Chapter I (4)

As a school for the French student, however, the theatre is a useful institution. For French has got to be learned somehow or other. A dancing master of my acquaintance used always to commence his course by a short address to his class in which he remarked: "Mesdemoiselles! La chose la plus importante du monde c'est la danse!" (the most important thing in the world is dancing.) Perhaps he was right. In that case I must add that the next most important thing in the world is the French language; at least to a foreigner on the continent of Europe. Without that you do not know anything. You are a straw man. You are a deaf and dumb creature. Ladies gaze at you with compassion, gentlemen with contempt, children with wonder, while waiters quiz you, cheat you, and make the imaginary mill behind your back.

Impressed with the inconvenience of this position, I had long ago commenced a siege of the French language. I studied it _a fond_. I looked into every _y_ and _en_. I had attended the French theatre as a school, and profited by the performances. The company was excellent, particularly one young girl, Mlle. Fontaine. Her playing was unsurpassable. She knew always when to go on and when to stop. Perfect simplicity, a taste never at fault, delightful humor, a high tragic power; to these add a lovely face, a beautiful form, grace in every movement, a voice just as sweet as a voice could be, and you have a dim idea of Mlle. Fontaine. In her private life, moreover, she enjoyed the reputation of being without reproach. The whole world repeated of her the old saying: "Elle n'a qu'un défaut, celui de mettre de l'esprit partout!" (She has but one fault: she touches nothing without importing to it a charm of her own.)

When M. Delille came out, Mlle. Fontaine and he generally played together, amid thundering plaudits of overflowing audiences. Delille himself was a perfect artist. The French theatre was in its glory.

One morning, hard at work in my office, I was surprised by a card, "Monsieur Delille, du Théâtre Français." The gentleman wished to have the honor of a few moments' conversation.

The theatre and all the various personages of its imaginary world were so completely apart from my real life, that I could scarcely have been more surprised at receiving a card from Louis XIV., or hearing that the General Napoleon Bonaparte was waiting at the door, and desired the honor of my acquaintance.

M. Delille entered, hat in hand, with bow and smile, as I had so often seen him do in the theatre drawing-rooms. We had a pleasant chat. He spoke no English, which forced upon me the necessity of exhibiting my dazzling French. He complimented me upon it. I told him it was principally owing to himself and to Mlle. Fontaine. This brought out the object of his visit. He was going to be married. He had been in America, which emboldened him to consider himself in some sort my countryman, and to request the honor of my presence at the ceremony.

"And the lady?"

"_Monsieur_," he said, "_peut-on douter_? (can you doubt?) Mlle. Fontaine! You are to come to the French church at 3. You will, then, will you not, do us the honor to dine at our lodgings, Friedrich strasse, No. 30?"

I returned his own answer:

"Monsieur, peut-on douter?"

At the hour appointed I was at the church. I found quite an assembly--artists, painters, sculptors, actors, critics, poets, newspaper writers, several members of the corps diplomatique, some officers, a few gentlemen of the court, etc.

The bride and groom appeared very simply attired. Their deportment was perfect. The ceremony was impressive. In a short time the holy bands had made them one. There was no acting about either of them. M. Delille was pale; Mademoiselle still paler. Their emotion was obviously genuine. Some folks think when actors tremble or shed tears, it must be only acting; and that they can get married or die as easily in the world as on the stage. This is a mistake. Getting really married is as serious a step to them as to you; and they know that real dying is a very different thing from those exits which they make at the end of the tragedy. They struggle with life, and walk forward toward death just as do their fellow-creatures, who preach from the pulpit, speak in the Senate, or congregate on the exchange. The rich banker; the self-important diplomat; the general, covered with orders; the minister, who holds the helm of state; the emperor, the queen, who deign to honor the representation with their presence, smile when they behold themselves reflected on the stage. But there is not so much difference, as they are pleased to suppose, between themselves and their theatre colleagues. Shakespeare says:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.

The question is, which of these men and women are the best? Perhaps the theatre statesman would have administered the affairs of his country with more wisdom; the dramatic banker would have made his money more honestly and used it with greater discretion; the stage general would have conducted the war with more humanity and success; and the senators, in "Julius Cæsar" and "Damon and Pythias," would have been less open to bribery and corruption than the gentlemen who have really occupied similar positions in the world. Perhaps, if M. Delille had been Admiral Blank, he would have looked at his chart, and not run his ship upon that rock in the Mediterranean on a clear summer morning. Perhaps, if Mme. Delille had been Empress of France, she would not have striven quite so hard to bring on the last war with Prussia.

From the church to the lodgings of Monsieur and Madame Delille. On passing through the entrance, in Berlin generally a way for horses and carriages, you would scarcely expect such elegant apartments. The moment you crossed the threshold you were in another world. Everything rich, tasteful, new; the walls superbly papered; the woodwork painted like snow and varnished like a mirror: Brussels carpet, then not over-common in the richest houses; lounges, _chaises longues_, sofas, divans; a strong smell of Russia binding from splendid volumes on the table, and gleaming from mahogany book-cases; beautiful paintings and engravings; a lavish display of clocks on tables and writing-desks; one, looking down from a loftier pedestal, clicked audibly the seconds and struck the quarters with a solemn sound, like the booming of some far-off old cathedral bell hanging in the clouds. Everything told of the new married man: everything new, bright, unexceptionable, faultless, perfect--like the new wife, the new husband, the new affection, the new hopes, yet unexposed to the wear and tear of years.

I was among the first. My host and hostess awaited their guests. Mademoiselle--I beg her pardon--madame received me with graceful cordiality. The company immediately began to appear, principally performers whose faces I had never seen before, except on the stage, associated with incidents, words, actions, intrigues, and scenes of the poet's imagination. I enjoyed as if I had been a boy, recognizing the various characters whose pranks, joys, and sorrows I had followed with so much interest: the wicked "jeune homme à la mode," the bewitching "femme de chambre," the _vieux_ "général sous l'empire," the rich _banquier de Paris_, the handsome, dangerous _guardien_, the naughty husband who had exclaimed, "Ciel ma femme!" the jealous lover, the hard-hearted landlord, and the _comique_ of the troupe, upon whose mobile face I could scarcely look without laughing when he asked me: "Voulez-vous bien avoir la bonté de passer le sel?" There were present several from the court: the Marquis de B----, who in private theatricals at the King's had distinguished himself; M. le Comte de S----, supposed to be a little _impressionné_ by Mlle. Zoé, the last successful débutante, and now among the guests.

Mme. Delille looked like a lady born, and did the honors of her house like one. The servant announced the dinner, and we adjourned to the dining-room.

The dinner was _on ne peut pas mieux_. I sat between the lady of the house and Mlle. Zoé. One of the French arts is that of placing people at ease in society. It is not uncommon to meet persons not wanting in intelligence, yet who, unless you draw them out, will simply remain in the whole evening. My charming neighbors drew me out immediately. They possessed a magnetism which made talking, and in one's best style, as easy as flying to a bird. Mlle. Zoé said a great many brilliant and surprising things; but Mme. Delille's manners and conversation were far superior. I found in her a thoughtful, cultivated, balanced mind, inspiring genuine esteem. I was struck by her views of political events and characters. She touched lightly and skilfully upon various personages with wisdom and humor, but with charity. She referred to her own position in life as an actress in a way which interested me extremely, and she found opportunity amid the miscellaneous conversation to relate her history, and how she came to adopt a profession contrary to her taste; and a more touching story I never heard. The conversation even ascended to higher subjects. I was not a little astonished to find in a young and universally flattered French actress a noble-minded, superior woman, who had suffered deeply, and thought seriously and spiritually upon subjects generally considered irreconcileable with her profession.

The dinner was finished; the nuts and the jokes were cracked; the café, the chasse-café, the enigmas, the conundrums, the anecdotes, the songs, the _tableaux-vivants_ followed each other. My amiable hostess seemed to think I must have had enough of it, and, with her graceful acquiescence, I stole out after a confidential pantomimic leave-taking with her and my host.

I became subsequently well acquainted with Monsieur and Madame Delille, and have seldom known more interesting persons. Occasionally they invited me to a quiet family dinner, where I always met one or two distinguished guests; and sometimes I had the pleasure of having them at my house in a quiet way. They both rose more and more in my esteem the more I observed their inner life and character. As years rolled on, my visits were enlivened by the sight of small drums, trumpets, horses with their tails pulled out, and dolls with their noses knocked off. Sometimes very pretty little cherubs peeped in at the door, or were invited for half an hour to the dinner table.

The world went on with its ways. More than one throne was vacated and filled anew. Great knotty questions of diplomacy rose and disappeared. Mehemet Ali, M. Thiers, the King of Hanover, Metternich, the Chartist, the anti-corn law league, Sir Robert and Mr. Cobden filled the newspapers. Nations growled at each other like bulldogs, and we had wars and rumors of wars a plenty.

One day who should come in but Monsieur and Madame Delille, the very picture of a perfectly happy man and wife. They came to bid me good-by. He had made his fortune, wound up his affairs with the theatre, and abandoned his profession for ever. Madame was at the summit of earthly felicity. She spoke with inexpressible delight of the change in her life. She had longed so often to quit the theatre, and now at last her dream was realized. M. Delille was going to buy a cottage in the south of France, and to be perfectly happy with his dear wife and four children. Amid oranges, lemons, and grapes, beneath the blue summer sky, surrounded by flowers, the waves of the beautiful Mediterranean breaking at his feet, he intended to pass the rest of his days in unclouded peace and joy. He had worked all his life, and now he was going to take his reward.

"But," said I, "did you say _four_ children?"

"_Mais oui!_ I have four.

"Why, it seems but yesterday that----"

"_Comptez donc!_ Six years and six months."

His picture of future felicity was very bright. I thought in my heart that such plans of retirement were--but I suppressed my sermon and congratulated him upon his prospects. Why should I disturb his happiness even though it might be a dream? What but a dream would have been even the realization of all his hopes?

We parted after embracing like old friends. I had more respect for those two than I had for a great many whose sonorous titles did not cover qualities half so estimable, manners half so agreeable, characters half so pure, or a sense of religion half so true and deep.

The French theatre declined after the departure of Monsieur and Madame Delille. I had entirely ceased attending or taking any interest in it.

Two years passed, when one day, in a lonely part of the Thiergarten, I met--whom do you think? M. Delille; but pale, sad, solitary, subdued.

"Well, here I am again," said he. "All my fine dreams have disappeared. I won't bore you with the story. The fact is--that is to say--one can never count upon one's plans in this world. I have lost my fortune, and accepted an invitation to become director of the Berlin French theatre. I am to form a new company. There is a great opposition to this, and the matter has raised up against me furious enemies. They accuse me of everything base. You know me. You know I would not be guilty of anything dishonorable."

I looked into his sad, ingenuous face, and replied:

"I am sure you would not."

"Oh, I thank you. But the worst remains to be told. My wife--my poor, dear wife--who had been my consolation in all this trouble! _Pauvre Marie!_ she is very ill, and I was obliged to leave her in Paris, or to lose all our prospects. She would have it so. This annoys me. This makes me unhappy. With her I am proof against all troubles. Ah, monsieur, you do not know my Marie. The most faithful, the most gentle, the purest, the----"

"But is she so dangerously ill?"

"I hope not. I think not. She will be here in a few weeks. The doctor has given me his _word of honor_."

A couple of months more. A series of articles, in the mean time, appeared in the newspapers against M. Delille and the new French theatre government. The venomous shafts were launched by an able hand. Gall is sweet compared with them. An actor is the most sensitive of human beings. His reputation is his all. The personal malice and interest of the writer were obvious, but the public were too busy to examine. The crowd enjoy a battle, without caring much about the right.

I met M. Delille a few days after the appearance of the fifth of these articles, and expressed my indignation. His manner of viewing the subject was really noble and more instructive to me than many a sermon. He spoke temperately of the _désagrément_ of his position and the wisdom of keeping on his way calmly. "An actor," he said, "is a public target. Every one has the right to shoot at him. I cannot always forget, but I try to forgive."

"And your wife?"

His face darkened.

"Oh, I am weary. She does not get well. She lingers on. She is not strong enough to come to me. I cannot go to her. She will not consent. They would declare I had run away. Her short letters are full of encouragement and consolation. Ah, if these men knew--but we must be patient. The doctor positively assures me she is doing very well."

Three weeks later I was again taking a walk through the Thiergarten, wrapped in my cloak, for it was winter, when I perceived M. Delille sitting on a quite wet bench. His face was very pale. I never saw a sadder expression. Hoping to rally him, I said:

"What a melancholy countenance! What a brown study! Come, I have arrived in time to laugh to you and of it!"

His face did not reply to my gayety. He asked after my health.

"But you are sitting on a wet, snowy bench. You will take cold."

"No, I shall not take cold."

"And how," said I, "is your----"

I paused, for I now for the first time remarked a black crape on his hat.

He perceived my embarrassment and relieved me.

"My children?"

I was silent.

"They are very well, I thank you--they are very well."

"Come," added he, with an effort, after covering his eyes a moment with his hand, "what have we now? Is there _really_ to be a war?"

THEODORE S. FAY.

INFLUENCES.

The southern bird, which, swift in airy speed,
Toward ruder regions wings its careless way,
Wafts from its plumage oft a floating seed,
Unheeded relic of some tropic day.

And lo! a wonder! on the spot beneath
The tiny germ asserts its mystic power;
With sudden bloom illumes the rugged heath,
And bursts at once to fragrance, light, and flower.

All the sad woodland flushes at the sight:
The brook, which murmured, sparkles now, and sings:
The cowslips watch, with yearning, strange delight,
The bird which shed such glories from its wings,

Watching it hover onward free and far;
Breathing farewell with restless doubt and pain.
What were a heaven with but one only star?
Must this be all? Will it not come again?

While the new lily, lonely in her pride,
Sighing through silver bells, repeats the strain,
Longing for sister blossoms at her side,
And whispering soft, Will it not come again?

CHARLES CARROLL.

DRIFT-WOOD.

THE TWELVE-MONTH SERMON.

The year's end is traditionally the season for moralizing and retrospect. _Eheu! fugaces anni_ is a sigh that even the Latin primer teaches us; and though in schoolbook days calling the years fugacious seems absurd, we catch the meaning as they glide away. To schoolboys the man of fifty is immoderately old: thirty marks a milestone on the downhill of life. People whom we looked upon as of great antiquity, in childhood, turn out to have been mere striplings. I saw "old Kent" yesterday after the lapse of thirty years, and protest he was younger than when he rapped sepulchral silence from his resounding desk. "How are you, Quilibet First?" he said, quite in the ancient way; he seemed once more to brandish the ferrule on his awful throne.

Boys always call schoolmasters and sextons "old," irrespective of their years. Clerks in the shop style their employer "the old gentleman" without meaning to impute antiquity. Gray-haired diggers and pounders speak of their overseer as "the old man," even though he be a rosy-cheeked youth of two-and-twenty. Lexicographers should look to this. "Old" evidently means sometimes "having independent authority," and does not necessarily signify either lack of freshness or being stricken in years. Thus Philip Festus Bailey's dictum, that "we live in deeds, not years," is borne out by common parlance, and future Worcesters and Websters must make a note of it.

Whoever, also, reaches a fixed position of authority, seems (rightly enough, as the world goes) to have achieved success in life. This measurement of success by the kind of occupation one follows begins with us in short clothes. Mary's ambition is to be "either a milliner, a queen, or a cook;" the ideal of Augustus is a woodchopper, killing bears when they attack him at his work, and living in a hut. The sons of confectioners must be marvels if they grow up alike unspoiled in morals by the universal envy of comrades, and unspoiled in teeth by the parental sugar-plums. People of older growth attach childish importance to the trade one plies. Nobs and nabobs (at least on the stage) disinherit daughters offhand for marrying grocers, and groan over sons who take to high art. The smug and prudent citizen shudders at the career of the filibuster, while the adventurer would commit suicide rather than achieve a modest livelihood in tape and needles. The mother of Sainte Beuve was sorely distressed at his pursuit of literature, a career that she reckoned mere vagabondage, despite his brilliant feats in it, until the day he was elected to the French Academy, and thereby became entitled to $300 a year. "Then my mother was a little reassured; thenceforth, _j'avais une place_."

When the close of the year sets us to reckoning up how much we have made of life, pray what is that "success" of which we all talk so glibly? It is plainly a standard varying according to each man's taste and temperament, his humility or vanity, and shifting as his life advances. What to the Bohemian is success to the Philistine is stark failure. The anchoret looks on this sublunary sphere as one of sighing, the attorney as one of suing--there being all that difference betwixt law and gospel. Sixty years cannot see life through the eyes of sixteen. When men, fearing to measure themselves, seek the judgment of their fellows, adulation or affection may lead astray. In the year's retrospect of science, touching the solar eclipse it is said: "Cape Flattery is our northwestern cape, and there occurred the largest obscuration of the sun in the United States." "Cape Flattery," I fear, is the locus of largest obscuration for the United States every year, and was particularly so in the past twelvemonth of jubilee and gratulation; and what the mantle of flattery is for the sunlight of truth in the nation it is in the individual. In politics, at any rate, the centennial year is closing with some reproof of our all-summer conceit. Our frame of government is not so flawless as we fancied; the pharisaic contrast we drew between our politics and those of other nations is no longer so effective.

And with men as with nations, a ray of clear light reveals the shams and shortcomings of what is hastily styled success. The pushing, elbowing fellow gets ahead in the struggle of life, but his success is a questionable one. The bargaining man, who, partly by instinct and partly by practice, judges everything from the point of view, "How is that going to affect me?" will no doubt make money. Even his most disinterested advice pivots on the thought, "What will pay me best?" as the magnet surely wheels to the pole. But when all is done, to have achieved this artistic perfection of self-seeking is a sorry account to give of life.

Thus, the very successes on which we plume ourselves are sometimes badges of disaster, as we ourselves may secretly know if others do not. "When one composes long speeches," says Jarno, "with a view to shame his neighbors, he should speak them to a looking-glass." If not a hypocrite or a vain man, he may find himself blushing at the thought _de me fabula narratur_. The only alteration that our satire on others may require is to change the name of the folly or fault we lash, and then the stripes will be merited by ourselves. The other day Temple and I listened to a discourse of the Rev. Dr. Waddell of St Magdalen's on the perils of novel-reading. I think the worthy doctor really refrains from that sin; he is certainly severe on those who are given to it. "That fat man," said Temple, as we strolled away from St. Magdalen's sanctuary, "is too greedy, too gluttonous to listen to any cry but that of his own stomach. His god is his belly. His indifference to the sufferings of others amounts to a disease."

"What disease do you call it?" I asked.

"Fatty degeneration of the heart," replied Temple, with a laugh. On the other hand, quite shocked at people who "make pigs" of themselves, is Mrs. Pavanne, who starves her stomach to beautify her back, and who, I assure you, would prefer after three days' fasting a new boiled silk and trimmings to any similarly treated leg of mutton and capers.

Grundy is a model of social demeanor and domesticity, but occasionally cheats in a bargain wherever it is safe; Gregory, honest as the day, gets tipsy. Let Gregory remember his own weakness before scorning Grundy, and let Grundy respect the good in Gregory before holding him up to disgrace. The question is often not whether X is a saint and Y a Satan, but rather what road a man's indulgence takes. Is it body or spirit that rules him--his fear, lust, vanity, gluttony, surliness, or sloth? his humility, generosity, piety, sense of justice, sense of duty? Is his cardinal weakness a vice or only a foible--a crime that degrades or only a pettiness that narrows him?

If we hold with Scripture that he who ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city, we must not give all the laurels of success to the mighty, wealthy, witty, and renowned. Poor John Jones, the clerk yonder at a thousand a year, if we reckon at anything gentleness, courage, simplicity, devotion to mother, wife, and babes, has made as great a success of life as old Rollin Ritchie, the head of the house. You would imagine a first use of wealth to be the liberty to pick at will one's employees and allies, one's friends and agents, to repel the dishonest and rebuke the impudent, dealing with those whom one chooses to deal with, where personal choice can fairly be exercised; but such a privilege is Utopian in business, even among men of fortune, and envied Ritchie has little more freedom than humble Jones. Besides, the pursuit of startling success, though it often ruins possibilities of contentment, rarely creates them. Frédéric Soulié, having had the misfortune to gain $16,000 in one year by his pen, refused a government place at $3,000, with leisure to write an occasional play or a novel; he was eager to produce half a dozen plays and novels in a twelvemonth, says a biographer, and to repeat his $16,000; and he died of work and watching in two years more.

We are not, in these kindly Christmas days, to cynically deny to unpromising careers all power of recovery. Temple was telling me the other day of this instance known to him: Honorius had an exceedingly dissolute son, who pursued his vicious courses almost unchecked by parental rein, until he seemed to think his iniquities the rather fostered than forbidden. But one day a friend of both questioned the father why he allowed his son such abused license? "Sir," replied he, "if my son chooses to go to the devil, as he is now fast going, he alone must take the consequences." The conversation being reported to our young rake, he was so affected by the view of his responsibility, which he now appreciated for the first time, as to turn back toward the way of virtue. And as before he had conceived his father in some sort liable for those scandalous excesses, so now, being driven from that strange error, he chooses for himself the path of honor and usefulness.

In judging unsuccessful lives, too, we need to make large allowance for the unknown elements of fortune. "It is fate," says the Greek adage, "that bringeth good and bad to men; nor can the gifts of the immortals be refused." But we can find justification for charitable judgments without resorting to this general theory. We discover one youth, who promised well, ruined by a bad choice of profession, while a second, who selected well, finds the immediate problem in life to be not personal eminence, but providing for a wife and half a dozen children: and if he does fitly provide for them, pray, why set down his life, however pruned of its first ambitious pinions, as a failure?

So, finally, our unaspiring old-year homily simply chimes in with the traditional spirit of Christmastide--season of hopeful words and wishes, of kindness for the struggling, of encouragement for the discouraged, of charity for the so-called failures.

RIBBONS AND CORONETS AT MARKET RATES.

It is said that a Yankee has arranged to furnish foreign titles (warranted genuine) of "earl or count for $10,000; European orders, from $250 to $10,000; membership in foreign scientific and literary societies, $250 and upward." The story is plausible. Impecunious princes and potentates have been known to replenish their purses in this way, though hitherto usually by private sale rather than market quotations. It is not probable that our ingenious countryman has the Order of the Seraphim or of the Annonciade at disposal, or that he can supply the Golden Fleece to whoever will "gif a good prishe," or even that he would pretend to furnish the Black Eagle of Prussia in quantities to suit purchasers. He can hardly be the medium of creating many Knights of the Garter, nor can the Bath or the St. Michael and St. George very well be in his list of decorations "to order." But we know from the Paris and Vienna fairs that a Cross of the Legion is obtainable by Americans of the mercantile class; and as for the Lion and the Sun, it was an order created by some bygone shah for the express purpose of rewarding strangers who had rendered service to Persia; and what service more substantial, pray, than helping to fill the Persian purse? When you come to central and southern Europe, titles are going a-begging, and hard-up princelets will presumably be eager to raise the wind with them.

And there will be buyers as well as sellers. To the democratic mind a royal star or ribbon is an object of befitting reverence. None of our countrymen would, indeed, on purchasing a title, really ask to be addressed as "Your lordship," or even to be familiarly called Grand Forester or Sublime Bootjack to His Serene Highness--unless in private, by some very much indulged servitor or judicious retainer. But though the badge of nobility may not be worn in the streets by the happy purchaser, for fear of attracting a rabble of the curious, he can fondly gaze upon it in the privacy of home, or try it on for the admiration of the domestic circle, or haply submit it to the inspection of discreet friends.

The case is different with the "bogus diploma" trade. Business and not vanity is doubtless the ruling motive with the foreigners who strut in plumage bought of the Philadelphia "university." The diploma of M. D. is worth its price for display before the eyes of the patients waiting in the "doctor's" office, while to Squeers of Dotheboys Hall the degree of A. M. is good for at least three new pupils, and Ph. D. for a dozen. I presume that in some of the foreign magazines and weekly newspapers of a certain class, D. D. or L.L. D. has a real cash value of at least five per cent. more in pay, or perhaps it may turn the scale in favor of an article which, without that honorary signature, might be put in the waste-paper basket. So long as such practical results can be had the diploma trade is likely to flourish, with full variety offered to buyers.

Now, it is not impossible to turn to trade account an Order of the Elephant, of the Iron Crown, of the Legion of Honor, or of the Medjidieh, as probably shrewd mechanics,contractors, and tradesmen in America and England can attest. But while this is an additional inducement to buyers, I am sure the new industry appeals to a loftier emotion than that of mere money-making. America, in fact, is ripe for this improvement. The modern phrase of ambition here in America is "social status;" and dealers in heraldry are doing a business so thriving in coats of arms for seal rings and scented note-paper, that I fancy it is this that has suggested the trade in noble titles. The village of Podunk looks down on the neighboring town of Hardscrabble. "Hardscrabble," say the scornful Podunkers, "plumes itself on its wealth, but Podunk prides herself on her birth--on her extremely old families!" In fact you find all over the republic people talking of their aristocratic families, and their "refined neighborhood," and "refined birth"--even where, after all, it may be only a case of refined petroleum.

Here, then, is the sphere and the opportunity for the enterprising middleman. He appeals to a tuft-hunting instinct so deep in human nature that the mere surface difference of republic or monarchy hardly touches it. In a London church you will see a pew full of ladies' maids, and presently there is a great crowding and squeezing, and a low whisper of "make room for Lady Philippa." It is only another lady's maid joining her friends; but they all get titles by reflection. Turn from this scene to the New York area steps, and the artful little rascal who is peddling strawberries, says to Bridget, who answers the bell, "Have some berries, _lady_?" knowing that this will make a market, if anything can. The fact is, we all like to be "Colonel" and "Deacon" and "Doctor," instead of simple Jones, Brown, and Robinson; calling us "the judge" or "alderman" is a perpetual titillation of a pleasant feeling. "Good morning, Mr. Secretary," or, "I hope you are very well, State Senator," is a greeting that carries a kind of homage with it; and from that you go upward in titular recognition of official eminence until you come to "His Great Glorious and most Excellent Majesty, who reigns over the Kingdoms of Thunaparanta and Tampadipa and all the Umbrella-Bearing Chiefs of the Eastern Country, the King of the Rising Sun, Lord of the Celestial Elephants, Master of Many White Elephants, the Great Chief of Righteousness, King of Burmah."

_Macte virtute_ I would say, then, to the peddlers of stars, crosses, garters, and A. S. S.'s. There are poverty-stricken principalities and hard-up beys and khedives enough to find ribbons for a thousand American buttonholes, and to turn ten thousand of our exemplary fellow citizens to chevaliers. An envious public sentiment might prevent the wearing of all the ribbons and crosses that a liberal man of means could buy; but decorations, like doorplates, are "so handy to have in the house." The centennial year, by bringing to our shores a shoal of titled personages, has presumably whetted the appetite of our people for heraldic distinctions. But for years before we had even the village tailor appearing occasionally in the local newspaper as Sir Knight Shears, and the apothecary as Most Worthy Grand Commander and Puissant Potentate Senna. If it is pleasant for Bobby Shears and Sammy Senna to be knighted by their cronies and customers, how much more agreeable to the American mind a decoration and investiture from a real prince!

The possibilities, to be sure, are limited. Aristocratic exclusiveness confines the Garter to twenty-five persons, the Order of the Thistle is only for Scotch nobles, and the Iron Cross of Savoy is purely Italian; military or naval services are required for the St. George of Russia and the Victoria Cross; and it is to be feared that some sort of illustrious services would be needed even for the Leopold of Belgium, the Iron Cross of Prussia, the St. James of Spain, or the Tower and Sword of Portugal. But in the little principalities of Germany, where the people are ravenous for titular distinctions, there is a large supply; and as, in fine, there are said to be sixscore orders of chivalry scattered over both Christian and Mussulman lands, a wealthy aspirant may not despair of reaching one or two of them without the pangs of knight errantry.

PHILIP QUILIBET.

SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

COMPLICATIONS OF THE CHANNEL TUNNEL.

Baron von Weber, a distinguished English engineer, predicts that the Channel tunnel between England and France, if constructed, will be the cause of great annoyance to English railway managers, and bring forward some very acute observations in support of this opinion.

_The English railway system was a world of its own_; it was an insular world which could hardly have been more peculiar if it had belonged to another quarter of the globe altogether. All this, however, will change as soon as the tunnel is pierced between England and the Continent.

_England will then no longer be an island, but a peninsula_, and although the isthmus which connects it with the Continent will be submarine, its effect on the railway system will be exactly the same as if it were a natural one.

If the importance of the object to be attained by the Channel tunnel is to bear any rational proportion at all to the means required, the tunnel will be constructed only if a very considerable goods traffic between the two shores is expected, besides the large passenger traffic. Such a traffic, which would have to compete with sea carriage, is only possible for goods if shifting the loads is completely avoided, and the wagons and trucks can run from England far into the Continent and _vice versa_. Now the English exports to the Continent far exceed the imports from it. The English trucks, therefore, loaded with rails, machines, coals, cotton goods, etc., will, after passing the tunnel, be scattered far and wide on the continental railways (whose length exceeds threefold that of the whole British system), and will have to run distances five times as great as from London to the Highlands.

The English railway companies, who are now able to follow their rolling stock almost with the naked eye, who know exactly how long each truck will take to run the short distances in their island, who can, therefore, provide proper loads both for the up and down journeys, hence making the best use of their stock, and who are always aware in whose hands their trucks are, will suddenly see a great number of them disappear out of their sight and beyond their control on long journeys and unknown routes. They will no longer be able to calculate, even approximately, when the stock will return. England will therefore lose an important percentage of its rolling stock, which will be but incompletely replaced by the foreign wagons, which will remain in England a much shorter time on account of the shorter distances. The deficiency will have to be made up at considerable expense. The stock will travel as far as the shores of the Black and Egean seas, to the east coast of the Baltic, to the southernmost point of Italy, and to the Pyrenees; it will pass over the lines of a dozen or more foreign companies, be brought under the influence of three or four different legislatures, police regulations, by-laws, Government inspections, etc., and where three or four different languages are officially in use.

Quite new legal obligations and intricacies will appear if the companies having to forward goods direct into foreign countries send their wagons into the territories of different jurisdictions. It will not be of much use if the English companies attempt formally to confine their transactions to the French railway which joins theirs. Claims from Turkish, Russian, Austrian, Italian, German, Belgian, and French railways will still be brought against them, in some cases requiring direct and immediate communication.

A TOWN OF DWARFS.

A writer in the London "Times" describes the effect of excessive intermarriage on the inhabitants of Protés, a little town in the province of Santander, Spain. Until eighteen or nineteen years ago, the village was quite shut off from the rest of the world. Its inhabitants, from their ever-recurring intermarriages, had become quite a race of dwarfs. On market days the priests might be seen, with long black coats and high black hats, riding in to purchase the simple provision for the week's consumption--men of little intelligence and no learning, sprung from the lowest ranks. About eighteen years ago the Galician laborers, or Gallegos, from the mines of Galicia, swarmed into the town for lodgings, etc., and since their colonization the population has increased in strength, stature, education, intellect, and morality. Their intellects, also, have improved--intellects which had been stunted, dwarfed, and ruined by their frequent intermarriages.

WHOOPING COUGH.

According to Dr. Sturges, an English physician, whooping cough is not always to be escaped by preventing contagion, for at a certain age the disposition toward this disease is so great that the child will originate it. He says: "Whooping cough is a nervous disease of immature life, due immediately, like nervous asthma, to a morbid exaltation of sensibility of the bronchial mucous membrane. Although possible in a modified form at all ages, it has its period of special liability and full development simultaneously with that time of life when the nervous system is irritable and the mechanism of respiration diaphragmatic. A child of the proper age with catarrh and cough is thus on the very brink of whooping cough. A large proportion of such children will develop the disease for themselves upon casual provocation, all contagion and all epidemic influence apart." Therefore he does not think contagion plays the important part generally supposed, and the assumption of a specific morbid poison is in his opinion entirely gratuitous. As to treatment he says:

"The specific remedies for whooping cough (which have their season and may be said now to include all drugs whatever of any potency) have all of them a certain testimony in their favor. They agree in a single point: whether by their nauseousness, the grievous method of their application, or the disturbance they bring to the child's habits and surroundings, the best vaunted remedies--emetics, sponging of the larynx, ill-flavored inhalation, change of scene, beating with the rod--all are calculated to _impress_ the patient, and find their use accordingly.

BRITISH ASSOCIATION NOTES.

The committee appointed to test experimentally Ohm's law, that with any conductor the electromotive force is proportioned to the current produced, reports that this law is absolutely correct. If a conductor of iron, platinum, or German silver of one square centimetre in section has a resistance of one ohm for infinitely small currents, its resistance when acted on by an electromotive force of one volt (provided its temperature is kept the same) is not altered by so much as the millionth of a millionth part. This fine result is the more gratifying since Ohm's law is entirely empirical and does not rest at all upon logical deduction.

The vast amount of water circulating through the solid earth is shown by the calculations of the committee on the underground waters of the Permian and New Red sandstones.

Taking an average rainfall of 30 inches per annum, and granting that only 10 inches percolate into the rock, the supply of water stored up by the Permian and New Red formations was estimated by the committee to amount to 140,800,000 gallons per square mile per year. This rate would give, for the 10,000 square miles covered by the formations, in Great Britain, 1,408,000,000,000 gallons. Only a very small proportion of this amount is made available for the supply of cities and towns.

The subject of the chemical constitution of matter was taken up by Mr. Johnstone Stoney, F. R. S., who amused and interested the chemical section by a number of drawings of tetrahedra, octahedra, etc., on to which he dexterously stuck representations of oxygen atoms, chlorine atoms, and so on. His general endeavor seemed to be to convince his auditors that in most basic salts oxygen is divalent, being in direct combination with the acidifying constituent of the molecule, but that when oxygen is not so directly related to this constituent in basic salts it is tetravalent.

In the geological section, Dr. Bryce observed that there are two lines along which earthquakes are commonly observed in Scotland, the one running from Inverness, through the north of Ireland, to Galway bay, and the other passing east and west through Comrie. The phenomena of earthquakes in the latter district are now being systematically observed and recorded, under the direction of a committee appointed by the British Association, seismometers being employed on the two principles of vertical pendulum and delicately poised cylinders. Arrangements have been made to ascertain whether shocks in this region can be traced to any common central point, there being reason to believe them to be connected with a mass of granite in Glen Lednoch, whose position was indicated on a map exhibited by the author. He thought the Comrie earthquakes may be explained on Mr. Mallet's theory of a shock produced by the fall of huge masses of rock from the roof of huger caverns in the earth's crust.

In a paper on the plants of the coal measures, Prof. W. C. Williamson expressed his strong conviction that the flora of the coal measures would ultimately become the battlefield on which the question of evolution with reference to the origin of species would be fought out. There would probably never be found another unbroken period of a duration equal to that of the coal measures. Further, the roots, seeds, and the whole reproductive structure of the coal-measure plants are all present in an unequalled state of preservation. With reference to calamites, Prof. Williamson said that what had formerly been regarded as such had turned out to be only casts in sand and mud of the pith of the true plant. He had lately obtained a specimen of calamite with the bark on which showed a nucleal cellular pith, surrounded by canals running lengthwise down the stem; outside of these canals wedges of true vascular structure; and lastly, a cellular bark.

In the department of anthropology, Dr. Phené read a paper "On Recent Remains of Totemism in Scotland." He defined Totemism as a form of idolatry; a totem was either a living creature or a representation of one, mostly an animal, very seldom a man. It was considered, from reference to Pictish and other devices, that a dragon was a favorite representative among such people of Britain as had not been brought under Roman sway.

Mr. W. J. Knowles read a paper "On the Classification of Arrowheads," recommending the use of the following terms: stemmed, indented, triangular, leaf-shaped, kite-shaped, and lozenge-shaped. Commander Cameron, the African explorer, mentioned that arrow-heads of the same shape as many exhibited by Mr. Knowles were in use in various African tribes. One shape was formed so as to cause the arrow to rotate, and was principally used for shooting game at long distances. The shape of the arrows varied according to the taste of the makers; in one district there were forty or fifty different shapes.

Commander Cameron gave drawings of the men with horns, a tribe of which has been found by Captain J. S. Hay. According to the reproductions of these drawings by the illustrated papers, these horns are very prominent, and project forward from the cheekbone.

Mr. Gwin-Jeffreys, whose experience in deep-sea dredging makes his opinion valuable, said that telegraph engineers did not sufficiently take account of the sharp stones on the sea bottom, but assumed too readily that they had to deal with a soft bottom only.

Mr. John Murray of the Challenger expedition announced that meteoric dust is found in the sea ooze, a result that follows as a matter of course from the discovery that this cosmic dust is falling all over the earth.

AN ENGLISH CROP.

The yearly trial of harvesting machines was made this year at Leamington, and the rye grass field, where the reapers and mowers were worked, has its history given in the "Engineer," London. "It will be interesting if we first describe this rye grass crop and the preceding crop. A crop of wheat was grown in this field of seven acres last year, and by the end of September it was well cultivated and sown with rye grass seed. Three crops before this have been cut this year, the weight of which was about eight tons to the acre for each crop, and as the selling price was 1s. 6d. (36 cents) per cwt., this was at the rate of £12 ($60) per acre per crop, or £36 per acre for the three crops. Had not the last crop been set apart for the reaper and mower trials, it would have been cut three weeks ago, when there were again about eight tons to the acre. As it was, however, last week the crop had gone too much to seed, and was too much laid for being of prime quality; the result of which is, Mr. Tough, the owner, reckons the plants are too much spent to stand well through a second year, and he therefore contemplates turning it over in the spring for mangolds. Mr. Tough calculated, however, that there were ten tons to the acre this cut, and lots of carts and vans came to take the best of it; that is, the parts which were not laid and yellow at the bottom, at the same price, 1s. 6d. per cwt. The carts are weighed in over a weigh-bridge, and weighed out again after the buyers have loaded up as much as they choose or require. We may add this is better than selling by square measure. As to the next growth, Mr. Tough says he shall get two more fair cuts this autumn if the weather be warm, and he expects the two together will weigh eight tons per acre more. As there will be a certain sale for this at 1s. 6d. per cwt., this year's yield will realize the great return of £60 ($300) per acre.

INFLUENCE OF WHITE COLORS.

Prof. Wallace gave at Glasgow some curious speculations based upon the peculiarities observable in white animals. He had been discussing at great length and with rare knowledge the distribution of butterflies, remarking that some of the island groups were noticeably light-colored, and endeavored to connect their color with their environment as follows:

Some very curious physiological facts, bearing upon the presence or absence of white colors in the higher animals, have lately been adduced by Dr. Ogle. It has been found that a colored or dark pigment in the olfactory region of the nostrils is essential to perfect smell, and this pigment is rarely deficient except when the whole animal is pure white. In these cases the creature is almost without smell or taste. This, Dr. Ogle believes, explains the curious case of the pigs in Virginia adduced by Mr. Darwin, white pigs being poisoned by a poisonous root, which does not affect black pigs. Mr. Darwin imputed this to a constitutional difference accompanying the dark color, which rendered what was poisonous to the white-colored animals quite innocuous to the black. Dr. Ogle, however, observes, that there is no proof that the black pigs eat the root, and he believes the more probable explanation to be that it is distasteful to them, while the white pigs, being deficient in smell and taste, eat it, and are killed. Analogous facts occur in several distinct families. White sheep are killed in the Tarentino by eating Hypericum Criscum, while black sheep escape: white rhinoceroses are said to perish from eating Euphorbia Candelabrum; and white horses are said to suffer from poisonous food, where colored ones escape. Now it is very improbable that a constitutional immunity from poisoning by so many distinct plants should in the case of such widely different animals be always correlated with the same difference of color; but the facts are readily understood if the senses of smell and taste are dependent on the presence of a pigment which is deficient in wholly white animals. The explanation has, however, been carried a step further, by experiments showing that the absorption of odors by dead matter, such as clothing, is greatly affected by color, black being the most powerful absorbent, then blue, red, yellow, and lastly white. We have here a physical cause for the sense inferiority of totally white animals which may account for their rarity in nature. For few, if any, wild animals are wholly white. The head, the face, or at least the muzzle or the nose, are generally black. The ears and eyes are also often black; and there is reason to believe that dark pigment is essential to good hearing, as it certainly is to perfect vision. We can therefore understand why white cats with blue eyes are so often deaf; a peculiarity we notice more readily than their deficiency of smell or taste.