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 Lantenac meets the royalists, under the idea that he is going to meet the republicans, it seems as if there were a hitch in the stage mechanism. I have tried it over in every way, and I cannot conceive any disposition that would make the scene possible as narrated.

Such then, with their faults and their signal excellences, are the five great novels.

Romance is a language in which many persons learn to speak with a certain appearance of fluency; but there are few who can ever bend it to any practical need, few who can ever be said to express themselves in it. It has become abundantly plain in the foregoing examination that Victor Hugo occupies a high place among those few. He has always a perfect command over his stories; and we see that they are constructed with a high regard to some ulterior purpose, and that every situation is informed with moral significance and grandeur. Of no other man can the same thing be said in the same degree. His romances are not to be confused with "the novel with a purpose" as familiar to the English reader: this is generally the model of incompetence; and we see the moral clumsily forced into every hole and corner of the story, or thrown externally over it like a carpet over a railing. Now the moral


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 significance, with Hugo, is of the essence of the romance; it is the organising principle. If you could somehow despoil Les Misérables or Les Travailleurs of their distinctive lesson, you would find that the story had lost its interest and the book was dead.

Having thus learned to subordinate his story to an idea, to make his art speak, he went on to teach it to say things heretofore unaccustomed. If you look back at the five books of which we have now so hastily spoken, you will be astonished at the freedom with which the original purposes of story-telling have been laid aside and passed by. Where are now the two lovers who descended the main watershed of all the Waverley novels, and all the novels that have tried to follow in their wake? Sometimes they are almost lost sight of before the solemn isolation of a man against the sea and sky, as in Les Travailleurs; sometimes, as in Les Misérables, they merely figure for awhile, as a beautiful episode in the epic of oppression; sometimes they are entirely absent, as in Quatre Vingt Treize. There is no hero in Notre Dame: in Les Misérables it is an old man: in L'Homme qui Rit it is a monster: in Quatre Vingt Treize it is the Revolution. Those elements that only began to show themselves timidly, as adjuncts, in the novels of Walter Scott, have

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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 usurped ever more and more of the canvas; until we find the whole interest of one of Hugo's romances centring around matter that Fielding would have banished from his altogether, as being out of the field of fiction. So we have elemental forces occupying nearly as large a place, playing (so to speak) nearly as important a rôle, as the man, Gilliat, who opposes and overcomes them. So we find the fortunes of a nation put upon the stage with as much vividness as ever before the fortunes of a village maiden or a lost heir; and the forces that oppose and corrupt a principle holding the attention quite as strongly as the wicked barons or dishonest attorneys of the past. Hence those individual interests that were supreme in Fielding, and even in Scott, stood out over everything else and formed as it were the spine of the story, figure here only as one set of interests among many sets, one force among many forces, one thing to be treated out of a whole world of things equally vivid and important. So that, for Hugo, man is no longer an isolated spirit without antecedent or relation here below, but a being involved in the action and reaction of natural forces, himself a centre of such action and reaction or an unit in a great multitude, chased hither and thither by epidemic terrors and aspirations, and, in all seriousness, blown about by


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 As they were preparing to leave the room, her companion saw with dismay that many of the audience were forming themselves into two lines, on each side of the aisle down which they had to pass before reaching the door. Aware that any delay would only make the ordeal more trying, her friend took Miss Brontë's arm in hers, and they went along the avenue of eager and admiring faces. During this passage through the "cream of society," Miss Brontë's hand trembled to such a degree, that her companion feared lest she should turn faint and be unable to proceed; and she dared not express her sympathy or try to give her strength by any touch or word, lest it might bring on the crisis she dreaded.

Surely, such thoughtless manifestation of curiosity is a blot on the scutcheon of true politeness! The rest of the account of this, her longest visit to London, shall be told in her own words.

"I sit down to write to you this morning in an inexpressibly flat state; having spent the whole of yesterday and the day before in a gradually increasing headache, which grew at last rampant and violent, ended with excessive sickness, and this morning I am quite weak and washy. I hoped to leave my headaches behind me at Haworth; but it seems I brought them carefully packed in my trunk, and very much have they been in my way since I came Since I wrote last, I have seen various things worth describing; Rachel, the great French actress, amongst the number. But to-day


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Monday, Chet Morton and Biff Hooper set out on their motorboat trip up the coast. They were well equipped with provisions and supplies and had been up since six o'clock that morning getting the boat in readiness.

The Hardy boys went down to the dock to bid them, and although they chaffed the adventurers and laughed with them, neither Frank nor Joe could repress the disappointment they naturally felt at being unable to go with their chums.

Chet was busy stowing away the last of the provisions and Biff was tuning up the engine when the Hardy boys arrived. In a few minutes Tony Prito, at the helm of his own motorboat, arrived on the scene with Jerry Gilroy and Phil Cohen. Then, down the dock, came tripping Iola Morton and Callie Shaw.

"Hail, hail, the gang's all here!" roared Chet, when he saw them.

"Oy, what a fine day you pick for your trip!"

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 éloge of equal length on the esprit du Christianisme, in a style worthy of Chateaubriand."

"Miserable work, indeed! I have got a pamphlet on the West India Question sent me this morning. Do you know any raving lawyer, any mad Master in Chancery, or something of the kind, who meddles in these affairs?"

"Oh! Stephen! a puddle in a storm! He's for a crusade for the regeneration of the Antilles—the most forcible of feebles—the most energetic of drivellers,—Velluti acting Pietro L'Eremita."

"Do you know, by any chance, whether Southey's Vindici is out yet. I wanted to look it over during the holidays."

"Not out—though it has been advertised some time: but what do you expect?"

"Nay! it's an interesting controversy, as controversies go. Not exactly Milton, and Salmasius—but fair enough."

"Oh! I don't know. It has long degene-

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 I really have no pith for the task. I can only wish you good bye with all my heart."

"I cannot boast that London has agreed with me well this time; the oppression of frequent headache, sickness, and a low tone of spirits, has poisoned many moments which might otherwise have been pleasant. Sometimes I have felt this hard, and been tempted to murmur at Fate, which compels me to comparative silence and solitude for eleven months in the year, and in the twelfth, while offering social enjoyment, takes away the vigour and cheerfulness which should turn it to account. But circumstances are ordered for us, and we must submit."

"Your letter would have been answered yesterday, but I was already gone out before post time, and was out all day. People are very kind, and perhaps I shall be glad of what I have seen afterwards, but it is often a little trying at the time. On Thursday, the Marquis of Westminster asked me to a great party, to which I was to go with Mrs. D, a beautiful, and, I think, a kind woman too; but this I resolutely declined. On Friday I dined at the 's, and met Mrs. D and Mr. Monckton Milnes. On Saturday I went to hear and see Rachel; a wonderful sight—terrible as if the earth had cracked deep at your feet, and revealed a glimpse of hell. I shall never forget it. She made me shudder to the marrow of my bones; in her some fiend has certainly taken up an incarnate home. She is not a woman; she is a snake; she is the . On Sunday I went to the Spanish Ambassador's Chapel, where


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 and Biff were a considerable distance in the lead.

"We'll have to step on it," said Joe.

"We'll catch them, all right. There isn't a boat on the bay can beat the Sleuth."

The engine roared and the boat seemed fairly to leap out of the water as it plunged forward. Spray dashed over the bows as the fleet launch headed out in pursuit of the others.

Frank glanced at the sky.

Biff and Chet had certainly chosen a bad day for their departure. The sky had been none too promising at dawn, but now it was clouding over with every promise of a downpour, and there was a heavy cloud on the horizon. Then, too, there was a suspicious absence of wind, and the bay was in a flat calm.

"I wish they'd picked some other day," he remarked quietly to Joe. "It looks like squally weather out at sea."

"I don't like the looks of the sky myself. However, they're away, so there's no use saying anything. It might alarm Iola."

The Sleuth was rapidly overhauling the other boats, although Tony and Biff were engaging in a spirited race down the bay. The girls enjoyed the swift progress and were laughing with excitement as they saw the distance narrowing between Frank and the others.

Suddenly a low rumble of thunder caused

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 How delicious the Bourdeaux flows after it! Oh I the West India interest for ever!

"But, aside with joking. Grey, I really think, that if any man of average ability dare rise in the House, and rescue many of the great questions of the day from what Dugald Stuart, or D'Israeli would call the spirit of Political Religionism, with which they are studiously mixed up, he would not fail to make a great impression upon the House, and a still greater one upon the country."

"I quite agree with you; and certainly I should recommend commencing with the West India Question. Singular state of affairs! when even Canning can only insinuate his opinion, when the very existence of some of our most valuable colonies is at stake, and when even his insinuations are only indulged with an audience, on the condition that he favours the House with an introductory discourse of twenty minutes on 'the divine Author of our faith'—and an

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 that the Marquess has determined to take such a decided course on the West India Question."

"Oh, yes! curse your East India sugar."

"To be sure—slavery, and sweetmeats, for ever!"

"I was always for the West India interest, from a boy. Grey. I had an aunt who was a Creole, and who used to stuff me with guava jelly, and small delicate limes, that looked, for all the world, like emeralds powdered with diamond dust."

"Pooh! my dear Cleveland, they shouldn't have looked like any such thing. What your Creole aunt gave you must have been candied. The delicate fruit should swim in an ocean of clarified sugar."

"I believe you're right. Grey: I sacrificed truth to a trope. Do you like the Barbados ginger?"

"If it is mild, and of a pale golden colour.

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User:The Master of Hedgehogs

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 Cardinal Wiseman, in his archiepiscopal robes and mitre, held a confirmation. The whole scene was impiously theatrical. Yesterday (Monday) I was sent for at ten to breakfast with Mr. Rogers, the patriarch-poet. Mrs. D and Lord Glenelg were there; no one else: this certainly proved a most calm, refined, and intellectual treat. After breakfast, Sir David Brewster came to take us to the Crystal Palace. I had rather dreaded this, for Sir David is a man of profoundest science, and I feared it would be impossible to understand his explanations of the mechanism, &c.; indeed, I hardly knew how to ask him questions. I was spared all trouble: without being questioned, he gave information in the kindest and simplest manner. After two hours spent at the Exhibition, and where, as you may suppose, I was very tired, we had to go to Lord Westminster's, and spend two hours more in looking at the collection of pictures in his splendid gallery."

To another friend she writes:—

" may have told you that I have spent a month in London this summer. When you come, you shall ask what questions you like on that point, and I will answer to the best of my stammering ability. Do not press me much on the subject of the 'Crystal Palace.' I went there five times, and certainly saw some interesting things, and the 'coup d'œil' is striking and bewildering enough; but I never was able to get up any raptures on the


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 objects by coming forward, unsolicited, to fight the battle of a party. They will cheer your successful exertions, and then smile at your youthful zeal—or, crossing themselves for the unexpected succour, be too cowardly to reward their unexpected champion. No, Grey; make them fear you,—and they will kiss your feet. There is no act of treachery, or meanness, of which a political party is not capable;—for in politics there is no honour.

"As to Gifford, I am surprised at their conduct towards him,—although I know better than most men, of what wood a minister is made, and how much reliance may be placed upon the gratitude of a party: but Canning—from Canning I certainly did expect different conduct."

"Oh, Canning! I love the man: but, as you say, Cleveland, ministers have short memories, and Canning's—that was Antilles that just passed us; apropos to whom, I quite rejoice

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 spirit, than those of admiration and of gratitude.

"And to think, Grey, that the Tory administration, and the Tory party of Great Britain, should never, by a single act, or in one single instance, have indicated, that they were in the least aware, that the exertions of such a man differed in the slightest degree from those of Hunt and Hone!—Oh! Grey, of all the delusions which flourish in this mad world, the delusion of that man is the most frantic, who voluntarily, and of his own accord, supports the interest of a party. I mention this to you, because it is the rock on which all young politicians strike. Fortunately, you enter life under different circumstances from those which usually attend most political debutants. You have your connexions formed, and your views ascertained. But if, by any chance, you find yourself independent and unconnected, never, for a moment, suppose that you can accomplish your

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 subject, and each renewed visit was made under coercion rather than my own free will. It is an excessively bustling place; and, after all, its wonders appeal too exclusively to the eye, and rarely touch the heart or head. I make an exception to the last assertion, in favour of those who possess a large range of scientific knowledge. Once I went with Sir David Brewster, and perceived that he looked on objects with other eyes than mine."

Miss Brontë returned from London by Manchester, and paid us a visit of a couple of days at the end of June. The weather was so intensely hot, and she herself so much fatigued with her London sight-seeing, that we did little but sit in-doors, with open windows, and talk. The only thing she made a point of exerting herself to procure was a present for Tabby. It was to be a shawl, or rather a large handkerchief, such as she could pin across her neck and shoulders, in the old-fashioned country manner. Miss Brontë took great pains in seeking out one which she thought would please the old woman.

On her arrival at home, she addressed the following letter to the friend with whom she had been staying in London:—

1em

"My dear Mrs. Smith,—Once more I am at home, where, I am thankful to say, I found my father very


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 land, for the influence of a party being opposed to measures, which the heads of that party had pledged themselves to adopt."

"Does old Gifford still live at Pimlico, Grey?"

"Still."

"He's a splendid fellow, after all."

"Certainly, a mind of great powers—but bigotted."

"Oh! yes—I know exactly what you're going to say. It's the fashion, I'm aware, to abuse the old gentleman. He's the Earl of Eldon of literature;—not the less loved, because a little vilified. But, when I just remember what Gifford has done—when I call to mind the perfect and triumphant success of every thing he has undertaken—the Anti-Jacobin—the Baviad and Mviad—the Quarterly—all palpable hits—on the very jugular—upon my honour, I hesitate before I speak of William Gifford in any other terms, or in any other

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 "You rather patronize Vivida, I think, Grey?"

"Patronize him! he's my political pet!"

"And yet Kerrison tells me, you reviewed the Suffolk Papers in the Edinburgh."

"So I did—what of that? I defended them in Blackwood."

"This, then, is the usual method of you literary gentlemen. Thank God! I never could write a line."

"York House rises proudly—if York House be its name."

"This confounded Catholic Question is likely to give us a great deal of trouble. Grey. It's perfect madness for us to advocate the cause the 'six millions of hereditary bondsmen;' and yet, with not only the Marchese, but even Courtown and Beaconsfield committed, it is, to say the least, a very delicate business."

"Very delicate, certainly; but there are some precedents, I shrewdly suspect, Cleve-

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 well. The journey to Manchester was a little hot and dusty, but otherwise pleasant enough. The two stout gentlemen, who filled a portion of the carriage when I got in, quitted it at Rugby, and two other ladies and myself had it to ourselves the rest of the way. The visit to Mrs. Gaskell formed a cheering break in the journey. Haworth Parsonage is rather a contrast, yet even Haworth Parsonage does not look gloomy in this bright summer weather; it is somewhat still, but with the windows open I can hear a bird or two singing on certain thorn-trees in the garden. My father and the servants think me looking better than when I left home, and I certainly feel better myself for the change. You are too much like your son to render it advisable I should say much about your kindness during my visit. However, one cannot help (like Captain Cuttle) making a note of these matters. Papa says I am to thank you in his name, and offer you his respects, which I do accordingly.—With truest regards to all your circle, believe me very sincerely yours, 2em

1em

"My dear Sir,—Thackeray's last lecture must, I think, have been his best. What he says about Sterne is true. His observations on literary men, and their social obligations and individual duties, seem to me also true and full of mental and moral vigour


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 Donna del Lago was acted in the theatre with real water,—Cynthia Courtown performing Elena, paddling in a punt.

"Let us order our horses, Cleveland, round to the Piccadilly gate, and walk through the Guards. I must stretch my legs. That bore, Horace Buttonhole, captured me in Pall-Mall East, and has kept me in the same position for upwards of half an hour. I shall make a note to blackball him at the Athenum. How's Mrs. Cleveland?"

"Extremely well. She goes down to Buckhurst Lodge with the Marchioness. Isn't that Lord Lowersdale?"

"His very self. He's going to call on Vivida Vis, I've no doubt. Lowersdale is a man of very considerable talent—much more than the world gives him credit for."

"And he doubtless finds a very able counsellor in Monsieur le Sécretaire?"

" Can you name a better one.""

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text:
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Page:R L Stevenson 1917 Familiar studies of men and books.djvu/63

 every wind of doctrine. This is a long way that we have travelled: between such work and the work of Fielding is there not, indeed, a great gulph in thought and sentiment?

Art, thus conceived, realises for men a larger portion of life, and that portion one that it is more difficult for them to realise unaided; and, besides helping them to feel more intensely those restricted personal interests which are patent to all, it awakes in them some consciousness of those more general relations that are so strangely invisible to the average man in ordinary moods. It helps to keep man in his place in nature, and, above all, it helps him to understand more intelligently the responsibilities of his place in society. And in all this generalisation of interest, we never miss those small humanities that are at the opposite pole of excellence in art; and while we admire the intellect that could see life thus largely, we are touched with another sentiment for the tender heart that slipped the piece of gold into Cosette's sabot, that was virginally troubled at the fluttering of her dress in the spring wind, or put the blind girl beside the deformity of the laughing man. This, then, is the last praise that we can award to these romances. The author has shown a power of just subordination hitherto unequalled; and as, in reaching forward to one


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 class of effects, he has not been forgetful or careless of the other, his work is more nearly complete work, and his art, with all its imperfections, deals more comprehensively with the materials of life than that of any of his otherwise more sure and masterly predecessors.

These five books would have made a very great fame for any writer, and yet they are but one façade of the monument that Victor Hugo has erected to his genius. Everywhere we find somewhat the same greatness, somewhat the same infirmities. In his poems and plays there are the same unaccountable protervities that have already astonished us in the romances. There, too, is the same feverish strength, welding the fiery iron of his idea under forge-hammer repetitions—an emphasis that is somehow akin to weaknesses—strength that is a little epileptic. He stands so far above all his contemporaries, and so incomparably excels them in richness, breadth, variety, and moral earnestness, that we almost feel as if he had a sort of right to fall oftener and more heavily than others; but this does not reconcile us to seeing him profit by the privilege so freely. We like to have, in our great men, something that is above question; we like to place an implicit faith in them, and see them always on the platform of their greatness; and


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 this, unhappily, cannot be with Hugo. As Heine said long ago, his is a genius somewhat deformed; but, deformed as it is, we accept it gladly; we shall have the wisdom to see where his foot slips, but we shall have the justice also to recognise in him one of the greatest artists of our generation, and, in many ways, one of the greatest artists of time. If we look back, yet once, upon these five romances, we see blemishes such as we can lay to the charge of no other man in the number of the famous; but to what other man can we attribute such sweeping innovations, such a new and significant presentment of the life of man, such an amount, if we merely think of the amount, of equally consummate performance?


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 new books worth sending you, or they would accompany this; but I would recommend you to get Meyer's new volume from Treüttel and Wurtz, and continue to make notes as you read it. Give my compliments to the Marquess, and believe me

"Your most affectionate father, ""

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The man whose extraordinary story had excited such intense interest had become the object of universal attention. Hyde, hitherto the centre of attraction, was already forgotten, and instead of people going away from the court to canvass his guilt or his innocence, they surged round the witness whose testimony, strange and unexpected, had so altered the probabilities of the case. It was with difficulty that Methley got his client away into a private room; there they were joined by Mr. Carless, Mr. Pawle, Mr. Perkwite, Lord Ellingham and Viner, and behind a locked door these men looked at each other and at this centre of interest with the air of those to whom something extraordinary has just been told. After a moment of silence Mr. Carless spoke, addressing the man whose story had brought matters to an undeniable crisis.

"I am sure," he said gravely, and with a side glance at Lord Ellingham, "that if your story is true, sir,—and after what we have just heard, I am beginning to think that my first conclusions may have been wrong ones,—no one will welcome your reappearance more warmly than the young gentleman whom you will turn out of title and property! But


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 you must see for yourself that your claims must be thoroughly investigated—and as what you have now just told affects other people, and we must invite you to full discussion, I propose that, for the time being, we address you as Mr. Cave."

The claimant smiled, and nodded genially to the young man whose uncle he alleged himself to be.

"I wish to remain Mr. Cave," he said. "I don't want to turn my nephew out of title and property, so long as he will do something for his old uncle. Call me Mr. Cave, by all means."

"We must talk—and at once," said Mr. Carless. "There are several points arising out of your evidence on which you must give me information. Whoever is at the back of that woman who handed you those papers is probably the murderer of John Ashton—and that is what must be got at. Now, where can we have a conference—immediately?—Your office, Methley, is not far away, I think."

"My house is nearer," said Viner. "Come—we shall be perfectly quiet in my study, and there will be nothing to interrupt us. Let us go now."

A police official let them out by a side-door, and Viner and Mr. Pawle led the way through some side-streets to Markendale Square, the others coming behind, conversing eagerly about the events of the morning. Mr. Pawle, on his part, was full of excitement.

"If we can only trace that woman, Viner!" he exclaimed. "That's the next thing! Get hold of her, whoever she is, and then—ah, we shall be in sight of the finishing-part."

"What about tracing the whole lot through the


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 check he has given?" suggested Viner. "Wouldn't that be a good way?"

"We should have to wait nearly a month," answered Mr. Pawle. "And even then it would be difficult—simple though it seems at first sight. There are folk who deal in post-dated checks, remember! This may have been dealt with already—aye, and that diamond too; and the man who has got the proceeds may already be many a mile away. Deep, cunning folk they are who have been in this, Viner. And now—speed is the thing!"

Viner led his guests into his library, and as he placed chairs for them round a centre table, an idea struck him.

"I have a suggestion to make," he said with a shy smile at the legal men. "My aunt, Miss Penkridge, who lives with me, is an unusually sharp, shrewd woman. She has taken vast interest in this affair, and I have kept her posted up in all its details. She was in court just now and heard Mr. Cave's story. If no one has any objection, I should like her to be present at our deliberations—as a mysterious woman has entered into the case, Miss Penkridge may be able to suggest something."

"Excellent idea!" exclaimed Mr. Carless. "A shrewd woman is worth her weight in gold! By all means bring Miss Penkridge in—she may, as you say, make some suggestion."

Miss Penkridge, fetched into the room and duly introduced, lost no time in making a suggestion of an eminently practical nature—that as all these gentlemen had been cooped up in that stuffy police-court for two or three hours, they would be none the worse


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 for a glass of wine, and she immediately disappeared, jingling a bunch of keys, to reappear a few minutes later in charge of the parlour-maid carrying decanters and glasses.

"A very comfortable suggestion, that, ma'am," observed Mr. Carless, bowing to his hostess over a glass of old sherry. "Your intuition does you credit! But now, gentlemen, and Miss Penkridge, straight to business! Mr. Cave, the first question I want to put to you is this: on what date did you receive the letter which you exhibited in court this morning?"

Mr. Cave produced a small pocket diary and turned over its pages.

"I can tell you that," he answered. "I made a note of it at the time. It was—yes, here we are—on the twenty-first of November."

"And you received these papers, I think you said, two days later?"

"Yes—on the twenty-third. Here is the entry."

Mr. Carless looked round at the assembled faces.

"John Ashton was murdered on the night of the twenty-second of November," he remarked significantly. "Therefore he had not been murdered when the veiled woman first met Mr. Cave for the first time, and he had been murdered when she met Mr. Cave the second time!"

There was a silence as significant as Mr. Carless' tone upon this—broken at last by Mr. Cave.

"If I may say a word or two," he remarked diffidently. "I don't understand matters about this John Ashton. The barrister who asked me questions—Mr. Millington-Bywater, is it—said that he, or somebody, had positive proof that Mr. Ashton had my


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 papers in his possession for some time previous to his death. Is that really so?"

Mr. Carless pointed to Mr. Perkwite.

"This is the gentleman whom Mr. Millington-Bywater could have put in the box this morning to prove that," he replied. "Mr. Perkwite, of the Middle Temple—a barrister-at-law, Mr. Cave. Mr. Perkwite met Mr. Ashton some three months ago at Marseilles, and Mr. Ashton then not only asked his advice about the Ellingham affair, alleging that he knew the missing Lord Marketstoke, but showed him the papers which you have recently deposited with Mr. Methley here—which papers, Ashton alleged, were intrusted to him by Lord Marketstoke on his deathbed. Ashton, according to Mr. Perkwite, took particular care of these papers, and always carried them about with him in a pocketbook."

Mr. Cave appeared to be much exercised in thought on hearing this.

"It is, of course, absurd to say that Lord Marketstoke—myself!—intrusted papers to any one on his deathbed, since I am very much alive," he said. "But it is, equally of course, quite possible that Ashton had my papers. Who was Ashton?"

"A man who had lived in Australia for some thirty-five or forty years at least," replied Mr. Carless, "and who recently returned to England and settled down in London, in this very square. He lived chiefly in Melbourne, but we have heard that for some four or five years he was somewhere up country. You never heard of him out there? He was evidently well known in Melbourne."

"No, I never heard of him," replied Mr. Cave.


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(:It is the prerogative of sovereignty to collect taxes on bridges, highways, and at city gates. If a Christian minority lives in a pagan state, it must submit to this exercise of authority humbly. But it must not impose such pagan practices in its own ranks. Taxation cannot be imposed in a Christian society.:)

For, can you imagine Saint Paul preaching the gospel in the Roman Empire and converting two or three thousand of the subjects of Caesar, to appoint one of them an overlord with the (authority of the) sword who would lead in a war for the faith of Christ? How ridiculous! But the masters want to give their kings a firm Biblical foundation in the faith of Christ. They say that the words of Paul establish and sanction the authority of Christian princes. I.e. sovereignty with executive power of compulsion. 251*

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 "But I don't know Melbourne very well; I know Sydney and Brisbane better. However, an idea strikes me—Ashton may have had something to do with the purloining of my letters and effects at Wirra-Worra, when I met with the accident I told you of."

"So far as we are aware," remarked Mr. Carless, "Ashton was an eminently respectable man!"

"So far as you know!" said Mr. Cave. "There is a good deal in the saving clause, I think. I have known a good many men in Australia who were highly respectable in the last stages of life who had been anything but that in their earlier ones! Of what class was this Ashton?"

"I met him, occasionally," said Methley, "though I never knew who he was until after his death. He was a very pleasant, kindly, good-humoured man—but," he added, "I should say, from his speech and manners, a man who had risen from a somewhat humble position of life. I remember noticing his hands—they were the hands of a man who at some period had done hard manual labour."

Mr. Cave smiled knowingly.

"There you are!" he said. "He had probably been a miner! Taking everything into consideration, I am inclined to believe that he was most likely one of the men, or the man, who stole my papers thirty-two years ago."

"There may be something in this," remarked Mr. Pawle, glancing uneasily at Mr. Carless. "It is a fact that the packet of letters to which Mr. Cave referred this morning as having been written by the Countess of Ellingham to Lord Marketstoke when a


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 boy at school, was found by Mr. Viner and myself in Ashton's house, and that the locket which he also mentioned is in existence—facts which Mr. Cave will doubtless be glad to know of. But," added the old lawyer, shaking his head, "what does all this imply? That Ashton, of whom up to now we have heard nothing but good, was not only a thief, but an impostor who was endeavouring, or meant to endeavour, to palm off a bogus claimant on people, who, but for Mr. Cave's appearance and evidence, would certainly have been deceived! It is most amazing."

"Don't forget," said Viner quietly, "that Mr. Perkwite says that Ashton showed him at Marseilles a certain marriage certificate and a birth certificate."

Mr. Carless started.

"Ah!" he exclaimed. "I had forgotten that. Um! However, don't let us forget, just now, that our main object in meeting was to do something towards tracking these people who gave Mr. Cave these papers. Now, Mr. Cave, you got no information out of the woman?"

"None!" answered Mr. Cave. "I was not to ask questions, you remember."

"You took her for a gentlewoman?"

"Yes—from her speech and manner."

"Did she imply to you that she was an intermediary?"

"Yes—she spoke of some one, indefinitely, you know, for whom she was acting."

"And she told you, I think, that you had been recognized, in London, since your arrival, by some one who had known you in Australia years before?"

"Yes—certainly she told me that."


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 "Just let me look at that typewritten letter again, will you?" asked Mr. Carless. "It seems impossible, but we might get something out of that."

Mr. Cave handed the letter over, and once more it was passed from hand to hand: finally it fell into the hands of Miss Penkridge, who began to examine it with obvious curiosity.

"Afraid there's nothing to be got out of that!" sighed Mr. Carless. "The rogues were cunning enough to typewrite the message—if there'd been any handwriting, now, we might have had a chance! You say there was nothing on the envelope but your name, Mr. Cave?"

Mr. Cave opened his pocketbook again.

"There is the envelope," he said. "Nothing but Mr. Cave, as you see—that is also typewritten."

Miss Penkridge picked up the envelope as Mr. Cave tossed it across the table. She appeared to examine it carefully, but suddenly she turned to Mr. Carless.

"There is a clue in these things!" she exclaimed. "A plain clue! One that's plain enough to me, anyway. I could follow it up. I don't know whether you gentlemen can."

Mr. Carless, who had, up to that point, treated Miss Penkridge with good-humoured condescension, turned sharply upon her.

"What do you mean, ma'am?" he asked. "You really see something in—in a typewritten letter?"

"A great deal!" answered Miss Penkridge. "And in the stationery on which it's typed, and in the envelope in which it's inclosed. Now look here: This letter has been typed on a half-sheet of note-


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 paper. Hold the half-sheet up to the light—what do you see? One half of the name and address of the stationer who supplied it, in watermark. What is that one half?"

Mr. Carless held the paper to the light and saw on the top line "sforth," on the middle line "nd Stationer" and "n Hill" on the bottom line.

"My nephew there," went on Miss Penkridge, "knows what that would be, in full, if the other half of the sheet were here. It would be precisely what it is under the flap of this envelope—there you are! 'Bigglesforth, Bookseller and Stationer, Craven Hill.' Everybody in this district knows Bigglesforth—we get our stationery from him. Now, Bigglesforth has not such a very big business in really expensive notepaper like this—the other half of the sheet, of course, would have a finely engraved address on it—and you can trace the owner of this paper through him, with patience and trouble.

"But here's a still better clue! Look at this typewritten letter. In it, the letter o occurs with frequency. Now, notice—the letter is broken, imperfect; the top left-hand curve has been chipped off. Do you mean to tell me that with time and trouble and patience you can't find out to whom that machine belongs? Taking the fact that this half-sheet of notepaper came from Bigglesforth's, of Craven Hill," concluded Miss Penkridge with emphasis, "I should say that this document—so important—came from somebody who doesn't live a million miles from here!"

Mr. Carless had followed Miss Penkridge with admiring attention, and he now rose to his feet.


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 "Ma'am," he exclaimed, "Mr. Viner's notion of having you to join our council has proved invaluable! I'll have that clue followed up instantly! Gentlemen, we can do no more just now—let us separate. Mr. Cave—you'll continue to be heard of at the Belfield Hotel?"

"I shall be at your service any time, Mr. Carless," responded Mr. Cave. "A telephone message will bring me at once to Lincoln's Inn Fields."

The assembly broke up, and Viner was left alone with Miss Penkridge.

"That was clever of you!" he said, admiringly. "I should never have noticed that. But—there are a lot of typewriting machines in London!"

"Not so many owned by customers of Bigglesforth's!" retorted Miss Penkridge. "I'd work it out, if I were a detective!"

The parlour-maid looked in and attracted Viner's attention.

"Mr. Felpham wants you at the telephone, sir," she said.


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 The International Copyright Meeting seems to have had but a barren result, judging from the report in the Literary Gazette. I cannot see that Sir E. Bulwer and the rest did anything; nor can I well see what it is in their power to do. The argument brought forward about the damage accruing to American national literature from the present piratical system, is a good and sound argument, but I am afraid the publishers—honest men—are not yet mentally prepared to give such reasoning due weight. I should think, that which refers to the injury inflicted upon themselves, by an oppressive competition in piracy, would influence them more; but, I suppose, all established matters, be they good or evil, are difficult to change. About the 'Phrenological Character' I must not say a word. Of your own accord, you have found the safest point from which to view it: I will not say 'look higher!' I think you see the matter as it is desirable we should all see what relates to ourselves. If I had a right to whisper a word of counsel, it should be merely this: whatever your present self may be, resolve with all your strength of resolution, never to degenerate thence. Be jealous of a shadow of falling off. Determine rather to look above that standard, and to strive beyond it. Everybody appreciates certain social properties, and likes his neighbour for possessing them; but perhaps few dwell upon a friend's capacity for the intellectual, or care how this might expand, if there were but facilities allowed for cultivation, and space given for growth. It seems to


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It is not true that Paul tried to introduce the right of the kings into (the system of) the people of God. He knew that in the beginning the Jews had no royal sovereignty until they asked for it and when they got their king he proved to be the punishment for their sins. And now our Christian lords think that they have the right to rule and to oppress!

But having obtained authority they seldom look to the Scriptures for the wisdom of how to rule. They are satisfied to know that authority is good, and they find their approbation and proof in their round belly, fattened at the expense and pain of the poor working class. They do not suspect for one moment that they might rule improperly over their Christians, without the sanction of faith. 1-Sam. 8: 4–9. , I, chaps. XXVII and XC.

Hos.13:11, ; chap.XXXV, ; 1-Ki. 12. 252*

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 me that, even should such space and facilities be denied by stringent circumstances and a rigid fate, still it should do you good fully to know, and tenaciously to remember, that you have such a capacity. When other people overwhelm you with acquired knowledge, such as you have not had opportunity, perhaps not application, to gain—derive not pride, but support from the thought. If no new books had ever been written, some of these minds would themselves have remained blank pages: they only take an impression; they were not born with a record of thought on the brain, or an instinct of sensation on the heart. If I had never seen a printed volume, Nature would have offered my perceptions a varying picture of a continuous narrative, which, without any other teacher than herself, would have schooled me to knowledge, unsophisticated, but genuine.

"Before I received your last, I had made up my mind to tell you that I should expect no letter for three months to come (intending afterwards to extend this abstinence to six months, for I am jealous of becoming dependent on this indulgence: you doubtless cannot see why, because you do not live my life). Nor shall I now expect a letter; but since you say that you would like to write now and then, I cannot say 'never write,' without imposing on my real wishes a falsehood which they reject, and doing to them a violence, to which they entirely refuse to submit. I can only observe that when it pleases you to write, whether seriously or for a little


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 amusement, your notes, if they come to me, will come where they are welcome. Tell I will try to cultivate good spirits, as assiduously as she cultivates her geraniums."


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Let us now look at the authority of the king. As it is, the early Jews had no king with pagan sovereignty until the days of Samuel the prophet. Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Ramah and there they said to him:

But the thing was evil in the sight of Samuel when they said, 'Give us a king.'

Nevertheless, Samuel prayed earnestly unto the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel:

Then Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking of him a king; and he said:

This will be the procedure of the king who shall rule over you: he will take your sons and appoint them for himself for his chariots and for his horsemen; and they shall run before his chariots; and he will appoint for himself

1-Samuel 8:5,.

253*

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after she returned home, her friend paid her a visit. While she stayed at Haworth, Miss Brontë wrote the letter from which the following extract is taken. The strong sense and right feeling displayed in it on the subject of friendship, sufficiently account for the constancy of affection which Miss Brontë earned from all those who once became her friends.

1em

" I could not help wondering whether Cornhill will ever change for me, as Oxford has changed for you. I have some pleasant associations connected with it now—will these alter their character some day?

"Perhaps they may—though I have faith to the contrary, because, I think, I do not exaggerate my partialities; I think I take faults along with excellences—blemishes together with beauties. And, besides, in the matter of friendship, I have observed that disappointment here arises chiefly, not from liking our friends too well, or thinking of them too highly, but rather from an over-estimate of their liking for and opinion of us; and that if we guard ourselves with


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254*

commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds, and some to do his plowing and to reap his harvests and make his implements of war, and the equimpentequipment [sic] for his chariots. He will take your daughters for perfumers, for cooks, and for bakers. He will take the best of your fields and your vineyards, and your olive orchards, and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain crops and of your vineyards and give it to his eunuchs and to his servants. Then you will cry out on that day because of your king whom you will have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you on that day!"

But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel, and said:

The Scripture tells in detail how the king introduced his authority over the Jewish people, and how his successors oppressed the Israelites. Even though God said to the Jews that they are getting what they are asking for, in his love he rebuked the wicked kings through the prophet saying,

And the people will cry out unto the Lord, but He will not answer them, because they rejected His authority. This is His reward for their preference of a king. The kings, the princes, and all the lords have tasted the power of authority 1-Sam. 8: 7–20,.

Micah 3: 1–4,.

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255* which allows them to do every injustice, to oppress the people of God, everything shall be measured, every iniquity contrary to brotherly love.

In oppressing a peasant they defile the pains of Christ. All this shall be counted and measured by God. Today authority is a sweet affair to the king opulent with fat and licentious in living to whom the word "peasant" is repugnant. But woe unto him when he shall meet the words of God face to face then his violences shall be met with great discomforts to his well-being, and he shall cry himself blind, "Alas! Woe is me! Why has my mother ever begotten me into this world!"

When Paul commanded the Christians in Rome to pay taxes to Nero he did not contemplate to introduce among them and sanction the Neronian right to oppress, and to live off the fat of the land. (:When this authority was, in the end, brought into Christendom, Christianity has become paganized.:)

1-Samuel 8:5,.

1-Sam. 8: 7–20,.

Micah 3: 1–4,.

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First, Paul speaks of the pagan powers, and then he addresses those of the household of faith, saying,

(This applies for the inner circle of the believers. From it the authority of the king is excluded, together with his right of fees, taxes, tolls, tithes, and customs. Here he cannot subjugate his brother. There is no fear in brotherly love, but brotherly love casts out fear.:)

You do not impose a bridge-toll on your brother, for – as a Christian – you would liefer carry him across on your shoulder. True Christian faith has no need of sovereignty and authority.

The Church of Rome has allied herself with the state, and now they both drink together the blood of Christ, one from a chalice, and the other from the ground where it was spilled by the sword. Rom. 13:8,.

1-Jo.4:18. 256*

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Secular and pagan sovereignty is given Biblical roundation because, they say, Saint Paul urges supplications and prayers to be made for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peace able life, godly and respectful in every way, for this is good, and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour.

He seems to give a real sanction for everything that leads to manslaughter in our country; it looks as if he baptized a motley crowd of kings and noblemen, helping them with his prayers and admonishing them to defend with their swords their mother, the holy Church, of whom they were begotten, so that she might sit on her Roman throne, leading a peaceful and contented life; nobody should wake her from her sleep behind castle fortifications.

(:But if Paul really preached all this, how does it happen that so many Christians died in martyrdom during the first three hundred years? They prayed for their authorities, and yet they were killed? This shows that Paul must have given a different sense to his words than that which is today presented by the Church. 1-Tim.2:1–3,.

257*

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258* (:In his day the pagan governing authorities were inimical to the Christian communities, and when the Christians prayed for them, they only obeyed the Scriptures which commanded that they should pray for their enemies.:)

(:These early Christians did not have rulers from their own ranks, nor did they seek protection of the authorities through prayer. Their true sentiments are expressed in the Scripture which records their supplication to God:)

This example plainly shows the procedure of faith. Matt. 5:44.

Psa. 2:1,.

Acts 4: 24–31,.

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 sufficient scrupulousness of care from error in this direction, and can be content, and even happy to give more affection than we receive—can make just comparison of circumstances, and be severely accurate in drawing inferences thence, and never let self-love blind our eyes—I think we may manage to get through life with consistency and constancy, unembittered by that misanthropy which springs from revulsions of feeling. All this sounds a little metaphysical, but it is good sense if you consider it. The moral of it is, that if we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we must love our friends for their sakes rather than for our own; we must look at their truth to themselves, full as much as their truth to us. In the latter case, every wound to self-love would be a cause of coldness; in the former, only some painful change in the friend's character and disposition—some fearful breach in his allegiance to his better self—could alienate the heart.

"How interesting your old maiden-cousin's gossip about your parents must have been to you; and how gratifying to find that the reminiscence turned on none but pleasant facts and characteristics! Life must, indeed, be slow in that little decaying hamlet amongst the chalk hills. After all, depend upon it, it is better to be worn out with work in a thronged community, than to perish of inaction in a stagnant solitude: take this truth into consideration whenever you get tired of work and bustle."

I received a letter from her a little later than this;


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259* If the blessing of peace is to come through prayer, it cannot be done better than by taming the evil rulers and their iniquities by the power of prayer. Therefore to seek peace through temporal authorities is a worldly affair. But to mitigate the iniquity of evil rulers through a prayer of faith is a spiritual affair befitting faith. (:There are many examples in the Bible to show that this is the right approach. During the days of Jewish persecutions, Esther offered this prayer to God:)

(:Esther knew that the injustice of evil rulers falls back on their heads,:) that is why she prayed courageously to God saying, "Turn their plan against themselves!"

When the Jews were prisoners of the King of Babylon, they sent a message to the Jews of Jerusalem, saying, Esther 14: ;;–13,.

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260*

This prayer was offered by prisoners – and they prayed for the king their jailer. He was their enemy, and yet they prayed for him.

1-Tim.2:1–3,.

Matt. 5:44.

Psa. 2:1,.

Acts 4: 24–31,.

Esther 14: ;;–13,.

Baruch 1: 11–12.

Baruch 1: 11–12.

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With these examples in our mind we can better understand the intention of Saint Paul, why he exhorted to pray for the governing powers. He saw the temptations which surrounded the Christians living in a pagan world. He prayed that they should not become contaminated by pagan hatreds. For satanic hatred is most naturally inherent in the ruling people, the kings and their ilk. It consumed Saul through many wars, and multitudes fell when he fell. Today also the ruling class oppresses the subjects. But if we are good Christians we must pray to God for these haughty people, that they might be turned by Him from the power of the Satan and from fighting and rebelling against truth. 261*

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There are many other issues involved in the question of authority: we have governing authorities set against each other as enemies. When they are at war, one side prays for its lords, and so does the other side, each praying for its own victory. Yet both are "Christian," praying for their own causes.

The Christians of both sides are: at war unjustly, and they pray to God that He may help defeat the other side. Whom shall God hear? But because both claim to be Christian and yet are at war with each other, their prayer is not a prayer of faith; God shall not hear them, indeed. This is the reason why the net of faith has been so badly torn. The Christians' faith is lame; they act not as brothers but as enemies. When they pray mutually for the defeat of their foe, their prayers shall fall back upon their own heads. To pray in this way is against the intention of the words of Saint Paul. In this way many armed hordes of the same faith arrogate to themselves the right to defend 262*

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 and though there is reference throughout to what I must have said in writing to her, all that it called forth in reply is so peculiarly characteristic, that I cannot prevail upon myself to pass it over without a few extracts:—

1em

"My dear Mrs. Gaskell,—I was too much pleased with your letter, when I got it at last, to feel disposed to murmur now about the delay.

"About a fortnight ago, I received a letter from Miss Martineau; also a long letter, and treating precisely the same subjects on which yours dwelt, viz., the Exhibition and Thackeray's last lecture. It was interesting mentally to place the two documents side by side—to study the two aspects of mind—to view, alternately, the same scene through two mediums. Full striking was the difference; and the more striking because it was not the rough contrast of good and evil, but the more subtle opposition, the more delicate diversity of different kinds of good. The excellences of one nature resembled (I thought) that of some sovereign medicine—harsh, perhaps, to the taste, but potent to invigorate; the good of the other seemed more akin to the nourishing efficacy of our daily bread. It is not bitter; it is not lusciously sweet: it pleases, without flattering the palate; it sustains, without forcing the strength.

"I very much agree with you in all you say. For the sake of variety, I could almost wish that the concord of opinion were less complete.


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263* truth. And so one horde will go to defend the old Holy Church, and another horde will go to defend the truth of the law of God., And another shall go defending the orders of God., And another horde shall go defending the common good so that the poor people cease being exploited., And there shall go princes and kings to defend their fatherland so that their dominion may not cease.,

All of them lead wars against each other for the love of power and glory in the world. And all the peradventurers of these hordes call themselves Christians, and all pray alike to God saying, "our Father who art in heaven." They all pray for the destruction of the rest, believing that they serve the cause of God when they shed their enemies' blood. And they all say the same old words, "Forgive us as we forgive them" And yet every army conscripts and assembles, not intending in the least to forgive.

Their prayers are, indeed, a great blasphemy against God. And they are contrary to the admonition of Paul to pray for all. Every one of these hordes thinks illogically; each one is getting ready to war against the others, not The Papal armies.

The Hussite Taborites.

The Hussite Utraquists.

The class struggle?

National armies in patriotic wars.

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 to of the fingers vppon the place of the pulſe. And that is vſed with a diſcreete handling, and that otherwiſe in a ſtrong man thē in a feeble man. For in a ſtrong man and fleſhly, with ſtrong and harde feeling: and in a leane man and féeble, with eaſe and ſoft handeling. Touching this, it is to wit, as Conſtantions ſaith, that there bée many manner of diuerſities of pulſes, the which be referred or reduſed to ten. The firſt is knowne by length & bredth of quantitie: and this is in thrée manner wayes. One is a greate pulſe, when he ſpreadeth in length and breadth, and déepneſſe of the vaine. And this pulſe great and ſtrong commeth of the ſtrength of the ſpirit: by the which the pulſe is ſpread abroad, and néedeth to bée kéeled of the ſoftneſſe of the limmes, that is, ſeruing to the ſpreading abroad. Alſo ſome pulſe is litle, ſlow & ſtraight, when it returneth to the middle, that is inward toward the heart: And that is for default of vertue, and for ſcarcitie of heate. And ſome is temperate, when it draweth not to the middle, neither to the vtter ſides: This temperature commeth of more bloud & leſſe water. Alſo the pulſe is knowne by the time of mouing, and ſo he is called ſwift, ſlow, and meane: hée is called ſwift becauſe he moueth oft in ſhort time, and that commeth of ſtrong heate & vertue. And ſlowe, for that he moueth and ſmiteth field in long time, & that cōmeth of defalt of vertue & ſlacknes of heat: the meane betwéen this is praiſed. In the third manner, the pulſe is knowne by the ſtrength of vertue. And touching that he is ſtrong, féeble, and meane. It is ſtrong when it ſeemeth that by ſtrength it putteth away from it, the finger that toucheth it. And that commeth of the ſtrength of vertue and of the ſoftneſſe of the limme that eaſily moueth. He is féeble when he ſmiteth féebly the finger: and commeth of féebleneſſe of ſtrength, and of hardneſſe of the limme that is repugnant. The meane is temperate betwéene thoſe two. In the fourth manner he is known by the diſpoſition of the lim. And then he is called hard and ſoft, & meane. It is hard when it ſéemeth that he withſtandeth with a manner ſharpneſſe & hardneſſe. And that commeth of the drineſſe of the veſſelles thereof. It is ſoft when the fingers feele it with a great ſlowneſſe of mouing: ſo that it ſeemeth they pearce it. And that commeth of wet and moiſture. The meane betwéene theſe two is temperate. In the fift manner he is knowne by fulneſſe & meane voidneſſe. It is full when it ſéemeth to abound in moyſture. And that commeth of greate repletion of bloud and of ſpirit. He is voide when he ſéemeth to be ſwollen, but yet when it is touched, the fingers ſinke in, as it were in a voide thing. The meane betweene theſe two is temperate. In the ſixt manner, the pulſe is knowne by the qualitie of the vaines, and ſo he is departed into hot, colde, and meane. He is hot, when the fingers feele the ſubſtance of vaines hot. And that commeth of the hot matter that is therein, that is of the winde and hot bloud. The cold pulſe is vnderſtood in a contrary manner. The meane betwéene theſe two is temporate. In the ſeuenth manner, he is known by working and reſting: and ſo he is departed in thicke, thin, and meane. He is thick, that in his opening ſmiteth oft the fingers ends, and ſodeinly goeth awaie. And this commeth of ſtrength of heate and default of vertue. The ſtrength of heat ſéeketh remedie of colde and of kéeling: the default of vertue, when it may not once nor twice, nor thrice, then he trauayleth in appetite of ſuccour. The thinne pulſe commeth of the contrarie cauſe, that is to wit, of ſlownes of heate, & of ſtrength of vertue. The meane betwéen theſe two is temperate. Theſe ſeauen manner pulſes be notable and eaſier to know then the other. Of the other thrée pulſes, the firſt is departed, and that one parte is called , and the other . The ſecond is departed, that one part properly , or according, and that other is equall. And the third is departed by leſſe diſcontending. And ſo that one parte is ſaid to bée ordinate, and that other not ordinate. And for the moſt ſkilfull Phiſitions may ſcarcely knowe theſe thrée pulſes, therefore we leaue them and paſſe forth.

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264* intending to lead a peaceful life but a marching, military life. Its prayers are not prayers of peace but prayers for its armies and successes.

(:Paul did not pray for the victory of his authorities, for the success of their swords, but that all authorities might live together in peace. He prays for a peaceable life when he says, "that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way." This is a life pleasing to God.:) But the authorities of the world seek a different peace, a freedom to expand in violence and impurity, a freedom for the soldiers to go to markets to buy and to sell, to eat and drink at festivals, to fight and make merry and ribald dances. (:Those who are in authority have the power to proclaim anything they want as articles of faith. Any reasoning supporting their militARymilitary [sic] defenses is acceptable, and they do it in parliaments and councils, and display it on pedestals as faith for the misled people to believe. It is possible that the Church of Rome is unable to exercise justice with the great temporal dominion she has; she could not deferd it against kings brandishing swords. And so she naturally needs power.

The Papal armies.

The Hussite Taborites.

The Hussite Utraquists.

The class struggle?

National armies in patriotic wars.

1-Tim.2:2,.

1-Tim.2:2,.

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 to the number and weight of the carriages, which are likely to pass over it. The depth and the supply of water for a navigable canal must be proportioned to the number and tonnage of the lighters, which are likely to carry goods upon it; the extent of a harbor to the number of the shipping which are likely to take shelter in it.

It does not seem necessary that the expense of those public works should be defrayed from that public revenue, as it is commonly called, of which the collection and application are in most countries assigned to the executive power. The greater part of such public works may easily be so managed, as to afford a particular revenue sufficient for defraying their own expense, without bringing any burden upon the general revenue of the society.

A highway, a bridge, a navigable canal, for example, may in most cases be both made and maintained by a small toll upon the carriages which make use of them; a harbor, by a moderate port duty upon the tonnage of the shipping which load or unload in it. The coinage, another institution for facilitating commerce, in many countries, not only defrays its own expense, but affords a small revenue or seigniorage to the sovereign. The post-office, another institution for the same purpose, over and above defraying its own expense, affords in almost all countries a very considerable revenue to the sovereign.

When the carriages which pass over a highway or a bridge, and the lighters which sail upon a navigable canal, pay toll in proportion to their weight or their tonnage, they pay for the maintenance of those public works exactly in proportion to the wear and tear which they occasion of them. It seems scarce possible to invent a more equitable way of maintaining such works. This tax or toll, too,


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 "To begin with Trafalgar Square. My taste goes with yours and Meta's completely on this point. I have always thought it a fine site (and sight also). The view from the summit of those steps has ever struck me as grand and imposing—Nelson Column included: the fountains I could dispense with. With respect, also, to the Crystal Palace, my thoughts are precisely yours.

"Then I feel sure you speak justly of Thackeray's lecture. You do well to set aside odious comparisons, and to wax impatient of that trite twaddle about 'nothing newness'—a jargon which simply proves, in those who habitually use it, a coarse and feeble faculty of appreciation; an inability to discern the relative value of originality and novelty; a lack of that refined perception which, dispensing with the stimulus of an ever-new subject, can derive sufficiency of pleasure from freshness of treatment. To such critics, the prime of a summer morning would bring no delight; wholly occupied with railing at their cook for not having provided a novel and piquant breakfast-dish, they would remain insensible to such influences as lie in sunrise, dew, and breeze: therein would be 'nothing new.'

"Is it Mr. 's family experience which has influenced your feelings about the Catholics? I own, I cannot be sorry for this commencing change. Good people—very good people—I doubt not, there are amongst the Romanists, but the system is not one which should have such sympathy as yours. Look at Popery taking off the mask in Naples!


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 though it is advanced by the carrier, is finally paid by the consumer, to whom it must always be charged in the price of the goods. As the expense of carriage, however, is very much reduced by means of such public works, the goods, notwithstanding the toll, come cheaper to the consumer than they could otherwise have done; their price not being so much raised by the toll, as it is lowered by the cheapness of the carriage. The person who finally pays this tax, therefore, gains by the application, more than he loses by the payment of it. His payment is exactly in proportion to his gain. It is in reality no more than a part of that gain which he is obliged to give up in order to get the rest. It seems impossible to imagine a more equitable method of raising a tax.

When the toll upon carriages of luxury, upon coaches, post-chaises, etc., is made somewhat higher in proportion to their weight, than upon carriages of necessary use, such as carts, wagons, etc., the indolence and vanity of the rich is made to contribute in a very easy manner to the relief of the poor by rendering cheaper the transportation of heavy goods to all the different parts of the country.

When highroads, bridges, canals, etc., are in this manner made and supported by the commerce which is carried on by means of them, they can be made only where that commerce requires them, and consequently where it is proper to make them. Their expense, too, their grandeur and magnificence must be suited to what that commerce can afford to pay. They must be made consequently as it is proper to make them. A magnificent highroad cannot be made through a desert country where there is little or no commerce, or merely because it happens to lead to the country villa of the intendant of the province, or to that of some


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 great lord to whom the intendant finds it convenient to make his court. A great bridge cannot be thrown over a river at a place where nobody passes, or merely to embellish the view from the windows of a neighboring palace: things which sometimes happen, in countries where works of this kind are carried on by any other revenue than that which they themselves are capable of affording.

In several different parts of Europe the toll or lock-duty upon a canal is the property of private persons, whose private interest obliges them to keep up the canal. If it is not kept in tolerable order, the navigation necessarily ceases altogether, and along with it the whole profit which they can make by the tolls. If those tolls were put under the management of commissioners, who had themselves no interest in them, they might be less attentive to the maintenance of the works which produced them. The canal of Languedoc cost the king of France and the province upward of thirteen millions of livres, which (at twenty-eight livres the mark of silver, the value of French money in the end of the last century) amounted to upward of nine hundred thousand pounds sterling. When that great work was finished, the most likely method, it was found, of keeping it in constant repair was to make a present of the tolls to Riquet, the engineer, who planned and conducted the work. Those tolls constitute at present a very large estate to the different branches of the family of that gentleman, who have, therefore, a great interest to keep the work in constant repair. But had those tolls been put under the management of commissioners, who had no such interest, they might perhaps have been dissipated in ornamental and unnecessary expenses, while the most essential parts of the work were allowed to go to ruin.


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 The tolls for the maintenance of a highroad cannot with any safety be made the property of private persons. A highroad, though entirely neglected, does not become altogether impassable, though a canal does. The proprietors of the tolls upon a highroad, therefore, might neglect altogether the repair of the road, and yet continue to levy very nearly the same tolls. It is proper, therefore, that the tolls for the maintenance of such a work should be put under the management of commissioners or trustees.

In Great Britain, the abuses which the trustees have committed in the management of those tolls have, in many cases, been very justly complained of. At many turnpikes, it has been said, the money levied is more than double of what is necessary for executing, in the completest manner, the work which is often executed in a very slovenly manner, and sometimes not executed at all. The system of repairing the highroads by tolls of this kind, it must be observed, is not of very long standing. We should not wonder, therefore, if it has not yet been brought to that degree of perfection of which it seems capable. If mean and improper persons are frequently appointed trustees; and if proper courts of inspection and account have not yet been established for controlling their conduct, and for reducing the tolls to what is barely sufficient for executing the work to be done by them; the recency of the institution both accounts and apologizes for those defects, of which, by the wisdom of Parliament, the greater part may in due time be gradually remedied.

The money levied at the different turnpikes in Great Britain is supposed to exceed so much what is necessary for repairing the roads that the savings which, with proper economy, might be made from it, have been considered,


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was at breakfast. Opposite him sat his daughter, Zia.

There was a knock at the sitting-room door, and a chasseur entered with a card which he brought to Mr. Papopolous. The latter scrutinized it, raised his eyebrows, and passed it over to his daughter.

"Ah!" said M. Papopolous, scratching his left ear thoughtfully, "Hercule Poirot. I wonder now."

Father and daughter looked at each other.

"I saw him yesterday at the tennis," said M. Papopolous. "Zia, I hardly like this."

"He was very useful to you once," his daughter reminded him.

"That is true," acknowledged M. Papopolous; "also he has retired from active work, so I hear."

These interchanges between father and daughter had passed in their own language. Now M. Papopolous turned to the chasseur and said in French: "Faites monter ce monsieur."

A few minutes later Hercule Poirot, exquisitely attired, and swinging a cane with a jaunty air, entered the room.

"My dear M. Papopolous."

"My dear M. Poirot."

"And Mademoiselle Zia." Poirot swept her a low bow.


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 even by some ministers, as a very great resource which might at some time or another be applied to the exigencies of the State. Government, it has been said, by taking the management of the turnpikes into its own hands, and by employing the soldiers, who would work for a very small addition to their pay, could keep the roads in good order at a much less expense than it can be done by trustees, who have no other workmen to employ but such as derive their whole subsistence from their wages. A great revenue, half a million, perhaps, it has been pretended, might in this manner be gained without laying any new burden upon the people; and the turnpike roads might be made to contribute to the general expense of the State, in the same manner as the post-office does at present.

That a considerable revenue might be gained in this manner, I have no doubt, though probably not near so much as the projectors of this plan have supposed. The plan itself, however, seems liable to several very important objections.

First, if the tolls which are levied at the turnpikes should ever be considered as one of the resources for supplying the exigencies of the State, they would certainly be augmented as those exigencies were supposed to require. According to the policy of Great Britain, therefore, they would probably be augmented very fast. The facility with which a great revenue could be drawn from them would probably encourage administration to recur very frequently to this resource. Though it may, perhaps, be more than


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 "You will excuse us going on with our breakfast," said M. Papopolous, pouring himself out another cup of coffee. "Your call isahem!a little early."

"It is scandalous," said Poirot, "but see you, I am pressed."

"Ah!" murmured M. Papopolous, "you are on an affair then?"

"A very serious affair," said Poirot: "the death of Madame Kettering."

"Let me see," M. Papopolous looked innocently up at the ceiling, "that was the lady who died on the Blue Train, was it not? I saw a mention of it in the papers, but there was no suggestion of foul play."

"In the interests of justice," said Poirot, "it was thought best to suppress that fact."

There was a pause.

"And in what way can I assist you, M. Poirot?" asked the dealer politely.

"Voilà," said Poirot, "I shall come to the point." He took from his pocket the same box that he had displayed at Cannes, and, opening it, he took out the rubies and pushed them across the table to Papopolous.

Although Poirot was watching him narrowly, not a muscle of the old man's face moved. He took up the jewels and examined them with a kind of detached interest, then he looked across at the detective inquiringly:

"Superb, are they not?" asked Poirot.

"Quite excellent," said M. Papopolous.

"How much should you say they are worth?"

The Greek's face quivered a little.


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For explanation of the current deletion of the page see User talk:64.124.215.251. --Jan Kameníček (talk) 23:19, 14 February 2024 (UTC)


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 doubtful, whether half a million could by any economy be saved out of the present tolls, it can scarce be doubted but that a million might be saved out of them, if they were doubled; and perhaps two millions if they were tripled. This great revenue, too, might be levied without the appointment of a single new officer to collect and receive it. But the turnpike tolls being continually augmented in this manner, instead of facilitating the inland commerce of the country, as at present, would soon become a very great encumbrance upon it. The expense of transporting all heavy goods from one part of the country to another would soon be so much increased, the market for all such goods, consequently, would soon be so much narrowed that their production would be in a great measure discouraged, and the most important branches of the domestic industry of the country annihilated altogether.

Secondly, a tax upon carriages in proportion to their weight, though a very equal tax when applied to the sole purpose of repairing the roads, is a very unequal one, when applied to any other purpose, or to supply the common exigencies of the State. When it is applied to the sole purpose above mentioned, each carriage is supposed to pay exactly for the wear and tear which that carriage occasions of the roads. But when it is applied to any other purpose, each carriage is supposed to pay for more than that wear and tear, and contributes to the supply of some other exigency of the State. But as the turnpike toll raises the price of goods in proportion to their weight, and not to their value, it is chiefly paid by the consumers of coarse and bulky, not by those of precious and light commodities. Whatever exi-


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 gency of the State therefore this tax might be intended to supply, that exigency would be chiefly supplied at the expense of the poor, not of the rich; at the expense of those who are least able to supply it, not of those who are most able.

Thirdly, if government should at any time neglect the reparation of the highroads, it would be still more difficult than it is at present to compel the proper application of any part of the turnpike tolls. A large revenue might thus be levied upon the people, without any part of it being applied to the only purpose to which a revenue levied in this manner ought ever to be applied. If the meanness and poverty of the trustees of turnpike roads render it sometimes difficult at present to oblige them to repair their wrong, their wealth and greatness would render it ten times more so in the case which is here supposed.

In France, the funds destined for the reparation of the highroads are under the immediate direction of the executive power. Those funds consist, partly in a certain number of days' labor which the country people in most parts of Europe are obliged to give to the reparation of the highways, and partly in such a portion of the general revenue of the State as the king chooses to spare from his other expenses.

By the ancient law of France, as well as by that of most other parts of Europe, the labor of the country people was under the direction of a local or provincial magistracy, which had no immediate dependence upon the king's council. But by the present practice both the labor of the country people, and whatever other fund the king may choose to assign for the reparation of the highroads in any particular province or generality, are entirely under the


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 management of the intendant; an officer who is appointed and removed by the king's council, who receives his orders from it, and is in constant correspondence with it. In the progress of despotism the authority of the executive power gradually absorbs that of every other power in the State, and assumes to itself the management of every branch of revenue which is destined for any public purpose. In France, however, the great postroads, the roads which make the communication between the principal towns of the kingdom, are in general kept in good order; and in some provinces are even a good deal superior to the greater part of the turnpike roads of England. But what we call the crossroads, that is, the far greater part of the roads in the country, are entirely neglected, and are in many places absolutely impassable for any heavy carriage. In some places it is even dangerous to travel on horseback, and mules are the only conveyance which can safely be trusted. The proud minister of an ostentatious court may frequently take pleasure in executing a work of splendor and magnificence, such as a great highway, which is frequently seen by the principal nobility, whose applauses not only flatter his vanity, but even contribute to support his interest at court. But to execute a great number of little works, in which nothing that can be done can make any great appearance, or excite the smallest degree of admiration in any traveller, and which, in short, have nothing to recommend them but their extreme utility, is a business which appears in every respect too mean and paltry to merit the attention of so great a magistrate. Under such an administration, therefore, such works are almost always entirely neglected.

In China, and in several other governments of Asia, the executive power charges itself both with the reparation of


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 the highroads and with the maintenance of the navigable canals. In the instructions which are given to the governor of each province, those objects, it is said, are constantly recommended to him, and the judgment which the court forms of his conduct is very much regulated by the attention which he appears to have paid to this part of his instructions. This branch of public police accordingly is said to be very much attended to in all those countries, but particularly in China, where the highroads, and still more the navigable canals, it is pretended, exceed very much everything of the same kind which is known in Europe. The accounts of those works, however, which have been transmitted to Europe, have generally been drawn up by weak and wondering travellers; frequently by stupid and lying missionaries. If they had been examined by more intelligent eyes, and if the accounts of them had been reported by more faithful witnesses, they would not, perhaps, appear to be so wonderful. The account which Bernier gives of some works of this kind in Hindustan, falls very much short of what had been reported of them by other travellers, more disposed to the marvellous than he was. It may too, perhaps, be in those countries, as it is in France, where the great roads, the great communications which are likely to be the subjects of conversation at the court and in the capital, are attended to, and all the rest neglected. In China, besides, in Hindustan, and in several other governments of Asia, the revenue of the sovereign arises almost altogether from a land tax or land rent, which rises or falls with the rise and fall of the annual produce of the land. The great interest of the sovereign, therefore, his revenue, is in such countries necessarily and immediately connected with the cultivation of the land, with the greatness of its


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 "I have read the 'Saints' Tragedy.' As a 'work of art' it seems to me far superior to either 'Alton Locke' or 'Yeast.' Faulty it may be, crude and unequal, yet there are portions where some of the deep chords of human nature are swept with a hand which is strong even while it falters. We see throughout (I think) that Elizabeth has not, and never had, a mind perfectly sane. From the time that she was what she herself, in the exaggeration of her humility, calls 'an idiot girl,' to the hour when she lay moaning in visions on her dying bed, a slight craze runs through her whole existence. This is good: this is true. A sound mind, a healthy intellect, would have dashed the priest-power to the wall; would have defended her natural affections from his grasp, as a lioness defends her young; would have been as true to husband and children, as your leal-hearted little Maggie was to her Frank. Only a mind weak with some fatal flaw could have been influenced as was this poor saint's. But what anguish—what struggles! Seldom do I cry over books; but here, my eyes rained as I read. When Elizabeth turns her face to the wall—I stopped—there needed no more.

"Deep truths are touched on in this tragedy—touched on, not fully elicited; truths that stir a peculiar pity—a compassion hot with wrath, and bitter with pain. This is no poet's dream: we know that such things have been done; that minds have been thus subjugated, and lives thus laid waste.

"Remember me kindly and respectfully to Mr.


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 Gaskell, and though I have not seen Marianne, I must beg to include her in the love I send the others. Could you manage to convey a small kiss to that dear, but dangerous little person, Julia? She surreptitiously possessed herself of a minute fraction of my heart, which has been missing ever since I saw her.—Believe me, sincerely and affectionately yours, 2em

The reference which she makes at the end of this letter is to my youngest little girl, between whom and her a strong mutual attraction existed. The child would steal her little hand into Miss Brontë's scarcely larger one, and each took pleasure in this apparently unobserved caress. Yet once when I told Julia to take and show her the way to some room in the house, Miss Brontë shrunk back: "Do not bid her do anything for me," she said; "it has been so sweet hitherto to have her rendering her little kindnesses spontaneously."

As illustrating her feelings with regard to children, I may give what she says in another of her letters to me.

"Whenever I see Florence and Julia again, I shall feel like a fond but bashful suitor, who views at a distance the fair personage to whom, in his clownish awe, he dare not risk a near approach. Such is the clearest idea I can give you of my feeling towards children I like, but to whom I am a stranger;—and to what children am I not a stranger? They seem to me little


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 wonders; their talk, their ways are all matter of half-admiring, half-puzzled speculation."

The following is part of a long letter which I received from her, dated September 20th, 1851:—

" Beautiful are those sentences out of James Martineau's sermons; some of them gems most pure and genuine; ideas deeply conceived, finely expressed. I should like much to see his review of his sister's book. Of all the articles respecting which you question me, I have seen none, except that notable one in the 'Westminster' on the Emancipation of Women. But why are you and I to think (perhaps I should rather say to feel) so exactly alike on some points that there can be no discussion between us? Your words on this paper express my thoughts. Well-argued it is,—clear, logical,—but vast is the hiatus of omission; harsh the consequent jar on every finer chord of the soul. What is this hiatus? I think I know; and, knowing, I will venture to say. I think the writer forgets there is such a thing as self-sacrificing love and disinterested devotion. When I first read the paper, I thought it was the work of a powerful-minded, clear-headed woman, who had a hard, jealous heart, muscles of iron, and nerves of bend leather; of a woman who longed for power, and had never felt affection. To many women affection is sweet, and power conquered indifferent—though we all like influence won. I believe J. S. Mill would make a hard,


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 produce, and with the value of its produce. But in order to render that produce both as great and as valuable as possible, it is necessary to procure to it as extensive a market as possible, and consequently to establish the freest, the easiest, and the least expensive communication between all the different parts of the country; which can be done only by means of the best roads and the best navigable canals. But the revenue of the sovereign does not, in any part of Europe, arise chiefly from a land tax or land rent. In all the great kingdoms of Europe, perhaps the greater part of it may ultimately depend upon the produce of the land: But that dependence is neither so immediate, nor so evident. In Europe, therefore, the sovereign does not feel himself so directly called upon to promote the increase, both in quantity and value, of the produce of the land, or, by maintaining good roads and canals, to provide the most extensive market for that produce. Though it should be true, therefore, what I apprehend is not a little doubtful, that in some parts of Asia this department of the public police is very properly managed by the executive power, there is not the least probability that, during the present state of things, it could be tolerably managed by that power in any part of Europe.

Even those public works which are of such a nature that they cannot afford any revenue for maintaining themselves, but of which the convenience is nearly confined to some particular place or district, are always better maintained by a local or provincial revenue, under the management of a local and provincial administration, than by the general revenue of the State, of which the executive power must always have the management. Were the streets of London to be lighted and paved at the expense of the


text: Talk:The Branded Hand

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 dry, dismal world of it; and yet he speaks admirable sense through a great portion of his article—especially when he says, that if there be a natural unfitness in women for men's employment, there is no need to make laws on the subject; leave all careers open; let them try; those who ought to succeed will succeed, or, at least, will have a fair chance—the incapable will fall back into their right place. He likewise disposes of the 'maternity' question very neatly. In short, J. S. Mill's head is, I dare say, very good, but I feel disposed to scorn his heart. You are right when you say that there is a large margin in human nature over which the logicians have no dominion; glad am I that it is so.

"I send by this post Ruskin's 'Stones of Venice,' and I hope you and Meta will find passages in it that will please you. Some parts would be dry and technical were it not for the character, the marked individuality which pervades every page. I wish Marianne had come to speak to me at the lecture; it would have given me such pleasure. What you say of that small sprite Julia, amuses me much. I believe you don't know that she has a great deal of her mama's nature (modified) in her; yet I think you will find she has as she grows up.

"Will it not be a great mistake, if Mr. Thackeray should deliver his lectures at Manchester under such circumstances and conditions as will exclude people like you and Mr. Gaskell from the number of his audience? I thought his London-plan too narrow. Charles Dickens would not thus limit his sphere of action.


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 Treasury, is there any probability that they would be so well lighted and paved as they are at present, or even at so small an expense? The expense, besides, instead of being raised by a local tax upon the inhabitants of each particular street, parish, or district in London, would, in this case, be defrayed out of the general revenue of the State, and would consequently be raised by a tax upon all the inhabitants of the kingdom, of whom the greater part derive no sort of benefit from the lighting and paving of the streets of London.

The abuses which sometimes creep into the local and provincial administration of a local and provincial revenue, how enormous soever they may appear, are in reality, however, almost always very trifling, in comparison of those which commonly take place in the administration and expenditure of the revenue of a great empire. They are, besides, much more easily corrected. Under the local or provincial administration of the justices of the peace in Great Britain, the six days' labor which the country people are obliged to give to the reparation of the highways is not always perhaps very judiciously applied, but it is scarce ever exacted with any circumstance of cruelty or oppression. In France, under the administration of the intendants, the application is not always more judicious, and the exaction is frequently the most cruel and oppressive. Such Corvées, as they are called, make one of the principal instruments of tyranny by which those officers chastise any parish or communeauté which has had the misfortune to fall under their displeasure.


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 "You charge me to write about myself. What can I say on that precious topic? My health is pretty good. My spirits are not always alike. Nothing happens to me. I hope and expect little in this world, and am thankful that I do not despond and suffer more. Thank you for inquiring after our old servant; she is pretty well; the little shawl, &c. pleased her much. Papa likewise, I am glad to say, is pretty well; with his and my kindest regards to you and Mr. Gaskell—Believe me sincerely and affectionately yours, 2em

Before the autumn was far advanced, the usual effects of her solitary life, and of the unhealthy situation of Haworth Parsonage, began to appear in the form of sick headaches, and miserable, starting, wakeful nights. She does not dwell on this in her letters; but there is an absence of all cheerfulness of tone, and an occasional sentence forced out of her, which imply far more than many words could say. There was illness all through the Parsonage household—taking its accustomed forms of lingering influenza and low fever; she herself was outwardly the strongest of the family, and all domestic exertion fell for a time upon her shoulders.

1em

"As I laid down your letter, after reading with interest the graphic account it gives of a very striking