EX-PRESIDENT BASCOM ON CURRENT H1 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. IGH praise is generally bestowed by the critics upon the new work of John Bascom, ex-President of Wisconsin State University, entitled "Social Theory: A Grouping of Social Facts and Principles." This book is more comprehensive than the author's "Sociology," and is designed for the general reader who wishes to obtain a clear idea of the scope and method of the science of society. It is both theoretical and practical. It discusses nearly every modern problem in politics and social relations, but it does so to illustrate and elucidate the general principles regarded by the author as fundamental and well established. The aim is rather to indicate the proper way of approaching the questions, and the factors to be taken into account, than to offer final solutions or practical suggestions. Sociology is defined by Professor Bascom as "a knowledge of the facts of society, the order in which they follow one another, and their causes and reasons." He finds that there are five forms of organic force in society-Customs, Economics, Civics, Ethics, Religion. He defines and discusses, in a systematic and orderly way, the elements of each of these groups. Thus under Customs he deals with marriage, divorce, purity, amusements, and manners, showing the relation between the written and unwritten laws in regard to them. Under Economics, he deals with wages, competition, land, taxation, population, currency, socialism, and the different aspects of the labor movement. Under Civics, he deals with the State, law, crime, pauperism, education, railways, trusts, patents, and political parties. In the chapter on Ethics, he defines the relation of ethics to civics and economics, besides dealing with specific ethical problems like justice, benevolence, and social obligations. In the final chapter Religion and Evolution are discussed. to compel one whose personal responsibilities are large to discharge them unnecessarily through others. "The most conclusive reason in behalf of this enlargement of political rights is that it would tend to additional development of personal life. Thought, feeling, and action would be correspondingly widened. One half the human household would obtain a larger horizon, and that without robbing any man of his vision.” In the section dealing with socialism, the author, while recognizing the good done by that movement, points out its errors as follows: "It breaks with history. It discloses no adequate sense of the slow, instinctive, organic tendencies involved in the development of society, and supposes that wide and rapid It 'Socialism lays chief emphasis on organism as opposed to inner life. Organism is of much moment, but is utterly inefficacious without the impulses appropriate to it. The single tax is also rejected by the A work covering so much ground can not readily be summarized, but a few extracts will indicate the author's progressive temper and sympathy with present-day reform movements. Discussing, under Customs, the status of women, he welcomes the growing independence of the latter and expresses the opinion that the marriage relation can only gain from it, being regarded more and more as a "free spiritual contract." He favors political rights for women, saying: ment as men. "Women have essentially the same interest in good governThey should have the same rights and duties in securing good government-the bulwark of defense for all our gains-as men. If there are any reasons adverse to this natural conclusion, they must be made out in the clearest and most pracThe antecedent presumption in favor of identical tical way. rights is great. "Women have also essentially the same powers with which to apprehend and discharge the duties of citizenship. Whatever diversity of gifts there may be between men and women, it does not touch their ability to understand and watch over these vital interests. "Women have also, in addition to the common wants and powers which they share with men, certain wants and powers, especially those associated with the household, which belong to them in an unusual degree, and which they are, therefore, especially fitted to urge and protect. Diversity between men and women, as well as agreement between them, calls for concurrent counsel and action. The public welfare is made up of the welfare of men, women, and children, and a portion of this welfare it falls peculiarly to women to understand and watch over. It is wrong On the question of trusts, the author says that legal attempts to suppress them inevitably fail, and that the best way is to accept combination and devise methods of regulation and control. Writing on the decadence of the greater of our political parties, and the need of independence in politics, the author says: 'When a citizens' ticket threatens to sweep away the abuses of party administration, the party out of power will embarrass the movement by a regular nomination. The parties are like two gamblers, who have their own bickerings, but are united against any outside interference. "It thus becomes most difficult to organize a third party, to initiate and carry forward any thorough correction, to raise any new issue, or bring honest men to the front. Both parties feel at once the danger, and unite in making the effort unsuccessful. In Massachusetts, the ballot law has received a form which com pelled a party numbering nine thousand voters or less to endure a cumbersome and vexatious procedure as a condition for the admission of their candidates to the ballot? What can be done by shifting one's vote from party to party-and it is not very much when both parties are unsatisfactory-may be done; but he who attempts to organize a new party enters on a costly and wearisome effort, whose success may be in no way proportioned to its merit. A first condition of genuine deliberation and free execution is easy combination, yet with us the difficulties of political combination are so great as to be in most cases insuperable." In the final chapter, Professor Bascom states "the laws of social growth." They are as follows: First: "That the relations of men one with another become ever more complex." Second: "Increasing mobility in social relations." Third: "Continuity." Fourth: "Increasing change." Fifth: "Definite, constructive, and productive direction of the change." Sixth: "Unity." Seventh that "development is a measured, rhythmical, accelerated movement." These laws are all explained and illustrated. We quote one of Professor Bascom's concluding paragraphs: "The phenomena of social and spiritual life are so much wider than our vision that we are easily too sanguine and too despondent. It is well at times to think that the spiritual world can move much faster than it does move. The very thought helps to accelerate change. If, on the other hand, we become discouraged; if we look upon new supersensuous incentives as essentially alien to the ruling forces, as exceedingly disproportionate to their work, and often wholly futile, it is because we have no adequate conception of the comprehensiveness and grandeur of a moral creation, of the many generations and the myriads in each generation who must take part in it, and of its profoundly vital character. The physical, the organic, and the spiritual worlds flow together in it, in it achieve an equilibrium of mutually corrective and sustaining forces, till the purpose of God becomes apparent in the kingdom of heaven." THE RELEASE OF EX-CONSUL WALLER. THE The HE case of John L. Waller, colored, formerly United States Consul at Tamatave, Madagascar, serving sentence in a French prison, has been settled so far as this Government is concerned by the acceptance of an offer by France to release him, provided no damages are claimed by the United States. facts were made public in correspondence sent to Congress last week. The present Consul, Mr. Wetter, reports first, the absence of accounts of the Crockett estate entrusted to Mr. Waller, and that after a fair trial he was found guilty of mismanagement of the funds and criminally guilty of abuse and negligence of fiduciary trusts. The Consul also finds that Waller's trial before a military tribunal, French counsel being furnished him, established his guilt on two charges: The despatching of a letter froin Tamatave without the same having been visèd by the French authorities, in contravention of a public order, promulgated January 18. 1895, and attempting to correspond with the enemies of France and to furnish them information prejudicial to the military and political situation of France. The American Ambassador at Paris, Mr. Eustis, after a search of French records, agrees with Consul Wetter, and Secretary of State Olney, in submitting the correspondence, declares that the serious question is raised whether Waller was not intriguing even against the safety and lives of American citizens. Mr. Olney sought and has obtained Waller's release from France, but declares that no claim for damages could be properly pressed by this Government. President Cleveland, while noting a slight conflict of evidence on some features, indorses Mr. Olney's conclusion as admitting of no reasonable doubt. Lessons of the Episode. "There is much in the Waller episode that must incline his American fellow citizens to wish to forget the whole unsavory affair as soon as possible. But it suggests two facts that should be fixed deeply in public memory. One is the danger of 'patriotically' assuming that every Ameri can who gets into trouble anywhere in the rest of the world must be right. The other is the abiding cordiality of the relations between the French and ourselves. The release of Waller, it should be understood, is authorized solely as a manifestation of good-will for us as a nation, and it will be accepted by our Government under that interpretation and in the same spirit of mutual regard. Indeed, we might almost be pleased that there has been such an affair because of the fresh evidence it has occasioned of the exceptional relations of friendship between the two nations—so exceptional and sincere that one of them is willing to surrender its rights rather than run any risk of marring them. There is no reason why we can not be on equally good terms with other nations, especially those more closely allied to us in blood relationship."-The Journal (Ind.), Providence. A Wholesome Warning.-"The whole affair should teach a lesson to partizan polticians and newspapers. It is also a wholesome warning against the practise of bestowing office upon a man because of the color of his skin, the place of his birth, his religious belief, or some other irrelevant circumstance. It stands to reason that Waller would have never been appointed to this $2,000 post had he not been black, for he was comparatively unknown, and, doubtless, was unable to furnish such certificates of character as would have been required of a white man going to Nice or Lyons or any other consulate in France. Yet the Consul at Tamatave was as fully a representative of the United States and had as much power to embroil it with a sister republic as the diplomat at the richest minor post in Europe.”—The Courier-Journal (Dem.), Louisville, Ky. So Much for International Humbug.-"On the whole, taking him by and large, he seems to have been a thoroughly disreputable fellow in his dealings, and he certainly has every reason to thank his stars that circumstances made an international question of him. In securing his release upon an agreement not to prosecute his claims against the French Government our Government has done all that it could do in reason and decency. For the care of the man and his family our representatives have already expended $1,300, and they now propose to furnish the Waller outfit with transportation home and to guarantee the costs of any suit the man may bring in the French courts on account of his claims for damages. So much for an international humbug!"-The Journal (Rep.), Chicago. The Department of State Worsted.-"The release of exConsul Waller on the terms accepted by the Administration is a virtual acknowledgment of the validity of drumhead court-martial sentences against American citizens. The 'pardon' of Waller, who has no recourse for any injury except to sue the French Government, is to be accepted as an act of friendship to the United States. This leaves in abeyance the only point really at issuethe right of American citizens to live abroad without being subjected to execution or imprisonment except under due process of civil law. The Department of State has been badly worsted by the French Foreign Office."-The World (Dem.), New York. A Shameful Spectacle.-"For the poor boon of freedom, which is secured on these disgraceful conditions, the United States agrees that it will ask neither apology nor material reparation for the outrageous conviction of John L. Waller and the weary months of confinement in a French dungeon. When was there a parallel for such an act? When before was an American citizen thrown into a foreign dungeon without shadow or form of law or right and released on the supine promise of the American Government that no demand for reparation shall be made? This is the crowning act of an Administration which has been distinguished for its abject submission to foreign insult. Every American ought to blush for shame at the spectacle."-The Journal (Rep.), Kansas City, Mo. The Bee is willing to admit that the Administration has left no stone unturned to get at the bottom of the Waller case and to have him released. The Administration says that Mr. Waller is guilty of conspiracy against the French, notwithstanding this Government and the friends of Waller have induced the French to release Waller from his twenty years' imprisonment. Let AfroAmericans be considerate as well as sympathetic. Indeed, there has been and there is now too much sympathy on the part of Afro-Americans. They seem to forget that wrongs among them must not be condemned and punished."— The Bee (Colored), Washington. ARBITRATION OF BERING SEA CLAIMS. FINAL INAL arbitration of claims for damages through seizures of Canadian sealing-vessels in Bering Sea is the subject of a treaty which awaits ratification by the United States only, to become effective. This treaty was negotiated last fall by Secretary of State Olney and Sir Julian Pauncefote for Great Britain, the Dominion concurring. It provides for the appointment of a commissioner by each government, and an umpire to be named by the President of the Swiss Republic if the two commissioners can not agree on a third member, the decision of the commission to be binding on the two governments. The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, it is reported, intend to amend the convention so as to include the possible existence of claims of United States citizens against Great Britain or Canada. The American press in general have welcomed the prospect of this commission as a proper means of careful investigation whose award of claims should be promptly paid. The Post-Intelligencer, Seattle, Wash., seeks to correct the impression that the Paris tribunal allowed Great Britain. $425.000 for losses sustained through seizures. That paper, in common with other journals, points out the fact that the arbitrators held that we had no property rights in the seals when found outside the three-mile limit. They also found that vessels had been warned and seized, but the sum to be paid was distinctly left for further negotiations. Mr. Gresham, Secretary of State, agreed to a lump claim of $425,000, but Congress was unwilling to pay that amount, Senator Morgan, one of the arbitrators, and others, declaring that many claims were untenable because a number of seized vessels were owned by Americans and had been registered under the British flag to evade seizure for poaching. The Post-Intelligencer declares that the arbitrators in their finding upon the facts submitted in the British case, stated that it was open to the United States, in any further negotiations as to its liability to pay damages for the searchers and seizures, to question not only the value of the vessels seized, but also as to whether any one of them was not wholly or in part the property of United States citizens. It is said, however, that the convention now before the Senate committee concedes the demand of Canada that American ownership shall not enter into the question of damages to be decided upon by the commission. Hence fear is expressed in some quarters that an honorable settlement under the Paris award is not yet assured. The Philadelphia North American has thus expressed its opinion: "The claims which will be passed on by the Commission are mostly consequential, to the payment of which there is a rooted objection in Congress, because at the Geneva tribunal consequential damages claimed in the Alabama cases were thrown out by the commissioners. However, the finding of the Commission, if it is agreed to, will be binding upon the United States, and in view of this, the better plan would be for Congress to authorize at once the payment of a lump sum. The President should so recommend." Prohibition of Prize-Fighting in the Territories. -Congress passed and the President signed a bill prohibiting prize-fights in the District of Columbia and the Territories before the proposed bout between Maher and Fitzsimmons could take place in any of them. The bill prohibits bull-fights as well as pugilistic encounters for championships, or exhibitions where admission is charged directly or indirectly. A violation of the law is made a felony punishable by imprisonment from one to five years. There was no division on the bill in either House, and its passage is taken as an indication of real public sentiment by secular newspapers, most of which have devoted more or less space to news of such encounters in the past. The Philadelphia North American says: "A law like this should have been adopted long ago, since all of the States in the Union have taken similar action; but its passage now is an encouraging sign of the advance of civilization in which we may all rejoice." The Oakland, Cal., Tribune declares that "there is no standing-room for pugilists." The Pittsburg Times asserts that pugilism in the United States " has had its day: "Public sentiment is against it where the law specifically is not. For a State to permit a prize-fight in its borders would be to invite disgrace and damage to its interests. Pugilism has gone, or is going, the way of dueling, which it succeeded. The first prize-fight in this country was fought by Hyer and Beasly in 1816, and almost ever since there has been a steady effort to put down the blackguardism of the prize-ring. It was slow work, but so was the destruction of the custom of dueling." Without reverting to the crusade against the proposed bull-fights in connection with the Atlanta Exposition of last year The Constitution of that city welcomes the passage of the bill as following the example of the governors of the Southern States in suppressing prize-fighting. The Constitution adds: "There has been quite recently a display of pugilism in Madison Square Garden, in the very heart of the metropolis. This disgusting exhibition, which would have been run out of the South incontinently, was attended by an audience of 6,000 New Yorkers, and the brutes who were the features of the demoralizing spectacle pummeled and pounded one another in the style most approved by those who admire ruffianism. Let us hope that the enlightened public opinion of the North, instead of worrying itself about Southern civilization, will follow the example of that civilization and stamp out at once and forever that most rampant and disgusting form of brutality, the prize-ring and its offshoots." One grand cook-book! -The Constitution, Atlanta. THERE may be popular loans, but this country has yet to see a popular deficit. The Press, New York. IT may become necessary for the man who desires to become a successful pugilist to study law as well as oratory.-The Star, Washington. ALL roads lead to London, even Cecil Rhodes.-The Recorder, New York. A CAREFUL search of the premises so recently vacated by the Harrison boom fails to disclose a will.-The Times-Herald, Chicago. WE hope that the scheme for another Pan-American Congress will not flash in the pan.-The Advertiser, Boston. THEY call him Oom Paul, but he is going on as tho he were Oom Rule. -Moonshine, London. THE British Parliament opened its session with an ovation to the Monroe doctrine.-The Recorder, New York. SENATOR TILLMAN is at least recognized by the United States Senate as having belligerent rights. They may reach Cuba after a while.-The Inter Ocean, Chicago. UNCLE SAM is a great success as an auctioneer.- The News, Indianapolis. LETTERS AND ART. "THE LOVE-AFFAIRS OF A BIBLIOMANIAC." IT, T was granted to Eugene Field to accomplish satisfactorily to himself a fond desire of his life, namely, the writing of a book illustrative of his passion for books. This volume-"The Love-Affairs of a Bibliomaniac”—contains a sympathetic introduction by the dead author's brother, Mr. Roswell Martin Field, who says that "bibliophily" rather than "bibliomania" would be the word to characterize Eugene Field's conscientious purpose; that if he purchased quaint and rare books it was to own them to the full extent, inwardly as well as outwardly; that the mania for books kept him continually buying, and the love of books supervened to make them a part of himself and his life. Mr. Field for many years, during nearly a quarter of a century of journalistic work, celebrated in prose and verse the pleasures of book-hunting. His newspaper contributions contain many sly digs and gentle scoffings at those of his unhappy fellow citizens who became notorious, through his instrumentality, in their devotion to old book-shelves and auction sales; and all the time, says his brother, none was more assiduous than this same good-natured cynic in running down a musty prize, no matter what it cost or what the attending difficulties. To quote briefly from the introduction to the volume in hand: "In his published writings are many evidences of my brother's appreciation of what he has somewhere characterized the 'soothing affliction of bibliomania.' Nothing of book-hunting love has been more happily expressed than 'The Bibliomaniac's Prayer,' in which the troubled petitioner fervently asserts: 'But if, O Lord, it pleaseth thee To keep me in temptation's way, I humbly ask that I may be Most notably beset to-day; Let my temptation be a book, Which I shall purchase, hold and keep, Whereon, when other men shall look, They'll wail to know I got it cheap.' "In 'Dear Old London' the poet wailed that 'a splendid Horace cheap for cash' laughed at his poverty, and in ‘Dibdin's Ghost' he reveled in the delights that await the bibliomaniac in the future state, where there is no admission to the women folk who, 'wanting victuals, make a fuss if we buy books instead:' while in 'Flail, Trask and Bisland' is the very essence of bibliomania, the unquenchable thirst for possession." In confessing his "love-affairs" Mr. Field tells us that his very first love, which he discovered one springtime day in his grandmother's book-case, while in company with Captivity Waite, "an exceptionally pretty girl, as girls go,” was "The New England Primer," which he in part describes and moralizes upon as follows: "How lasting are the impressions made upon the youthful mind! Through the many busy years that have elapsed since first I tasted the thrilling sweets of that miniature Primer I have not forgotten thatʻyoung Obadias, David, Josias, all were pious;' that 'Zaccheus he did climb the Tree our Lord to see;' and that 'Vashti for Pride was set aside;' and still with many a sympathetic shudder and tingle do I recall Captivity's overpowering sense of horror, and mine, as we lingered long over .the portraitures of Timothy flying from Sin, of Xerxes laid out in funeral garb, and of proud Korah's troop partly submerged. · 'My Book and Heart Must never part.' So runs one of the couplets in this little Primer-book, and right truly can I say that from the springtime day sixty-odd years ago, when first my heart went out in love to this little book, no change of scene or of custom, no allurement of fashion, no demand of mature years, has abated that love. And herein is exemplified the advantage which the love of books has over the other kinds of love. Women are by nature fickle, and so are men; their friendships are liable to dissipation at the merest provocation or the slightest pretext. Not so, however, with books, for books can not change. A thousand years hence they are what you find them to-day, speaking the same words, holding forth the same cheer, the same promise, the same comfort; always constant, laughing with those who laugh and weeping with those who weep." His next "love" was "Robinson Crusoe," and so on into manhood's years, when other tomes attracted his fancy. In one of these chapters he says: "There are very many kinds of book collectors, but I think all may be grouped in three classes, viz.: Those who collect from vanity; those who collect for the benefits of learning; those who collect through a veneration and love for books. It is not infrequent that men who begin to collect books merely to gratify their personal vanity find themselves presently so much in love with the pursuit that they become collectors in the better sense. "Just as a man who takes pleasure in the conquest of feminine hearts invariably finds himself at last ensnared by the very passion which he has been using simply for the gratification of his vanity, I am inclined to think that the element of vanity enters, to a degree, into every phase of book-collecting; vanity is, I take it, one of the essentials to a well-balanced character-not a prodigious vanity, but a prudent, well-governed one. But for vanity there would be no competition in the world; without competition there would be no progress." From another page we quote: "All buyers may be classed in these following specified grand divisions: The reckless buyer. The shrewd buyer. The timid buyer. Of these three classes the third is least worthy of our consideration, altho it includes very many lovers of books, and consequently very many friends of mine. I have actually known men to hesitate, to ponder, to dodder for weeks, nay, months over the purchase of a book; not because they did not want it, nor because they deemed the price exorbitant, nor yet because they were not abundantly able to pay that price. Their hesitancy was due to an innate, congenital lack of determination-that same hideous curse of vacillation which is responsible for so much misery in human life. "I have made a study of these people, and I find that most of them are bachelors whose state of singleness is due to the fact that the same hesitancy which has deprived them of many a coveted volume has operated to their discomfiture in the matrimonial sphere. While they deliberated, another bolder than they came along and walked off with the prize." Reflecting upon the incident of a friend of his having unexpectedly come upon a superb collection of Elzevirs in a modest little home in the wilds of Texas, the author exclaims: "How far-reaching is thy grace, O bibliomania! How good and sweet it is that no distance, no environment, no poverty, no distress can appall or stay thee. Like that grim specter we call death, thou knockest impartially at the palace portal and at the cottage door. And it seemeth thy especial delight to bring unto the lonely in desert places the companionship that exalteth humanity! "It makes me groan to think of the number of Elzevirs that are lost.in the libraries of rich parvenus who know nothing of and care nothing for the treasures about them further than a certain vulgar vanity which is involved." THE celebrated musical composer, Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas, died in Paris on February 12. M. Thomas was born at Metz, August 5, 1811. He was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux Arts in 1851; was appointed Officier d'Instruction Publique in 1869, and became director of the Conservatoire de Musique in 1871. He had been a commander of the Legion of Honor since 1868 and Grand Officier since January 1, 1881. His works are voluminous, and among them are: "La Double Echelle" (1837); "Le Perruquier de la Régence" (1838); "Le Panier Fleuri" (1839); "La Gypsy," a ballet written in collaboration with Besnoit; "Le Carnaval de Venise" (1857); "Mignon" (1866), and "Hamlet." operas have been produced in the United States. The two last-named The Dial says: "The following sentence from Paul Bourget's new novel, 'A Tragic Idyl,' might fairly be described as a specimen of rainbow rhetoric. 'She had come, so beautiful, so slender, all in mauve, along her pathway lined with blue cinerarias, yellow pansies, and large violet anem. Rose-bushes close at hand filled the air with an aroma like the aroma of the present. And, both seated on the white heather, under the black pines with their red trunks, which descend, toward a little creek of blue water and gray rocks, he had laid his head on the heart of his dear companion."" ones. BOURGET AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVELIST. אן N an article entitled "The Spirit of M. Paul Bourget," in Le Revue de Paris, December, M. Charles Mourras praises the popular French novelist as the founder of the psychological school in fiction, and as one who, tho true to the great French traditions in literature, in so far that he has naught in common with the socalled Decadents, has yet infused new blood into French romance by his masterly and scientific analysis of the innermost processes of the human soul. Of the motives that impelled him, while yet a young man, toward this line of writing. M. Maurras speaks as follows: "Pessimism and perversity; that is the sum and substance of our age. It is true that no one, and M. Paul Bourget least of all, has doubted the truths of science. But no one has hoped more seriously to draw from the analysis and the classification of physical and moral appearances a principle of interior force and discipline. "His sensibility might well dispose M. Bourget to demand passionately of science all peace, all truth, all love; he was too good a logician not to see that the accomplishment of such a demand would necessarily be put off to infinity. We might hope that the hour would come when the necessity of obeying and suffering for the common good would impose itself as clearly on men as the simple maxims of the table of Pythagoras, as a hygienic truth and an inevitable consequence of each one's self-love; even that would regulate only the physical relations of men; how shall be established the delicate relations of sentiment? How institute-I speak scientifically-the discipline, the police, of the city of the soul?" their confidant and their favorite counselor. A great number of sisters and faithful disciples thus follow the soul of Paul Bourget. When this soul has known exactly what it is and what it wants, when the professor of physiology has decided to practise medicine openly, and when the psychologist has become one of our moralists, believe me, a great social force has arisen. The crowd that has accompanied him up to this point will follow whither it pleases him to lead it. Even if he should embrace the noble call PAUL BOURGET. Such was Bourget's problem, and he has set himself to solve it, and thus has become what his contemporaries called "a psychological novelist.' This task has saved him from becoming a decadent from joining the ranks of so many of his talented brethren. For he saw clearly, says M. Maurras, that decadence is anarchy. To resume the translation: "It was anarchy that appeared to him under the elegancies of contemporary thought. And he found it when he tried to analyze and depict life. I need not note that when Bourget . . . obtained such a brilliant success with his Cruelle énigme . . . he depicted in it not so much a series of events as a series of mental states, as he said; and if in his style the new romancer remained faithful in more than one point to modern impressionism, he escaped from it and returned to the true French manner in the depths of his conception, of his composition, psychologic and abstract as it was, by that faculty of imaginary feelings that is quite as he notes himself-his master faculty. Shall I say again how new all this was?" The writer maintains his thesis and justifies his admiring criticism of M. Bourget by an exhaustive analysis of his later and recent work. Then, having awarded him the palm as the leader of the school of psychologic realism, he proceeds in conclusion to sum up thus the effects of his hero's work : "One never charms a whole generation by depicting to it his own image, without receiving from it other things than flattery. I mean by this that he gets voluntary requests for counsel.. The studious and restless youths have dubbed this young philosopher their prince, and bevies of young women have adopted him for ing of evangelist it would not leave him; but with force, zeal, and infinite knowledge, it happens that M. Paul Bourget is also a man of taste; he will never write a gospel. "It is quite another thing to say that he will state, as he does, some general conclusions in political science. Since the ancient and the new world have always prospered, not by means of the isolated man, but by the man in a union of feeling with his race and his country, Bourget will recommend some organic reforms analogous to decentralization. He will advise us, as he does the Americans, to be more chary of giving the rights of citizenship to foreigners. He will even say that public safety may some day demand that we 'methodically undo' all the anarchical work of the Revolution. Revolutionary anarchy was born of a violent crisis of sentimental idealism; M. Paul Bourget will discountenance, accordingly, all that might tend to renew such crises; and that is why he will be the champion, against all this philosophy of sentiment, of the realistic intelligence, critical analysis, and science. 'He will say again, in fine, what he has already said, a sentiment that is worthy of Goethe: "People complain of analysis, reason, science. They have their difficulties. But I know, at least, a remedy for these difficulties; it is a more complete intelligence, a more advanced science, a more profound analysis. ""-Translated for THE LITERARY DIGEST. Mr. Alfred Austin's Opinion of Tennyson.-It is interesting just now to recall the new laureate's estimate of his predecessor. In 1870 Mr. Austin published a book of criticisms, entitled "The Poetry of the Period." In that volume the following sentences occur. "What I wish to emphasize is that his [Tennyson's] being a great poet is now regarded as an established fact. I am going not only to challenge, but to deny it altogether, and to implore the age, while there is yet time, to save itself, by a seasonable recantation, from posthumous ridicule and contempt. My proposition. is that Mr. Tennyson is not a great poet, unquestionably not a poet of the front rank, all but unquestionably not a poet of the second rank, and probably, tho no contemporary perhaps can settle that, not even at the head of poets of the third rank, among whom he must inevitably take his place. The prevailing and universal expression is that he is a great poet, a very great poet, perhaps as great. a poet as ever lived. This is the opinion I challenge and denounce, the opinion that will make posterity shriek with laughter and flout us to scorn. . . . Let not the age make itself the laughing-stock of an irreverent posterity. We laugh at the contemporaries of Hayley. Do we want to be laughed at by our grandchildren? Mr. Tennyson is much more of a poet than Hayley, no doubt, but then Hayley was never belauded as Mr. Tennyson is by us." This, says The Saturday Review, shows that Mr. Austin stands as a critic exactly where he stands as a poet. |