Chapter II: Part 2

If a skilful exercise of baseless superstition upon mind can be so efficacious, what results are possible by a judicious use of the truth? Mental causation is abundantly proved by the well-known effects of fear, anger, envy, anxiety, and other passions and emotions, upon the physical organism. Acute fear will paralyze the nerve centres, and sometimes turn the hair white in a single night. A mother's milk can be poisoned by a fit of anger. An eminent writer, Dr. Tuke, enumerates as among the direct products of fear, insanity, idiocy, paralysis of various muscles and organs, profuse perspiration, cholerina, jaundice, sudden decay of teeth, fatal anaemia, skin diseases, erysipelas, and eczema. Passion, sinful thought, avarice, envy, jealousy, selfishness, all press for external bodily expression. Even false philosophies, false theology, and false conceptions of God make their unwholesome influence felt in every bodily tissue. By infallible law, mental states are mirrored upon the body, but because the process is complex and gradual, we fail to observe the connection. Mind translates itself into flesh and blood.

What must be the physical result upon humanity of thousands of years of chronic fearing, sinning, selfishness, anxiety, and unnumbered other morbid conditions? These are all the time pulling down the cells and tissues, which only divine, harmonious, and wholesome thought can build up. Is it surprising that no one is perfectly healthy? If man were not linked to God, and unconsciously receiving an inflow of recuperative vital force, the multitudinous destroyers would soon disintegrate his physical organism. Can the building forces be strengthened, stimulated, and made more harmonious and divine? Yes, through mind. The mind surely but unconsciously pervades every physical tissue with its vital influence, and is present in every function; throbbing in the heart, breathing in the lungs, and weaving its own quality into nutrition, assimilation, sensation, and motion.

A conscious fear of any particular disease is not necessary to induce it. The accumulated strands of the unconscious fear of generations have been twisted into the warp and woof of our mentality, and we find ourselves on the plane of reciprocity with disease. Our door is open to receive it. What is disease? A mental spectre, which to material vision has terrible proportions. A kingly tyrant, crowned by our own beliefs. It has exactly that power which our fears, theories, and acceptances have conferred upon it. It is not an objective entity, but our sensuous beliefs have galvanized it into life. "As a man thinketh, so is he." Realism to us may be conferred upon the most absolute non-entity, if we give it large thought space, and fear it. As a condition, disease is existent; but not as a God-created entity, in and of itself. It appears veritable to us, because we have unconsciously identified the Ego with the body.

The material standpoint is false. We are immaterial; not bodies, but spirits--even here and now. Having lost spiritual consciousness, we practically,--though not theoretically,--feel that we are bodies. To grasp our divine selfhood and steadily hold it, disarms fear and all its allies, and promotes recuperation and harmony. When the intrinsic man dethrones the false and sensuous claimant, and asserts his divine birthright of wholeness [holiness] the body as a correspondence falls into line and gradually expresses health on its own plane. Normally and logically, that which is higher should rule the lower. The body, instead of being the unrelenting despot, then becomes the docile and useful servant. In its subordinate position, where it rightfully belongs, it grows beautiful and harmonious. Men live mainly in their bodily sensations. Such living, though apparently real, is a false sense of life. There is a profound significance in the scriptural injunction, "Take no thought for your body." The dyspeptic thinks of his stomach, and the more he has it in mind the more abnormally sensitive it becomes. The sound man has no knowledge of such an organ, except as a matter of theory. The body, when watched, petted, and idolized, soon assumes the character of a usurper and tyrant. Retribution is sure and inherent under such conditions.

A change of environment often cures, simply because novelty diverts thought which before has been centered upon the body. The improvement, however, is often credited to better climate, water, or air. Human pride seeks for its causation without rather than within. Secondary causation is really effect, though not often so diagnosed. The draft occasions the cold, but it gets its deadly qualities from cumulative belief and fear. Who has not seen persons in which this bondage and sensitiveness have become so intense that even a breath of God's pure air alarms them. In this way a great mass of secondary causation has been invested with power for evil, and mistaken for that which is primary. Noting the tremendous power of grown-up accumulations of false belief, we may glance at the modus operandi of mental healing.

There are two distinct lines of treatment which may effect a cure; one by intelligent and persistent self-discipline and culture, and the other through the efforts of another person called a healer. Often there is a combination of both. The power does not lie in the personality of the healer, nor in the exercise of his will-power. Neither hypnotism nor mesmeric control are elements in true mind-healing. The healer, in reality, is but an interpreter and teacher. The divine recuperative forces which exist, but are latent, are awakened and called into action. The patient is like a discordant instrument containing great capabilities, only waiting to respond in unison to active harmony. His distorted thought must be elevated and harmonized, so that he will see things in their true perspective. The healer gently guides him up into the "mount of transfiguration," where he feels the glow of the divine image within, and sees that wholeness is already his, and will be made manifest as he recognizes it. A successful healer must be an overflowing fountain of love and good-will. He is but a conduit through which flows the divine repletion. He makes ideal conditions present. He steadily holds a mental image of his patient as already whole, and silently appeals to the unconscious mind of the invalid, to induce him to accept the same view. The patient's mental background is like a sensitive plate, upon which will gradually appear outlines of health as they are positively presented. Improved views of his own condition spring up from within, and seem to him to be original. As they grow into expression in the outer man, his cure is complete.

Do failures occur? Undoubtedly, and often. Even infallible principles can have but imperfect application because of local limitations. The failure of a particular field of grain does not disprove the universal principle of vegetable growth. The imperfection of the healer, and the lack of receptivity in the patient, are local limitations. There are sudden cures, but as a rule recovery will be in the nature of a progressive growth. Lack of immediate results often causes disappointment, and leads to an abandonment of the treatment before the seed has had time to take root. The healer is the sower, and the patient's unconscious mind is the soil. Often rubbish must be cleared away before any fertile spot is found. The cure must come from within. Sometimes the patient is cherishing some secret sin, or giving place to trains of thought colored with envy, jealousy, avarice, or selfishness. These are all positive obstacles to both mental and physical improvement, for thoughts are real things. The patient must actively co-operate with the healer, and make himself transparent to the truth. That which is misshapen has to grow symmetrical. Even if the mind could be instantly permeated with the belief of health, the body will need a little time to completely change its expression. Should these limitations discourage anyone? Not in the least, but rather the reverse. The fact that the cure is in the nature of a growth, is evidence that it is normal and permanent, rather than magical or capricious. Limitations are present, but they can be surmounted.

The phenomenon of pain, so commonly regarded as an evil, is only a warning voice to summon our consciousness from its resting-place in the damp, morgue-like basement of our being, to the higher apartments, where sunshine and harmony are ever present. It is beneficent when its message is heeded, for it is thereby transformed into blessing. Our resistance to it, and misunderstanding of its significance, prevent that possible transformation. The process of cure through mind, though in itself a steady growth, often appears to the consciousness of the patient as vibratory and uneven.

Many could heal themselves without the aid of another, if they appreciated the tremendous power for good of concentrated mental delineation of the ideal. By such exercises of mind, a wholesome environment can be built up, even if at first the process seems almost mechanical. But instead of such self-building, out of an infinitude of divine material, the average man is inclined to vacate the control of his being, put his body into the keeping of his doctor, and his soul [himself] into the care of his priest or pastor.

Efficiency for self-treatment is increased as the power of abstraction is cultivated. Hold a firm consciousness of the spiritual self, and of the fact that the material form is only expression made visible. Firmly deny the validity of adverse sensuous evidence, and at length it will disappear. Silently but persistently affirm health, harmony, and the divine image. Give out good thought, for thoughts are real gifts. In proportion as you pour out, the divine repletion pours in. Look upon the physical self as only a false claimant for the Ego. Hold only the good in your field of vision, and let disease and evil fade out to their native nothingness, from lack of standing-room. Even a warfare against evils as objective realities, tends to make them more realistic. At convenient seasons, bar out the external world, and rivet the mind tenaciously to the loftiest ideals and aspirations, and for the time being forget that you possess a body. Oh, victim of nervous prostration and insomnia, test these principles and see if they are not superior to anodynes, opiates, bromides, and chorals, and be assured that they leave no sting behind. The great boon which they bestow is not limited to nervous and mental disorders; its virtue penetrates to the outermost physical limits.

The whole atmosphere of race thought in which we live is sensuous. This vast unconscious influence must be overcome. The mental healer is like one rowing against the current of a mighty river. Humanity is "bound in one bundle," and it is with difficulty that a few can advance much faster than the rythmical step of the mass. Even the Great Exemplar in some places could not do many mighty works because of surrounding unbelief.

Man is peering into the dust for new supplies of life, which are stored around and above him. Is it not time that he should make a serious effort to throw off the galling yoke of cruel though intangible masters, and achieve freedom and emancipation?

Turning to the religious aspect of mental healing, it is seen to be in harmony with revelation, and also with the highest spiritual ideal in all religions. While rebuking scholastic and dogmatic systems on the one hand, and pseudo-scientific materialism on the other, it vitalizes and makes practical the principles of the Sermon on the Mount. The healing of to-day is the same in kind, though not equal in degree to that of the primitive church. It is in accord with spiritual law, which is ever uniformly the same under like conditions. The miracles of the Apostolic Age were real as transactions, but their miraculous hue was in the materialistic vision of the observers. Healing is the outward and practical attestation of the power and genuineness of spiritual religion, and ought not to have dropped out of the Church. The divine commission to preach the gospel and heal the sick, never rightly could have been severed in twain, because they are only different sides of one Whole. By what authority is one part declared binding through ages and the other ignored? Who will assert that God is changeable, so that any divinely bestowed boon to one age could be withdrawn from a subsequent one? The direct assurance of the Christ, that "these signs shall follow them that believe," is perpetual in its scope, because "them that believe" are limited to no age, race, or condition. As ecclesiasticism and materialism crept into the early church, and personal ambitions and worldly policies sapped its vitality, spiritual transparency and brotherly love faded out, and with them went the power--or rather the recognition of the power--to heal.

Wonderful works are not limited alone to those who accept the Christian religion; but in proportion as other systems recognize the supremacy of the spiritual element, and catch even a partial glow of "that true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world," their intrinsic qualities will be made outwardly manifest. A right conception of God, as infinite present Good, strongly aids in producing the expression of health. "In Him we live, and move, and have our being." An abiding concept of such truth directly promotes trust, harmony, healing. Seeming ills are not God-created powers, but human perversions and reflected images of subjective states. As a higher and spiritual standpoint is gained, apparent evils dissolve, and then in bold relief is seen the fair proportions of the Kingdom of the Real.

MR. AND MRS. HERNE.

BY HAMLIN GARLAND.

In May last, in a small hall in Boston, on a stage of planking, hung with drapery, was produced one of the most radical plays from a native author ever performed in America. Mr. and Mrs. James A. Herne, unable to obtain a hearing in the theatres for their play, which had been endorsed by some of the best known literary men of the day, were forced to hire a hall, and produce _Margaret Fleming_ bare of all mechanical illusion, and shorn of all its scenic and atmospheric effects. Everybody, even their friends, prophesied disaster. In such surroundings failure seemed certain. But a few who knew the play and its authors better, felt confident that there was a public for them. It was a notable event, and the fame of _Margaret Fleming_ is still on its travels across the dramatic world.

There were two reasons for this result, the magnificent art of Mrs. Herne, which "created illusion by its utter simplicity and absolute truth to life," and second, because the play was, in fact, as one critic said, "an epoch-marking play." It could afford to dispense with canvas, bunch-lights, machinery, as it dispensed with conventional plot and epithet, and as its actors discarded declamation and mere noise.

The phenomenal success of Mr. and Mrs. Herne brought them prominently before the literary public. Interest became very strong in them as persons as well as artists, and from an intimate personal acquaintance with them both, I have been asked to give this brief sketch of their work previous to _Margaret Fleming_, for epoch-marking as it was, it was only a logical latest outcome of the work the Hernes have been doing for the last ten years.

Mr. Herne is a man of large experience, having been on the stage for thirty years. He has been through all the legitimate lines. He has been a member of a stock company, manager of theatres, and author and manager of several plays of his own, previous to the writing of _Margaret_ _Fleming_. His first real attempt at writing was _Hearts of Oak_. The home scenes, and notably the famous dinner scene, which became such a feature, showed the direction of his power. This play, produced about twelve years ago with Mrs. Herne as "Crystal," was their first attempt to handle humble American life, and was very successful.

Mr. Herne's next venture was an ambitious one. It was the writing of a play based upon the American Revolution. In the spring of '86 he produced at the Boston Theatre _The Minute Men_, where it was received with immense enthusiasm. It was somewhat conventional in plot, but in all its scenes of home life was true and fine. The central figures were Reuben (a backwoodsman), and Dorothy, his adopted daughter. Whatever concerned these two characters was keyed to the note of life. Like all Mr. Herne's acting, Reuben was utterly unconscious of himself. He went about as a backwoodsman naturally does, without posturing or swagger. With the sweetness and quaintness of Sam Lawson, he had the comfortable aspect of a well-fed Pennsylvania Quaker.

Mrs. Herne's Dorothy was a fitting companion piece, faultlessly true, and sweet, and natural. Her spontaneous laugh is as infectiously gleeful as Joe Jefferson's chuckle. Those who have never seen her in this part can hardly realize how fine a comedienne she really is.

Mr. Herne's next play was simpler, stronger, and better, though less picturesque. _Drifting Apart_ was based upon the commonest of life's tragedies--the home of a drunkard. It is the most effective of sermons, without one word of preaching. The drifting apart of husband and wife through the husband's "failin'" is set forth with unexampled concreteness, and yet there is no introduction of horror. We understand it all by the sufferings of the wife, with whom we alternately hope and despair. I copy here what I wrote of it at the time when I knew neither Mr. and Mrs. Herne, nor any other of their plays.

The second act in this play for tenderness and truth has not been
surpassed in any American play. A daring thing exquisitely done
was that holiest of confidences between husband and wife. The
vast audience sat hushed as death before that touching, almost
sacred scene, as they do when sitting before some great tragedy.

What does this mean, if not that our dramatists have been too
distrustful of the public? They have gone round the earth in
search of material for plays, not knowing that the most moving
of all life is that which lies closest at hand, after all.

Mrs. Herne's acting of Mary Miller was my first realization of the compelling power of truth. It was so utterly opposed to the "tragedy of the legitimate." Here was tragedy that appalled and fascinated like the great fact of living. No noise, no contortions of face or limbs, yet somehow I was made to feel the dumb, inarticulate, interior agony of a mother. Never before had such acting faced me across the footlights. The fourth act was like one of Millet's paintings, with that mysterious quality of reserve--the quality of life again.

In this play, as in _Hearts of Oak_, there was no villain and no plot. The scene was laid in a fishing village near Gloucester. I can do no better than to give you a taste of the quaint second act.

It is Christmas eve and Jack and Mary have been married a year. Jack is preparing to go out. Mary is secretly disturbed over his going but hides it. "Mother" sits by the fire knitting. Mary is sewing by the window.

_Jack._ Say, Mary! D'you know, I can shave myself better'n any
barber thet ever honed a razor?

_Mary._ I always told you you could, Jack, if you'd only try.

_Jack._ Feel my face now--ain't it as smooth as any baby's?

_Mary._ (_Feeling his face._) Yes, Jack, as smooth as any _old_
baby's.

_Jack._ Oh! say, look here now, thet ain't fair; a feller don't
know nothin' till he's forty, does he, mother? Old baby's!
(_sitting on the arm of Mary's chair_) I ain't too old to love
you, Mary, that's one thing. I've loved you ever since you was
knee-high to a grasshopper. I rocked you in y'r cradle--I'm
blessed if I didn't make the cradle you was rocked in, didn't I,
mother?

_Mother._ Yes, Jack, an' d'ye remember what yeh made it out of?

_Jack._ A herrin' box. (_General laugh._)

_Mary._ (_Tenderly._) I married the man I love, Jack.

_Jack._ Honest?

_Mary._ Honest.

_Jack._ (_Kissing her._) Then what'n thunder you want to talk
about a feller's gettin' old for? Where's my clean shirt? Say,
mother, don't you t' hang up them stockin's.

_Mary._ Oh! Jack, what nonsense.

_Jack._ No nonsense at all about it. Christmas is Christmas. It
only comes once a year an' I'm goin' to have th' stockin's hung
up. So for fear you'd forgit 'em I'll hang 'em up myself.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_Mary._ Please, Jack, give me those stockings.

_Jack._ Now it ain't no use, little woman. Them stockin's is
a-goin' up. Mother, you give me three pins.

_Mary._ Don't you give him _any_ pins, mother. Suppose the
neighbors should come in and see those stockings hangin' up.

_Jack._ Let 'em come in, I don't care a continental cuss. Why,
Mary, everybody wears stockin's nowadays, everybody that can
afford to. I _want_ the neighbors to see 'em, then they'll know
we've got stockin's. (_Holding up the three stockings._) Got one
apiece anyhow.

_Mother._ Oh, Jack, Jack! you'll never be anything but a great
overgrown boy, if you live to be a hundred (_goes off_).

_Mary._ (_Tenderly._) Jack!

_Jack._ Hey?

_Mary._ (_Putting her arms about his neck._) Did you never think
that perhaps next Christmas there might be another stocking, just
a tiny one, to hang in the chimney corner?

_Jack._ Why, Mary, there's tears in your eyes. (_Goes to wipe her
eyes with the work she has in her hands; it is a baby's dress._)
Bless my soul! What's this, Mary?

_Mary._ (_Falteringly._) Do you remember Bella and John in "Our
Mutual Friend" that I read to you?

_Jack._ Yes. Warn't they glorious?

_Mary._ Well, these are sails, Jack, sails for the little ship
that's coming across the water for you and me.

I quote a few lines from another scene.

Christmas morning. Hester and Silas, some young friends, have
come in to take breakfast. All are seated at the table with much
bustle and laughter. Lish Mead, Mary's foster father, pokes his
head in the door.

_Lish Mead._ Wish you Merry Christmas.

_All._ (_Hilariously._) Merry Christmas! Come in.

_Lish._ Can't less some on ye hol's th' door open.

_Silas._ I'll hold it, Lish. (_Lish enters, hauling a warehouse
truck on which is a barrel of flour and a large hamper._)

_Lish._ Mister Seward wanted I should hand ye these with his
complements.

_Mary._ Oh, how kind of Mr. Seward, and how good of you to bring
'em.

_Jack._ Set down here, Lish, and have a bite o' breakfast.

_Lish._ (_Taking off mittens, cap, comforter, etc._) Whatcher
got? Chicking? Waal, that's good 'nough. (_Seats himself at
table._) Say, Jack, d' you know, you left a goose a-layin' on Jim
Adamses bar las' night? I was goin' to fetch it along but Jim
said you gin it to him, swore you made him a present on it.

_Mother._ Jack Hepburn, did you give that goose--

_Mary._ (_Interrupting her._) Have a cup of coffee, mother.

_Lish._ Jack, have you got the time o' day? (_Chuckles._) Here's
y'r new Waterbury. The boys wanted I should fetch her 'round; ye
went off las' night without her.

_Jack._ Ye can take her back again; I don't want her.

_Mary._ O Jack!

_Jack._ No, Mary, I don't. I wish the durned ol' Waterbury 'd
never been born.

_Mary._ The boys meant well, Jack; I wouldn't send back their
present.

_Jack._ All right, Mary, if you say so, I'll take her. There's
one thing sure, every time I wind her up she'll put me in mind
how durn near I come to losin' the best little wife in the whole
world.

This play brought me to know Mr. and Mrs. Herne. It needed but an hour's talk to convince me that I had met two of the most intellectual artists in the dramatic profession, and also to learn how great were the obstacles which lay in the way of producing a real play, each year adding to the insuperableness of the barriers. Mr. Herne was at that time (two years ago) working upon a new play, in some respects, notably in its theme, finer than _Drifting Apart_. It was the result of several summers spent on the coast of Maine, and is called _Shore-Acres_. The story is mainly that of two brothers, Nathaniel and Martin Berry, who own a fine "shore-acre" tract near a booming summer resort. An enterprising grocer in the little village gets Martin interested in booms and suggests that they form a company and cut the shore-acre tract up into lots and sell to summer residents.

Martin comes with the scheme to Nathaniel.

_Martin._ I'd like t' talk to yeh, an' I d' know's I'll hev a
better chance.

_Uncle Nat._ I d' know's yeh will.

_Martin._ (_Hesitates, picks up a stick and whittles._) Mr.
Blake's ben here.

_Uncle Nat._ (_Picks up a straw and chews it._) Hez 'e?

_Martin._ Yes. He 'lows thet we'd ought to cut the farm up inter
buildin' lots.

_Uncle Nat._ Dooze 'e?

_Martin._ Yes. He says there's a boom a-comin' here, an' thet the
lan's too valu'ble to work.

_Uncle Nat._ I want t' know 'f he dooze. Where d's he talk o'
beginnin'?

_Martin._ Out there at the nothe eend o' the shore pint?

_Uncle Nat._ Yeh don't mean up yander? (_Pointing with his thumb
over his shoulder._)

_Martin._ (_Slowly._) Y-e-s.

_Uncle Nat._ Dooze 'e calkalate t' take in the knoll thet looks
out t' Al'gator Reef?

_Martin._ I reck'n he dooze.

_Uncle Nat._ Did yeh tell him thet mother's berried there?

_Martin._ He knows thet 's well 's you do. (_Sulkily._)

_Uncle Nat._ What's he calkalate t' do with mother?

_Martin._ He advises puttin' her in a cimitry up to Bangor.

_Uncle Nat._ She'd never sleep comfort'ble in no cimitry, mother
wouldn't.

_Martin._ He says thet's the choice lot o' the hull pass'll.

_Uncle Nat._ Then who's got so good a right to it as mother hez?
It was all her'n once. Thet's the only piece she ast t' keep. Yeh
don't begrutch it to her, do yeh, Martin?

_Martin._ I don't begrutch her nothin', only he says folks hain't
a-goin' to pay fancy prices 'thout they hev ther pick.

_Uncle Nat._ D'ye think any fancy price hed ought to buy mother's
grave?

_Martin._ Yeh seem to kinder shameface me fer thinkin' o' partin'
with it.

_Uncle Nat._ Didn't mean to. Law sakes! who'm I thet I should set
my face agin improvemints, I'd like t' know? Go ahead, an' sell,
'n build, an' git rich, an' move t' Bangor, unly don't sell thet!
Leave me jes' thet leetle patch, an' I'll stay an' take keer th'
light, keep the grass cut over yander, an' sort o' watch eout fer
things gin'rally....

_Ann._ Sakes alive! Martin Berry, bean't you a-comin' to your
dinner t'day? Come, Nathan'l, y'r dinner'll be stun cold. I say
yer dinner'll be stun cold. 'T won't be fit f'r a hawg t'eat.

_Little Mildred. (Going to Nat, looks up into his face._) He's
cryin', momma.

This estrangement, and the results that flow from it, form the simple basis of _Shore-Acres_, a play full of character studies, and permeated by that peculiar flavor of sea and farm, which the New England coast abounds with. The theme is the best and truest of all Mr. Herne's plays of humble life.

Mr. and Mrs. Herne have lived for twelve years in Ashmont, a suburb of Boston. They have a comfortable and tasteful home, with three children, Julie, Crystal, and Dorothy [aged ten, eight, and five], to give them welcome when they come back from their seasons on the road. Mr. Herne is very domestic and lives a very simple and quiet life. And he enjoys his pretty home as only a man can whose life is spent so largely in fatiguing travel. He is fond of the fields which lie near his home, and very many are the long walks we have taken together. He is very fond of wild flowers, especially daisies and clover blossoms, and in their season is never without a bunch of them upon his desk. Books are all about him. He writes at a flat-top desk in the room he calls his, but his terrific orders to be left alone are calmly ignored by the three children who invade this "study," and throw themselves upon him at the slightest provocation. He is much tyrannized over by Dorothy, whose dolls he is forced to mend, no matter what other apparently important work is going forward.

Mrs. Herne is a woman of extraordinary powers, both of acquired knowledge and natural insight, and her suggestions and criticisms have been of the greatest value to her husband in his writing, and she had large part in the inception as well as in the production of _Margaret Fleming_. Her knowledge of life and books, like that of her husband, is self-acquired, but I have met few people in any walk of life with the same wide and thorough range of thought. In their home oft-quoted volumes of Spencer, Darwin, Fiske, Carlyle, Ibsen, Valdes, Howells, give evidence that they not only keep abreast but ahead of the current thought of the day. Spencer is their philosopher, and Howells is their novelist, but Dickens and Scott have large space on their shelves. All this does not prevent Mr. Herne from being an incorrigible joker, and a wonderfully funny story-teller. All dialects come instantly and surely to his tongue. The sources of his power as a dramatist are evident in his keen observation and retentive memory. Mrs. Herne's poet is Sidney Lanier, and she knows his principal poems by heart. "Sunrise" is her especial delight. But to see her radiant with intellectual enthusiasm, one has but to start a discussion of the nebular hypothesis, or to touch upon the atomic theory, or doubt the inconceivability of matter. She is perfectly oblivious to space and time if she can get someone to discuss Flammarion's supersensuous world of force, Mr. George's theory of land-holding, or Spencer's law of progress.

Her enthusiasms bear fruit not only in her own phenomenal development, but in her power over others, both as an artist and friend. Wherever she goes she carries the magnetic influence of one who lives and thinks on high planes. Her earnestness is tremendous.

They are both individualists in the sense of being for the highest and purest type of man, and the elimination of governmental control. "Truth, Liberty, and Justice," form the motto over their door. Mr. Herne has won great distinction as a powerful and ready advocate of the single tax theory, and they are both personal valued friends of Mr. George. It is Ibsen's individualism as well as his truth that appeals so strongly to both Mr. and Mrs. Herne. They are in deadly earnest like Ibsen, and _Margaret Fleming_ sprang directly from their radicalism on the woman question. The home of these extraordinary people is a charged battery radiating the most advanced thought. As one friend said: "No one ever leaves this house as he came. We all go away with something new and vital to think about."

I give these personal impressions in order that those who saw them in _Margaret Fleming_ may know that its power was certainly a reflection of the high thought and purity of moral conviction and life which Mr. and Mrs. Herne brought to its production and its performance. It voices their love of truth in art, and freedom in life, and specifically their position on the woman question.

The story of _Margaret Fleming_ is briefly:--

Philip Fleming is a fairly successful business man in a town near Boston. He has a devoted wife, a child just reaching its first year's birthday. The first scene develops the situation by a conversation between Fleming and his family physician. Fleming offers a cigar which Dr. Larkin refuses.

_Philip._ You used to respect my cigars. (_Laughing._)

_Doctor._ I used to respect you....

_Philip._ Why not, for heaven's sake?

_Doctor._ Because you've no more moral nature than Joe Fletcher
has.

_Philip._ Oh! come now, Doctor, that's rather--

_Doctor._ (_Looking sternly at him._) At two o'clock last night,
Lena Schmidt gave birth to a child.

_Philip._ (_His eyes meet those of the Doctor, then drop to the
floor._) How in God's name did they come to send for you?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_Doctor._ I don't believe she'll ever leave that bed alive.

_Philip._ Well, I've done all I can to--

_Doctor._ Yeh have, eh?

_Philip._ She's had all the money she needed.... If she'd a' done
as I wanted her to, this never'd a' happened. I tried to get her
away six months ago, but she wouldn't go. She was as obstinate as
a mule.

_Doctor._ Strange that she should want to be near you, aint it?
If she'd got tired of you and wanted to go, you wouldn't have let
her.

_Philip._ (_With a sickly smile._) You must think I'm--

_Doctor._ I don't think anything about it. I _know_ just what
such animals as you are.

_Philip._ Why, I haven't seen her for a--

_Doctor._ Haven' t yeh! well, then, suppose you go and see her
to-day.

_Philip._ (_Alarmed._) No, I won't. I can't do that!

_Doctor._ You will do just that.

_Philip._ (_Showing temper._) I won't go near her.

_Doctor._ (_Quietly._) Yes, you will. She sha'n't lie there and
die like a dog.

_Philip._ You wouldn't dare--to tell--

_Doctor._ I want you to go and see this girl! (_They face each
other._) Will yeh or won't yeh?

_Philip._ (_After a pause subdued._) What d' ye want me to say to
her?

Fleming had been unfaithful to his wife at the time when he should have been most devoted. The next two scenes show us Margaret in her lovely home with the baby crowing about her. Fleming, with the easy shift of such natures, has thrown off his depression, and is in good spirits the following morning. Dr. Larkin calls to warn Fleming that he had better take Margaret away at once. She has trouble with her eyes which a nervous shock might intensify. He promises to do so, but the act closes with Margaret's departure to visit Lena Schmidt, who has sent for her. The third act takes place in Mrs. Burton's cottage, where the girl is dying. Dr. Larkin enters, finds Mrs. Burton holding the babe in her arms. I quote the conversation as a fine example of its truth and suggestion.

_Mrs. Burton._ O Doctor! I didn't hear ye knawk. Did I keep y'
waitin'?

_Doctor._ No. How're the sick folks?

_Mrs. Burton._ Haven't y' seen Dr. Taylor! Didn't he tell yeh?

_Doctor._ Haven't seen him. I suppose you mean--

_Mrs. Burton._ Yes.

_Doctor._ Humph! When'd she die?

_Mrs. B._ 'Bout half an hour ago.

_Doctor._ I had two calls on my way here. When did the change
come?

_Mrs. B._ Ther' wa'n't no change t' speak 'f. About two hours
ago, she et a nice cup o' grule, and asked me to fix the pillers
so's her head 'd be higher. I done it. Then she asked f'r a
pensul 'n paper, an' she writ f'r quite some time. After that she
shet her eyes an' I thought she was asleep. She never moved till
the Doctor come, then she opened her eyes 'n smiled at him. He
asked how she felt, an' she gave a l-o-n-g sigh--an' that was all
there was to it.

* * * * *

Margaret comes in and Dr. Larkin, horrified, tries in vain to get her to return. Maria, the dead girl's sister, comes out of the bedroom, with a letter in her hand, and with barbaric ferocity turns upon Margaret. A scene of great dramatic power follows, and under the stress of her suffering, Margaret goes blind. It all ends in the flight of Fleming, and the destruction of their home. Several years later a chain of events brings wife and husband together in the office of the Boston Inspector of Police. Joe Fletcher, a street pedler, and husband of Maria, the sister of Lena Schmidt, was the means of bringing them together again. Fleming runs across Joe on the Common, and Joe takes him to see Maria. Margaret has found Maria and her child, which Maria had taken. Philip's altercation with Maria brings them into the police office. After explanations, the inspector turns to the husband and wife, and voicing conventional morality, advises them to patch it up. "When you want me, ring that bell," he says, and leaves them alone. There is a hush of suspense, and then Fleming, seeing the work he had wrought in the blind face before him, speaks.

_Philip._ Margaret!

_Margaret._ Well!

_Philip._ This is terrible

_Marg._ You heard the inspector. He calls it a "common case."

_Philip._ Yes. I was wondering whether he meant that or only said
it.

_Marg._ I guess he meant it, Philip. We'll be crowded out of his
thoughts before he goes to bed to-night.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_Marg._ Ah, well, it's done now, and--

_Philip._ Yes, it's done. For four years I've been like an
escaped prisoner that wanted to give himself up and dreaded the
punishment. I'm captured at last, and without hope or fear,--I
_was_ going to say without shame,--I ask you, my judge, to
pronounce my sentence.

_Marg._ That's a terrible thing to ask me to do, Philip.... (_She
hesitates._)

_Philip._ Of course you'll get a divorce?

_Marg._ Don't let us have any more ceremonies, Philip.... I gave
myself to you when you asked me to. We were married in my
mother's little home. Do you remember what a bright, beautiful
morning it was?

_Philip._ Yes.

_Marg._ That was seven years ago. To-day we're _here!_...

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I _am_ calm. My eyes have simply been turned in upon myself for
four years. I see clearer than I used to.

_Philip._ Suppose I could come to you some day and say, Margaret,
I'm now an honest man. Would you live with me again?

_Marg._ The wife-heart has gone out of me, Philip.

_Philip._ I'll wait, Margaret. Perhaps it may come back again.
Who knows?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_Philip._ Is it degrading to forgive?

_Marg._ No; but it is to condone. Suppose _I_ had broken faith
with you?

_Philip._ Ah, Margaret!

_Marg._ I know! But suppose I had? Why should a wife bear the
whole stigma of infidelity? Isn't it just as revolting in a
husband?...

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Then can't you see that it is simply impossible for me to live
with you again? _Philip._ That's my sentence.... We'll be
friends?

_Marg._ Yes, friends. We'll respect each other as friends. We
never could as man and wife.

As they clasp hands, something latent, organic rushes over her.
She masters it, puts his hand aside: "Ring that bell!"

Played as Mrs. Herne plays it, this act is the supreme climax toward which the action moves from the first. It is her knowledge of its significance, her belief in its justice, and her faith in its beneficence that makes her reading so intellectually powerful and penetrating. She seems to be all of the woman, and something of the seer, as she stands there as Margaret whose blindness has somehow given her inward light, and conviction, and strength. She seemed to be speaking for all womankind, whose sorrowful history we are only just beginning to read truthfully. It is no wonder that Mrs. Herne appealed with such power to the thinking women of Boston. Never before has their case been so stated in America.

One of the most noticeable and gratifying results of Mr. and Mrs. Herne's performance was the forced abandonment by the critics of conventional standards of criticism. Every thoughtful word, even by those most severe, was made from the realist's standpoint. It forced a comparison with life and that was a distinct gain.

The critics got at last the point of view of those who praise an imperfect play simply for its honesty of purpose, and its tendency. My own criticism of _Margaret Fleming_ is that it lacks the simplicity of life. It has too much of plot. Things converge too much, and here and there things happen. Measured by the standard of truth it fails at two or three points in its construction, though its treatment is markedly direct and honest. Measured by any play on the American stage, it stands above them all in purpose, in execution, in power, and is worthy to stand for the new drama. It was exposed to the severest test, and came out of it triumphantly. What the effect will be upon the American drama, it would be hard to say. Certainly whether great or small, that influence will be toward progress, an influence that is altogether good.

Already it has precipitated the discussion of an independent American theatre, where plays of advanced thought and native atmosphere can be produced. It has given courage to many who (being in the minority) had given up the idea of ever having a play after their ideal. It has cleared the air and showed the way out of the _cul de sac_ into which monopoly seemed to have driven plays and players. It demonstrated that a small theatre makes the production of literary plays possible, and the whole field is opening to the American dramatist. The fact that the lovers of truth and art are in the minority, no longer cuts a figure. The small theatre makes a theatre for the minority not only possible, but inevitable.

In the immediate advance in truth, both in acting and play-writing, Mr. and Mrs. Herne are likely to have large part. The work which they have already done entitles them not only to respect, but to gratitude. They have been working for many years to discredit effectism in acting, and to bring truth into the American drama. They have set a high mark, as all will testify who saw the work in Chickering Hall. Now let who can, go higher.

SOME WEAK SPOTS IN THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

BY THEODORE STANTON.

Last autumn the third French republic completed the second decade of its checkered existence, and has thus proved itself to be the most long-lived government which France has known since the advent of the great Revolution a century ago. No previous government has been able to stand eighteen years, so that the present republic has outstripped all its predecessors, whether republican, imperial, or monarchical, leaving even the most fortunate of them two or three years behind, and bidding fair to increase the distance indefinitely. Its longevity has been greater than the first and second republics taken together, which covered a period of a little over sixteen years; while if we combine the existence of all three republics, equal to about thirty-six years, we again find that no other regime has shown such prolonged vitality,--the two empires having lived for only twenty-eight years, and the two monarchies for about thirty-three and a half years.

But the early years of the third republic--from 1870 to 1879--like the declining period of the first and second republics, were more monarchical than republican. And again, there are so many weakening influences in the present institutions of France, that the decisive conclusions which might otherwise be drawn from the foregoing considerations need, I regret to say, to be considerably qualified. Previous to the election to the presidency of M. Grevy, in 1879, the government was happily styled "a republic without republicans." But since that date the same party--the republican--has had supreme control. Practically, therefore, the third republic has been in operation about twelve years, and has, therefore, still to pass that dangerous turning-point in the history of French governments, the twentieth year.

I now come to the consideration of some of the more serious causes of lack of faith in the duration of the present regime. But it should be pointed out right here at the start that many of these blemishes, most all of them in fact, have characterized every government in France, so that they are not peculiarly republican; and I hasten to add that my object in pointing them out, in analyzing them and dwelling on them, is not for the purpose of belittling or ridiculing the estimable government now controlling the destinies of France. As an American and a republican who has observed contemporary French history on the spot since 1874, who has been an eye witness of many of the crucial episodes of this critical period, who has known personally several of the leading actors and who wishes well for the present institutions, I take up this subject not so much in order to find fault with what is, as to endeavor to discover how far these imperfections and weaknesses endanger the existence of a form of government in which all Americans take such a lively and sincere interest. Nowhere else in the civilized world, not even in France itself, would the fall of the third republic cause such deep regret as in the United States. Hence it is that we desire to know what likelihood there is of such a disaster being brought about, in the hope that by calling attention to the dangers, we may, perhaps, do something to prevent such a lamentable catastrophe.

The greatest peril that has threatened the republic since its foundation in 1870, was the recent Boulanger adventure. Though this rather addle-brained general is now quite dead politically, the causes which gave him strength and nearly plunged France once more into a chaos whence would probably have issued a tyranny of some sort, still exist and are continually on the point of cropping out again. The principal one of them is the lack of union among republicans. Just as the republic owed its final triumph to the circumstance that the royalists and imperialists could not coalesce during the years immediately following 1870, so Boulanger, backed by these same royalists and imperialists, nearly won the day two years ago, almost wholly because the republicans were divided among themselves. Union among republicans is scarcely less necessary to-day than it was during the dark days of Marshal MacMahon's presidency and the threatened Boulangist _coup d'etat_.

Since the republicans have had control of the two houses, the minority, especially in the chamber of deputies, has been very strong, the Right to-day numbering about one hundred and seventy deputies, and the Boulangists about thirty more, making a grand total of two hundred in a membership of less than six hundred. That is to say, the Opposition, mustering more than a third of the chamber. And when it is borne in mind that this minority is not simply a constitutional Opposition, that its advent to power would mean the eventual overthrow of the republic, we perceive how radically different such an Opposition is from that found in the parliament of other countries, where whether the outs come in or the ins go out, no vital change occurs in the nature of the government.

The existence of this recklessly revolutionary minority and the fickleness of republican union are the chief causes of ministerial instability, one of the worst features of the present regime. The ministry has changed so often during the last twenty years, that many republicans have been led to doubt the advantages of the English parliamentary system, and have turned their eyes toward its modification in the United States, where the existence of the Cabinet is independent of a vote of the House. It was this admiration of the American system which led M. Naquet and M. Andrieux--once prominent republican deputies, and the former still a member of the Chamber--to espouse Boulangism, and the general obtained not a little of his popular strength from his oft-repeated assertion that he would put an end to ministerial instability. That this evil is not exaggerated, though the proposed remedy would probably have been worse than the disease, is shown by the most casual glance at French cabinet history since the fall of the second empire.

Since September 4, 1870, up to the present day, there have been no less than twenty-eight different ministries, which makes, on an average, a new ministry about every nine months. There were three ministries in each of the years 1873 and 1877, while in 1876, 1879, 1882, 1883, 1886, and 1887, there were two each. The longest ministry was the second, presided over by M. Jules Ferry, which lasted from February 21, 1883, to April 6, 1885, or a few weeks over two years. Gambetta's famous ministry--called in derision "_le grand ministere_"--lasted two months and a half. M. de Freycinet, the present prime minister, has been in power four times since 1879, the first time for nine months, the second for six months, the third for eleven months, and the fourth since March of last year. Among the shortest ministries were those of M. Dufaure, from May 18 to May 25, 1873; General de Rochebouet, from November 23 to December 13, 1877, and M. Fallieres from January 29 to February 21, 1883.

The persistency with which the reactionists refuse to recognize the legal government of France, is another source of weakness in the present institutions. When M. Carnot gives a reception at the Elysee Palace you never see a deputy or a Senator of the Right advancing to salute the president and his wife, and when he offers a grand state dinner to parliament, he does not invite members outside of the republican party because he would run the risk of receiving a curt regret.[1] What is true of M. Carnot and the Elysee holds good also for all the ministers and other high functionaries: they are left severely alone by Monarchists and Bonapartists alike.

[1] There is a slight modification to be made in this statement.
When the Bureaux of the two Chambers are invited either by
the President of the Republic, the President of the Senate,
or the President of the Chamber, no distinction is made in
regard to politics, and on these occasions the members of the
Right condescend to break bread with the republicans. I
should explain that the Bureaux are composed of a president,
four vice-presidents, and eight secretaries, chosen each
session by the senators and deputies. Two of the
secretaryships are given by courtesy to the Right.

This sulking in the tent on the part of the reactionists has in it something worse than their simple absence from all official social ceremonies. The talents, experience, and patriotism of this _elite_ are almost wholly lost to the country, and to the government. From the ministries, the judiciary, the foreign embassies, the prefectures, and the rectorships of the universities, they are necessarily excluded. The ancient nobility of the old regime with its wealth and traditions, and the younger nobility of the first and second empires; the blue blood _bourgeoisee_, especially of the provinces, and the aristocratic ladies of all classes, turn their backs, almost without exception, on the new order of things, and sigh for court and king or emperor.

In the provinces this detestation of the republic sometimes becomes ludicrous. In Montpelier, for instance, "polite circles" absolutely boycott the republican official world. The prefect has a palatial residence but does not dare to throw open his _salons_, for none of "the first families" would respond to his invitation. When the mayor of the city, before whom all marriages must be performed, is invited to the reception at the house, none of the reactionary _coterie_ will have a word with him and none of their young men will dance with his daughter. I have heard similar stories from Pan, Castres, and Albi, and doubtless the same thing is true of many other cities. But royalists and Bonapartists would not feel too much out of place in the French republic, for it is astonishing, at least to an American, to see how many monarchical customs have been preserved by the present government. And this brings me to the consideration of a new source of weakness of the republic. I refer to its unrepublican features. A few examples will explain what I mean.

The "military household" is one of the imperial institutions which the third republic accepted and continued. The first president, however, did not revive it. "M. Thiers never had a military household," M. Barthelemy Saint Hilaire, his private secretary and _fidus achates_ writes me; "however, in order to honor the army, he had two orderlies." But when Marshal MacMahon became president in 1873, it was only natural that he should surround himself with soldiers. At first the "Cabinet of the Presidency" consisted of three officials, one of them being a colonel. In 1875 this cabinet had grown to five members, two of them colonels, and one an artillery officer. In 1879 the "Cabinet of the Presidency" was reduced to two members with a colonel at its head, but was supplemented with a "military household"--the first appearance of this institution under the third republic--consisting of six officers, so that Marshal MacMahon had seven officers in all as his immediate attendants.