nouvelles. True, they ought not to be nouvelles to one who professes to have made a spccial study of the working class: though when he adds that for those workmen "who wear black Sunday suits" theatre going "would be sinful," it is difficult not to suspect him of a confusion between this class and the petite bourgeoisie. And what in the name of all the maidservants in London are we to make of this? "Now and again a penny novel has been found among the private treasures of a growing daughter, and been wrathfully conñscated." Do they then only begin to acquire their taste for this class of literature, and to collect their ample libraries of it after accepting their situations? If so, the growth, both of the taste and the library, is astonishingly rapid. But if this is how the New Realisin deals with the merely pathetic side of humble life; if these are its caricatures of the truth, where the truth is matter of pretty general knowledge, how are we to trust its dealings with those hideous and revolting aspects of the truth, which are matters of special inquiry and expert information? . We hardly need the counter testimony of experts to feel assured that, in the latter case also, the picture, as a whole, is overdrawn. It is not only that the note of exaggeration runs through its details, but that when they are substantially true, they have been so selected as to render the total impression false. For the impulse to that selection has not been artistically sincere. A public avid of sensation and critics wanting in the sense of measure have corrupted it, until the desire of each writer to strike and shock more violently than his competitors, to be more "relentless" and "unflinching," to write a "stronger," even if only in the sense of a more pungently malodorous, book than they, has first driven them to load their literary palettes with only "lurid" colors, and is now rapidly demoralizing if it, with some of them, has not already demoralized their artistic sense to the extent of blinding it to all other hues. That this fate should befall some of them is not, perhaps, a matter worth any sensible man's regret; but Mr. Arthur Morrison not only shows the promise but has given proof of the power of better things. H. D. TRAILL. From Temple Bar. THE PLACE OF YELLOW BRICK. "I am aware that the truth of midnight does not exclude the truth of noonday, though one's nature may lead him to dwell in the former rather than the latter." The wall surrounding the Place of Yellow Brick is built of the same material, and partly in steps, because the ground runs down hill. Outside its northern face a broken road, dishevelled palings, a clump of stunted fir-trees and greeny-brown downland stretching into the mist of distance; inside it pigstyes, gasworks, and vegetable plots. All this part of the scenery is fixed. Nobody but the County Council can alter it, and they like it as it is. Four o'clock on a November afternoon. A man hoeing one of the vegetable plots, and the sun looking at the whole map of them slantwise with a watery smile. A thrush in the firclump mingling his song with the click of the hoe against the flints. That particular scene never can be reproduced not even by the County Council. At the end of the last row but three of his plot the man stopped and looked back at his work. "Only three more," he said, "and then- He checked himself, and, with an uneasy, haggard glance at the wall, bent to his task again. Another row done, another halt. Then an uncontrollable impulse seized him, and he knelt down, covering his eyes with his hand. "Lead us not into temptation," he said. "Why do they give me a plot so near the wall? It comes over me worse to-day." He continued hoeing, with an effort. It was a cold day, but the perspiration stood thick on his forehead, because there was something in his head working too, harder than the hoe. It was, perhaps, only a coincidence, but the last row was finished just as the head-work became too swift and pressing to permit of it. He did not raise his eyes, but looked hard at the ground at his feet. The cloud lifting from his brain created a strange series of pangs, which made him afraid to move. further side of the buttress, and placed a heel on a projecting brick. In a moment his other foot was on the top of the hoe, and his hand touched the coping. The drop on the outer side was a yard more than he had to climb; and the shock sent him staggering into the muddy road with a sensation of jarred heels and knees unstrung. A strange dead pain shot through him as he straightened himself, and looked round. The feeling of guiltiness had disappeared. He left it with his hoe on the other side of the wall. He had no fears now; no, nor doubts. His path was clear, across the stretch of down into the mist. With a quick step he set out, stumbling over the flints and little stubborn bushes; now picking his way, now pushing doggedly ahead, regardless of obstacles. In spite of the roughness of the ground, in spite of growing breathlessness, there came to him a comforting sense of triumph and progress. Further and further; the mist, it seemed to him, must be getting much nearer now, though it looked as far off as ever. Suddenly the well-known tones of a bell made him start, and wheel round. There was the wall, a few hundred yards away, and the chimneys of the dreadful place he had left standing out sharply against the sky. He stood for a moment irresolute. The dusk was sweeping up in waves now, as the jagged ropes of black cloud filed one by one into the waning light. He welcomed it-the coming darkness. It would be a time for peaceful reflection, after the turmoil of the last few hours. "It's almost past bearing," he said Only he must find a hiding-place first. gently. The thrush was singing louder in the fir-clump, and the sun cast one final gleam before disappearing behind the bank of black cloud in the west. "It is my last chance," said the man louder. And the yellow wall cast it back in his teeth-"last chance." That decided for him. He shouldered his hoe and shuffled down between the rows to the wall, stopping opposite a buttress. Without further thought of how or why, he planted the hoe against the wall, crooked his fingers round the Anywhither then, as his feet might lead him. It would not take very long, and he was not quite tired out. On he went, in a zigzag course athwart the slope, in his own imagination striding along, without looking right or left, and compelling his growing thoughts within their lair, till he should have leisure to draw them forth. The decrepit figure, with its wildly waving hands, made a strange appearance as it ambled across the rutty road at the foot of the slope and dived helplessly into the scrub and thorn bushes beyond. His hoarse pant ing sounded strangely through the still air, and he was muttering between his sobs. You might have heard him, had you been there, for some seven minutes more; then would have fallen on your ears a sound of crackling twigs. Then silence. Sinking down where the straight stems of hazel grew thin in the middle of the shaw, a delicious sense of wrapt-up solitude stole over him, shutting out everything but self, and wafting him imperceptibly into a strange land of half-awakened memories and half-unrealized dreams. The damp moss on which he rested became to him as light as cloud; and he floated on it, to and fro, in a gradually brightening paradise, which was his own. There was no impatience in his soul for the full glory of the vision; he would wait gladly for its appointed time. To look from side to side and see softly illumined faces in constant gaze on his was enough, almost more than enough. And now he sank a little further back, and raised one arm above his head. The light was brighter; and an indistinct outline of houses rose out of the cloud. The faint "wop-wop" of a blackbird, who had been disturbed by this intrusion into his native shaw, and who was now returning by stages from a far corner, awoke him. The bird, as is its wont, flew past, uttering a shriek opposite to his hiding-place. He did not quite realize where he was. Darkness had settled down black and impenetrable; and the chill of night was beginning to numb his hands and feet. But he woke enough to know that he had been dreaming, and that the growing brightness of the vision was really the gradual clearing of his brain. The reason of his life within the yellow wall came to him dimly; but as he tried to reckon up the years, he became tired and returned to the vision. The faces were clearer, and the land brighter. It was crowded with things more or less distinct; a bridge and a roadway thereby were the clearest; he dared not stare too hard because of the strain on his eyes. Eyes! the word brought something more to him. He had been warned not to strain his eyes, and by a doctor too, who lived in a street near the bridge. The blackbird lit on a hazel twig close to him, and shrieked again. The sound awoke him a second time; and he listened dreamily, as his disturber uttered a final cry and retreated across the open space to a clump of junipers. He winked his eyes against the velvety darkness, and gathered up the skein of the vision again. The sense of security, which he associated with being in the dark, now explained itself. He had been warned not to use his eyes much; but he did it-did it, always was doing it-against orders. What said the vision? It was brighter still, and showed him something more. The little views of the street and the canal, and the smiling faces, were ranged together evenly, each in its little frame of cloud. The fineness of their lines was exquisite; he crawled forward for a moment to examine them, and saw that they were almost too fine. Then he withdrew his gaze with a guilty start. A cart came into hearing, and rattled over the flints in a newly mended bit of road, tumbling the vision out of sight, and bringing him back to a rude realization of the shaw, and the damp moss, and the darkness. Then the concrete meaning occurred to him-he had been a steel engraver once. How long ago he could not tell. It was a battle between his eyes and the lines in the steel. And the lines had won, pushed his brains sideways, as it seemed to him, so that one day he dropped his tools on the floor and cried for help, and vowed not to ill-use his eyes again-too late. The vision came to his help once more. It was more radiant and wonderful. The faces were known to him now; they were portraits of his wife and three children, and the peculiar design of the vision followed closely in style a frontispiece for a book of Christmas stories, by Charles Dickens. It was the most perfect portrayal of life, in the world or out of it, and all his own. The faces could speak; he could hear the echo of steps on the path under the bridge; even the peculiar smell of the place came back to him. The hum of voices was pleasant music; and the smile was a smile of universal recognition. Life, health, and happiness were concentrated in the moving scene. It occurred to him further that the street was Shepherdess Walk, and the bridge spanned the Regent's Canal. There remained one final transfiguration before the whole vanished. He could never describe it properly, because the unearthly beauty of the scene declined to be committed to words. But he said that he saw over all the face of the Great Snowman who orders and governs all visions and dreams. And Le added that the meaning of everything he had seen was made manifest to him, including the meaning of his life within the Place of Yellow Brick. His mind was raised out of the darkness, and he looked just for the moment on the brilliant landscape, Shepherdess Walk, the Regent's Canal, the people in the carts and on the pavements, all lit up with one dazzling iridescence, reflected from the face of God.. Whether by design or coincidence it may not be known, but at this second the moon leapt suddenly from behind a ridge of clouds and shed a sheaf of her rays on his closed eyes. He stretched out his hands and awoke, slowly and painfully. There seemed to be a harsh voice telling him that it was time to forsake visions and grasp the real world. It must have seemed a very harsh voice indeed to a man, newly awakened in body and soul alike, whose clothes were wet, whose limbs were chilled and stiff, and whose chief sensations were those of acute hunger. But he obeyed it. With his hands to his forehead he staggered forth from the shaw, across the scrub into the road, a trembling but sane man. They found him-the two keepers who had been sent to search-walking steadily towards London. He turned back with them without comment or demur; only when they arrived within sight of the Place of Yellow Brick he asked to be blindfolded; for the sake of his eyes, he said. Later he was con fronted with the head doctor, as are all truants from the Place of Yellow Brick. "This is a bad case," said the head doctor. There was no reply. "A disappointment too to me," he went on; "I thought you were much better. Take your hand away from your eyes." The truant dropped his hand to his side, and murmured, "I was much better, sir." He spoke very softly, for fear the dreadful old self should hear and awake. Consequently the other did not hear him, but merely leaned back, and looked warily into his eyes. After half a minute, during which they remained in mutual gaze, the head doctor sighed and reached forward to an electric bell on the table. Then he wrote on a half sheet of paper, "No. 471. Watch carefully, and report." As the pen moved over the paper, No. 471 knew that the old terror had begun again, and as the knowledge came home to him, he felt the cloud settling on his brain. But as they led him from the room, he managed to say, "It was true, sir, while it lasted-worth anything to me!" "Hopeless," said the head doctor, as the door closed. STEPHEN HARDCASTLE CLARKE. They From The St. James Gazette. WEATHER SIGNS A DELUSION. Those who believe in weather-lore have been busy with predictions of a coming severe winter. The hawthornberries and the hips of the wild rose have been unusually plentiful. point with triumph to the fact that last winter the supply was extremely short and the winter was mild and muggy. Then the swallows departed unusually early, and the snow-buntings have come in unusual numbers. The snow-bunting, which is one of the great finch family, is common in the arctic regions in the summer, and, migrating South in the winter, has always been found in more or less large flocks in the British |