Next a pest. And when at last an enemy do attack our undefended shores, what will it profit our Ministers that they hold the reins of office, or their patron that he receives every week a dole of five shillings unearned and undeserved? armoury of politics. The result is a deep and universal disquietude. Compared with 1909 the year 1848 was a year of unbroken calm. All And in the general collapse literature suffers like the other arts. Nothing so serious as the pursuit of letters finds a place in our modern polity. In a speech delivered recently at the Royal Literary Fund dinner, Mr Andrew Lang touched upon one hardship of these times with the gay irony and gentle humour of which he is always master. When we spoke of "literature," said he, we meant novels, and when we spoke of novels, he might have added, we meant those which can be read without effort and forgotten without regret. The world thinks as little of serious fiction as of serious history. It asks to be amused, for its idleness. to be beguiled, and it vastly prefers the outsides of matchboxes or paper - bags to the best book, which demands some thought or attention of its reader. over the world the same ideal of depredation is cherished, and all over the world is the same threat of misery and disorder. England is in a far worse case than other European countries, because she has slipped without warning into the morass of Socialism. Pauperisation is considered the highest task of government, and the national defences are neglected that our citizens should think it worth their while to vote straight at the next election. Since an unhappy Never were the vices of popular Act of Parliament made edugovernment more conspicuously cation imperative, the people's displayed than in the last six ideal of "literature" has been months. Germany with her a journal, which to a vast colten docks on the North Sea lection of snippets and stories smiles triumphantly upon our adds some sort of ill-disguised undocked coast, and Ministers lottery that promises a fortune refuse to build docks as they even to the fool. Thus time is refuse to build ships that they killed and the common feeling may squander the nation's of greed pleasantly indulged. wealth on pensions and pamper How could the graver forms the Poor Man until he become of literature survive this in sidious competition? They have not survived it, and their professors must needs pay the penalty for their arrogance and temerity. "The historian," said Mr Lang, "was out in the cold; the essayist had ceased to be." Commercially this is true. The historian and the essayist are in the position of manufacturers who can produce only that which the public despises. It is seldom that they are rewarded even by a grudging meed of praise. It cannot be said of them with truth: laudantur et algent. They have as little applause as halfpence. But, asked Mr Lang, "regarding all authors, why are they so destitute and deserving?" It is all the fault of the public, which wants nothing but trivial story-books. "The rich deny themselves nothing - except books. Nobody buys books." The greatest height to which the wealthiest can aspire is to borrow of the circulating library. The truth of what Mr Lang says is beyond doubt. Except as a topic for discussion at the dinner-table literature is out of fashion, and any one may be efficient in that discussion without troubling to read a single book. That the fashion will change is certain. Snippets and motor-cars are a mixed diet that will presently pall upon the roughest palate, and aeroplanes will not always satisfy the universal appetite. In the meantime Mr Lang "begged young authors who are not novelists not to try to live by literature, not to break the bank of the Royal Literary Fund, and only to write dull books if they had other resources." It is excellent advice, and worth giving. and worth giving. Yet in our optimism we hope that it will be sternly rejected. There is enough of the spirit of adventure left in the world to make Mr Lang's wise counsel of no effect. Young authors (and old) will still write the books and make the researches, for which the people refuses to pay, for no better reason than the best, that they are impelled to write the books and to make the researches. The commercial argument, as none knows better than Mr Lang, is easily confuted, and the largest balance at the richest bank cannot blunt in others the prick of the artistic conscience. Moreover, the man of letters who does the work for which his talent has fitted him, finds a perpetual joy in the exercise of his craft, and would be the first to acknowledge himself content with a smaller recompense than is given to more commonplace, less arduous professions. That here and there one falls by the way need not be a fatal discouragement to the others. There is no calling that has not its accidents, and he is happy who dies on any battlefield. It is true that industry and sacrifice are necessary for the success, literary not worldly, at which the courageous writer aims-that if for a moment he fail in the fight, his best solace is the example of his masters. Yet who would not take heart when he recalls the victories the masters have won? Even now the death of George Meredith, great in character as in genius, reminds us of the heavy burden he assumes who is determined to pursue his art for its own sake, and to make no concession to the popular taste. For half a century this valiant artist, this aristocrat of the mind, strove not to catch the passing favour, but to reach that lofty standard of excellence he proposed to himself. He was rewarded by years of neglect and ridicule. Those who understood not what he wrote thought his talent an affront. Why, they asked and are asking to-day, did he not stoop to the common understanding? And they knew not that his perfect sincerity permitted him to express himself thus and thus only. When his books failed to please others, he resolved only to please himself, and he could look back at the end of a long life upon a career unsullied by compromise or thought of self. The genius of Meredith is given but to one in a generation, his courage to no more. And the world is an immeasurably better place because he has passed through it— better not merely for his wonderful gift of insight and fancy, but for the example he set of loyalty and devotion freely offered in the service of his craft. 3 N VOL. CLXXXV.—NO. MCXXIV. EDITORIAL NOTE. COMTE FERDINAND DE LESSEPS. IN the April number of 'Maga' Sir Henry Brackenbury told the story of a dinner given by M. de Blowitz in Paris to Comte Ferdinand de Lesseps, and related the substance of a speech made at that dinner, in which M. de Blowitz gave a romantic version of the events leading to the marriage of M. de Lesseps. Comte Mathieu de Lesseps writes to us as follows: "The story concerning my grandfather M. Autard de Bragard and the marriage of my mother is quite a fairy tale. My grandfather, although he came to France on account of his wife's health and his daughters' education, was so far from being ruined that, at his death, his six children inherited each 600,000 francs; at that time this was not considered poverty. My grandfather was never employed in the works of the Suez Canal, and never thought of asking for that employment. He only got acquainted with my father, Count F. de Lesseps, at the inauguration of the Suez Canal, to which he was invited by the Khedive as first Magistrate of Mauritius Island and as a distinguished traveller. It was on this occasion that my father first met Mademoiselle Autard de Bragard, and was struck by her beauty and her charm, and married her. My mother belonged to a very ancient French family of the Dauphiné, established in Mauritius Island at the end of the eighteenth century." We have great pleasure in publishing this statement; and Sir Henry Brackenbury, to whom we have communicated the letter of Comte Mathieu de Lesseps, writes as follows:— "I am grateful to Comte Mathieu de Lesseps for stating the facts as regards his mother's marriage. My article in your April number related faithfully the substance of the romantic story told by M. de Blowitz at the dinner in question in presence of Count Ferdinand de Lesseps. I made a note of the story at the time, but I am, of course, in no way responsible for what M. de Blowitz said. Had I known the facts were so different from his version, I should not have repeated, after this long interval of time, M. de Blowitz' story. That 'fairy story' was so graciously told, and occurred in a speech so generous in praise, that I can understand Comte Ferdinand de Lesseps did not like to correct it at the time, or to contradict his host at his own table; but the fact of his silence and his reply to my question at the time led me to believe the story was more exact than it appears to have been." INDEX TO VOL. CLXXXV. Abdul Hamid, despotic rule of, in Achilgar, the Jain temple of, a visit to, ADMIRABLE CRICHTON, THE, 691. Aehrenthal, Baron von, the diplomacy Albany, the Count of, a reminiscence ANGLO-INDIAN WORTHY, AN, 706. Arnold-Forster, Mr, patriotic character Arnold, Sir Edwin, friendship of Sir BALKANS, BLUFF IN THE, 579. Bazaine, Maréchal, conduct of, at the BLACK SEA PORTS, TIFLIS TO CONSTAN- Blowitz, M. de, story of the romantic Bornu, the Nigerian province of, climatic Boswell, James, Lord Macaulay's in- BOUNDER, THE COCKNEY, 520. Interview of, with the Empress |