past, be effected on the spot. The damaged vessels must retire to a port where there are facilities for working iron and steel. Wood was a material readily cut and bored with simple tools; it was, too, always to be procured. Our modern ships may need elaborate castings or forgings, which can only be procured from a foundry. Thus it would seem to follow that a naval base, which will have heavy work to do, should be near iron and steel works, if it does not contain them. In all these ways, then, the naval transformation has affected our strategic position. I do not dwell upon the tactical results which it has produced -the altered conditions of blockades with steam and torpedoes-because here nothing is certain. It has worked on the whole rather against us than for us, especially when the highly trained personnel, which is necessary with modern weapons, is taken into account. And, just as our ships have lost their autonomy, so this country has lost its self-dependence through the inevitable increase of population and the melancholy decline of our agriculture. The price of Free Trade has been a high one from the national point of view. It is the food question which will be the most serious question in war, if we withstand the first shock of our antagonists. It did not exist in Nelson's time, when the country fed itself. A new factor of the utmost importance has thus arisen, though if a sense of the danger of starvation leads the country to demand at all costs a strong and well-organized fleet, this very danger may prove the salvation of England. The economic necessity of giving thorough protection to our trade will be stronger than ever, because in the next war there will be great manufacturing neutrals who will drive us from the market, if the rate of insurance rises to a high figure. In the past there were none.

Nor is it any exaggeration to assert that a single naval defeat would bring land wars in every direction where our possessions are continental. Egypt, South Africa, East Africa, West Afri ca, and India are all in a certain sense hostages to fortune. Trouble threatens even now in more than one of these

quarters, but the length of England's arm keeps back the restive element. Were her sea-power even shaken, were her troopships unable to cross the sea, the rifles would go off. An Empire such as ours, is held mainly by prestige, or if we dislike this term, by the credit of our past achievements. have never been thoroughly beaten, and the fact of our continued and unvarying success inspires our enemies with instinctive awe. In Nelson's days, excepting in India, which was then of infinitely less importance than it is now, we were not exposed to this risk. We must win from the first for ourselves and our Empire, as our Colonies will not take the trouble to protect themselves. Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, at a time when the horizon is overcast, are reducing their very small expenditure upon defence.

Another point of contrast, to which allusion has been made, is in the direction of our navy. In 1805, as we have seen, the First Lord was a naval officer of great experience, and not a civilian. With a civilian, who must necessarily consult his strategical advisers, Barham's prompt action would have been impossible. He was virtually the Commander-in-Chief of the whole British navy, and was from his position above, and therefore unfettered by, any Board. The Admiralty of his term of office was, then, very different from the Admiralty of to-day. His success has been cited as a proof that our present system would secure a satisfactory result in war, which must be doubtful. A board of advisers, in which it is not clearly laid down that any one is first, but only primus inter pares, is an institution which is hardly likely to work well in a desperate struggle. A civilian head may be well enough in peace; in war, when the aim is not to retain a majority, but to beat the enemy, a naval head is required as common-sense shows.

The greatest danger which menaces England is the possibility that her strength of battleships and men may be found inadequate in war. She will never have to face a single Power, because she is far stronger at sea than any single Power. But she may have

to make head against a coalition, and a coalition with forces infinitely superior in quality to those of the FrancoSpanish Alliance of 1805. If she underrates her possible antagonists, or imagines that what Nelson could do any one not a Nelson could achieve, she will have a terrible awakening. Pride goes before a fall, and a nation which has never seen the invader on its shores, or endured the exactions and insults of a conqueror is difficult to stir to muscular measures. But England, if she can sacrifice a free

breakfast-table for national security, if she can realize that comfort is not the whole end of life, and if she can educate her democracy to appreciate the standing menace of a Europe armed to the teeth, and envious of her prosperity, may yet weather the storm and bequeath her Empire to posterity. If she would do this, years of immediate and unfaltering effort lie before her; a policy of half measures and retrenchment, such as is promised by her present rulers, can bring only disaster.National Review.

II.

FRAU JORGON was giving a "coffee" to four of her most intellectual friends, who made a weekly rendezvous of her private sitting room, meeting every Wednesday afternoon for a little serious reading aloud in French, English, and German, with dilettante criticism on the same, and the Frau Doctor, of course, in the armchair. It pleased Frau Erna Jorgon immensely-who was nothing if not to her taper finger tips a trifling, coquettish, calculating, rather hard and superficial woman of the world-to affect the pose of a spoiled woman of society, secretly enamored of intellectual pursuits, while reluctantly engaged in the more distracting duties of wifehood and maternity. And it filled up a void, this weekly reunion, in the calm, methodical, domestic life of the Frau Doctor, who had nothing in the world to do but indulge her taste for reading and live up to the European reputation of her distinguished husband. Frau Jorgon was a young and handsome woman of five and twenty, dark as a gypsy, and the spoilt and wilful wife of an opulent merchant in this same German garrison town. Frau Doctor Lehmann was the wife of the great savant of that name, a childless, gruffvoiced, manly-looking woman of fifty, with short iron-gray hair and a tendency to embonpoint. The other mem

bers of the friendly quintet were Frau Flink, a little widow of thirty; Fräulein Hedwig Schneider, a nervous, deprecating woman, who wrote " Rentier" and "lediglich' on the census papers, and learned articles in a Berlin monthly journal; and last, though by no means least, Anna Löser, a peculiar and distinctive character, a difficult personality of twenty, gifted, artistic, vain of her personal appearance, musical to a supercilious degree, rather overweighted with self-consciousness, and inordinately ambitious.

It was a cold January afternoon, about four o'clock. The grand porcelain stove in Frau Jorgon's charming boudoir, a Hirschvogel, was throwing out too much heat, and the folding doors of the adjoining apartment were thrown wide open, revealing deep, cool vistas of a shrouded salon, darkened, into which the Frau Doctor, who loved fresh air and free space, was casting longing glances. Coffee was just over, and Frau Jorgon's picturesque maid was carrying away the coffee cups. There now remained nothing in the way of the serious purport of the meeting, which this week was English reading; hence Frau Erna Jorgon's inconsequent mood and discursive remarks, laughingly adjusted to disturb the mental serenity of the other ladies, who had taken up their needlework and were waiting for Fräulein Anna Löser to

read. A woman's needlework is always suggestive and characteristic. The Frau Doctor knitted-she knitted yards, miles, leagues in the course of a year. Little Frau Flink, everlastingly occupied from January to December in the plaintive renovation of a somewhat bric-a-brac wardrobe, was for the nonce immersed to her pink ears in secondhand millinery, listening to the reading with a deeply critical expression and a mouth full of pins.

66

Ach, please Anna, you read too quickly, I cannot understand."

Fräulein Hedwig Schneider was sadly sorting crewels under the askant glance of the practical and industrious Frau Doctor, and, being a nervous creature, she made very little visible progress. When she would finally start, her "Tischläufer" was matter for the curious speculation of the Frau Doctor, who had a truly marvellous knack of evolving little garments out of a single ball of wool, and in the course of a short winter's afternoonto the secret envy and chagrin of poor Hedwig Schneider. And Frau Jorgon was crocheting nursery lace, with considerable condescension for "Gnädige Frau" who kept a maid, and with some play of expressive feature, as though she were all the time marvelling at her own inconsistency or complacently admiring her bejewelled hands. She crocheted with her small dark glossy head a little inclined and her dark mischievous eyes now and again mockingly directed to little Frau Flink's new hat.

"Mietzel, what a hat !"

а

"Do not be stupid, Erna, I cannot buy me a new one, can I?"

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English, English," called Frau Doctor Lehmann from the chair.

"Ach Gott!" Frau Jorgon sighed, with a glance at a clock supported by a shepherd and shepherdess engaged in an immortality of frail Dresdenchina courtship.

Anna Löser read on as fast as she could. She invariably managed to do her own and somebody else's share of reading, for she was having lessons in elocution and gave the true dramatic touch to everything she read. More over, she was always carried away to unconscious excess of emphasis by the

NEW SERIES.-VOL. LXIV., No. 6.

As

pleasing sound of her own voice. she paused to turn over a leaf and to take breath, the Frau Doctor again looked up from her knitting and dryly said:

"If you are tired, Anna, perhaps Frau Jorgon will read a little.'

"I thank you," said that lady, who was getting tired of crochet work, but even that was better than English reading. How fearfully dull it was, and what was it all about, and had she understood a word?

Anna Löser was beginning again when little Frau Flink and the indig-. nant Frau Doctor exchanged glances.

"I will read a little, if you please, Anna," said Frau Flink, who was a decisive little person in her way, and she lovingly laid down her hat and took the book, and commenced reading rather badly, so that poor Fräulein Hedwig Schneider looked up from her tangled crewels, and blinked with a distracted expression through her ugly blue goggles, and passed her hand over her narrow wrinkled brow.

Oh, please, Frau Flink, I have not understand."

"Understood," prompted the Frau Doctor.

"It is quite the same," laughed Frau Jorgon, admiring the work of her hands at arm's length. Then she laid it down and slyly took up Frau Flink's wonderful hat and tried it on, glancing at her own ridiculous reflection in a Venetian mirror opposite her; even the Frau Doctor was constrained to. smile, much against her will.

"Ach, mein Gott, what a hat!"

But little Frau Flink was by this. time fairly wound up and set going for a good five minutes, and Frau Jorgon's frivolity was entirely lost upon her; so, with another sigh, Frau Jorgon resumed her crochet work, devoutly wishing it were supper time.

Meanwhile Frau Flink read on proudly but execrably, and it was as much as the learned Hedwig Schneider could do to disentangle the sense of what she read. The Frau Doctor had philosophically given up even listening, and was calmly counting stitches. for a new little garment. Anna Löser never listened to anybody's reading but her own.

49

666

The progress of the mind of Frances Burney

"Fran-ces Bur-nie !" Frau Jorgon exclaimed in some astonishment. "I thought we were reading about that delightful Lord Byron."

"Erna! You said last week that Lord Byron was too difficult, and so we began Madam D'Arblay.

"Ach so," said Frau Jorgon carelessly. "But I do not know Madam D'Arblay."

"She wrote books."

"All English women write books. And what books?"

"She wrote a famous diary," Frau Doctor rather impatiently explained. "What is-diary?" "Diarium.

Do let me read, Erna." But I will know what you read. When did she live, this Madam D'Arblay? And why not Mee-sis D'Arblay ?" Du lieber Gott, Erna, she married a Frenchman."

"Then why did she live in England? Surely it would have been much nicer to live in La belle France. If I married a Frenchman I would live in Paris."

I believe she did live in France for several years, remarked Hedwig

Schneider.

"Was she not the friend of the great Dr. Johnson ?"

"I believe she was,'' said the Frau Doctor shortly. "Give me the book, Mietzil; I will read a little."

And the Frau Doctor began.

"The progress of the mind of Frances Burney, from her ninth to her twenty-fifth year, well deserves to be recorded.""

.. Wie . . . How? I do not understand a word, dear Frau Doctor," said Fräulein Hedwig. Frau Jorgon laughed.

With a look of irritation, Frau Doctor Lehmann, who read well and transdated better, laid down the handsome volume of Macaulay's Essays and took refuge in knitting once more.

It is perfectly useless reading with these constant interruptions," she said. "Since December we have begun no less than four different essays, not one of which have we finished. And I must read very ill, Hedwig, if you do not understand me!"

Frau Jorgon looked up roguishly, and drew her crochet-needle slowly through the wool, and attempted broken English.

"Not ill-not at all, dear Frau Doctor. You read very good-very good, but I too, myself, have not understand understood."

"Ich auch nicht," mumbled little Frau Flink distresfully. And she took another pin from between her lips.

Mietzel, how can you eat pins? You will choke yourself one of these days, and then there will be an inquest, and my husband will say it is my fault."

Anna Löser stirred. "We ought to have some one to overhear our reading and correct our mistakes and pronunciation. The Myers have a Fräulein."

"An English Miss-you mean." The Frau Doctor shook her head and closed her lips firmly, and then spoke.

"I for one decline to waste another pfennig on lessons. I never learnt anything in a lesson which was ever of the slightest practical use to me in my life. All the English I know I have taught myself, in my husband's study, with my husband for a dictionary and a grammar.'

66

"But dear Frau Doctor," remarked her hostess rather slyly, your pronunciation-"

"Is bad. I know it. I desire to master the English language for the pleasure of reading English literature. I shall never need to talk English. No more lessons for me."

"Ach! I have had all the English teachers in the town, and not one did teach me anything; they did not amuse me."

"I find English so easy," said Anna Löser, without further committing herself.

Frau Doctor Lehmann gave the young lady a peculiar look, but said nothing.

"I know an English lady," began Fräulein Hedwig Schneider, and then stopped abruptly, abashed by a look in Frau Jorgon's brilliant eyes, who held up her hand in mock despair.

"Ach, dear Hedwig, I have tried all the English teachers in the town. They bored me to death. They could

pose.

She

66 Oh yes. But not many. might have many, but—” Frau Jorgon tossed her head. "Ach, do I not know. She is difficult, you would say. All Englishwomen are difficult, too difficult for me. And Frau Jorgon shivered. The wife of the English pastor invited me to five o'clock tea last week, and my husband made me promise that I would gonimmer, nimmer mehr. It was dread -ful." With a smile Frau Jorgon went on, in charming broken English : "I would laugh, for I was merry. Why not? But no man did laugh. All sat up upright and crossed their feet. So I too sat bolt upright, but I did not cross my feet. It was funny. And then I must drink English tea and eat English-wie sagt man heimgebackenen Kuchen auf englisch, Hedwig?-I must drink English tea and eat English home-made cake. And I did not like it. I could not speak one word, for I was shy. And no man did spoke German with me but Mee-sis Perry, and she was too busy. And then I come away and my husband laugh. Voilà! that is English five o'clock tea."

Once again did Fräulein Hedwig Schneider attempt an oar.

er.

"I know a lady, she is a good teachOne can understand all what she says-Alles was sie sagt. But she speaks not a good German."

A point strongly in her favor," said the Frau Doctor approvingly; she spoke excellent English with very little foreign accent. Speaking little German herself, there will be more oppor

66

"I do not believe it," said Frau Flink. "How cruel you are, Erna !" "Ach! he is not in love with me any more," said Frau Jorgon coolly.

66

But I would like to hear him speak English. I will tease him when we meet at the ball next week-I will talk only English with him. And this lady, how did she teach him? I would not like to teach him anything. Perhaps-" Frau Jorgon reflected a moment or two with her chin in the palm of her hand and a mocking smile on her lips, and presently astonished her friends by clapping her hands. have it," she said. "How would it be, Hedwig, if you brought this lady with you next week and introduced her to us-of course as a friend, not as a teacher? I will have no more teachers. Teachers have not a large acquaintance, I believe. It would be very nice for her. She need not speak German, if she is shy. She could speak English" (roguishly). "I would not object. She could come to coffee, and stay to supper. I will order cutlets. She will not eat cutlets every day. Do you think she would come, Hedwig ?"

I can ask her."

"Of course she will come," said