Puslapio vaizdai
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lunge forward in the saddle, the swerves of machines avoiding the traffic-the vibrating disk of light that one's lamp lets down in front-the hammer-tick of the motor-cycle-the concentric rings of electric light on the expanse of wood pavement-the stealthy approach of the trolley-carthe click-click of the free-wheel movement-cyclists pedalling rapidly along the transverse street-the effort of the ankles as a road ascends sharply over a bridge-old faces peering at the sailer-by over a blind-young girls in their best clothes racing home as the clock strikes ten-the glances of young men as they cross the street-the hesitation of groups with children preparing to plunge across the road

Here are a few beats of the ceaseless tide of impressions that fit through the brain of the least heedful of cyclists whose mind is attuned to the hum of the wheel.

The historic destinies of the bicycle would have been more interesting had it developed contemporaneously with the roads that prepared the way for it and made it possible. Had it preceded railways, for instance, or been used in the Napoleonic wars, or even had it been grafted immediately upon the caprice of the hobby-horse from which it derived, its annals, perchance, had been more illustrious. Lord Sherbrooke, it is said, once cast a blighting eye upon it in its infancy as a possible source of revenue. Society played with it for a season in Battersea Park. But, like the warship Shannon, it has always been an unassuming vehicle—the Cinderella of the sports family. It has the distinction, indeed, of being a wholly popular and democratic invention. Machinery has nearly always been the rich man's prescription, imposed from above. The bicycle, con

Blackwood's Magazine.

trariwise, has asserted itself and reasserted itself persistently from below; and though I do not think that it is assigned a place of any importance in Mr. Wallace's "Wonderful Century," it seems to me unmistakably the most benevolent mechanical invention of the Industrial Era. If you wander through the sheds that contain the admirable science collections at Kensington, you can trace with infallible accuracy the development of the steam-engine, of locomotive and postal machinery, of the marine engines that you watch so intently during a stormy channel crossing, of the motor-car, the typewriter, the telephone, the pile-driver, the spinning-jenny, et id genus omne. Trains and steamers between them have spoiled travel. The Post Office has destroyed letter-writing. The motor-car and the telephone between them have tainted life whole-at its source. Such inventions could only come from above. The one unmixed benefactor to mankind is that machine of which you will hardly discern specimens dangling in chains from the roof like condemned felons. Suspercollated placards describe the historical development of the pendant machines-hoary bicycles of the early 'Seventies. Montaigne once said that he would like to die travelling-on horseback. Charles Lamb once expressed a desire that his last breath might be drawn through a pipe; a better ending than either, in my opinion, was that of Edward Bowen, who "died in a moment, while mounting his bicycle after a long ascent, among the lonely forests of Burgundy, then bursting into leaf under an April sun." "His foot was on his bicycle step; and then in one brief moment-as the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth even unto the west-all was over."

Thomas Seccombe.

WENDELL PHILLIPS GARRISON.

This memorial volume, which can be procured in England from Messrs. A. Constable & Co., gives a modest and pleasant picture of a man who did, much for good journalism and good criticism in the United States. "Bene latuit, bene vixit," might be the summary of Wendell Garrison's life and work; and the form of the comment would have appealed to a scholar whose career comes as somewhat of a surprise in these days of a gaudy, blabbing, and remorseless press. The mere idea of a man working for his paper in impersonal seclusion-unparagraphed, unknown, uninterviewed-is repugnant alike to the young lions of to-day and a public which believes chiefly in names or noise.

The twentieth century is seeing great changes in the conditions of literature and jourualism. "Experts" arise in a single night, cry down long experience, and make "great papers" greater. Consistency is clearly, as Bagehot said, the bugbear of small minds; eminent penmen appear in this paper to-day and that to-morrow, turned out and turned on with kaleidoscopic rapidity, but supplying somewhere a flood of tolerable matter, with the regularity of the Metropolitan Water Board. The advertiser and the man who persuades him to advertise are in command: sometimes the manager calls himself the editor; at other times the editor is a clever clerk who has not the disqualification of literary taste. It is a desperate commercial game which appeals to a nation of shopkeeperswhich declares the grand and progressive qualities of national enterprise, and the uselessness of everything which "does not pay."

"Letters and Memorials of Wendell Phillips Garrison, Literary Editor of The Nation, 1865-1906." (Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin Company.)

Boswell, who was "sometimes obliged to run half across London in order to fix a date correctly," would nowadays be self-convicted by that confession as an absurdly meticulous and incapable writer. Such leisurely and conscientious proceedings make "a back number," as the vivid phrase of to-day goes. "Proofs" at present are a luxury; printers are left to look after punctuation, and "readers" to secure a minimum of grammar which is probably more than the public wants. Horace's fluent satirist who could dictate two hundred verses an hour, standing on one leg, and the illiterate rag-dealer in Petronius who explained that "Letters is a bonanza," would be more in the movement. But Horace hated the profane mob, and was hampered by academic education; while Petronius lounged into a reputation, and wrote nothing concerning his experiences as a vigorous colonial governor in Africa. They are obviously not model writers for to-day. They were not in a hurry; they were artists; and they were too humorous to pelt the reading public of Rome with daily or weekly demands for recognition.

In spite of all the wonderful advances of this present century, we confess to a sneaking fondness for the ideal of restraint and scholarship so well represented by Garrison. From the modern point of view such an ideal is something of an ordeal. It means incessant work, and a perpetual sinking of self in distracting duties which no single man can realize of those whose work is received, corrected, and sometimes rejected with an eye to the welfare of a whole paper. The weekly symphony needs a conductor who seems often unjust to individual members of the orchestra. Garrison helped

to found The Nation, on the model of our own Spectator, in conjunction with E. L. Godkin. The two worked together with a harmony which no differences could sever, and Garrison gave "forty-one years of unremitting labor" to his task. Never was testimonial better deserved than the silver vase which more than two hundred of The Nation's staff presented to him in 1905. He retired from work in 1906, but he was worn out with his labors, and died the next year, when he might well have looked forward to an Indian summer of scholarly leisure.

The Introduction gives us a good idea of his self-effacement and his remarkable flair for the right men:-

In fact, Mr. Garrison, at times, could persuade men to write for him who would write for no one else. Moreover, he used to detect, here and there, some remote personage-not necessarily decorated in "Who's Who" or in the pages of "Minerva" who could serve his purpose exactly, and could furnish what he needed in precisely the form and finish which his exacting taste demanded. For such shy cattle he had a sure and trained instinct-the scent of the Laconian hound.

He went further; he made friends of all his contributors by means of letters in his own hand.

At least one half of his contributors had never seen his face and knew him only by his editorial correspondence. But hardly a letter or a post-card left his hand which did not contain some kindly or considerate message-something personal, whimsical, or humorous, which drew his correspondents into the circle of his friends.

Some accomplished sonnets of his are reprinted here, mainly inspired by Italian sources, for he was always a lover of Petrarch and Dante.

The letters given show how far his considerateness, careful attention to human feelings, and zeal for detail

went, but they are a little scanty and disappointing in humor, which rarely appears. He was always busy, and writes to W. R. Thayer that as editor of The Nation "I have to endure a mollusc's existence, and scarcely budge from my desk and bed-room." Attractive invitations had to be refused, and holidays were rare. Garrison even compiled himself the indexes to The Nation, a work from which most authors shrink in their own books, if they pay any attention to indexing at all.

Here is a letter to an unnamed correspondent whose work needed the blue pencil:

I

"My dear A.,-My function in this office as the Butcher is well established. I now submit my latest work, with which I am rather well pleased except as dismembering a friend. return the ersecta for your possible use. You will see to what a length the whole would have gone. Now all is compact and will be read with pleasure."

Most of the letters refer to the later period of editorship, and we might well have been vouchsafed more details of Garrison's home life and interests. What is presented to us here is occasionally rather obscure for English readers. The text of a letter on p. 72 refers to the phrase "by how much the half is greater than the wholea love pat out of Hesiod (?) which I trust you will forgive like a good Grecist." We presume the writer did not for the moment recall whether the quotation was from Hesiod or not. It is derived from the "Works and Days," and is the best part of a hexameter line, which last word should clearly be read for "love."

In a letter to Prof. G. E. Woodberry there is an interesting reference to some lines in Gray's "Elegy" which have puzzled many:—

Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,

And Melancholy marked him for her

own.

"What bothers me in the verse in question is the conjunction, since in your view Melancholy's marking of Gray would have to be a sort of kindness. Higginson, and I think most readers, take the opposite view. The youth labored under three disabilities—(1) humble origin; (2) whatever Science did to him by not frowning; (3) having a melancholy turn of mind. All belong in one category, else I feel the need of a disjunctive but. But basta!"

These inquiries into delicate shades of language are one sign of Garrison's fastidious taste, which is seen also in his ingenious article entitled "A It Dissolving View of Punctuation.” does not deal with the elementary instruction of which many writers stand in need, but is full of the niceties which experts appreciate. "Authority in Language" will also please lovers of English. Other papers reprinted here are concerned with politics. "The True Function of a University," which includes a needed warning as to overathleticism; obituaries of E. L. Godkin and other prominent men; "Protraiture" and "Jean Jacques Rousseau," which both deal with a favorite author of Garrison's; "A Talk to Librarians"; and "The New Gulliver," a study of Houyhnhnm folk and Calvinistic theology of all things! The "fair humanities of old religion" were not for Garrison, though few have shown a steadier devotion to duty and conscience. He says of systems of ethics and religion:

"The rubbish cleared away, we are left face to face with the old problems of the meaning of life and the possibility of another existence. For one, I utterly refuse to waste my time over the former. Towards the latter I keep an open mind and have the will to

The Athenæum.

believe,' and some evidences drawn from the much derided phenomena of spiritualism, whose positive teachings are so valueless. Above all, let us steer clear of superstition, and not be frightened by our own shadows."

Garrison published excellent books, particularly his life of his father, a monument of careful evidence and judgment on which he lavished several years. But it is his work as an editor which is his great and inexpugnable claim to recognition. We may say of him what a poet and critic said of a friend:

In the study of art, poetry, or philosophy, he had the most undivided and disinterested love for his object in itself, the greatest aversion to mixing up with it anything accidental or personal. His interest was in literature itself, and it was this which gave so rare a stamp to his character, which kept him so free from all taint of littleness. In the saturnalia of ignoble personal passions, of which the struggle for literary success, in old and crowded communities, offers so sad a spectacle, he never mingled. He had not yet traduced his friends, nor flattered his enemies, nor disparaged what he admired, nor praised what he despised. Those who knew him well had the conviction that even with time, these literary arts would never be his.

The whole character is almost bcyond human compass, demanding the virtues of the ancient Stoic; but there was much of that creed in Garrison, who combined a serenity which is hardly of our own day with a devotion to his friends which won unphilosophic affection. He illustrated, says Mr. MeDaniels, in his practice the possibility of the "brotherhood of man." He certainly fostered the brotherhood of the pen, whereas the modern system of hustling and commercial journalism is calculated to justify the bitter jibe of Robert Brough: "Brethren of the pen! Yes, Cain and Abel."

WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS.

CHARACTERS

Sir Charles Worgan, News

paper Proprietor. Francis Worgan, Wanderer. John Worgan, Provincial

Doctor.

A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS

BY ARNOLD BENNETT

Brothers.

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sizes too large.

His gestures are vul gar. Not gentlemanly, though by fits and starts he seems to remember that he is a gentleman. Age 50.

Emily Vernon.-Beautiful; but conscious that her youth is passing. Charming. Her moods change rapidly. She is dressed with distinguished taste, but not expensively. Her face is sad when she isn't alert. She has been through sorrow and through hard times. Age 29.

Simon Macquoid.-The only thing to note is that he is angry throughout his scene. Age 45.

Private office of Sir Charles Worgan. Doors r., 1., and back centre. Utmost possible richness of office furniture. Grand central desk, with dictaphone and telephone. Side tables full of papers, correspondence, etc. Large datecalendar prominent. A red disk showing on wall at back. General air of orderliness and great activity. Sir Charles Worgan and Kendrick are opposite each other at central desk, with two piles of assorted magazines and journals on the desk. Kendrick is smoking a large cigar. Time, afternoon, November.

Kendrick. Now then, there's this confounded "Sabbath Chimes"! [picking up a periodical from the pile to his left hand].

Sir C. Well, what's it doing? Kendrick [referring to a list of figures]. Eighteen thousand.

Sir C. It's dropping, then. Kendrick. Dropping? I should say it was! But it never was any real good. We bought it for a song and

Sir C. [interrupting him sharply].

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