A ROSE OF YESTERDAY.

(COMPETITIVE).

To-night, as I sit a-dreaming
The dreams of long ago,
From out Life's blaring music
Steals a softened note and low,
Like a voice from the dead forgotten
As memory's curtains close.-
And I hold in my hand a flower,
A tear-stained, faded rose.

Poor, sadly withered relic

Of days that have gone by! Where are the lips that printed The kisses that on thee lie? Where is their grace, their beauty,

The sweetness that no more throws

A breath as of gentle incense

Around thee, shattered rose?

They have gone like the fleeted yearnings,

The hopes of yesterday,

The rue of life and the heart's-ease,

The good that has passed away.

They have fled to a life that is brighter,

Where the gold and the ruby glows,

And I am alone in the gloaming,

With only a faded rose.

J. J. O. T.

LETTERS TO LIVING WRITERS.

TO MR. JUSTIN MCCARTHY.

My Dear Sir:

You will never read this letter. This thought, though of solemn import, must not deter me from giving expression to the pleasure and profit which, according to my small capacity, I have derived from your book of reminiscences. It is indeed pleasant and profitable, in an age of criticism, to meet an author whose eye has rested generally on the excellences of men and whose mind has not been feverishly occupied in finding limitations. What strikes one forcibly in reading your recollections is that they were fortunate in the time and manner of their production. They were written in peaceful old age, when new and violent incidents sank past heats into mellow obscurity; and thus reviewing the past in the light of ancient history you could well be kindly and generous. They were written during convalescence, when pity for human weakness and appreciation of the good in man are wont to color our thoughts and feelings. And so the books have the garrulousness, the pride of friendship, the avoiding of profundities, peculiar to old age. They have also the tenderness of convalescence. And everything is told with that charming clearness and naturalness of style, which come of long discipline in writing.

In a book like yours it is difficult to escape the imputation of vanity in enumerating and glorifying illustrious friends. When Mr. W. T. Stead reaches inactive old age, a seemingly distant period, and determines to write his reminiscences, the book will have a quaint and humorous strain of vanity. Everybody will read it, and no one will take it seriously. Mr. Stead knows all the notable personages of the nineteenth century, the Pope and the Czar not excluded, and his serious intercourse with the great has always served for the uplifting of mankind. Your friendships grew out of mutual esteem and enjoyment. Besides, your ambition, unlike that of Thomas Moore, was not confined to acquaintance with lords and dukes. You had genuine admiration for Plon Plon; you gave friendship to the exiles of London. I can easily understand that, being such as you are, you were naturally drawn to Longfellow, Emerson and Holmes, who, though living in an atmosphere of selfsufficiency, had kindly natures, kindred to your own, and universal sympathies. I do not therefore see any undue vanity in the record of your friendships. I notice rather a pardonable exaggeration. All your geese were swans,—all except Charles Kingsley and Charles Read, whom you could not admire much because they were so seriously important and egotistic. Mr. Edgar Saltus holds that serious, downright selfishness is a prime quality of greatness. I do not think you will agree with him.

When your books were announced the literary public was impatient. It expected that your

reminiscences would contain your mature judgment on many questions, that, without repeating the matter of your other publications, you would reaffirm or modify former views, that in your own clear way you would give many analyses of events, many estimates of men. In this the public was somewhat disappointed. Not a few pages of your recollections could be told in an after-dinner conversation or written up for hurried publication in a daily paper. You tell things which all the world knows, without adding anything of your own. And thus though the pleasure in reading the books is great, and without wearying intellectual effort, there is disappointment when the reading is over. And yet here and there throughout pages of narrative are scattered surprising reflections, which contain a wealth of wisdom and originality. As, for instance, your kindly defence of raconteurs who freely invent experiences. You say these should not be blamed, because their harmless and artistic inventions are given free for the amusement of a circle of friends; they should not be blamed if paid novelists gain fame by less harmful inventions. You yourself can, I am sure, tell a good story and season it with the salt of inventionfor the amusement of men. Mr. Stead and the self-satisfied reformers are occupied in uplifting mankind. They, too, use fiction; but it is not amusing.

Perhaps the lightness, akin to superficiality, which many notice in your book comes from your skill and long practice in the art of conversation. Pleasant conversation avoids pro

found and perplexing questions, and awful disclosures; and reminiscences which are a sort of conversational monologue must do the same. You might, of course, like the late Mr. Purcell, have hunted for the skeletons in closets. You might have built up astonishing theories by a skillful arrangement of facts and letters. This would have made exciting reading. But then your imagination is calm and balanced, not morbid. Still, after giving due credit to the conversational charm of your books, to the studied absence of exaggeration in them; after giving credit for these and other excellences, I must say that you do not seem to do literary justice to the great events among which you moved. Surely they were great events, and, therefore, they required a great setting, an expression something nobler than the idiom of ordinary conversation.

After noticing these slight defects, if, indeed, they are defects, I turn with pleasure to the solid lessons which I seem to discover in the record of your life. And, first of all, your career shows that men of culture and mind may differ radically on important questions and yet maintain true friendship. You also show in your own person that it is possible to enter into the views of an opponent, and to appreciate the good points of an enemy; that culture does not mould every mind after the same pattern. You could admire and hold friendly intercourse with men as different as Gladstone, Disraeli, John Bright, Lord Randolph Churchill, Parnell. Gladstone's fierce earnestness had charm for you, as did the