have progressed-except, of course, under conquest-throughout the history of man? As it seems to us, there are grounds for the belief that they have not, that the law of progress as regards the Negro is either non-existent or dependent upon this,—that he shall come in contact with some more progressive and more vigorous of the tribes of men. The Arab, who gives him Mahommedanism, improves him, and so does the Anglo-Saxon, who gives him Christianity; but left to himself, the Negro, to the human eye, remains where he was, or, as in Haiti, retrogrades. It is distinct retrogression, and not mere pause, for a race which had abandoned cannibalism to go back to it; and Vaudooism is at least as low as fetichism. We do not see in the Negro the operation of any self-generated law of progress, or in the Red Indian. It may be there; but where is the proof of it so strong that we should build on it a theory of the world? We wish to believe in permanent progress and selfgenerated progress, for that would make many theological difficulties much less; but as yet the facts seem to show that two or three families of men, notably the Aryan, Arab, and Mongol, have advanced up to a point-a point in the Aryans' case still susceptible of further progress-and have compelled or persuaded other families to advance with them; but that these others, if left alone, either do not advance, or advance by gradations so like those of glaciers that the historian cannot follow them, and that the observer has little right to be certain that they occur at all. There are black tribes in the Upper Valley of the Nile, described by the surgeon Werne, who certainly are no advance on the blameless Ethiopians of whom the Greeks knew, or thought they knew. It may be that conditions have been unfavorable; but then, that answer is an answer also to the general theory of progress, which ought to be possible under any conditions not fatal to human life. Besides, what are the conditions which make Tasmania, with its English climate, so unfavorable to progress, that while the Pict developed into a civilized man, the Tasmanian did not develop at all, but remained always a little higher than the monkey, till God

in his mercy ended the effort and his race?

It seems to us that modern cheeriness has slightly infected scientific men, and that in their eager hope to show that natural science presages a great future for man, they leave out of view some unpleasant facts which militate against their theory. They take time into their account at one point, and not at another. They will assert that the development of man from a monkey, or a reptile, or whatever is the latest theory about his ancestor, must have occupied cycles of centuries, and that cycles more passed before man could use tools or make fire; and then they expect, or write as if they expected, another enormous advance within some trumpery period marked in recorded history,for example, some two or three thousand years.

Why? Where is the evidence that the man of the Niger would not take a million or so of years before he, unassisted, attained to civilization, especially if he passed through that period of arrestment" which has certainly struck some races, and the duration of which is as uncertain as the duration of the world? Scientific men are conscious of the greatest of the marvels of the universe, the astounding way in which productive or creative energy is wasted, generations of creatures perishing uselessly before the creature to survive is born, and forests decaying that a few trees may live; but they seem unwilling to expect such waste of men. Why not? Is it because of the value of sentient beings in the economy of the universe? If humanity all perished tomorrow through some vast calamity, say, by the emission from all volcanic regions of some poisonous vapor-a thing believed to have occurred on a minute scale-the loss would be far less than the loss of babies which has occurred since the beginning of the world, and would be less, indeed, than the loss of stillborn children only. If Nature, or Law, or Providence can afford to waste human beings, even Aryan beings, at that prodigious rate, why should it not waste whole races of savages?

It has wasted two within quite a short period, the Caribs of Cuba, and the Tasmanians; and it is wasting two more quite visibly, the Australians of the

mainland and the Maories. Why should it not waste the remainder, leaving the world altogether to men of some higher type, or other type, as has happened with some animals? We do not see, we confess, though we wish to see, why, on the scientific theory of the universe, we should expect so much progress in savages, or why a Digger Indian, say, should gradually advance until he can count up to the numbers which astronomers are accustomed to use. Why should he not perish, or, if his vitality is strong, as is the case with some Negro tribes, why should he not survive as a kind of half-developed man? He has done so for ages in Australia, and why should the ages end? We can see a

hope for him in the Christian theory, which assigns to the Negro, as to Newton, two lives; but on the scientific one, we see nothing for him, if he remains. unconquered and of unmixed blood, except a doubtful probability of advance at a rate which the human mind can scarcely discern, and which, as a factor in history, it is useless even to consider. Judged by Christianity, the savage has a future; but judged by history and science, the best thing that could happen to him would be to disappear as rapidly as possible, and make room for the useful peoples, who two centuries hence will have scarcely room to breathe. Spectator.

THE love of romance is probably coeval with the existence of humanity. So far as we can follow the history of the world we find traces of it and its effects among every people, and those who are acquainted with the habits and ways of thought of savage races will know that it flourishes as strongly in the barbarian as in the cultured breast. In short, it is like the passions, an innate quality of mankind. In modern England this love is not by any means dying out, as must be clear, even to that class of our fellowcountrymen who, we are told, are interested in nothing but politics and religion. A writer in the Saturday Review computed not long ago that the yearly output of novels in this country is about eight hundred; and probably he was within the mark. It is to be presumed that all this enormous mass of fiction finds a market of some sort, or it would not be produced. Of course a large quantity of it is brought into the world at the expense of the writer, who guarantees or deposits his thirty or sixty pounds, which in the former case he is certainly called upon to pay, and in the latter he never sees again. But this deducted, a large residue remains, out of which a profit must be made by the publisher, or he would not publish it. Now, most of this crude mass of fiction is

Many people

worthless. If three-fourths of it were never put into print the world would scarcely lose a single valuable idea, aspiration, or amusement. are of opinion in their secret hearts that they could, if they thought it worth while to try, write a novel that would be very good indeed, and a large number of people carry this opinion into practice without scruple or remorse. But as a matter of fact, with the exception of perfect sculpture, really good romance writing is perhaps the most difficult art practised by the sons of men. It might even be maintained that none but a great man or woman can produce a really great work of fiction. But great men are rare, and great works are rarer still, because all great men do not write. If, however, a person is intellectually a head and shoulders above his or her fellows, that person is prima facie fit and able to write a good work. Even then he or she may not succeed, because, in addition to intellectual pre-eminence, a certain literary quality is necessary to the perfect flowering of the brain in books. books. Perhaps, therefore, the argument would stand better conversely. The writer who can produce a noble and lasting work of art is of necessity a great man, and one who, had fortune opened to him any of the doors that lead to ma

terial grandeur and to the busy pomp of power, would have shown that the imagination, the quick sympathy, the insight, the depth of mind, and the sense of order and proportion which went to constitute the writer would have equally constituted the statesman or the general. It is not, of course, argued that only great writers should produce books, because if this was so publishing as a trade would come to an end, and Mudie would be obliged to put up his shutters. Also there exists a large class of people who like to read, and to whom great books would scarcely appeal. Let us imagine the consternation of the ladies of England if they were suddenly forced to an exclusive fare of George Eliot and Thackeray! But it is argued that a large proportion of the fictional matter poured from the press into the market is superfluous, and serves no good purpose. On the contrary, it serves several distinctly bad ones. It lowers and vitiates the public taste, and it obscures the true ends of fiction. Also it brings the high and honorable profession of authorship into contempt and disrepute, for the general public, owing perhaps to the comparative poverty of literary men, has never yet quite made up its mind as to the status of their profession. Lastly, this over-production stops the sale of better work without profiting those who are responsible for it.

The publication of inferior fiction can, in short, be of no advantage to any one, except perhaps the proprietors of circulating libraries. To the author himself it must indeed be a source of nothing but misery, bitterness, and disappointment, for only those who have written one can know the amount of labor involved in the production of even a bad book. Still, the very fact that people can be found to write and publishers to publish to such an unlimited extent, shows clearly enough the enormous appetite of readers, who are prepared, like a diseased ostrich, to swallow stones, and even carrion, rather than not get their fill of novelties. More and more, as what we call culture spreads, do men and women crave to be taken out of themselves. More and more do they long to be brought face to face with Beauty, and stretch out their arms toward that vision of the Perfect, which we

The

only see in books and dreams. fact that we, in these latter days, have as it were macadamized all the roads of life does not make the world softer to the feet of those who travel through it. There are now royal roads to everything, lined with staring placards, whereon he who runs may learn the sweet uses of advertisement; but it is dusty work to follow them, and some may think that our ancestors on the whole found their voyaging a shadier and fresher business. However this may be, a weary public calls continually for books, new books to make them forget, to refresh them, to occupy minds jaded with the toil and emptiness and vexation of our competitive existence.

In some ways this demand is no doubt a healthy sign. The intellect of the world must be awakening when it thus cries aloud to be satisfied. Perhaps it is not a good thing to read nothing but three-volumed novels of an inferior order, but it, at any rate, shows the possession of a certain degree of intelligence. For there still exists among us a class of educated people, or rather of people who have had a certain sum of money spent upon their education, who are absolutely incapable of reading anything, and who never do read anything, except, perhaps, the reports of famous divorce cases and the spiciest paragraphs in Society papers. It is not their fault; they are very often good people enough. in their way; and as they go to church on Sundays, and pay their rates and taxes, the world has no right to complain of them. They are born without intellects, and with undeveloped souls, that is all, and on the whole they find themselves very comfortable in that condition. But this class is getting smaller, and all writers have cause to congratulate themselves on the fact, for the dead wall of its crass stupidity is a dreadful thing to face. Those, too, who begin by reading novels may end by reading Milton and Shakespeare. Day by day the mental area open to the operations of the English-speaking writer grows larger. At home the Board schools pour out their thousands every year, many of whom have acquired a taste for reading, which, when once it has been born, will, we may be sure, grow apace. Abroad the colonies are

filling up with English-speaking people, who, as they grow refined and find leisure to read, will make a considerable call upon the literature of their day. But by far the largest demand for books in the English tongue comes from America, with its reading population of some forty millions. Most of the books patronized by this enormous population are stolen from English authors, who, according to American law, are outcasts, unentitled to that protection to the work of their brains and the labor of their hands which is one of the foundations of common morality. Putting aside this copyright question, however (and, indeed, it is best left undiscussed), there may be noted in passing two curious results which are being brought about in America by this wholesale perusal of English books. The first of these is that the Americans are destroying their own literature, that cannot live in the face of the unfair competition to which it is subjected. It will be noticed that since piracy, to use the politer word, set in with its present severity, America has scarcely produced a writer of the first class-no one, for instance, who can be compared to Poe, or Hawthorne, or Longfellow. It is not, perhaps, too rash a prophecy to say that, if piracy continues, American literature proper will shortly be chiefly represented by the columns of a very enterprising daily press. The second result of the present state of affairs is that the whole of the American population, especially the younger portion of it, must be in course of thorough impregnation with English ideas and modes of thought as set forth by English writers. We all know the extraordinary effect books read in youth have upon the fresh and imaginative mind. It is not too much to say that many a man's whole life is influenced by some book read in his teens, the very title of which he may have forgotten. Consequently, it would be difficult to overrate the effect that must be from year to year produced upon the national character of America by the constant perusal of books born in England. For it must be remembered that for every reader that a writer of merit finds in England, he will find three in America.

In the face of this constant and ever

growing demand at home and abroad writers of romance must often find themselves questioning their inner consciousness as to what style of art it is best for them to adopt, not only with the view of pleasing their readers, but in the interests of art itself. There are several schools from which they may choose. For instance, there is that followed by the American novelists. These gentlemen, as we know, declare that there are no stories left to be told, and certainly, if it may be said without disrespect to a clever and laborious body of writers, their works go far toward supporting the statement. They have developed a new style of romance. Their heroines are things of silk and cambric, who soliloquize and dissect their petty feelings, and elaborately review the feeble promptings which serve them for passions. Their men-well, they are emasculated specimens of an overwrought age, and, with culture on their lips, and emptiness in their hearts, they dangle round the heroines till their three-volumed fate is accomplished. About their work is an atmosphere like that of the boudoir of a luxurious woman, faint and delicate, and suggesting the essence of white rose. How different is all this to the swiftness, and strength, and directness of the great English writers of the past. Why,

"The surge and thunder of the Odyssey" is not more widely separated from the tinkling of modern society verses, than the labored nothingness of this new American school of fiction from the giant life and vigor of Swift and Fielding, and Thackeray and Hawthorne. Perhaps, however, it is the art of the future, in which case we may hazard a shrewd guess that the literature of past ages will be more largely studied in days to come than it is at present.

Then, to go from Pole to Pole, there is the Naturalistic school, of which Zola is the high priest. Here things are all the other way. Here the chosen function of the writer is to

"Paint the mortal shame of nature with the living hues of art."

Here are no silks and satins to impede our vision of the flesh and blood beneath, and here the scent is patchouli.

Lewd, and bold, and bare, living for lust and lusting for this life and its good things, and naught beyond, the heroines of realism dance, with Bacchanalian revellings, across the astonished stage of literature. Whatever there is brutal in humanity and God knows that there is plenty-whatever there is that is carnal and filthy, is here brought into prominence, and thrust before the reader's eyes. But what becomes of the things that are pure and high-of the great aspirations and the lofty hopes and longings, which do, after all, play their part in our human economy, and which it is surely the duty of a writer to call attention to and nourish according to his gifts?

Certainly it is to be hoped that this naturalistic school of writing will never take firm root in England, for it is an accursed thing. It is impossible to help wondering if its followers ever reflect upon the mischief that they must do, and, reflecting, do not shrink from the responsibility. To look at the matter from one point of view only, Society has made a rule that for the benefit of the whole community individuals must keep their passions within certain fixed limits, and our social system is so arranged that any transgression of this rule produces mischief of one sort or another, if not actual ruin, to the transgressor. Especially is this so if she be a woman. Now, as it is, human nature is continually fretting against these artificial bounds, and especially among young people it requires considerable fortitude and self-restraint to keep the feet from wandering. We all know, too, how much this sort of indulgence depends upon the imagination, and we all know how easy it is for a powerful writer to excite it in that direction. Indeed, there could be nothing more easy to a writer of any strength and vision, especially if he spoke with an air of evil knowledge and intimate authority. There are probably several men in England at this moment who, if they turned their talents to this bad end, could equal, if not outdo, Zola himself, with results that would shortly show themselves in various ways among the population. Sexual passion is the most powerful lever with which to stir the mind of man, for it lies at the root of all things human; and it is im

possible to over-estimate the damage that could be worked by a single English or American writer of genius, if he grasped it with a will. But, say these writers, our aim is most moral; from Nana and her kith and kin may be gathered many a virtuous lesson and example." Possibly this is so, though as I write the words there rises in my mind a recollection of one or two French books where- -but most people have seen such books. Besides, it is not so much a question of the object of the school as of the fact that it continually, and in full and luscious detail, calls attention to erotic matters. Once start the average mind upon this subject, and it will go down the slope of itself. It is useless afterward to turn round and say that, although you cut loose the cords of decent reticence which bound the fancy, you intended that it should run uphill to the white heights of virtue. If the seed of eroticism is sown broadcast its fruit will be according to the nature of the soil it falls on, but fruit it must and will. And however virtuous may be the aims with which they are produced, the publications of the French Naturalistic school are such seed as was sown by that enemy who came in the night season.

In England, to come to the third great school of fiction, we have as yet little or nothing of all this. Here, on the other hand, we are at the mercy of the Young Person, and a dreadful nuisance most of us find her. The present writer is bound to admit that, speaking personally and with humility, he thinks it a little hard that all fiction should be judged by the test as to whether or no it is suitable reading for a girl of sixteen. There are plenty of people who write books for little girls in the schoolroom; let the little girls read them, and leave the works written for men and women to their elders. It may strike the reader as inconsistent, after the remarks made above, that a plea should now be advanced for greater freedom in English literary art. But French naturalism is one thing, and the unreal, namby-pamby nonsense with which the market is flooded here is quite another. Surely there is a middle path! Why do men hardly ever read a novel? Because, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, it