Another object, which Government should have in view, is so to regulate its Licensing System as to restrain, if not to prevent, the adulteration of the liquor which will be drunk by the people, while at the same time it must not, in a frivolous and vexatious manner, hinder its subjects from procuring refreshments of any kind, at any reasonable time, and at any fitting place. There is another mode in which Government may indirectly favor and further one of the best and safest means of recreation. This is by making music one of the subjects for education in all Elementary Schools. It is almost impossible to overrate the effect upon the manners, the morals, and the enjoyments of the people, which may be produced by the encouragement of an art which especially lends itself to the best kind of social recreation. The great object in recreation is, that it should occupy time, and that it should be social. The recreation which is mainly chosen by the male part of the poorer classes, combines almost every possible disadvantage, as it is found mainly in the gin-palace. It is taken quickly: it is taken unsocially it is for the most part taken unwholesomely. That the existence of an entirely opposite state of things is not beyond the bounds of possibility, may be seen in many continental towns; where, in gardens not remote from these towns, there is music of an excellent kind, and where the townspeople may be seen, from the highest to the lowest, enjoying with their families the delights of music and of dancing; the time thus spent occupying a large portion of that leisure which is so dangerous when no means are provided for employing it. How different a state of things is that in which the British laboring man seeks a few brief moments of excitement, or forgetfulness, by repeated visits to some gaudy building, wherein provocatives to thirst are largely intermingled with the liquors that should assuage that very thirst. I need hardly add, that, on all occasions where there is any thing of a festive character in which government has a hand, it would be desirable to extend the means of partaking that festivity to the largest concourse of people that can be provided for. Here I venture to make a suggestion which may at first appear to be un By fairly included in a work upon Government, using the word Government in the ordinary sense. I have, however, the right to extend that sense, as in the former part of my work I was careful not to limit that word to its ordinary signification. Government I did not mean only the twelve or thirteen over-worked persons who form the Cabinet, and whose chief occupation is to bring in Bills, which at first are as trim and neat as a regiment upon parade, but which, when developed into Acts, present the appearance of the same regiment after a battle-much diminished in number, and with many of the survivors wounded, wayworn, and largely bespattered with mud. In a free State the really governing people are very numerAs regards, however, the suggestion I am about to make, I mean to allude to those only who are the possessors of land, and who have the means to sustain that position adequately. ous. Many of these persons are undoubtedly doing what they can to raise those who are dependent upon them into a higher and better sphere of being. The suggestion I would make is, that these governing persons should also provide for the recreation of the poorer classes around them; and there is one way of effecting this good object, which in my opinion would be found to have the best results. I would have them erect in, or near, the village or the town which is contiguous to, or central in, their estates, a building suitable for purposes of recreation. According to my fancy it should be a square, or oblong, like the Cloth Hall in Leeds in miniature, or like the cloisters attached to some cathedral, having an open space in the centre, and covered shedding round it. This construction might be ever so roughly made, or rather might be made according to the means of the landholder. It would be well if over the whole, or any part of it, an awning could be stretched. As for an open green, you might as well, during many months of the year in our fickle climate, have a pond. At this very time that I am writing, at the end of the joyous month of May, there have been about three days in the month during which people could recreate themselves in the open air. Jean Paul is not far wrong when, in reference to certain parts of the globe, he says that mankind are after all but "water-insects" (Wasserinsecten.) which excellence is recognized. And nothing so much raises a youth's self-respect, from which good conduct naturally flows, as its being acknowledged and proved that he can do any one thing very well. This proposal may seem to indicate a matter of but small advantage. But in reality the benefits to be gained from it are positively immense. Such a building as I have imagined would prove the best rival and most potent enemy to the public-. house or the gin-palace. It is very seldom Lastly—and this is a great point-we that you can correct a positive by a nega- are bringing education home to all the tive. You must introduce a new positive people. The next generation will, unto meet the old one if it is mischievous. doubtedly, be much better educated than Forbidding is of little effect, when com- the present one. They will assuredly depared with bidding to something else. A sire to show forth the fruits of that educavery remarkable example of what I mean tion. If you wish to localize cultivation, has been given of late years by the result you must furnish local means for so doing; of Mr. Phelps's management of Sadler's and though it may not appear a very Wells. That theatre, in which the acting direct or obvious way, a sure way of proof Shakspeare was revived, has, I am told, viding it may be found through recreation. proved very inimical to the public-houses Those who can sing well or dance well, in its vicinity; and has, in a quiet way, or talk well, or play music well, or draw been the means of suppressing drunken- well, will find opportunities for displaying ness in that neighborhood. their acquirements in recreation, and will not be so much disposed to hurry away into the vortex of the great centres of population, which are already far too much overcrowded. But this is not all. Innocent amusements bring with them inevitably much cultivation. In such a building as I have imagined, the village or town musicians would find a field for their exertions. The young people would see one another, not in the slinking way in which they do now in many rustic places, but openly under the eyes of their elders. At the dances that would take place in this building, good manners would infallibly be cultivated, and good dress, which is not a matter of slight importance, for I am told by those who have examined this subject carefully that it is almost an invariable fact that in factories and workshops the best-dressed girls-by which, of course, I do not mean the finest-dressed girls-are those whose conduct in all respects is also the best. Moreover, the women, young and old, of the district would have something to look forward to, and at present their life is, for the most part, a very down-trodden one. I need hardly mention that, for all athletic sports, this building-or, as I would rather call it, this inclosure—would be most serviceable. It is acknowledged that for the State, especially for such a State as that of Great Britain, in which there is so much employment necessarily of an unhealthy character, these athletic sports are very needful. I have, however, a reason of my own for valuing them very much, and that is that they give an opportunity for excelling in something to youths who have not the other gifts in If life is ever to be made comely and beautiful, it will be by bringing some of the arts and refinements (which at present are carried to a great height in the centres of population) to the more remote parts of the country, so that civilization may be spread more equally all over the world. My readers may smile at the large conclusions which have been brought out, in commenting upon the advantages to be derived from the innocent little constructions which I have imagined to be built upon many great estates. But we must have a beginning in all things; and it would probably astonish any persons, who may be inclined to adopt the proposed experiment, to see how many good results, which I have failed to indicate, would proceed from its adoption. One thing must always be remembered with respect to recreation; namely, that regularly recurrent pleasures are those which effectively recreate. It is a very good thing, no doubt, to have occasional whole holidays, and the British people are very much obliged to Sir John Lubbock for the recent act which bears his name, and for which we are entirely indebted to him. But whole holidays will not do that which I think governing persons may well consider to be an object for their carethat is, to provide the means whereby the laboring population may have constantly recurring opportunities for the development both of body and mind. The physical condition of the people should surely be a very important concern to the governing persons of all kinds. I never wish to depreciate the powers and influence of individual men; and, therefore, I readily admit that on many of the greatest occasions, even in what appear to be the crisis of a nation's fate, individual generalship, or statesmanship, may turn the scale to victory, or at least to safety. But, even in the absence of such generalship or statesmanship, I believe that that nation will ultimately hold its own in the world, and not be down-trodden, even by signal defeat, if its population is able to lift an amount of weight through a given space, equal to that which can be lifted by a like number of the population of any neighboring State-supposing, of course, that the nations in question are of any thing like equal magnitude. In a word, to put it less mathematically, that people will hold its own whose muscular force is not inferior to that of its neighbors. No nation, I believe, will continue to be great, in which there is a large and constant decrease of that muscular force. It may be thought that this is a very material way of looking at things, but we live in a very material world, and must think and act accordingly. Even Christendom has not yet attained to that spiritual condition wherein the bodily strength or weakness of the citizens of a State is unimportant to that State. For the future historian-and a far-off future I fear it may be, if he is to make his observations from a different standpoint to that which we occupy-it will be a most remarkable fact to comment upon, how little effect the Principles of Christianity have had upon the conduct of Christian States to one another. There may be thousands and tens of thousands of good Christians among the denizens of any country; but the State, though it may arrogate to itself religious fidelity of the highest kind, and claim for its Sovereign the titles of Most Christian King, or Defender of the Faith, remains essentially Pagan, if its religion is to be divined from its conduct to other States. It has, in general, no hesitation to be the first in carrying war into a neighboring country, upon the most ridiculous and frivolous pretexts; and, whichever State wins the day, such use is mostly made of victory as to insure a longing for revenge in the conquered country, and a perfect certainty of future retaliation. It is a strange, but a marked illustration of this fact, that a writer like myself, who abominates war, and who holds it to be one of the most stupid as well as one of the most wicked things in the world, must yet, in pleading for recreation, urge, as one of the main reasons why it should occupy the attention of Government and governing persons, that it tends to keep up athletic power in the people, and so to make us fully capable of sustaining an invasion, or of undertaking, probably on behalf of allies or colonists, a foreign war. [From Macmillan's Magazine. I. CLEMENCE. BY THE AUTHOR OF "PATTY." THE old Court-yard of the "Ours d'Or" is full of warm light, but it is not glowing August sunshine. The tall fuschias in green tubs which border the court are scarcely in leaf; there are no blossom-buds on the myrtles, though they have put out bright tender little leaves of expectation; the fountain sparkles, but the fish are not gamboling in the basin below-they are still housed safely in the glass globe in Clémence's parlor. The sun disports himself chiefly among the gueldres roses and lilacs, which atone just now for the shabby brown show they will make in autumn, by a perfect luxury of blossoms; snowy masses with exquisite green and gray shadows in between; lilac flowers, now rich, now delicate-always exquisite, both in hue and fragrance. It is almost May, and yet the keen March wind lingers so as to keep Eulalie the cook-there is no male chef at this old Flemish inn-mindful of her rheumatism, and unwilling to venture out of the warm shelter of her kitchen. Eulalie is a small spare woman, with a clever face and dark eyes; these are full of vexation as she stands beside a small table on one side of the kitchen, and strips the leaves from crisp young lettuce-plants. "It is insupportable," she grumbles, as she drops each leaf deftly into the shining brass pan of water at her feet. "Mam'selle Clémence goes beyond reason; if her sister, Madame Scherer, were to ask for the gown off Mam'selle's back she would send it her. She gave Madame Scherer a husband, though it almost broke her heart, and that is enough-too much; it is folly to go on pouring wine into a full bottle." Eulalie shrugs her shoulders and shreds off the lettuce-leaves faster than ever; she has a clever head and a warm heart, but her temper needs a safety-valve. Some time ago it had found this, when Madame de Vos-the mother of the landlord of the "Ours d'Or"-came self-invited to manage her son's household. Eulalie disliked the fat pink-faced dame from the beginning, first for the petty vexations which Madame de Vos had inflicted on her son's wife, Eulalie's own dear mistress, but chiefly for the unceremonious way in which she had installed herself at the " Ours d'Or" after her daughter-in-law's death. Eulalie had put on her war-paint at that time, and had felt compelled to keep her fighting weapons sharp and bright, and to say truth this process was in some way congenial to the skillful old woman. At that time had happened the great sorrow of Clémence de Vos. Her betrothed lover, Louis Scherer, had returned at the appointed time to claim her as his wife; but Clémence was absent, and the extreme beauty of her young sister Rosalie, and, as Eulalie always persisted in affirming, the manœuvres of Madame de Vos, so infatuated the young soldier, that Clémence voluntarily released him from his troth-plight, and he and Rosalie were married. But Clémence's father had been unable to forgive the wound inflicted on his beloved child, and, on Rosalie's wedding-day, madame her grandmother went back to live in her own house at Louvain. "Dame! what a happiness! what a relief!" Eulalie had said. "Mam'selle Clémence will now take the place that should always have been hers; and what an angel is Mam'selle Clémence!" It may be that the principle which urged the cook at the "Ours d'Or" so con There is a slight sound, and Eulalie looks up. A black-cloaked figure stands at the parlor door on the opposite side of the long, paved, arched-over entrance to the court-yard of the "Ours d'Or." Eulalie comes forward to the door of her kitchen, which is on the opposite side of the paved entrance way. "Mam'selle Clémence," she says, shrilly. "Yes, yes, Eulalie, I am coming;" the voice is so sweet that one is impatient to see the face which goes with it, but Clémence has turned back to listen to her father's last words. Auguste de Vos is a stout, florid Belgian, but he has dark hair and an intelligent face. He looks younger, and happier too, since he has been left to live alone with Clémence; he has the same blessed freedom from domestic worry that he enjoyed while his wife lived. Clémence has a dexterous way of keeping the bright side of life turned towards her father; even Eulalie's querulousness rarely reaches him. Auguste de Vos has never been a demonstrative man; but ever since the evening when Rosalie's marriage was decided, there has been a graver tenderness in his manner to his eldest daughter, a something not to be painted in words, but which often kindles in Clémence that strange emotion which brings a sob and a smile together. "Well, my child," Auguste de Vos is saying, "if thou sayest it is needful, I yield; but remember always that Rosalie has three maids and only two children: it is to me inconceivable that after all her grandmother has done for her, and for Louis Scherer too, they should not contrive to nurse my mother in her sickness without thy help." Clémence smiles: she has a sweet, pensive face, but her dark eyes light up at this smile, and sparkle brightly through the long black lashes. "Poor Rosalie! Thou art severe, my father; but it is almost the first request she has made me since her marriage, and it seems a beginning, and-" here Clémence falters and blushes, and then looks frankly into her father's eyes-he is father and mother both to her now-" only thou knowest well Rosalie has never been the same to me since she went away." Her father's eyes are full of wistful tenderness. "The fault is none of thy making, Clémence." "I must go to Eulalie;" she nods and leaves him. "Poor Rosalie," she says to herself, "she is not yet forgiven." "Hein," Eulalie puts her head on one side like a pugnacious sparrow as Clémence steps into the kitchen," fine doings, indeed; and it is true then, Mam'selle, that you go to-morrow to Bruges to nurse the bonnemaman who never was once good to you ?" Hush, Eulalie, you may not so speak of my grandmother," Clémence's gray eyes look almost severe. Eulalie turns to the table behind her. "I speak as I find, Mam'selle. Duty is duty everywhere; and to me, Mam'selle, Monsieur is of more value than Madame his mother, and he will be sad without you; and she-well she would have perhaps a little neglect, what will you? Madame Scherer is young, and she loves her ease; but she will be obliged to take care of Madame de Vos, if you do not go, Mam'selle Clémence." "Nevertheless I am going." Clémence speaks decidedly, and her bright smile quiets Eulalie. "Now I want some broth, a cold chicken, if you can spare me one, and some eggs. I am going to see your friend, the wife of the sacristan of St. Michel." Eulalie grunts, but she produces the food demanded, and carefully stows it away in a basket. "It is all very well," she says; "I don't grudge the food and drink which Mam'selle gives, but I ask myself, when Mam'selle Clémence marries and goes away-and she will marry some day, I suppose-ah! but the man will be lucky!-what will then happen to the wife of the sacristan and all the other sick folk of our parish? She has used them to these dainties; ma foi! it will be harder to give them up altogether than to go without them now." Louis Scherer left the army on his marriage; he has an appointment at Bruges, and Rosalie found housekeeping so little to her liking, that after the first few months she persuaded her husband to let Madame de Vos live with them. For a time this arrangement had been successful. Madame doted on the young couple, managed the servants, and contributed liberally to household expenses; but when babies came-two with only a year's interval between-strife arose about their management, and the discord in his household disgusted Louis Scherer. It was at his instigation that Rosalie had now written to ask Clémence to come and help to nurse Madame de Vos in her sick ness. II. Louis met his wife's sister at the railway station. Clémence had not seen him for more than a year: she thought he looked aged; his fair, handsome face was full of worry. They had met since the marriage, and all remembrance of the old relations had been effaced by the new, save it may be a certain self-complacency in the man in the society of the woman who had once so dearly loved him, and in the woman a certain blindness to faults which were visible to all other eyes; but then Clémence de Vos was indulgent to every one-to every one but herself. She asked after all the family, and then, "How is the Sour Marie ?" she asked. "Does Rosalie see her often ?" "Ma foi"-Louis twirled his pretty, soft mustaches: he was really handsome, though he looked too well aware of the fact-" Rosalie may, and she may not, see your aunt, the Soeur Marie; but she does not tell me. I have no special liking for religieuses, especially when they are no longer young or pretty; but here we are, Clémence, and there is your little goddaughter peeping out of the window." They had come up a by-street, which ended on the quay of one of the canals, bordered on this side by a closely planted line of poplar-trees. The newly opened leaves trembled in the warm sunshine reflected from the red high-gabled houses over the water-houses which went straight down to the canal edge, and seemed to bend forward so as to get a view of their own full-length reflections in the yellow water. Behind the houses rose the graceful tourelles of the Hôtel de Ville, and beyond, rising high above all the rest, was the beffroi. It was just three o'clock, and suddenly the carillon sounded out from the lofty tower, swelling with sweet throbs, |