event, but only increase of Carlylean bile." But he is tolerant of Froude's stillvexed revelations, and totally disagrees with Mr. Norton "about the wife letters being sacred." Mr. Norton has held to his principles in dealing with Ruskin's own letters to himself. "In my judgment," he says in his preface, “Ruskin himself published, or permitted to be published, far too many of his letters, some of them, as it seemed to me, such as should never have been printed. . . . I have not printed all the letters which Ruskin wrote to me. In spite of the poets, in spite of modern usage, in spite of Ruskin's own example, I hold with those who believe that there are sanctities in love and life to be kept in privacy inviolate." The process of choice must have been difficult, and we may wonder in turning over the resulting pages what Ruskin's confidences would have been if these are his reservations.

...

"Although in the inner circle of English letters," says Mr. Douglas, in introducing his book on Mr. Watts-Dunton,1 "this study of a living writer will need no apology, it may be well to explain for the general reader the reasons which moved me to undertake it." Feeling duly chagrined at our failure to belong to the inner, or outer, circle of English letters, we listen to various reasons why we should hear about Mr. Watts - Dunton: the most impressive of which is that Mr. Swinburne considers him "the first critic of our time, perhaps the largest-minded and surestsighted of any age." The exhibits which follow are of far more importance than the accompanying commentary. The rôle of exhibitor, under the circumstances, is one to which Mr. Douglas is obviously unequal. His excellent bad taste necessarily reflects somewhat upon the otherwise admirable person who has voluntarily submitted himself to such usage. For a literary executor a ghost might deny responsibility, but hardly a man alive. It is

1 Theodore Watts-Dunton: Poet, Novelist, Critic. By JAMES DOUGLAS. New York: John Lane. 1904.

only when Mr. Douglas absents himself that we succeed in feeling at ease in his presence. Yet he is a gentleman of surprising integrity. "Mr. Watts-Dunton," he admits, "when I told him that I was going to write this book, urged me to moderate my praise and to call into action the critical power that he was good enough to say that I possessed, . . . but the courage of my opinions I will exercise so long as I write at all. The 'newspaper cynics,' that once were and perhaps still are strong, I have always defied, and always will defy. I am glad to see that there is one point of likeness between us of the younger generation and the great one to which Mr. Watts-Dunton and his illustrious friends belong. We are not afraid, and we are not ashamed of being enthusiastic. This also, I hope, will be a note of the twentieth century." Never did American colonel whistle his courage up more shrilly.

Mr. Watts-Dunton is, we know, the chief survivor and interpreter of the PreRaphaelite group. As "friend of poets," though as nothing else, he would have a sure place in the literary annals of his period. To him, according to Mr. Douglas, was due whatever comfort Rossetti had in his later years, and whatever work he did. Morris owed much to his friendship, and for thirty years he has been the intimate and house-mate of Swinburne. His critical writing in the encyclopædias and the Athenæum has been of steady influence on both sides of the Atlantic. Special pleader in a way he has been, the champion of modern romanticism; it is a pity that his panegyrist should have made catch-words of such effective phrases as "the Renascence of Wonder," and "Natura Benigna." The book does at least succeed in presenting the more important aspects of Mr. Watts-Dunton's periodical criticism, a criticism which the author has refused to rescue from its anonymous dispersion among old files of the Athenæum and elsewhere. Some day it will be collected and published, let us hope without any such gloss as Mr. Douglas would be likely to furnish.

1

Like Ruskin, Herbert Spencer systematically overworked, and paid the penalty of nervous collapse, which was paid by so many contemporaries. Otherwise, two men could hardly have been more different. Whether from superiority or inferiority of imagination, Spencer seems to have been incapable of being seriously troubled or perplexed. He dwelt upon a cool intellectual eminence; he was sufficient for whatever task presented, he was sufficient unto himself. To the supplementary order of biographical material belongs a little book about him, containing two essays and a chapter of reminiscences. The first essay, on "Spencer's Contribution to the Concept of Evolution," sketches the history of the evolutionary theory, and the process by which Spencer, long before the Origin of Species, came to the adoption of a theory of evolution, and, presently, of a complementary theory of dissolution; and so was brought suddenly upon "the truth that integration is a primary process and differentiation a secondary process." Eventually, Professor Royce fails to find in the Spencerian concept a road to the solution of all problems connected with evolution. It "does not determine the relations of the essential processes of evolution to one another, does not define their inner unity, and does not enable us to conceive a series of types of evolutionary processes in orderly relations to one another." It is rather a piece of pioneering work, done in a right spirit and toward a right end. The essay on "Spencer's Educational Theories" suggests some causes of the philosopher's limitations in attacking concrete problems. The Autobiography furnishes data from which Professor Royce shows that Spencer's educational theories were based upon the assumption that all children should be trained as he chanced to be trained. "He was of his

1 Herbert Spencer: An Estimate and Review. By JOSIAH ROYCE. Together with a Chapter of Personal Reminiscences by JAMES COLLIER. New York: Fox, Duffield & Co. 1904.

own kind a most wonderful example," says the critic. "But I should be sorry if all men were Spencers."

Mr. Collier's Reminiscences put before us a figure of dignity and amenity, if not quite of charm; a healthy life, well rounded with various activities. Spencer was a genial diner-out, and more dependent for recreation upon his billiards or his tennis than upon any books ever written; facts which, no doubt, go far toward accounting for the placidity of his mental processes and the precision of his results.

In the preface to his Reminiscences, published some five years ago, Justin McCarthy wrote, "One reason why I have not attempted an autobiography is that my life, in its own course, has been uneventful, and that I have no story to tell about it which could have

any claim on public interest." These Reminiscences proved to contain much autobiographical material, somewhat to the impoverishment, perhaps, of the story which he now has to tell. It may stand, however, as a record sufficiently varied and full of incident to have a sure claim on public interest. It would rank with such a narrative as Mr. Riis's, rather than with literary autobiographies, or with intellectual documents like Spencer's account. Like Mr. Riis, his main interest has been in public service, and he writes, like him, with honesty, an engaging complacency, an unaffected good-humor, and a total lack of distinction in manner. Mr. McCarthy has been most useful to his time, but it would be idle to pretend that he has been useful to literature. No book of his is likely to outlive him ten years. But to approach the end of life in a mood of unfailing cheerfulness and hopefulness may fall to persons of practical activity, as well as to persons of purely intellectual power, oftener than to seers and prophets. Spencer and Justin McCarthy have had a success in common which was denied Rossetti, and Ruskin, and Carlyle. 2 An Irishman's Story. By JUSTIN MCCARTHY. New York: The Macmillan Co. 1904.

BEING AHEAD OF TIME

THERE is a time for all things, even the convenience of others. Society is necessarily ordered by rule of thumb, and has little use for persons who cannot be "counted on." It is bad enough to be tardy in the affairs of love, but our awful example of perfidy would be the wretch who dares break a part of the thousandth part of a minute in meeting a dinner appointment. Being behind time is something like being asleep at the switch; people who have been derailed show little consideration for a tired man.

Present witness supposes that punctuality might be added to the list of horological tyrannies the Club has been hearing about of late, but is himself unable to speak to that point. Indeed, though a faithful, and even assiduous, contributor to the Atlantic, he is constrained to doubt his own clubability. He earnestly desires to be sprightly, whimsical, a little irreverent; but such wishes are not horses for an orthodox New Englander. A person who is thoroughly up on verities and infinities can hardly be good at talking like a little fish. He does n't know how to be skittish, and with the best intentions he can't always understand skittishness in others.

He does n't quite know what to make of these lively fellow contributors who don't care whether they get up in the morning of what day of what year, and if or when the train goes. For himself he sees nothing to be ashamed of in being on time, and nothing to be proud of in being behind it. He has a pretty clear notion that taking liberties with time is not the way to cotton up to eternity. But he may not always realize what constitutes an unjustifiable familiarity of this kind. It is a puzzling fact that frivolous people do not have a monopoly of error. The unco'

guid have something to answer for when it comes to a question of "being ahead of time." They boast openly of their taking the old gentleman by the forelock, and in practice they do not stick at making free with his scruff. They are in the habit of being a quarter-hour "early" at the station, or a half-hour at the theatre. They "don't like to hurry," and they "enjoy seeing the people come in." Bosh! everybody knows that people like that are always in a hurry, and have a portable horizon situated not far from the ends of their noses. They are very busy with clocks and time-tables, but they have no confidence in them. If they were as weak as that, they would quite expect to be left behind or to miss something. As it is, they spend their allotted days leaping from imaginary crag to crag along a solid highway which might have been pleasantly covered at a mild canter. They stand on the platform for fifteen minutes before the scheduled time, lest the train arrive one minute before it. They hurl themselves at the foremost platform before the train has stopped. They stand in the aisle for the last two or three miles of their journey. A little later they will be found bustling out of the theatre at the critical moment a scene or two from the end of the play. They have plenty of time to hear it out; but they have paid for that privilege, they have known the joys of possession; now for a break-neck plunge into the subway. You cannot trust such a person even at his devotions. He is first man at church; he rises a neck ahead of anybody else, he galls the parson's kibe with his responses, he imparts a feverishness to the psalter and a tripping tempo to the litany; he is bound for Glory on the double-quick. There is an element of greed involved in this whole business of being early; even good people do not object to a little more than their money's worth.

I suppose they never really get ahead of Time, unless as that venerable reaper encourages them to dispose themselves conveniently to his sickle.

THE DELUSION OF ABBREVIATING

"Sir Walter Scott, Bart.," on the titlepage of a book of poems, puzzled me considerably in my childhood, but before many days I shaped to my satisfaction a definition of "Bart.: "some one more than bard and less than magician. When, years after, I heard this word translated into "baronet," I suffered genuine anguish in losing a word which I had invested with splendid personality, and ever since I have resented abbreviation.

Why do we abbreviate? That we do is manifest enough if one glances over a newspaper where throngs of amputated words are to be seen, not only in advertisements, but, as well, in columns of news. We recognize in Jap., ad., tel. con., Rt. Rev. J. C. Smith, D. D., etc., a larger something for which these hieroglyphics stand. The speech of our young people is a tissue of condensed syllables; Webster's Dictionary records over a thousand curtailed forms in common use. The tendency toward abbreviation is to be observed everywhere except in the lecture and in the sermon, though there are critics who desire it even there.

All that may be said in defense of abbreviation is that it saves space. We cherish, also, a delusion that it saves time, but is it really any easier to write @ for at? Is this, strictly speaking, an attenuated form? Our familiar correspondence is full of abridgments, spontaneous contractions that bring nothing but bewilderment to the reader who tries in vain to decipher them. Consider the serious student working with a new volume in which much time and space have been economized by the lavish use of abbreviation. He is constantly turning back to the table of abbreviations, trying to fix upon his mind the signification of the va

rious short-cuts used by the writer. Probably there is not a single page over which he does not pause, losing the thread of the argument, falling into confusion, simply because of this mania for brevity. "Brevity is the soul of wit," but we have assumed that brevity is the soul of writ.

In addition to the inconveniences that attend the use of abbreviation, there are two positive dangers. In the first place, it is to be feared that ignorance is fostered by it. Who can tell at a glance the difference between Litt. D. and L. H. D., or explain correctly the concealed origin of viz., or find language for 16mo? Cf. and sc. have been the confounders of many boys and girls at school. Have not intelligent persons searched the map of England for Hants, and searched in vain ? Are not Miss., Mass., Cinn., Pa., shameless concessions to those who dare not

ACCURATE BUT STILL LIVING

I have often had occasion to wonder where Anatole France could have been living when he made the remark: "What would we not give to see heaven and earth for a single minute with the eye of a fly? But this is prohibited." It may be prohibited in his part of the world, but it is not in mine. Would that it were, for ever since I added to the other bugbears, by which my education has worried along, the fear lest I should be inaccurate, I have been trying to see the universe with

the eye of a fly, and nearly every influence in my neighborhood has assisted me to such an extent that I can almost report, like the fly in Cock Robin, “I saw it die with my little eye.'

For several years now, accuracy has been my bugbear. I was not always thus. Time was when I was a full-throated creature with things to say, and I said them. I even think that I used to be moderately interesting and entertaining until the time came when I asked myself that profound question, "Is it right, is it even decent, in this sort of a world, to be interesting? Can you conscientiously, in a world where the scientist has suffered and proven the enormous difficulty of getting at the real truth about anything, have the heart to be interesting? If you confined yourself strictly to the truth, do you believe that you would have a baker's dozen to listen to you?"

Thus the scientific sinner enticed me, and I consented. Henceforth I tried to serve the world differently, but no one has ever thanked me for it, nor, to tell the truth, have I ever seen any particular reason why any one should. They admit that I am more accurate than I used to be, that is all. In the old days I had "a large Newfoundland dog way of handling matters," and approached things in a somewhat generous and bumbling manner, which, considering its inaccuracy, gave surprisingly large results. If a truth, or what seemed to be one, came my way, setting me all alive and joyful, I would out with it while the joy was still fresh, and never mind a few loose ends and mistakes. Of necessity there was much that could not be proven. That was usually the best part of it. But nowadays I lop off all this at the start, though secretly thanking Providence, in a loose, shamefaced, unscientific way, for those beautiful years in which I let myself go before I knew better. If any good large thought, more than a millimeter in diameter, comes swinging down toward me, and I find myself prompted to say a dozen noble and inspiring things about it, I now suppress my exuberance at

once by asking myself, "Would you dare utter those things if a psychologist should come into the room?" Certainly not, and I shrink all these things to an irreducible minimum.

Or if, later on, I run upon what seems some joyous significance in the natural world, and have proceeded a sentence or two, I see a biologist, or worse still, a professional "nature-lover" in the offing, bearing down upon me like a revenue cutter, and I make haste to destroy all evidence of the accursed thing, so that when he comes up I am even as he is.

My very being is becoming, I fear, like an evaporated apple. That the thing can be done has been well proven, and now that it has been proven that an apple can be evaporated, I feel like crying, "Let us back to the apple." If the world were becoming a desert trail, or humanity were all en route for a Frozen North, this reduction of everything to tablet form might be legitimate and proper, but are we in any such plight? I used to read in the school physiology that it was not sufficient that the stomach should receive only the essential juices or elements of food, but that it needed to be distended by much useless substance in order to properly extract those elements. For many years I made it my humble and joyful effort to live along that line. Somehow I seem to have been less living since I have come closer and closer to the sheer essence of nutrition, while there are times when under this state of things I do not much care whether I live or not.

But I foresee that I cannot go on as I am going, my respect for the university and the laboratory method notwithstanding. Moments of feeling like a spiritual millionaire are becoming more frequent with me, and some day I shall be able to hold myself in no longer, and with a lot of others I shall be giving myself away and shocking my new-found scientific friends with the amount I believe, whether I ought to or not.

How, then, shall I adjust my duties to accuracy with this unwieldy and glorious