dau is continually speaking of Musset's indolence, but that term does not seem accurately to describe or explain his scanty performance. Within ten years he had written what was in bulk a respectable amount, and his silence after that time was due to other causes than indolence.

Before he laid aside his pen, however, he added some good work to what he had before done. In his prose stories he made use of many incidents of his life. Thus "Emmeline" records a bit of his own experience; "Les deux Maîtresses" has an autobiographical value; and into "Margot" he introduced reminiscences of his boyhood, and so in others. But it is in "Le Fils de Titien" that we find him expressing himself frankly. This story was always a great favorite of his, and it is easy to see whom he had in mind in drawing the hero. Paul de Musset tells us that this was the story which his brother wrote with the greatest enthusiasm. Besides being a well-told tale, with two fine sonnets in it, it contains a defense of the position the author was gradually taking with regard to literature. Tizianello paints a masterpiece, and then refuses to touch his brush again. He felt that he was living in a time of the decadence of art which could only be overcome by an effort beyond his powers; "he was young, rich, strong-he had a beautiful mistress; to avoid reproaches he had only to let the sun rise and set. Should he renounce so many advantages for a doubtful glory which, after all, he would probably never attain? . . . And with his customary light-heartedness he concluded by saying: 'Painting may go to the devil! Life is too short!'"

This is the poetical, self-deluding side of Musset's aversion to serious work. He had begun as few writers have begun, but there had early entered into his heart the poison which unfitted him for severe endeavor. There is no need of insisting upon the frequent instances he gives in his writings of his own demoralization. He had learned to disbelieve in the existence of anything worth writing about; he had become disgusted with the world and with himself; and the consequence was, that the last seventeen years of his life were passed by him not only unproductively but with a deliberate waste of his fine gifts. In his poem "Sur la Paresse," written in December, 1841, he defended himself by attacking with righteous indignation the age in which it

was his misfortune to live, accusing it of being wholly given up to vice and sordid gain, so that he was tempted to stand outside of the current of action instead of singing its decadence or lashing its faults. The indifference with which he was heard also offended his pride and encouraged him in his determination to keep silence. He looked upon his poetry as something which he would give to the world only at such times as to him seemed best, and if no one cared to listen to him he would not utter a sound. Indeed, the lack of interest in his verses which was at that time shown by the public, and the coldness of the leading critics, might well have wounded a less haughty spirit; and it is not strange that Musset, who was always above uneasy anxiety to keep himself before the public, should have forborne writing. For this reason, and the others before mentioned, he wrote but little for many years. It was, however, in the beginning of this. period of silence that he wrote one of the most beautiful of his poems, "Le Souvenir." He had visited the forest of Fontainebleau in the month of September, 1840, and a few months later he put into verse the reminiscences which were recalled by the scene of his old love for George Sand. The whole poem is most touching. But after it was published he was filled with regret that he had given it to the world. He said to his brother: “I have given my bleeding heart to the public. I am vexed to think that any stupid fool can recite those two lines:

'Mes yeux ont contemplé des objets plus funèbres,

Que Juliette morte, au fond de son tombeau.'

"I uttered those words alone in the silence of the night, and now they are cast abroad for the entertainment of idlers. Fortunately, you will see that no one will pay any attention to them." Since then, however, they have met with a different fate, although for a time the prophecy was fulfilled.. It is hard to imagine indifference to such lines as these:

"Oui, sans doute, tout meurt; ce monde est un grand rêve,

Et le peu de bonheur qui nous vient en chemin,

Nous n'avons pas plus tôt ce roseau dans la main,
Que le vent nous l'enlève.

"Oui, les premiers baisers, oui, les premiers serments,
Que deux êtres mortels échangèrent sur terre,

Ce fut au pied d'un arbre effeuillé par les vents,
Sur un roc en poussière.

"Ils prirent à témoin de leur joie éphémère
Un ciel toujours voilé qui change à tout moment,
Et des astres sans nom que leur propre lumière
Dévore incessamment.

"Tout mourait autour d'eux, l'oiseau dans le feuillage,
La fleur entre leurs mains, l'insecte sous leurs piéds,
La source desséchée où vacillait l'image

De leurs traits oubliés;

"Et sur tous ces débris joignant leurs mains d'argile,
Étourdis des éclairs d'un instant de plaisir,

Ils croyaient échapper à cet Être immobile.

Qui regarde mourir.

Insensés dit le sage.-Heureux! dit le poëte," etc.

This unhappy man died in May, 1857, and his death was for him a relief from trouble and despair. For many years he had been a melancholy wreck. This brief analysis describes cursorily only some of his masterpieces. The reader can feel sure in advance that he will be led from one fine thing to another, although he will be at times repelled, if he takes up Alfred de Musset's works. If he reads first Carl de Musset's Life, he will learn to appreciate the poet's great personal charm, and he will be kept from judging his faults too harshly. His poems need no loud trumpet to proclaim their excellence. A lover of poetry will find them full of delight. He will read with interest, too, in the brother's biography, many short poems never before printed, and fragments of a story, "Le Poëte déchu," which like so much of the rest was partly autobiographical. Its destruction by its writer is a great loss to his admirers, but it was due to a natural aversion to giving his writings to an indifferent public. The public has now ceased to be indifferent to the most poetical of modern French poets.

ALL biblical religions claim for their scriptures an inspiration which distinguishes them from other, mere literary compositions. The Vedas, the Avesta, the Koran, the Law, are regarded as divinely inspired by their respective inheritors-Brahman, Parsee, Mussulman, and Jew. Indeed, without an inspired word, and belief in such a word, no enduring religion could ever establish itself in the world.

Christianity, born of Jewish parentage, embraces the Hebrew Scriptures in one canon with its own New Testament, and credits both with an equal and divine origin.

The theory of inspiration which has commonly prevailed in the Christian Church is that of dictation. According to this theory, the writers of the Old and New Testaments were simply amanuenses employed by the Holy Spirit to express given thoughts in given words. They exercised no deliberation, no imagination, no thought, no mental faculty whatever, in their writing. Their function was purely mechanical; they had only to hold the pen or open the mouth, and hand and lip moved as the Spirit listed.

According to this theory, these Scriptures are in no sense human utterances; there is no human element in them; they are not the thoughts, the meditations, the aspirations, the admonitions, the confessions, of finite beings, but transcripts of the Divine. They are works of God, in substantially the same sense in which sun, moon, and stars, are works of God; they are works framed in language, as earth and heaven are works framed in

matter, or what we so name. Consequently there is no difference of degree* in these writings; Chronicles and Prophets, Acts and Gospel, are equally divine. From Genesis to Revelation, every word is the immediate utterance of the Infinite Mind.

This theory, known in theology as the doctrine of plenary, verbal inspiration, presents grave difficulties, and is generally rejected, I suppose, by honest critics of the present day. The absence of any proof, the impossibility of any proof, by which such a doctrine can be sustained, will be felt as a prior objection by unprejudiced minds. The Bible does not claim to be inspired in the sense of dictation,† and, if it did, if the doctrine were explicitly taught in the Scriptures, their assertion alone would not establish the fact. It would need authentication by an independent witness; it would need that God by some other, external, demonstration should repeat and confirm the assertion.

The doctrine does not answer the purpose for which it is maintained. The kind of inspiration affirmed has not secured the end supposed to be designed by it. The end presumed is infallible certainty in religion. That certainty has not been attained. The Old Testament is differently interpreted by Jews and Christians, and both Old and New are very differently interpreted by different portions of the Christian world. Professing equally to seek in this volume the infallible word of God, they have not agreed as to what they found in its pages. Hence the Romanist argues, "You must have not only an infallible word, but an infallible interpreter of that word." The Church of Rome assumes to be that interpreter; but Rome has not been able to secure unanimity of opinion. The attempt to do so has resulted in suppression of private judgment, or in schism. It needs for that purpose not only an infallible interpreter, but unquestioning submission to such interpreting, an entire surrender of the mind or suspension of its action in the matter of religion. Whether such surrender accords with the purpose of God, implied in the gift of reason, is a question I need not discuss.

The theory of verbal inspiration requires that copyist and

* The Swedenborgians exclude from this claim the Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline epistles.

The term Seóπvevσтos, 2 Timothy iii. 16 (the passage often cited in defense of the doctrine), will not bear that interpretation.