completely identify himself with the creations of his imagination as to sink in them the consciousness of his own personality, must needs present a chain of characterization, as natural as it will be imposing and attractive. And if this be true of an author, with how much greater force must it not apply to an actor, who becomes at once the instrument or the interpreter of the dramatist, and whose business it is to represent faithfully all those emotions which have been allotted to the character that he impersonates? It is therefore not only necessary that the histrio act his part with all due intelligence, and with every attention to details in the matter of costume and other accessories; but he must actually feel the character-to lose himself so completely that, for the time present, he become in turn Othello, Macbeth, Romeo, or any other of those personages which his art calls upon him to assume. A characteristic anecdote, ably illustrating this fact, has lately been reported-on the authority of M. Jules Claretie-touching upon Salvini's conception of Othello. It appears that one evening the great tragedian was sorely pressed by a party of friends to give them as a recitation the last monologue of Othello. At length Whe consented, and after a few moments rose, and began in that fine resonant voice with which few members of his profession have been so gifted. But suddenly, and in the middle of a line, he paused, then, with a gesture significant of disappointment, exclaimed: No; it is impossible! I am not in the situation. I am not prepared for this supreme anguish. In order to render the frantic despair of Othello, I need to have passed through all his tortures. I need to have played the whole part. But to enter thus the soul of a character without having gradually penetrated into it-I cannot; it is impossible!" Salvini is moved by the associations of his part; and from the moment that he steps on the stage, he is no longer Salvini, but Othello, Lear, or any other of Shakespeare's masterpieces. It is jocularly said in Italy, that Salvini always carries in his pocket a free pardon, signed by Victor Emanuel, and countersigned by the Minister of Justice, in case when he plays Othello, of his smothering Desdemona in downright earnest. Another impassioned actor of the very highest class was the late Mr. Macready. "I have often watched him,' ," writes Mr. George Augustus Sala, from the flies before he went on, standing at the wing, apparently lashing himself into the proper frame of excitement needed for the particular part which he was playing, and muttering meanwhile in a seemingly incoherent manner to himself. But I have been assured that these utterances were by no means incoherent, and that thoroughly identi

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fying himself with the part, he unfeignedly believed himself, for the nonce to be Hamlet, Macbeth, or what not; and would hold the most passionate discourse with himself, touching the guilt of Claudius, the gray hairs of Duncan, and the potency, gravity, and reverence of the Signory of Venice, his very noble and approved good masters.' On one occasion, immediately after the curtain had been rung up on the first act of Macbeth, an unlucky actor in the company chanced to stumble upon the tragedian during his passionate preparations, the consequence of which was that Macready quite unwittingly, dealt him a blow on the hand with such force that the blood flowed forth; and as at that instant the victim was to make his entrance on the scene, he impersonated the "bleeding soldier" only too naturally, and much to the astonishment of the other actors. Talma, also, was so realistic an actor, that, in order to work up his grand bursts of passion, he would seize upon any unfortunate super whom he came upon behind the scenes, and shake him until he himself had become breathless, and the man frightened beyond all control at his assumed violence. Nevertheless, the peculiarities both of Macready and Talma were only in accordance with that precedent furnished in ancient history, though with less disastrous results. cording to Plutarch, Esop, the Roman actor,

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so interested himself in the characters he un

dertook, that one day when he played Atreus, he, in that scene where it falls to his lot to consider how he might best destroy the tyrant Thyestes, worked himself up into such a pitch of ungovernable rage that he struck one of the minor performers with his sceptre and laid him dead at his feet.-Chambers's Journal.

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A NEW FORM OF DINNER.-" Somebody ought to introduce into England," says the Pall Mall Gazette, a form of entertainment which has, we are told, been for some time in vogue in Paris-dîners en tête. At these dinnersand the rule has been sometimes extended to dances-all the guests are bound to appear with their heads attired in some fancy costume. An old gentleman goes as a Doge of Venice or a Pope, a young lady as Marie Antoinette or an Incroyable. The choice of both ladies and gentlemen is unlimited, and as the disguise is of the head alone the great expense of a complete fancy dress is avoided, while at the same time the opportunity for accurate imitation of antique types is increased through the much greater facility offered by prints and paintings which so often give only the head and bust. We commend the novelty to the country houses. In Paris the function is notified to the guests by the addition of the words 'en tête' to the card of invitation."

A SCULPTOR'S STUDIO.-It is large-thirtyfive feet in length--and the sloping roof is high; but being somewhat full, it scarcely gives the idea of its size. Here, too, the walls are tinted the same Pompeian red. But the principal first impression is that here the workshop element has been minimized until it may be said to be eliminated. Mr. Thornycroft says that he does not like the room in which the greater part of his life is spent to be comfortless. Certainly few sculptors' studios are so pretty, so cosey. There is no dirt, no untidiness, no parade of the utensils of his craft. The very water-pot that holds the brush with which, as with a holy-water asperge, the sculptor must sprinkle his clay in order to keep it moist, is inclosed in a brass pot of quaint design, being in fact a Breton milk-pail. It is to be seen on the rug beside the modelling stand, which is surmounted by the clay sketch of a monument to a dead father and son to be erected in Liverpool for the widowed mother. Culture, true culture, not its tea-cup semblance, pervades the very air of the room. For while paintings, sketches, photographs line the walls, a piano occupies the place of honor, and a violoncello rests against the jamb. Then there is a bookcase, and books are carelessly strewn around --sure tokens that they are kept to be read, not merely looked at. And examining them we shall see that poetry, and poetry of the best and highest kind, predominates. Upon the floor is spread a matting, with here and there an Oriental rug, forming patches of pleasant color; another notable feature in Mr. Thornycroft, and rare in a sculptor, being his fine eye for color. The quaint fireplace, designed by the artist, incloses a hearth with Early English dogs. And, as is fitting, and as it has been since all ages, that the hearthstone be the guardian of whatever is sacred to the houseowner, so here Mr. Thornycroft has accumulated his Penates. On each side the lintel hang photographs of portions of the Elgin marbles, which Mr. Thornycroft recognizes as his chief masters in his art; while over the centre is a cast of one of the tigers in Professor Halnnel's Bacchic Procession," so unfortunately destroyed in the fire that consumed the Dresden Theatre. Over the fireplace itself, beside two Doulton vases, are Mr. Thornycroft's favorite antiques, which he places here, as he expresses it, to keep his eyes fresh, and which enables him, when he lifts them from his work, see how bad it is" as contrasted with these masterpieces. It is the period of the Elgin marbles, the highest, purest type of Greek art, that Mr. Thornycroft loves best; and it is characteristic of his sense, his taste, his freedom from conventionality, that the specimens he had chosen to be his Penates are not those that one would, perhaps,, look to see upon his fireplace.

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True, a large photograph of the Venus of Milo surmounts the whole altar, as it may be justly called; but then it would, indeed, be rank heresy in any artist to exclude from his workroom the dearest of the antiques. Beneath the Aphrodité stands a copy of the fine dignified bust known as the Oxford Fragment, probably a Demeter. And truly it is fitting that the Earth Mother should preside over the hearthstone of one of her healthy sons. On her one hand is a torso of the Cyrenian Aphrodité, on the other the so-called "Hera" of Kensington, with her placid, archaic, curiously thoughful beauty. The other busts and statuettes all testify to the sculptor's sympathy with early Greek art.-Magazine of Art.

ENGLAND AND EGYPT.-M. Gabriel Charmes, in an article on the Egyptian Question which he contributes to the Journal des Débats, maintains that, whether the British troops be withdrawn or not, England will none the less retain her influence on the banks of the Nile. Far more important, however, is his confession that France has lost all the influence which she possessed in Egypt. Since her occupation of the country England has not met with a single obstacle that she has found it difficult to surmount. She conquered Egypt "in a quarter of an hour," and everyone immediately bent to her will. "It is perhaps as well," continues M. Charmes, "that this fact should be borne in mind here. At the moment of the opening of the session, it is right that attention should once more be drawn to the unpardonable weakness which led us to surrender to England a country which is the key of the seas and the necessary foundation of every colonial empire. This was the greatest and the most fatal of the political blunders committed in our foreign policy since our disasters in 1870. It has been said, and with reason, that those who were responsible for it led us to a Mediterranean Sedan. The expression is not too strong. All the misfortunes that have befallen us since have been the result of this grave error. Our rupture with England and our abandonment of Egypt have left us isolated in Europe, and have given us throughout the whole world such a character for pusillanimity that no one has hesitated to brave us. Hence the complications with which we are now contending in Tonquin, Tunis, Madagascar, and on the Congo. They have, doubtless, been aggravated by the inconsiderate rashness which we have thought it necessary to display in order to clear ourselves of our reputation for weakness, which, however, we cannot efface. But is not this very temerity to be laid at the door of those who have rendered it possible as a natural reaction against their forgetfulness of the interests and greatness of France ?"

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MR. LESLIE STEPHEN, at the conclusion of his Science of Ethics," a work to which I desire to pay my sincere though tardy homage,* admits, with his usual candor, that one great difficulty remains not only unsolved but in¡soluble. There is, he says, "no absolute coincidence between virtue and happiness. I cannot prove that it is always prudent to act rightly or that it

The bulk of the book consists of moral analysis which is almost equally valuable on any hypothesis as to the Basis of Ethics. With regard to this part, I would only venture to suggest that a distinction should be drawn between the love of speculative truth and practical veracity. Practical veracity is a part of justice. The duty of telling a man the truth is measured by his right to be told it. He has no right to be told it when it would light him to crime. He has a right not to be told it

when it would kill him with grief. Martyrdom implies a divine revelation or something equivalent to it: it is loyalty to God.

NEW SERIES.-VOL. XXXIX., No. 2

Old Series complete in 63 vols.

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is always happiest to be virtuous." another passage he avows that in accepting the Altruist theory he accepts, as inseparable from it, the conclusion that “ the path of duty does not coincide with the path of happiness ;" and he compares the attempt to establish an absolute coincidence to an attempt to square the circle or discover perpetual motion. In another passage he puts the same thing in a concrete form. "The virtuous men," he says, be the very salt of the earth, and yet the discharge of a function socially necessary may involve their own misery." A great moral and religious teacher," he has often been a martyr, and we adds, are certainly not entitled to assume. either that he was a fool for his pains or on the other hand that the highest conceivable degree of virtue can make martyrdom agreeable." We may doubt, in his opinion, whether it answers to be

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a moral hero. "In a gross society, where the temperate man is an object of ridicule and necessarily cut off from participation in the ordinary pleasures of life, he may find his moral squeamishness conducive to misery; the just and honorable man is made miserable in a corrupt society where the social combinations are simply bands of thieves, and his high spirit only awakens hatred; and the benevolent is tortured in proportion to the strength of his sympathies in a society where they meet with no return, and where he has to witness cruelty triumphant and mercy ridiculed as weakness. So that not only are men exposed to misery by reason of their superiority, but every reformer who breaks with the world, though for the world's good, must naturally expect much pain and must be often tempted to think that peace and harmony are worth buying, even at the price of condoning evil." "Be good if you would be happy' seems to be the verdict even of worldly prudence; but it adds, in an emphatic aside, Be not too good.'" Of a moral hero it is said, that it may be true both that a less honorable man would have had a happier life, and that a temporary fall below the highest strain of heroism would have secured for him a greater chance of happiness. Had he given way, he might have made the discovery-not a very rare one-that remorse is among the passions most easily lived down. Mr. Stephen fully recognizes the existence of men capable of intense pleasure from purely sensual gratification, and incapable of really enjoying any of the pleasures which imply public spirit, or private affection, or vivid imagination;" and he confesses that with regard to such men the moralist has no leverage whatever. The physician has leverage; so has the policeman; but it is possible, as Mr. Stephen would probably admit, to indulge not only covetousness but lust at great cost to others without injury to your own health, and without falling into the clutches of the law.

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The inference which I (though not Mr. Stephen) should draw from these frank avowals is that it is impossible to construct a rule for individual conduct, or for the direction of life, by mere in

spection of the phenomena of Evolution without some conception of the Estate and Destiny of Man. In what hands are we-in those of a Father, in those of a power indifferent to the welfare of Humanity, or in those of a Blind Fateis a question which, let the devotees of physical science in the intoxicating rush of physical discovery say or imagine what they will, must surely have the most practical and abiding, as well as the highest, interest for man. The ship of life is not, nor is it likely ever to be made, so comfortable that the passengers will be content to float along in it without asking for what port they are bound. It is true that in the ordinary actions of life we do not think definitely of the end of our being; we eat that we may live, we work that we may eat, we sleep that we may be refreshed and go forth again to our labor until the evening; we do what the pressure of domestic or social necessity requires, and avoid breaking our heads against the law as we avoid breaking them against the wall. China and Japan, in short, exist. But there are extraordinary actions in which we must think of the end of our being, and stake happiness on the truth of our conception of it; we must think of it in those moments of reflection to which man is liable though apes are not; and our view of it will determine our aim in the promotion of character and in the general disposition of our lives; while in disaster and bereavement, especially when we lay in the grave those whom we have loved, we can hardly help asking whether we ought to sorrow as those who have no comfort except the conservation of matter. extraordinary actions the thought will be present to the mind of all of us; it will be habitually present to the minds of extraordinary men, those men upon whose efforts human progress most depends. Mr. Stephen founds everything upon the social tissue; that phrase is, one might almost say, the sum of his philosophy. Taken metaporically it is a very good phrase, and conveys most important truth. Taken literally, I cannot help thinking, it conveys, mixed with the truth, a

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serious error. A

tissue is not made up of personalities; no cell of a tissue ever retires into itself, conceives in mental solitude high de

signs, or deliberately sets itself against the other cells in the cause of a grand tissue reform. Can a single great benefactor of our race be named who was not, upheld in his struggle with difficulties by a belief in something beyond sense and the domain of what is called science, whether he did or did not belong to any church or profess any definite creed? Comte, if he was a great benefactor, had his religion, and the language of his disciples is spiritual in the highest degree. Napoleon, no doubt, tells us that he deliberately excluded from his mind all thoughts about God or a hereafter, and that had he not done this he could not have achieved great things. Of the great things which he unquestionably did achieve his Agnosticism was not less unquestionably the condition. But of the great things which the Antonines and other Roman Stoics achieved, the condition was unquestionably the constant presence of the thoughts which Napoleon excluded. It was not a definite religious belief, but it was a belief in a Power of Righteousness and in a moral end of our being.

Can the question of our Destiny be prevented from forcing itself upon our minds? If it cannot, is it possible, without a satisfactory solution of that question, to attain the happiness to happiness to which it must be the aim of any science or system concerned with human action to light mankind? A beast may graze happily from day to day, because, so far as we can see, it has no idea of death. But man has an idea of death, and one which must grow more vivid and inportunate as he draws nearer to the bourne. A captive may be in high health both of body and mind, and well fed, but he can hardly be called happy if he knows that in a few days he will be hanged. It is childish to bid us forget that which is always impending over us and is ever before our eyes; that for which, in the conduct of our worldly affairs, we must always be making provision. Can a man when he buries his wife or child shut out of his mind the idea of death? Even the enjoyments in which the thought of annihilation is to be drowned, the more intellectual they become, bring, mingled with their sweetness, more of the bitterness which

springs from a sense of perishableness and imperfection, so that the advance of civilization is likely itself to defeat the counsels of the philosophy which bids us fix our minds on life and not on death. The highest of our joys is affection; and the more intense affection becomes the more bitter will be the reflection that, if this world is all, love must die.

A pure Altruist might face all difficulties with his feet firmly planted on the Altruistic theory. But is it possible to believe in the existence of pure Altruism, that sort of Altruism which alone can render martyrdom reasonable, as Mr. Stephen affirms it to be? Can my pleasure ever be really your pleasure, or my pain your pain? Is not. this as impossible as that my thoughts or emotions should be yours? Social pleasure, of course, we can understand; a Christmas dinner-party is a familiar instance of it; but while all the members of the party contribute to the sum of enjoyment and the cheerfulness is reciprocal, the pleasure of each member is as much his own and not that of any other member as is the pleasure of an Alexander Selkirk eating his solitary meal on the desert island. The same theory is true conversely of social pains. Yet heroic self-sacrifice can surely be reconciled with reason only by showing that the happiness, to save which the hero gives his life, is in some way actually his own. If the notion that selfsacrifice pays is a tribal illusion, though the illusion may be useful to the tribe, it clearly cannot be too soon dispelled so far as regards the personal interest of those who have any propensity to selfsacrifice. It is perfectly true that Christianity is egoistic. The Christian is bidden to lose his life, but only that he may save it. The self which he sacrifices is the lower and transitory self, and he sacrifices it to the higher and more permanent. Paul merely uses a rhetorical hyperbole when he says that he is willing to be accursed for the sake of his brethren. It is true that Christianity points to a union in Christ which would ultimately, as it were, remove the barrier of individuality and make happiness actually common. This may be a dream, as it certainly is a mystery; the Agnostics would of course say that it was the