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even upon some of the most important topics which can engage the human mind. The opinion, for example, of a versatile politician, or traveler, or physicist, on a question of religion or morals may be of no more value than that of the first man you meet on passing into the streets. But it will attract attention in proportion to the notoriety of the author, and, though wise men may know that it is weak or foolish, they may wait a long while for the chance of saying so from any pulpit worth preaching in, because the platforms are preëngaged; and also because, the " organs of opinion" being bound to live by keeping up a succession of attractive names in their pages, it will not do to offend the owners of such names. One other result of the recent system (not everywhere and always, of course, but generally and most frequently) is a want of freshness in periodical literature. This evil our American friends manage to escape; only they are much bolder than we are, and do not stand in terror of the charge of levity. But, as a rule, writers who are fit for starring purposes lose freshness in a very short time; and then they do a still further mischief by striking that key-note of second-hand thought which is so prevalent, or at least so common, in even our better litera

ture.

It is amusing enough to recall the superstition of secrecy which inspired the policy of the first Edinburgh Reviewers. Lord Jeffrey has told us how the conspirators, Brougham, Sydney Smith, Horner, and himself, used to meet by night in the back room of a printing-office, and steal to their work by winding paths and back stairs, like assassins. This was folly, though not inexcusably without rational ground or motive, and one can not resist the belief that the more modern plan will work well some day, if it does not now. But the difference in the results is not so great as might have been hoped for. Men of letters do not now openly insult each other for differences of opinion in politics or theology; but it is not any variation of mechanism which has made the change, and, though less brutality of phrasing is now permitted, it would be difficult to surpass in bitterness or unfairness some of the signed and accredited criticism of our own day. On the whole, it comes to this-you can get no more out of given moral conditions than there is in them. If public writers are clique-ish (a word to disturb Mr. Napier in his grave, and certainly an ugly one) and unjust to each other, it is because you can not change the spots of the leopard. A man who loves the truth will employ his pen conscientiously and kindly, whether he writes anonymously or otherwise. To this it may be added that there is something extremely quaint in one thing that we may see taking place every

week-the greater part of our newspaper writing is still unsigned, and, considering what a hastily got-up miscellany a newspaper necessarily is, it can hardly be otherwise. A column of reviews in a newspaper is sometimes the work of as many hands as there are books reviewed in it. But it might certainly have been expected beforehand that reviewers who write without signature should be both careful and moderate in attacking writers who sign, and who, presumably, take more time over their work than contributors to newspapers can generally do. Yet the newspaper columns in which quarterly and monthly periodicals are reviewed are "too often" (we must round the corner with the help of that commonplace) models of flippancy and dogmatism.

On the whole, it is not from any mechanical changes of method that we must expect improvement in Review literature. Of course, in largeness, fullness, richness, and versatility the reviewwriting of to-day is immeasurably superior to that of the days when Macaulay and Brougham fought for precedence in the "Edinburgh." But so is the literature reviewed-one is a big "rolling miscellany," and so is the other. It does not seem to some of us that, other things being made equal, the literature of our modern reviews (using the word widely) is either superior or inferior to that of the "Edinburgh," for example. The growth, however, of literature generally in force, color, range, and effectiveness, is something astounding. We note this, or rather it overwhelms us, in turning over such a book as the "Memoirs of Harriet Martineau"; and there is more than the insolence of new-fangled tastes in putting such a question as-where would Campbell's "Pleasures of Hope" be if it were published to-morrow? One day when Brougham had just left (for London) a country-house where he had been staying, Rogers, who was a fellow guest with him, made some such remark as this: "In that post-chaise went away this morning, Bacon, Newton, Demosthenes, and Solon." It is not recorded that Rogers meant this as a joke; but where would Brougham be after a little manipulation by Mr. Jevons or Mr. Goldwin Smith? It would be tiresome to dwell upon this, and wrong to suggest that the men were smaller because the outlook was less; but this view, if anything, helps us to see the direction in which one of our best hopes for literature must lie-namely, in its ever-increasing volume. There will always he hostile camps, and there will always be warriors of low morale, but, as each camp enlarges, the average pain of those who suffer from injustice or neglect will be lessened. And this observation is by no means addressed to mere questions of reviewing in the

minor sense, but rather to literature in the mass massive to be guided-nay, too numerous and as representing the culture of the time. too massive for even the most conceited of propagandists or prophets to fancy he could calculate them. What sort of figure as a publicist or "inspired" political writer would a man like Croker cut at this end of the century? It must have been a dolorous day for such as he when they first felt sure the tides were coming up which were to sweep them and their works into oblivion, or at least into limbo, and make successors to their function impossible in future. We do not affirm that the present phase of change is for the best; no theory of progress will justify statements of that kind. In fact, things are quite bad enough; but some security against certain evils there must be, in the fact that these are days in which it is difficult to hide a wrong, or an error, which has an immediate sinister bearing upon ends cherished by any school of opinion. Who on earth would now think of calling the "Times" the Thunderer? Just when middle-aged men of to-day were babies it was thought finely argumentative, if not conclusive, to call the London University Stinkomalee," in the interest of Church and King; but the "hard hitting" of our own time is done in other fashion. Even if the Marquis of Salisbury were to edit a paper he would not be able to make much out of Titus Oates. But the allusion to that episode in another sphere of action may remind us of the late Lord Derby, who might almost be called the last of the old school of politicians. The mere mention of his name seems to flash light upon the gulf we have traversed since the days when the world was divided between a Whig organ and a Tory organ.

Since the time when Jeffrey ruled the "Edinburgh Review," and even since the death of Mr. Napier, "the advertising element " and commercial elements in general have played a great and new part, an increasing part, too, in the fortunes, and thus in regulating the quality and tendency, of current literature. One result of this state of things is an ever-increasing tendency to compromise in the expression of opinion. In spite of the spirit of tolerance of which we hear so much, there was perhaps never a time in which the expression of opinion was so much emasculated in the higher periodical literature, or in which so much trickery of accommodated phraseology was going forward. This will last for a long time yet-as long as periodical literature is a matter of commercial speculation. It is an evil omen that the greatest amount of freedom now displayed is in political and scientific discussion. It is difficult to see where the remedy is to come from in discussions of another kind. Probably we shall have a lesson by the cataclysmic method before very long. There is in this volume a letter from Brougham to Napier, in which Brougham is very angry about an indirect disclosure of Romilly's heterodoxy, and he goes off at a tangent to express a doubt whether Macaulay was any better than Romilly, but is very anxious that conventional conformity should be strictly maintained in the "Review," even to the length of concealing from the general reader as far as possible such facts as that a man so good and "religious" as Romilly could be a disbeliever in this, that, or the other. We have now got beyond that; the accredited policy is in a vague way to trump the cards of the dangerous people, and then nobody shows his hand fairly and freely. Meanwhile, everybody feels uneasy, from a latent sense of insincerity; and, when once the excitement is off, the natural perception, that out of nothing nothing can come, reassumes its sway. The game can not go on in this way for ever, though no one can foresee by what accident the lights will be blown out, the tables thrown over, and the stakes roughly dealt with at last.

A great difference, as might be expected, arises from the incredible widening of what might be called the constituencies of opinion. Political articles of the "inspired" order do not count as they did, or were supposed to do, in the days of "Coningsby" even, much less as they did a decade or two sooner. The effective currents of thought are far too numerous and far too

"

Simultaneously with the incalculable increase of devotion to science, we have had an increase of devotion to ends held to be practical, and this has largely governed our literature. The subject now barely hinted at is well worth extended treatment. It is, however, no more than the truth that there has been recently a great diminution of speculative enthusiasm of all kinds, with a largely increased tendency to make things pleasant for all parties. Convenience, in fact, becomes more and more the governing factor of life; this tells upon our better literature; and until the wind sets again from the old quartersas it certainly will some day-we shall feel the want of certain elements of freshness, individuality, and moral impulse which touch us more closely than we at first recognize in reading the old Edinburgh Reviewers.

MATTHEW BROWNE (Contemporary Review).

THE

A WALK IN A

HE most difficult thing that a man has to do is to think. There are many who can never bring themselves really to think at all, but do whatever thinking is done by them in a chance fashion, with no effort, using the faculty which the Lord has given them because they can not, as it were, help themselves. To think is essential, all will agree. That it is difficult most will acknowledge who have tried it. If it can be compassed so as to become pleasant, brisk, and exciting as well as salutary, much will have been accomplished. My purpose here is to describe how this operation, always so difficult, often so repugnant to us, becomes easier out among the woods, with the birds and the air and the leaves and the branches around us, than in the seclusion of any closet.

But I have nothing to show for it beyond my own experience, and no performances of thought to boast of beyond the construction of combinations in fiction, countless and unimportant as the sand on the seashore. For in these operations of thinking it is not often the entire plot of a novel-the plot of a novel as a whole-that exercises the mind. That is a huge difficulty; one so arduous as to have been generally found by me altogether beyond my power of accomplishment. Efforts are made, no doubt-always out in the open air, and within the precincts of a wood if a wood be within reach; but to construct a plot so as to know, before the story is begun, how it is to end, has always been to me a labor of Hercules beyond my reach. I have to confess that my incidents are fabricated to fit my story as it goes on, and not my story to fit my incidents. I wrote a novel once in which a lady forged a will; but I had not myself decided that she had forged it till the chapter before that in which she confesses her guilt. In another a lady is made to steal her own diamonds-a grand tour-de-force, as I thought-but the brilliant idea only struck me when I was writing the page in which the theft is described. I once heard an unknown critic abuse my workmanship because a certain lady had been made to appear too frequently in my pages. I went home and killed her immediately. I say this to show that the process of thinking to which I am alluding has not generally been applied to any great effort of construction. It has expended itself on the minute ramifications of tale-telling: how this young lady should be made to behave herself with that young gentleman; how this mother or that father would be affected by the ill conduct or the good of a son or a daughter; how these words or

WOOD.

those other would be most appropriate and true to nature if used on some special occasion. Such plottings as these, with a fabricator of fiction, are infinite in number as they are infinitesimal in importance, and are therefore, as I have said, like the sand of the seashore. But not one of them can be done fitly without thinking. My little effort will miss its wished-for result, unless I be true to nature; and to be true to nature I must think what nature would produce. Where shall I go to find my thoughts with the greatest ease and most perfect freedom?

Bad noises, bad air, bad smells, bad light, an inconvenient attitude, ugly surroundings, little misfortunes that have lately been endured, little misfortunes that are soon to come, hunger and thirst, overeating and overdrinking, want of sleep or too much of it, a tight boot, a starched collar, are all inimical to thinking. I do not name bodily ailments. The feeling of heroism which is created by the magnanimity of overcoming great evils will sometimes make thinking easy. It is not the sorrows but the annoyances of life which impede. Were I told that the bank had broken in which my little all was kept for me I could sit down and write my love-story with almost a sublimated vision of love; but to discover that I had given half a sovereign instead of sixpence to a cabman would render a great effort necessary before I could find the fitting words for a lover. These little lacerations of the spirit, not the deep wounds, make the difficulty. Of all the nuisances named noises are the worst. I know a hero who can write his leading article for a newspaper in a club smoking-room while all the chaff of all the Joneses and all the Smiths is sounding in his ears; but he is a hero because he can do it. To think with a barrel organ within hearing is heroic. For myself I own that a brass-band altogether incapacitates me. No sooner does the first note of the opening burst reach my ear than I start up, fling down my pen, and cast my thoughts disregarded into the abyss of some chaos which is always there ready to receive them. Ah, how terrible, often how vain, is the work of fishing, to get them out again! Here, in our quiet square, the beneficent police have done wonders for our tranquillity-not, however, without creating for me personally a separate trouble in having to encounter the stern reproaches of the middle-aged leader of the band when he asks me in mingled German and English accents whether I do not think that he too as well as I

he with all his comrades, and then he points to the nine stalwart, well-cropped, silent, and

sorrowing Teutons around him—whether he and they should not be allowed to earn their bread as well as I. I can not argue the matter with him. I can not make him understand that in earning my own bread I am a nuisance to no one. I can only assure him that I am resolute, being anxious to avoid the gloom which was cast over the declining years of one old philosopher. I do feel, however, that this comparative peace within the heart of a huge city is purchased at the cost of many tears. When, as I walk abroad, I see in some small, crowded street the ill-shod feet of little children spinning round in the perfect rhythm of a dance, two little tots each holding the other by their ragged duds while an Italian boy grinds at his big box, each footfall true to its time, I say to myself that a novelist's schemes, or even a philosopher's figures, may be purchased too dearly by the silencing of the music of the poor.

Whither shall a man take himself to avoid these evils, so that he may do his thinking in peace-in silence, if it may be possible? And yet it is not silence that is altogether necessary. The wood-cutter's axe never stopped a man's thought, nor the wind through the branches, nor the flowing of water, nor the singing of birds, nor the distant tingling of a chapel-bell. Even the roaring of the sea and the loud splashing of the waves among the rocks do not impede the mind. No sounds coming from water have the effect of harassing. But yet the seashore has its disadvantages. The sun overhead is hot or the wind is strong-or the very heaviness of the sand creates labor and distraction. A high-road is ugly, dusty, and too near akin to the business of the world. You may calculate your five per cents. and your six per cents. with precision as you tramp along a high-road. They have a weight of material interest which rises above dust. But if your mind flies beyond this-if it attempts to deal with humor, pathos, irony, or scorn-you should take it away from the wellconstructed walks of life. I have always found it impossible to utilize railroads for delicate thinking. A great philosopher once cautioned me against reading in railway-carriages. "Sit still," said he, "and label your thoughts." But he was a man who had staid much at home himself. Other men's thoughts I can digest when I am carried along at the rate of thirty miles an hour; but not my own.

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Any carriage is an indifferent vehicle for thinking, even though the cushions be plump, and the road gracious-not rough nor dustyand the horses going at their ease. There is a feeling attached to the carriage that it is there for a special purpose-as though to carry one to a fixed destination; and that purpose, hidden per

haps but still inherent, clogs the mind. The end is coming, and the sooner it is reached the better. So at any rate thinks the driver. If you have been born to a carriage, and carried about listlessly from your childhood upward, then perhaps you may use it for free mental exercise; but you must have been coaching it from your babyhood to make it thus effective.

On horseback something may be done. You may construct your villain or your buffoon as you are going across country. All the noise of an assize court or the low rattle of a gambling-table may thus be arranged. Standing by the covert side I myself have made a dozen little plots, and were I to go back to the tales I could describe each point at the covert side at which the incident or the character was molded and brought into shape. But this, too, is only good for rough work. Solitude is necessary for the task we have in hand; and the bobbing up and down of the horse's head is antagonistic to solitude.

I have found that I can best command my thoughts on foot, and can do so with the most perfect mastery when wandering through a wood. To be alone is of course essential. Companionship requires conversation-for which indeed the spot is most fit; but conversation is not now the object in view. I have found it best even to reject the society of a dog, who, if he be a dog of manners, will make some attempt at talking. And, though he should be silent, the sight of him provokes words and caresses and sport. It is best to be away from cottages, away from children, away as far as may be from other chance wanderers. So much easier is it to speak than to think that any slightest temptation suffices to carry away the idler from the harder to the lighter work. An old woman with a bundle of sticks becomes an agreeable companion, or a little girl picking wild fruit. Even when quite alone, when all the surroundings seem to be fitted for thought, the thinker will still find a difficulty in thinking. It is not that the mind is inactive, but that it will run exactly whither it is not bidden to go. With subtile ingenuity it will find for itself little easy tasks instead of settling itself down on that which it is its duty to do at once. With me, I own, it is so weak as to fly back to things already done-which require no more thinking, which are perhaps unworthy of a place even in the memory-and to revel in the ease of contemplating that which has been accomplished rather than to struggle for further performance. My eyes, which should become moist with the troubles of the embryo heroine, shed tears as they call to mind the early sorrow of Mr. who was married and made happy many years ago. Then-when it comes to this—a great effort becomes necessary, or that day will for him

have no results. It is so easy to lose an hour in maundering over the past, and to waste the good things which have been provided in remembering instead of creating!

But a word about the nature of the wood! It is not always easy to find a wood, and sometimes, when you have got it, it is but a muddy, plashy, rough-hewed congregation of ill-grown trees-a thicket rather than a wood-in which even contemplation is difficult and thinking is out of the question. He who has devoted himself to wandering in woods will know at the first glance whether the place will suit his purpose. A crowded undergrowth of hazel, thorn, birch, and alder, with merely a track through it, will by no means serve the occasion. The trees around you should be big and noble. There should be grass at your feet. There should be space for the felled or fallen princes of the forest. A roadway, with the sign of wheels that have passed long since, will be an advantage, so long as the branches above head shall meet or seem to meet each other. I will not say that the ground should not be level, lest by creating difficulties I shall seem to show that the fitting spot may be too difficult to be found; but, no doubt, it will be an assistance in the work to be done if occasionally you can look down on the tops of the trees as you descend, and again look up to them as with increasing height they rise high above your head. And it should be a wood-perhaps a forest-rather than a skirting of timber. You should feel that, if not lost, you are losable. To have trees around you is not enough unless you have many. You must have a feeling as of Adam in the garden. There must be a confirmed assurance in your mind that you have got out of the conventional into the natural-which will not establish itself unless there be a consciousness of distance between you and the next plowed field. If possible you should not know the east from the west, or, if so, only by the setting of the sun. You should recognize the direction in which you must return simply by the fall of water.

But where shall the wood be found? Such woodlands there are still in England, though, alas! they are becoming rarer every year. Profit from the timber-merchant or dealer in firewood is looked to or else, as is more probable, drives are cut broad and straight, like spokes of a wheel radiating to a nave or center, good only for the purposes of the slayer of multitudinous pheasants. I will not say that a wood prepared, not as the home but the slaughter-ground of game, is altogether inefficient for our purpose. I have used such even when the sound of the guns has been near enough to warn me to turn my steps to the right or to the left. The scents are pleasant even

in winter, the trees are there, and sometimes even yet the delightful feeling may be encountered that the track on which you are walking leads to some far off, vague destination, in reaching which there may be much of delight because it will be new-something also of peril because it will be distant. But the wood, if possible, should seem to be purposeless. It should have no evident consciousness of being there either for game or fagots. The felled trunk on which you sit should seem to have been selected for some accidental purpose of house-building, as though a neighbor had searched for what was wanting and had found it. No idea should be engendered that it was let out at so much an acre to a contractor who would cut the trees in order and sell them in the next market. The mind should conceive that this wood never had been planted by hands, but had come there from the direct beneficence of the Creator-as the first woods did come— before man had been taught to recreate them systematically, and as some still remain to us, so much more lovely in their wildness than when reduced to rows and quincunxes, and made to accommodate themselves to laws of economy and order.

England, dear England-an dcertainly, with England, Scotland also has advanced almost too far for this. There are still woods, but they are so divided, and marked, and known, so apportioned out among game-keepers, park-rangers, and other custodians, that there is but little left of wildness in them. It is too probable that the stray wanderer may be asked his purpose: and if so, how will it be with him if he shall answer to the custodian that he has come thither only for the purpose of thinking? "But it's here my lord turns out his young pheasants!" "Not a feather from the wing of one of them shall be the worse for me," answers the thinker. "I dun-na know,” says the civil custodian; “but it's here my lord turns out his young pheasants." It is then explained that the stile into the field is but a few yards off-for our woodland distances are seldom very great-and the thinker knows that he must go and think elsewhere. Then his work for that day will be over with him. There are woods, however, which may with more or less of difficulty be utilized. In Cumberland and Westmoreland strangers are so rife that you will hardly be admitted beyond the paths recognized for tourists. You may succeed on the sly, and, if so, the sense of danger adds something to the intensity of your thought. In Northamptonshire, where John the planter lived, there are miles of woodland-but they consist of avenues rather than of trees. Here you are admitted and may trespass, but still with a feeling that game is the lord of all. In Norfolk, Suffolk, and Es

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