Chapter III: Conclusion (2)

They unfastened the ropes about Belford, and released the wires, and in silence he went away into the night, a broken-down, crushed, and ruined man in the hands of his grisly Nemesis.

The young man flung himself upon the lounge in the library, and in a moment was fast asleep.

* * * * *

The red gold of the coming day crept up the eastern sky. The storm became beautiful in its fleecy rains in the far south. As the stars paled, the sweet breath of the cool west wind sprang up, shaking the raindrops in showers from the trees. The birds sang and the day came on apace.

To one who watched it seemed the coming of a fairer day than had ever shone upon her life. The vanished storm, the fresh aspect of nature moved her to tears of happiness. Long had she watched the stars. They were the first signs of light and comfort she had discovered, and now they paled before the sun. Thus she sat by the open window in the library and watched with a prayer in her heart.

She looked at the mantel clock. Half past four. In half an hour the house would be stirring. All was now safe. She could return to her room. She rose and approached the sleeper on the lounge. He slept peacefully, as if the events of the night disturbed him not.

He smiled in his dreams, and murmured a name indistinctly. She drew back hastily and put her hand over her mouth, while a bright blush mounted to her face. Just here, through the sweet, still air of the morning, came the sound of the village bell. Tears gathered in her eyes and fell unheeded upon her hands, clasped before her.

"Poor--lost--Alice--nineteen--just my----"

"Alma."

She turned toward the sleeper with a startled cry. He was awake and sitting up.

"What bell is that?"

"It is tolling. They have found her."

"Yes, it is a sad story. Alma?"

She advanced toward him. He noticed her tears and the morning robe in which she was dressed.

"What is it, Elmer? Do you feel better?"

"Yes. It was a sorry night for us."

"Yes, the storm has cleared away."

He did not seem to heed what she said.

"How long have you been up?"

"Since it happened. After I saw father up stairs, I came down and found you here asleep. And Elmer--forgive me--it was wrong, but I did not mean to stay here so long----"

"Alma!"

"You will pardon me?"

"Oh! Pardon you--pardon you--why should I? I dreamed the angels watched me."

"I was anxious, and we owe you so much. We can never reward you--never!"

"Reward, Alma! I want none--save----"

"Save what?"

He opened his arms wide. A new and beautiful light came into her eyes.

"Can there be greater reward than love?"

"No. Love is the best reward--and it is yours."

CHARLES BARNARD.

THE MURDER OF MARGARY.

Our own politics have so absorbed the attention of the press and the public for the last six months, that events of decided international prominence have attracted merely a brief notice, instead of the careful discussion which their importance warranted. Even the "Eastern question," that has so long kept the European world in a state of excitement and anxiety almost as intense and even more painful than that in which our own country is now plunged, excited but a fitful interest here. It was only by an effort that we could extend our political horizon as far east as Constantinople. All beyond was comparative darkness. In this darkness, however, history has gone steadily on accumulating new and important data, which must be taken note of if we would keep up with the record of the times.

The term "Eastern question" has come to mean the political complications arising from the presence of the Turkish empire in Europe. The expression might much more appropriately be applied to the serious difficulties that have for the last year and a half existed between the governments of England and China, and which have, as it now appears, been brought to a reasonably satisfactory conclusion. These difficulties sprang out of the murder of an English subject, Augustus Raymond Margary by name, who was travelling in an official capacity in a remote part of the Chinese empire. They were still further complicated by an almost simultaneous attack upon a British exploring expedition that had just crossed the Chinese frontier from Burmah, with the intention of surveying and opening up to trade an overland route between that country and the Middle Kingdom. To understand the matter it will be necessary to give a brief recapitulation of some events that went before.

The vast importance of establishing an overland trade route between India and China will be seen by a glance at the map. It has been the unrealized dream of generations of India and China merchants. "The trade route of the future" it has been called; and when we consider the vast marts of commerce that such a highway would bring in direct contact, it is impossible to think the name thus enthusiastically given an exaggeration. An overland passage between China and Burmah has long been known and made use of by the native merchants of these countries. From time immemorial it has served as a highway for invading armies or peaceful caravans. How highly the two governments appreciated its importance to the commercial prosperity of their respective subjects is shown by the clause in a treaty concluded by them in 1769, which stipulated that the "gold and silver road" between the two countries should always be kept open. European travellers in Eastern lands, from the ubiquitous Marco Polo down, have also done their best to call attention to it. It may therefore seem somewhat strange that England, the commercial interest of whose Indian empire would be most directly promoted by the opening up of this new channel of trade, should have gone so long without paying much official attention to the matter. Recent events, however, have proved, what was probably foreseen by those whose business it was to study up the subject, that there were grave practical difficulties to be overcome before the plan could be successfully carried out.

In the first place it was necessary to secure the consent of both the Burmese and Chinese governments--a task of almost insurmountable difficulty because of the natural dislike of these two powers to share with another the trade monopoly they had heretofore exclusively enjoyed. Then again there lies between the civilizations of India and China a broad tract of wild and mountainous country, inhabited by a mongrel race of savages, known as Shans and Kakhyens, who, while nominally owing allegiance to one or the other of their more civilized neighbors, practically find their chief support in levying blackmail on all people passing through their territory.

To fit out an exploring expedition strong enough to defy the attacks of the savages, and yet small enough not to convey the idea of an invasion, was, therefore, a work requiring much patience and diplomacy. At length, however, in 1867, the British Government in India succeeded in gaining the consent of the King of Burmah to the passage through his dominions of a mission combining the necessary strength and limits. Under the command of Major Slade, this little army made its way safely through the debatable land of the Kakhyens and Shans, and, entering the province of Yunnan, penetrated as far into the Chinese empire as the city of Momien. But here its further progress was checked.

Yunnan was at the moment in the very crisis of a rebellion against the imperial government. The population of the province is largely Mohammedan. How the religion of the Prophet first obtained so firm a foothold there is still for antiquaries to discover. A semi-historical legend says that the germs of the faith were planted by a colony of Arabs who settled in the country more than a thousand years ago. However this may be, it is certain that the first Mohammedans were not Chinese. By intermarriage, propagation, and adoption, they slowly but steadily communicated their belief to the original inhabitants, until, at the time of which we are writing, more than a tenth of the ten million inhabitants were fanatical Mussulmans. To the mixed race that embrace this creed the general name of Panthays has been given, though for what reason is not known.

In 1855 the Panthays, oppressed, it is said, by the Chinese officials, rose up in rebellion against the imperial government. Led by an obscure Chinese follower of Mohammed, called Tu-win-tsen, the insurrection grew rapidly in extent and success. One imperial city after the other fell into the hands of the rebels, until the entire western section of the province was in their possession and organized as a separate and independent nation, under the sovereignty of Tu-win-tsen, who had in the mean while assumed the more euphonious title of Sultan Soleiman.

It was when Soleiman had attained the height of his glory that Major Slade's party entered Yunnan, and it was with him as the governor _de facto_ that the British commander entered into negotiations. Such a proceeding, though it may have been necessary, was fatal to the further progress of the expedition. The Chinese authorities naturally refused to pass on a party that had, however innocently, entered into friendly relations with its rebellious subjects. Major Slade had the good sense to understand this. The mission retraced its steps into Burmah, and the exploration of the "trade route of the future" was indefinitely postponed.

The visit of the English party to Momien was the signal for a rapid downfall of Soleiman's power. The imperial government, seriously alarmed at the practical recognition of the rebels' independence by an outside power, now put forth all its might to reestablish its authority. It was successful.

Under the energetic command of one Li-sieh-tai, a famous general who had once himself been a rebel, the Chinese armies wrested back the country, foot by foot, to its former governors. In 1872 Tali-fu, the last and most important stronghold of the rebellion, was closely invested. After a desperate resistance, it was obliged to open its gates.

The end of Soleiman was dramatic in the extreme. He was told that his followers should be spared if he himself would surrender. He agreed to the terms, and, after administering a dose of poison to himself, his three wives and five children, he mounted his chair, and was borne to the camp of his enemies, where he arrived a corpse sitting erect, the imperial turban on his head and the keys of his capital clasped tightly in his hand. His head, preserved in honey, was sent to Peking. The imperial troops poured into Tali-fu. A general massacre occurred. Those Mohammedans that were not slaughtered fled to the mountains, where they still continued to keep up a guerilla warfare. But the rebellion was practically at an end, and by 1874 the authority of the central government was firmly established throughout the province.

The trade between Burmah and China, which had ceased almost entirely during the long years of the rebellion, again sprang into activity, and once more the attention of the Indian government was attracted to it. In 1874 a new expedition of exploration was prepared and placed under the command of Colonel Browne. The consent of the King of Burmah was obtained, and the British minister in Peking, Mr. Thomas Wade, was instructed to explain the object of the mission to the Chinese government, so that it might receive no opposition upon crossing the Chinese frontier. It was also arranged that a special messenger should be despatched from Peking across China to the frontier to act as interpreter to the expedition, and to prepare the mandarins along the route for its approach. For this responsible and dangerous service, Augustus Raymond Margary was selected--a young man attached to the English consular department, a perfect master of the Chinese language and customs, and a fine type of the best class of young Englishmen.

Provided with the necessary passports from the British minister, countersigned by the Tsung-li-yamen, the Chinese foreign office, Mr. Margary started on his journey. He went up the Yangtsze river as far as Hankow in one of the huge American steamers of the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company. At Hankow, on September 4, 1874, he bade good-by to Western civilization, and, with a Chinese teacher and two or three Chinese attendants, began his trip through a vast and populous country, a _terra incognita_ to Europeans.

His diary of this journey has recently been published. It is interesting in the extreme, though devoid of those startling episodes that generally give charm to accounts of travels in unexplored lands.

He has no old theories to prove and no ambition to start new ones, but simply jots down his impressions of people and things with no attempt at elaboration. The result is, we have a plain, faithful, unvarnished picture of Chinese life and manners, as seen by an intelligent, unprejudiced man. Upon the whole, we think this picture most decidedly favorable to the Chinese character.

Did space permit, we should like to follow Mr. Margary, stage by stage, through his long journey of 900 miles. The first part, through the provinces of Yunnan and Kwei-chow as far as the city of Ch'en-yuan-fu, was made by boat--a long and monotonous trip of four weeks, through a country so picturesque that the "sight was at last completely satiated with the perpetual view of the most glorious scenery that ever made the human heart leap with wonder and delight."

At Ch'en-yuan-fu he exchanged his boat for a chair, in which he completed his journey; traversing Kwei-chow and Yunnan, and the debatable hill land that lies between the latter province and Burmah; arriving in Bhamo, on the Burmese side of the border, on January 17, 1875, where he joined the expedition of Colonel Browne that was advancing to meet him.

Except in two or three instances, he was treated with courtesy by the people and respect by the officials. In the exceptional cases a display of his Chinese passports sufficed to quickly change the demeanor of the mandarins; while a few calm words of rebuke upon their want of politeness generally caused popular mobs to disperse abashed. An instance of this is given by him in his account of his stay at Lo-shan, a small naval station on the Yangtsze. In returning from a visit to the mandarin of the place, he was surrounded by a dense crowd of street rabble, leaping and screaming like maniacs, and shouting to one another: "I say! Come along. Here's a foreigner. What a lark! Ha, ha, ha!" Margary descended from his chair and delivered a short address:

"Why _do_ you crowd round me in this rude manner? Is this your courtesy to strangers? I have often heard it said that China was of all things distinguished for civility and courtesy. But am I to take this as a specimen of it? Shall I go back and tell my countrymen that your boasted civility only amounts to rudeness?" "I was astonished," he adds, "at the effect this speech produced. They listened with silence, and when I had done walked quietly back quite abashed. Only a few remained; and over and again after this many an irrepressible youngster was severely rebuked for any sign of disrespect by his elders."

Contrast this with the effect which such a speech as that of Margary's, delivered by a Chinaman, would have had upon an English or American mob, and we cannot repress a slight feeling of sympathy with the natives of the Flowery Kingdom when they call us "outside barbarians."

His Chinese letters of recommendation, given him by the Tsung-li-yamen to the viceroys of the three great provinces through which he passed, proved of inestimable value. In the viceroy of Yunnan especially he found an unexpected ally and friend, who issued instructions to the officials all along the road to receive the foreigner with the utmost respect. The extent to which these instructions were carried out depended, of course, very largely on the temperament of the local mandarins. "Some were obsequious, others reserved, but most of them met me with high bred courtesy worthy of praise, and such as befits a welcome from man to man."

"Taking all these experiences together," says Sir Rutherford Alcock, formerly British minister to China, a gentleman by no means inclined to judge Chinese officials favorably, "the impression left is decidedly to the advantage of the central government so far as the _bona fides_ of the safe-conduct given is concerned."

A great deal of Margary's success was also undoubtedly due to his personal magnetism and thorough acquaintance with Chinese habits. Indeed, no one can read this diary without deriving from it a high idea of the genuine attractiveness and solidity of the author's character. In sickness, in trouble, in delay, in vexation, there runs through it all a refreshing, manly, Anglo-Saxon spirit. Knowing as we do what is coming, we find ourselves involuntarily catching with hope at little incidents that seem to delay onward march. Reading these pages, it is impossible to realize that he who wrote them is dead. It is with a mournful feeling of utter and fatalistic helplessness that we follow this young and generous hero while he travels, all unconsciously, down to his death. To the very last all seems to go well with him. At Manwyne, the last city on his journey, the renowned and dreaded Li-sieh-tai, the suppressor of the Mohammedan rebellion, actually prostrated himself before him and paid him the highest honors, warning the assembled chiefs of the savage hill people that they had best take good care of the stranger, as he came protected by an imperial passport.

On the 16th of February, 1875, Colonel Browne's expedition, accompanied by Margary, broke up their camp at Tsitkaw, in Burmah, and advanced toward the Chinese frontier.

Arrangements had been made with the practically independent chieftains of this wild region for the safe passage of the party through the hilly country. As it advanced, however, ominous rumors of a projected attack by the hill savages and Chinese frontiersmen reached the ears of its members. Though these rumors were generally discredited, it was thought best to send forward Margary as a pioneer, he being well known to the people and officials of the Chinese border town of Manwyne. Margary willingly undertook the mission. With his Chinese teacher and attendants, he hastened on in advance, the rest of the expedition following more slowly. The last communications that came from him were dated "Seray," a town just inside the Chinese frontier. He reported that thus far the road was unmolested and the people civil. On the strength of these advices, Colonel Browne pressed on, crossed the Chinese frontier, and advanced as far as Seray. It was here, on the morning of February 21, that Margary and his attendants had all been murdered, near Manwyne.

Hardly had the news been communicated when it was found that the expedition was surrounded by a large body of armed men, who instantly began an attack. The assailants, a motley crowd of Kakhyens and Chinese border men, were soon repulsed; but as reports came streaming in that large bodies of Chinese train bands were advancing to their aid, it was thought best to beat a retreat. This was safely effected, and by the 26th of February the expedition found itself once more at Bhamo. Thus mournfully ended the second attempt to explore "the trade route of the future."

* * * * *

The mere fact that a British subject had been murdered, and a British exploring expedition attacked on Chinese soil, would in itself have created a grave subject for diplomatic discussion between the governments of England and China. But the matter was rendered doubly serious by the presence of many circumstances tending to show that the outrage had been committed with the tacit connivance, if not at the direct instigation, of the provincial authorities of Yunnan. The whole affair, it was claimed, was not the result of an outbreak of booty-seeking savages, but the culmination of a systematic plot on the part of the Chinese officials.

In laying the matter before Prince Kung, Mr. Wade, the English minister, plainly implied that such was his opinion, and demanded from the Chinese government the promptest and most searching investigation.

An imperial decree was at once issued, commanding the governor of Yunnan to proceed at once to the spot and enter upon a thorough examination of the case. Mr. Wade, however, demanded some securer guarantee that strict justice should be done. He submitted to the Tsung-li-yamen an ultimatum containing three principal conditions: that such British officials as he might see fit to appoint should go to Yunnan and assist at the investigation; that passports should be immediately issued, to enable another expedition to enter Yunnan by the same route; and that a sum of $150,000 be placed in his hands as a guarantee of good faith. The Chinese government demurred at first to these demands, but the threat of Mr. Wade to leave Peking unless they were accepted before a certain day finally caused it to give a reluctant consent. Some months were then spent in diplomatic wrangling over the conditions under which the British officials should proceed to Yunnan, and what their powers should be on their arrival there. The Chinese government showed, in the opinion of Mr. Wade, a strong desire to avoid fulfilling its part of the contract. The negotiations on several occasions assumed an acute character of danger. Both parties prepared for war. The English minister concentrated the English fleet in the China seas; the Chinese government bought up large supplies of arms and ammunition. But Prince Kung and his advisers had the good sense to see that the chances in a struggle of arms would be too unequal, and always submitted at the last moment. At last the Chinese government, having agreed to all the preliminary conditions, and having also despatched a high officer, Li-hang-chang, to Yunnan to thoroughly investigate the affair, "without regard to persons," the British minister agreed to let the English mission of investigation proceed. Mr. Grosvenor, a secretary of legation, was placed at its head. Li-hang-chang went on in advance.

This high official seems to have done his duty in a spirit of strict impartiality. His reports to the government make no attempt to conceal the guilt of the provincial officials, or to shield them from deserved punishment. He immediately ordered the arrest of the general commanding at Momien and a number of other local officers, pushing his inquiries with vigor and with what appears a sincere desire to arrive at the ground facts. In the course of his labors he came to the conclusion that Li-sieh-tai, whom we have already mentioned, was one of the instigators, probably the chief one, of the attack on the mission. He at once memorialized the throne to have him arrested and brought up for trial. In this memorial he gives what seems to us, upon an unprejudiced comparison of testimony, the truest version of the affair. He believes the murder of Margary and his attendants to have been the work of "lawless offenders," greedy of gain, but that the attack upon Colonel Browne's party was made at the secret instigation of Li-sieh-tai and other provincial officials, although that general was not on the spot, nor were there any soldiers concerned in the assault. He shows that Li-sieh-tai had already written to the governor of Yunnan, telling him that he (Li) was "taking vigorous measures to protect the region against invasion," and that the governor had written back commanding him to stop all further proceedings and quiet the apprehensions of the people. This command, however, was not received until after the murder and attack had taken place. "It appears from this, consequently" (the report adds), "that although Li-sieh-tai had no intention of committing murder, he is liable to a charge of having laid plans to obstruct the expedition; and your servants have agreed, after taking counsel together, that he should not be suffered to take advantage of his official rank as a cover for lying evasions, gaining time with false statements, in dread of incurring punishment."

Immediately upon receipt of this memorial a decree appeared in the Peking "Gazette" ordering Li-sieh-tai to be degraded from his rank, and commanding him to proceed at once to Yunnan for trial before the high commission.

As we have said before, we think Li-hang-chang's account is substantially correct. There are a great many circumstances tending to exculpate Li-sieh-tai from any wish to have Margary murdered. Had such been his wish, he might more easily have disposed of him when he passed through _en route_ for Burmah. Moreover, at the very time of Margary's murder, Mr. Elias, a member of the expedition, who had struck off from the main body in order to explore another route to Momien, was entertained by Li-sieh-tai at Muangnow, a town at some distance from the seat of the murder. Though completely in his power, Mr. Elias received all possible civility compatible with a determined and successful opposition to his further advance. Now it seems absurd to believe that Li-sieh-tai felt any stronger personal dislike for Margary than he felt for Mr. Elias.

In regard to his complicity in the attack on the expedition, the evidence is just as strong on the other side. He had a deep and by no means unnatural prejudice against English exploring parties. The last mission of the kind had entered into negotiations, as we have already mentioned, with the enemies against whom this Chinese general was prosecuting bitter war. The smouldering embers of the rebellion were not even yet entirely extinguished; the presence of an armed body of foreigners, no matter how small, who had previously shown a friendly disposition toward the Mohammedan usurpation, might awaken new hopes in the breasts of the still surviving rebels. This feeling, combined with the jealous wish of the border merchants, both Chinese and Burmese, to retain a monopoly of the overland trade, undoubtedly inspired a general feeling of hostility among the local officials and the people, which found a ready instrument in the greedy and savage character of the frontier tribes. Where so much combustible matter was heaped up, it needed but a hint to bring on the catastrophe that followed.

While Li-hang-chang and the Chinese commission were conducting the preliminary investigations, Mr. Grosvenor and his colleagues were approaching. Their journey across the empire was attended not only with no opposition or difficulty, but they were received everywhere with great and even obsequious respect. Upon arriving in Yunnan they found an immense pile of evidence awaiting their inspection. Mr. Grosvenor's report has not yet been published, we believe, but from general rumor, and the fact that nothing has been heard to the contrary, we are justified in believing that he found the state of the case to be substantially as it was reported by the Chinese high commissioner. After having reviewed the evidence presented, after having witnessed the execution of a number of wretches convicted of direct complicity in the murder of Margary, the Grosvenor commission pursued its way, escorted by troops that had been despatched from Burmah for the purpose.

Diplomatic negotiations were once more transferred to Peking, and turned upon the compensation to be offered by China for the violation of international law that had occurred upon her soil. The demands of the British minister, who had in the mean time been knighted as Sir Thomas Wade by the Queen, as a just acknowledgment of his efficient services, were considered too severe by the Chinese government, and at one time it looked as if all further negotiations would be broken off.

Sir Thomas finally carried his threat to leave Peking into execution. Prince Kung had evidently not expected so decided a step, and was seriously alarmed by it, for the Chinese government have shown throughout the affair a very wise disposition not to push matters to the last extreme. Li-wang-chang (a brother, we believe, of the official who was sent to Yunnan), the governor of the province of Chihli, the highest and most powerful statesman in the country, was immediately granted extraordinary powers, and sent after the English minister. After some diplomatic fencing Sir Thomas agreed to meet the Chinese envoy at Chefoo--a seaport about half way between Shanghai and Peking, a great summer resort of the foreigners in China--the Newport of the eastern world. Here, in the month of September, 1876, with much surrounding pomp and ceremony, a convention was signed between the English and the Chinese plenipotentiaries. The final settlement of the difficulty was celebrated by a grand banquet, given by Li-wang-chang to Sir Thomas and the other foreign ambassadors, who had been drawn to Chefoo by their interest in the negotiations.

The following is a synopsis of the agreement:

1. An imperial edict to be published throughout the Chinese
empire, setting forth the facts of the affair, subject to the
directions and approval of the British minister.

2. Consular officials to visit the various towns and public
places to see that the said imperial edict is posted where all
can see it.

3. The family of Margary to be paid about $250,000 indemnity.

4. A further indemnity to be given, covering all expenses of
the unsuccessful expedition under Colonel Browne.

5. A special embassy of apology to be sent to England.

Then follow a number of concessions with regard to placing on a better footing the relations of foreign ambassadors to the Chinese authorities, the enlargement of the foreign settlement at Shanghai, etc.

But by far the most important clause is that opening up to foreign trade four new ports on the Yangtsze river. This concession is virtually equivalent to throwing open the whole interior of the country to foreign merchants.

Altogether the British minister has certainly won a triumph that well deserved a knighthood.

Undoubtedly he had a very strong indictment against the Chinese authorities, although we cannot help regarding the matter of the murder and the attack as more the misfortune than the fault of the central government. Nevertheless, western nations are fully justified in rigidly holding the Peking authorities responsible for any violation of international duties committed anywhere within their jurisdiction; and it is not only fair, but expedient, that when such cases do occur some practical and important reparation should be made for them. The concessions obtained by Sir Thomas Wade, though sweeping, are not, in our opinion, excessive. On the other hand, the Chinese government by granting them has fully satisfied the demands of justice. It could not have gone further without losing the respect and incurring the dangerous opposition of its people. Indeed, throughout the negotiations Prince Kung and his advisers have had to contend against a powerful anti-foreign party in the court and the nation. Strong fears were entertained more than once that the reactionary element would get the upper hand. Some idea of Prince Kung's difficulties may be conceived when we read that one morning the walls of Peking were found covered with placards bitterly denouncing the policy of the government, and calling upon all good subjects to rise up against such unpatriotic leaders.

When Li-wang-chang, who enjoys great popularity in his province, was en route for Chefoo to negotiate with Sir Thomas Wade, the people of Tien-tsin made the most determined efforts to prevent him from going further. For a time he was literally besieged in his own _yamen_, and it was only by the publication of a proclamation warning the people that they were guilty of rebellion against the emperor when they hindered the progress of his representatives, that the opposition was withdrawn.

Sir Thomas deserves the highest praise for going just far enough and no further in his demands. Yet the last mail from China brings the news that the foreign residents there are intensely dissatisfied with the result of the settlement. This was to be expected. Any settlement short of one effected by war would have met the disapproval of these gentry. The interests of the Chinese and the foreign merchants are too antagonistic to admit of impartial judgment on questions of this sort. England, in their opinion, could gain greater concessions by war than by negotiations--ergo, they would have all such troubles settled by "blood and iron."

The London "Times" puts it very well when it says:

"Those Englishmen who reside in the treaty ports are not impartial judges of the concessions. Too often they go to Canton or Shanghai in a frame of mind that would exasperate a much less vain people than the Chinese. They sometimes talk as if they thought it a mere impertinence on the part of an inferior race to have a pride of its own, and they act as if the chief end of the Chinese were to minister to the demands of British trade."

WALTER A. BURLINGAME.

THE LETTERS OF HONORE DE BALZAC.

The first feeling of the reader of the two volumes which have lately been published under the foregoing title is that he has almost done wrong to read them. He reproaches himself with having taken a shabby advantage of a person who is unable to defend himself. He feels as one who has broken open a cabinet or rummaged an old desk. The contents of Balzac's letters are so private, so personal, so exclusively his own affairs and those of no one else, that the generous critic constantly lays them down with a sort of dismay, and asks himself in virtue of what peculiar privilege, or what newly discovered principle it is, that he is thus burying his nose in them. Of course he presently reflects that he has not broken open a cabinet nor violated a desk, but that these repositories have been very freely and confidently emptied into his lap. The two stout volumes of the "Correspondence de H. de Balzac, 1819-1850,"[1] lately put forth, are remarkable, like many other French books of the same sort, for the almost complete absence of editorial explanation or introduction. They have no visible sponsor; only a few insignificant lines of preface and the scantiest possible supply of notes. Such as the book is, in spite of its abruptness, we are thankful for it; in spite, too, of our bad conscience. What we mean by our bad conscience is the feeling with which we see the last remnant of charm, of the graceful and the agreeable, removed from Balzac's literary physiognomy. His works had not left much of this favoring shadow, but the present publication has let in the garish light of full publicity. The grossly, inveterately professional character of all his activity, the absence of leisure, of contemplation, of disinterested experience, the urgency of his consuming money-hunger--all this is rudely exposed. It is always a question whether we have a right to investigate a man's life for the sake of anything but his official utterances--his results. The picture of Balzac's career which is given in these letters is a record of little else but painful processes, unrelieved by reflections or speculations, by any moral or intellectual emanation. To prevent misconception, however, we hasten to add that they tell no disagreeable secrets; they contain nothing for the lovers of scandal. Balzac was a very honest man, but he was a man almost tragically uncomfortable, and the unsightly underside of his discomfort stares us full in the face. Still, if his personal portrait is without ideal beauty, it is by no means without a certain brightness, or at least a certain richness of coloring. Huge literary ogre as he was, he was morally nothing of a monster. His heart was capacious, and his affections vigorous; he was powerful, coarse, and kind.

The first letter in the series is addressed to his elder sister, Laure, who afterward became Mme. de Surville, and who, after her illustrious brother's death, published in a small volume some agreeable reminiscences of him. For this lady he had, especially in his early years, a passionate affection. He had in 1819 come up to Paris from Touraine, in which province his family lived, to seek his fortune as a man of letters. The episode is a strange and gloomy one. His vocation for literature had not been favorably viewed at home, where money was scanty; but the parental consent, or rather the parental tolerance, was at last obtained for his experiment. The future author of the "Pere Goriot" was at this time but twenty years of age, and in the way of symptoms of genius had nothing but a very robust self-confidence to show. His family, who had to contribute to his support while his masterpieces were a-making, appear to have regretted, the absence of further guarantees. He came to Paris, however, and lodged in a garret, where the allowance made him by his father kept him neither from shivering nor from nearly starving. The situation had been arranged in a way very characteristic of French manners. The fact that Honore had gone to Paris was kept a secret from the friends of the family, who were told that he was on a visit to a cousin in the South. He was on probation, and if he failed to acquire literary renown, his excursion should be hushed up. This pious fraud did not contribute to the comfort of the young scribbler, who was afraid to venture abroad by day lest he should be seen by an acquaintance of the family. Balzac must have been at this time miserably poor. If he goes to the theatre, he has to pay for the pleasure by fasting. He wishes to see Talma (having to go to the play, to keep up the fiction of his being in the South, in a latticed box). "I shall end by giving in.... My stomach already trembles." Meanwhile he was planning a tragedy of "Cromwell," which came to nothing, and writing the "Heritiere de Birague," his first novel, which he sold for one hundred and sixty dollars. Through these early letters, in spite of his chilly circumstances, there flows a current of youthful ardor, gayety, and assurance. Some passages in his letters to his sister are a sort of explosion of animal spirits:

Ah, my sister, what torments it gives us--the love of glory!
Long live grocers! they sell all day, count their gains in the
evening, take their pleasure from time to time at some
frightful melodrama--and behold them happy! Yes, but they pass
their time between cheese and soap. Long live rather men of
letters! Yes, but these are all beggars in pocket, and rich
only in conceit. Well, let us leave them all alone, and long
live every one!

Elsewhere he scribbles: "Farewell, _soror_! I hope to have a letter _sororis_ to answer _sorori_, then to see _sororem_," etc. Later, after his sister is married, he addresses her as "_the box that contains everything pleasing; the elixir of virtue, grace, and beauty; the jewel, the phenomenon of Normandy; the pearl of Bayeux, the fairy of St. Lawrence, the virgin of the Rue Teinture, the guardian angel of Caen, the goddess of enchantments, the treasure of friendship_."

We shall continue to quote, without the fear of our examples exceeding, in the long run, our commentary. "Find me some widow, a rich heiress," he writes to his sister at Bayeux, whither her husband had taken her to live. "You know what I mean. Only brag about me. Twenty-two years old, a good fellow, good manners, a bright eye, fire, the best dough for a husband that heaven has ever kneaded. I will give you five per cent. on the dowry." "Since yesterday," he writes in another letter, "I have given up dowagers and have come down to widows of thirty. Send all you find to Lord Rhoone [this remarkable improvisation was one of his early _noms de plume_]; that's enough--he is known at the city limits. Take notice. They are to be sent prepaid, without crack or repair, and they are to be rich and amiable. Beauty isn't required. The varnish goes, and the bottom of the pot remains!"

Like many other young men of ability, Balzac felt the little rubs--or the great ones--of family life. His mother figures largely in these volumes (she survived her glorious son), and from the scattered reflection of her idiosyncrasies the attentive reader constructs a sufficiently vivid portrait. She was the old middle-class Frenchwoman whom he has so often seen--devoted, active, meddlesome, parsimonious, exacting veneration, and expending zeal. Honore tells his sister:

The other day, coming back from Paris much bothered, it never
occurred to me to thank _maman_ for a black coat which she had
had made for me; at my age one isn't particularly sensitive to
such a present. Nevertheless, it would not have cost me much to
seem touched by the attention, especially as it was a
sacrifice. But I forgot it. _Maman_ began to pout, and you know
what her aspect and her face amount to at those moments. I fell
from the clouds, and racked my brain to know what I had done.
Happily Laurence [his younger sister] came and notified me,
and two or three words as fine as amber mended _maman's_
countenance. The thing is nothing--a mere drop of water; but
it's to give you an example of our manners. Ah, we are a jolly
set of originals in our holy family. What a pity I can't put us
into novels!

His father wished to find him an opening in some profession, and the thought of being made a notary was a bugbear to the young man: "Think of me as dead, if they cap me with that extinguisher." And yet, in the next sentence, he breaks out into a cry of desolate disgust at the aridity of his actual circumstances: "They call this mechanical rotation living--this perpetual return of the same things. If there were only something to throw some charm or other over my cold existence. I have none of the flowers of life, and yet I am in the season in which they bloom. What will be the use of fortune and pleasures when my youth has departed? What need of the garments of an actor if one no longer plays a part? An old man is a man who has dined, and who watches others eat; and I, young as I am--my plate is empty, and I am hungry. Laure, Laure, my two only and immense desires, _to be famous and to be loved_--will they ever be satisfied?"

These occasional bursts of confidence in his early letters to his sister are (with the exception of certain excellent pages, addressed in the last years of his life to the lady he eventually married) Balzac's most delicate, most emotional utterances. There is a touch of the ideal in them. Later, one wonders where he keeps his ideal. He has one of course, artistically, but it never peeps out. He gives up talking sentiment, and he never discusses "subjects"; he only talks business. Meanwhile, however, at this period, business was increasing with him. He agrees to write three novels for eight hundred and twenty dollars. Here begins the inextricable mystery of Balzac's literary promises, pledges, projects, and contracts. His letters form a swarming register of schemes and bargains through which he passes like a hero of the circus, riding half a dozen piebald coursers at once. We confess that in this matter we have been able to keep no sort of account; the wonder is that Balzac should have accomplished the feat himself. After the first year or two of his career, we never see him working upon a single tale; his productions dovetail and overlap, and dance attendance upon each other in the most bewildering fashion. As soon as one novel is fairly on the stocks he plunges into another, and while he is rummaging in this with one hand, he stretches out a heroic arm and breaks ground in a third. His plans are always vastly in advance of his performance; his pages swarm with titles of books that were never to be written. The title circulates with such an assurance that we are amazed to find, fifty pages later, that there is no more of it than of the cherubic heads. With this, Balzac was constantly paid in advance by his publishers--paid for works not begun, or barely begun; and the money was as constantly spent before the equivalent had been delivered. Meanwhile more money was needed, and new novels were laid out to obtain it; but prior promises had first to be kept. Keeping them, under these circumstances, was not an exhilarating process; and readers familiar with Balzac will reflect with wonder that these were yet the circumstances in which some of his best tales were written. They were written, as it were, in the fading light, by a man who saw night coming on, and yet couldn't afford to buy candles. He could only hurry. But Balzac's way of hurrying was all his own; it was a sternly methodical haste, and might have been mistaken, in a more lightly-weighted genius, for elaborate trifling. The close tissue of his work never relaxed; he went on doggedly and insistently, pressing it down and packing it together, multiplying erasures, alterations, repetitions, transforming proof-sheets, quarrelling with editors, enclosing subject within subject, accumulating notes upon notes.

The letters make a jump from 1822 to 1827, during which interval he had established, with borrowed capital, a printing house, and seen his enterprise completely fail. This failure saddled him with a mountain of debt which pressed upon him crushingly for years, and of which he rid himself only toward the close of his life. Balzac's debts are another labyrinth in which we do not profess to hold a clue. There is scarcely a page of these volumes in which they are not alluded to, but the reader never quite understands why they should bloom so perennially. The liabilities incurred by the collapse of the printing scheme can hardly have been so vast as not to have been for the most part cancelled by ten years of heroic work. Balzac appears not to have been extravagant; he had neither wife nor children (unlike many of his comrades, he had no illegitimate offspring), and when he admits us to a glimpse of his domestic economy, we usually find it to be of a very meagre pattern. He writes to his sister in 1827 that he has not the means either to pay the postage of letters or to use omnibuses, and that he goes out as little as possible, so as not to wear out his clothes. In 1829, however, we find him in correspondence with a duchess, Mme. d'Abrantes, the widow of Junot, Napoleon's rough marshal, and author of those voluminous memoirs upon the imperial court which it was the fashion to read in the early part of the century. The Duchess d'Abrantes wrote bad novels, like Balzac himself at this period, and the two became good friends.

The year 1830 was the turning point in Balzac's career. Renown, to which he had begun to lay siege in Paris in 1820, now at last began to show symptoms of self-surrender. Yet one of the strongest expressions of discontent and despair in the pages before us belongs to this brighter moment. It is also one of the finest passages:

Sacredieu, my good friend, I believe that literature, in the
day we live in, is no better than the trade of a woman of the
town, who prostitutes herself for a dollar. It leads to
nothing. I have an itch to go off and wander and explore, make
of my life a drama, risk my life; for, as for a few miserable
years more or less!... Oh, when one looks at these great skies
of a beautiful night, one is ready to unbutton----

But the modesty of the English tongue forbids us to translate the rest of the phrase. Dean Swift might have related how Balzac wished to express his contempt for all the royalties of the earth. Now that he is in the country, he goes on:

I have been seeing real splendors, such as fine, sound fruit
and gilded insects; I have been quite turning philosopher, and
if I happen to tread upon an anthill, I say, like that immortal
Bonaparte, "These creatures are men: what is it to Saturn, or
Venus, or the North Star?" And then my philosopher comes down
to scribble "items" for a newspaper. _Proh pudor!_ And so it
seems to me that the ocean, a brig, and an English vessel to
sink, if you must sink yourself to do it, are rather better
than a writing-desk, a pen, and the Rue St. Denis.

But Balzac was fastened to the writing desk. In 1831 he tells one of his correspondents that he is working fifteen or sixteen hours a day. Later, in 1837, he describes himself repeatedly as working eighteen hours out of the twenty-four. In the midst of all this (it seems singular), he found time for visions of public life, of political distinction. In a letter written in 1830 he gives a succinct statement of his political views, from which we learn that he approved of the French monarchy having a constitution, and of instruction being diffused among the lower orders. But he desired that the people should be kept "under the most powerful yoke possible," so that in spite of their instruction they should not become disorderly. It is fortunate, probably, both for Balzac and for France, that his political role was limited to the production of a certain number of forgotten editorials in newspapers; but we may be sure that his dreams of statesmanship were brilliant and audacious. Balzac indulged in no dreams that were not.

Some of his best letters are addressed to Mme. Zulma Carraud, a lady whose acquaintance he had made through his sister Laure, of whom she was an intimate friend, and whose friendship (exerted almost wholly through letters, as she always lived in the country) appears to have been one of the brightest and most salutary influences of his life. He writes to her in 1832:

There are vocations which we must obey, and something
irresistible draws me on to glory and power. It is not a happy
life. There is within me the worship of woman (_le culte de la
femme_), and a need of love which has never been fully
satisfied. Despairing of ever being loved and understood by
such a woman as I have dreamed of, having met her only under
one form, that of the heart, I throw myself into the
tempestuous sphere of political passions and into the stormy
and desiccating atmosphere of literary glory. I shall fail
perhaps on both sides; but, believe me, if I have wished to
live the life of the age itself, instead of running my course
in happy obscurity, it is just because the pure happiness of
mediocrity has failed me. When one has a fortune to make, it is
better to make it great and illustrious; because, pain for
pain, it is better to suffer in a high sphere than in a low
one, and I prefer dagger blows to pin pricks.

All this, though written at thirty years of age, is rather juvenile; there was to be much less of the "tempest" in Balzac's life than is here foreshadowed. He was tossed and shaken a great deal, as we all are, by the waves of the time, but he was too stoutly anchored at his work to feel the winds.

In 1832 "Louis Lambert" followed the "Peau de Chagrin," the first in the long list of his masterpieces. He describes "Louis Lambert" as "a work in which I have striven to rival Goethe and Byron, Faust and Manfred. I don't know whether I shall succeed, but the fourth volume of the 'Philosophical Tales' must be a last reply to my enemies and give the presentiment of an incontestable superiority. You must therefore forgive the poor artist his fatigue [he is writing to his sister], his discouragements, and especially his momentary detachment from any sort of interest that does not belong to his subject. 'Louis Lambert' has cost me so much work! To write this book I have had to read so many books! Some day or other, perhaps, it will throw science into new paths. If I had made it a purely learned work, it would have attracted the attention of thinkers, who now will not drop their eyes upon it. But if chance puts it into their hands, perhaps they will speak of it!" In this passage there is an immense deal of Balzac--of the great artist who was so capable at times of self-deceptive charlatanism. "Louis Lambert," as a whole, is now quite unreadable; it contains some admirable descriptions, but the "scientific" portion is mere fantastic verbiage. There is something extremely characteristic in the way Balzac speaks of its having been optional with him to make it a "purely learned" work. His pretentiousness was simply colossal, and there is nothing surprising in his wearing the mask even _en famille_ (the letter we have just quoted from is, as we have said, to his sister); he wore it during his solitary fifteen-hours sessions in his study. But the same letter contains another passage, of a very different sort, which is in its way as characteristic: