5

its dozen correspondents all working on of money in obtaining the very poor re-
their own account in different spheres, sult of announcing some piece of news
gives excellent results. It is difficult for five minutes before any other paper, with
one and the same man to deal satisfactorily the accompaniment of innumerable print-
with the many different subjects and ers' errors, wrong punctuation, and mis-
events which present themselves in the takes in the proper names. On the other
course of the Parisian year. The corre- hand, papers like the Tribune, the Times,
spondent, who may be very strong and the Sun, and the Evening Post of New
well informed on politics or horse-racing, York, to say nothing of the leading jour-
will be at a loss when he comes to write nals of Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago,
about the pictures in the Salon. Such, I San Francisco, and other great centres of
presume, was the condition of that Paris the New World, devote much attention to
correspondent of the Times who a few French correspondence, and some of them
years ago spoke of Corot as a "historical publish most interesting and varied stud-
painter," and had the good sense not to ies of French life and manners, and clever
correct his error. Furthermore, the Paris records of the French literary and artistic
correspondent of the London papers is movements. The American has fewer
constantly forgetting that he is writing prejudices against foreigners than we En-
about Parisians that is to say, about glish; he "goes in for" progress and civ-
men of a different race, of different edu-ilization in artless good earnest, and he is
cation, of different morality, of different naturally curious to know all about the
aspirations, of differently constituted efforts and successes of other nations in
minds and bodies, from those of his own the same direction. Provided it be ad.
countrymen. He rarely gives his readers
a reasoned and impartial presentation of
events, set forth and explained in accord-
ance with the national humor. He is fond
of bringing into relief what he calls "the
French character" of incidents or per-
sons. There is, it seems to me, in the
greater part of the Paris correspondence
of the London papers a continuous, and
of course unconscious, misrepresentation
of the French. The study of French so-
cial life, of French popular thought, of
the practical and intellectual life of the
whole nation, are neglected, or touched
upon only very rarely or inadequately.

But unless one enters more or less into
these matters, how can one intelligently
study the great French republican evolu-
tion whose centenary is approaching?

The answers to all these strictures are
obvious. A newspaper, it will be said, is
a commercial undertaking; you cannot
force a quart of liquid into a pint bottle;
advertisements are constantly crowding
out reading matter; papers which appeal
to an immense public do not need to aim
at literary excellence; the general reader
does not care about studying foreigners
and their life; the great thing is news
and telegrams. The Americans seem to
me to take a more liberal and a more civ.
ilized view of journalism than this, and
certainly in the matter of French life the
American public is informed far more
completely and variously than the En-
glish. I do not refer to the achievements
of the New York Herald, which is pro-
verbially the worst written paper in the
world, and which spends immense sums

mitted that progress and civilization are desirable ends, the mental attitude of the Americans with regard to the French sister republic is one which some of our London editors might perhaps imitate, with advantage to themselves and profit to their readers. THEODORE Child.

From Blackwood's Magazine. FORTUNE'S WHEEL. CHAPTER XVII.

MORAY MAKES UP A SHOOTING PARTY.

IT is a ridiculous arrangement which keeps London society simmering in double-baked bricks and smoking mortar down to the very dregs of the dog-days. The lords and the ladies of the loveliest scenery in the three kingdoms, deliberately prefer the dull prose of "society" to the poetry of nature, and leave the freshness of the fields and the fragrance of the flowers for confinement behind the prison bars of their basement areas. Among caviare and curries, and other acquired tastes, surely none is more capriciously extravagant than that of inhaling the noxious gases of the town, when the good of the land of England, to say nothing of the Continent, lies before them. To turn day into night in crushes, with the thermometer at 85°, making the digestion of dyspeptic dinners an impossibility; to tempt the overjaded appetite with truffled pâtés and plovers' eggs and champagne, when they should be sweetly locked in

the embraces of Morpheus; to waken | lightful by way of contrast to the purgafrom weariness to the drudgery of the in- tory of Pall Mall. And if that be the evitable round, for to-morrow is as yes- experience of the hardened votaries of terday and as many days before it, it is all a matter of taste and fashion, of course; but were they condemned to the life they are pleased to lead voluntarily, the lot of convicted criminals might seem enviable by comparison. These at least have a chance of getting into condition on the treadmill; and after the jail delivery they come out with the satisfaction of having economized their constitutions, in place of having drawn heavy drafts upon them. Yet it is almost pitiful to see how natural sensibilities survive in spite of the demoralization that is consecrated by tradition. A blighted clematis or blackened ivy trails its tendrils sadly round the dining-room windows; and the millionaire, self-banished from his gardens, gives a florist carte blanche to renew the bloom in the flower-boxes in the windows. Those who have Edens of their own within easy reach, go for the daily drive or ride by the Serpentine, and gladden their eyes with the beds of Park Lane, which are the natural delight of the London destitute. But there is good in everything, as Shakespeare remarked; and it is an ill wind that blows good to no one. London tradesmen grow rich in spite of the competition of the co-operative stores; and fashionable physicians fatten on the mal adies of their fellow-mortals.

fashion, who are lulled to sleep by the rattle of the wheels, and try to see reflections of their heaven in the glare of the gas-lamps, how much more must it be the case with those who are caught up in the fashionable whirl, chiefly because they are able to afford its dissipations! Had it not been for the sake of his daughter, Moray would never have spent more than a week or two in London. The house in Eaton Place, which he was bound to inhabit, was an incubus that often lay heavy on him. As for Grace, she was young and fond of gaiety; she had been followed and flattered by compliments, paid gracefully or clumsily; and she had made sundry conquests, more or less serious, which she estimated pretty much at their value, but which, nevertheless, pleased her. She liked dancing; the mere excitement of the exercise freshened her up, however fagged she might be; and to the very end of the season, like a well-bred but overtasked hunter, she pricked her ears to the sound of the waltz, and went best pace over the floor, with elbow-room and a satisfactory partner. Nor did she look so pale as might have been expected, when she came down the next morning to breakfast. Yet even Grace, though in her first season, began to feel that she had enough of the pleasures of the town. She found herself envying her friends who had already gone off to the country. Notwithstanding her southern training, she was a true Highland lassie at heart: often the Serpentine would fade from before her eyes, giving place to the wild shores of Loch Rosque or Loch Conan; while, though dinners at Richmond or Greenwich were all very well, she would have given the views from the Terrace or the Trafalgar for a glimpse of Ben More or Funachan. The Morays had stayed on in town longer than they had intended. Moray, who always did with all his might all that his hand designed to do, declared that he had work in east London which must be disposed of, before he could leave with an easy mind.

We do not deny that there are bellwethers to lead the flock, who are never really happy anywhere out of London. We know that the disreputable old Duke of Queensberry, who loved society, probably because he did not care to be alone with his conscience, declared that it was the best place to live in, in the season or out of it, because there were always more people in it than anywhere else; nor can we imagine a George Selwyn making him self happy in Gloucestershire, or a Hor ace Walpole in Norfolk. But as a rule, in most habitués of Mayfair and St. James's, there is still so much of the healthy human instinct, that they welcome the day of their release from the grimy bondage they impose on themselves. Nay, they may argue with much philo- But at last the day of their departure sophical truth, that they evolve good out had come, though not before the second of evil, and pleasures from previous suf-week of August. It is hard to say which fering. As the wise man who is setting his face towards the Riviera in the winter, will wait till our frosts and fogs have made him thoroughly miserable here; so the Alps or the Highlands, even the dulness of the German baths, will seem de

of the two had looked forward with more enjoyment to their return to the hills. Moray's original intention and desire had been to have his daughter all to himself for a week or two; but accidents, or rather his natural hospitality, had been

"You know I don't much care about shooting; and if you want to fill the bags, and figure creditably in the county papers on the twelfth, you had better let me postpone my visit. I shall always find the rocks and the river, the balmy air on fine days, and the storms sweeping down from Funachan; and you know that is what I like the best."

Be

too much for him. Had they gone north | his good opinion, that is to say, so far as
a little sooner, the tête-à tête might have the gifts that help a man forward are con-
been managed, but the delay had put it cerned. For since it had become an open
out of the question. The twelfth would secret everywhere that Leslie was the
be upon them in a day or two; Donald author of the much-admired volume of
had sent the most glowing account of the poems, his company had been greatly
grouse prospects; and it would be churl- courted, and had he been the sort of man
ish and dog-in-the-mangerish to keep the to have his head turned, it should have
birds all to one's self. Moray felt bound been well-nigh twisted off his shoulders.
to ask Jack Venables for the grand day; Moreover, it was just as little of a secret
and Jack, who had been looking out for that the book had sold extraordinarily
the invitation as a matter of course, had well. Mudie, as well as Mr. Smith and
already, with his usual forethought, se- the minor purveyors for the public, had
cured himself leave of absence. Jack kept sending in fresh orders. With all
once asked, it became imperative to in- the practical sleight-of-hand of the circu-
clude Leslie in the party, not only because lating librarians, they could not supply
otherwise he might well have felt hurt, their customers sufficiently quick.
but on the principle of holding the balance sides that, "The Idylls of the North" was
even between the two. Leslie, in his civil- a book which, unlike the ephemeral
ity, had made a hesitating answer.
"trash" turned out by us, the profes-
sional spinners of fictions, commanded a
very considerable private sale. It was the
sort of gift-book to be interchanged by
sentimental young ladies who found the
masculine spirit it breathed act as a tonic
on their languishing temperaments.
was the kind of book that a sighing lover
might send to his mistress, with passages
marked that gave eloquent utterance to
the vague thoughts he could hardly hope to
express. Moray cared little for the pecu-
niary aspects of the matter- he did not
much believe in the possibility of making
a fortune by the pen-but he did think a
good deal of the celebrity. He admired
the genius he had scarcely cultivation
enough to appreciate, and confessed that
Leslie was treading a far loftier path than
that which as a dashing adventurer he
had walked over with tolerable success.
And if the sober Moray was so far im-
pressed, we may imagine that his more
romantic daughter had followed suit. She
said nothing to back up her father's press-
ing invitation; indeed she saw that it was
quite unnecessary. But Leslie, when he
looked up to consult her eyes, had no
longer any hesitation in assuring his un-
cle that he would gladly take him at his
word.

But neither Moray nor Grace would bear of that.

"Come to us you must and shall," said the former; "that is to say, unless you have any more enticing engagement. It would not be a family party without you; and a family party I mean to have, after those months of living at a loose end in London here. And as for shooting or not shooting, of course you can do as you please. You should be much more the master of Glenconan than I am, now that you have identified your genius with the place. You must come to be inspired for a second volume, that shall assure immortality to our sequestered glens. No doubt you will become a nuisance to us sooner or later; but that is one of the penalties of fame. We shall have troops of tourists trespassing on our solitudes, crowds of poetry-stricken pilgrims scaring the deer. I believe Donald Ross to be devoted to the Celtic bards; but after all, as they sang in strains which nobody understands, they are as little appreciated as Ossian by the southerns. When Donald realizes all you have done, and learns that you have pulled the string of a perpetual douchebath of trespassers, he will bear you a grudge you will never get over."

As may be gathered from that unusually prolix speech, Ralph Leslie had greatly advanced in his uncle's good opinion. In

It

What with rambling passages and wasted space, there was no great number of guest-chambers in the old house of Glenconan. But when once the tête-à-tête had been broken in upon by the presence of his two nephews, Moray decided to make the most of his accommodation. Two or three other men had been picked up for the opening of the shooting season, all of them keen sportsmen, and reported to be crack shots. There was Mr. Calverley Baker, member for Pontypool,

"It does delight my heart to listen to you, Moray. You are as good as a romantic volume of travel, sport, and adventure, with all the padding left out; or rather you are worth a whole library of volumes, when we can prevail on you by some chance to do yourself justice. There is nothing I should like much better, even at my time of life, than to take a passage in a P. and O. boat to Hong Kong, and to go coasting down the Malay Peninsula to see what that new company proposes doing in Sumatra, and whether it is worth while going in for investments. Unfortunately it is too late; Mrs. Winstanley would sue for a separation if I proposed it; and fancy the horrors of a voyage in the tropics if one were laid on the back by a fit of the gout. No, going is out of the question; so the next best thing is making the journey under the guidance of a man who is the personally conducting Cook of tropical tours in the fancy."

But with the Hon. Mrs. Winstanley's | had said once, in a moment of unwonted husband, it was a different affair alto- expansion on both sides, gether. Brought together originally by Jack Venables, the ex-diplomatist and the ex-merchant had struck up something very like a friendship. When Winstanley had reminded Moray of having met him long before at our minister's table in Pekin, the Highlander had rather abruptly changed the subject. As we know from his frank talk with Leslie, those early Eastern reminiscences of his were at once a pleasure and a pain. How gladly would he have lived the life over again in all senses, with the exhilarating stimulus of its perpetual excitement, and the mistakes that might be rectified or avoided! But though, with his regrets and its pleasures, it was perpetually in his mind, he did not care to talk of it with strangers, still less with a singularly well informed man like Winstanley, who might be supposed to know some of the secrets of the trade by which Moray had made his money. Nevertheless, it proved to be something like the case of Johnson's meeting with Foote at Fitzherbert's dinner-table: "I was resolved not to be pleased; ... but the dog was so very comical, that I was obliged to lay down my knife and fork and laugh it out. No, sir, he was irresistible." Winstanley was so pleasant a companion that Moray was pleased in spite of himself. And Moray came to draw to him at last, for the very reasons for which he had at first shunned him. Winstanley, though an honorable man according to his lights, was no fastidious moralist. He drew a line which, as a British diplomatist, he had never passed himself; but he ad-time, without being tied to hours or to mired the dash of the free-traders who had gone beyond, being fettered by no official responsibilities. He was far too well bred to persevere with disagreeable subjects in ordinary circumstances; and he could not help remarking that, when he touched on Oriental matters, Moray was ever ready to turn the talk. He may have attributed that reserve merely to the natural modesty of the man. At all events he would work round to the topic again and again, showing an interest in it that was somewhat out of keeping with his character. Had he appeared to have any ulterior motive, Moray would have shut up like an oyster, and let it be under- Really, on these by no means rare occastood very unmistakably that he would sions it would have been worth while to not be forced to speak. But Moray's put either eye or ear to the keyhole. penetration seldom deceived him, and he Winstanley would leave a business-like was persuaded that this man of wider ex- Board meeting in the city, or the whist periences than his own was veritably room at the Travellers, to pass the amused and interested. As Winstanley | latter hours of the night in a gilded mirage

LIVING AGE.

VOL. LI. 2642

That Moray believed to be the actual state of the case; and believing it, he became so ready to talk, that at last it was he who would sometimes lead the conversation in that direction. Winstanley, as a rule, was by no means addicted to letting anybody else indulge in monologues. He liked to hear himself: to do him justice, he was generally worth listening to, and nobody was more quickly bored. But he treated Moray as something between a melodramatic piece at the Porte St. Martin and a sensational romance by Jules Verne. He could come and take him up at any

cramped stalls in the pit; without even the trouble of holding a cumbersome book, or the necessity of denying himself his cigarette. So it came about, that very often of an evening the two men met in one of their smoking-rooms, for it was only coarse tobacco Winstanley objected to. The emotional side of Glenconan's Celtic nature would get uppermost: he would rise out of his lounging-chair and tramp across the room, half acting the scenes he so dramatically described; while his audience of one would keep him up to the mark by paying him the compliment of the most intelligent attention.