all we could say would be that he and we
mean different things by the word. When
we are invited to contemplate a specimen
of humanity at that nearness in which we
discern such special facts as that the
parents were advanced in life when the
son was born, and that they lost their
money through the treachery of an ac
quaintance, we are apt to feel that the
picture, being as individual as this, is not
individual enough. The present writer,
at least, confesses to feeling very often
that Wordsworth has lost one excel
lence, and not fully gained the other.

have your choice between being tedious, and exchanging the broad human view for one that takes cognizance of idiosyncrasies; and Wordsworth seems to us so much afraid of the last alternative, that he has constantly chosen the first. If you expand the fitting subject for the allusion of half a line into a theme of a poem, you will in either case eliminate the pathetic element from it.

The contrast between the two poets brings out the explanation of our poverty in this direction, and its connection with the democratic spirit of our age. It is a The contrast between the two, at any twofold connection. In the first place, all rate, is an instructive one for our purpose. literature feels the direct influence of the Wordsworth and Gray, from this point of political spirit of the age. It is true that view, may be considered as representing we should not expect the. influence of the nineteenth century and its predeces- democracy to be hostile to pathos; an sor. That Wordsworth was the greater attention to the needs of the poor and poet (though that is at least not a disqual- the obscure would appear, at first sight, ifying circumstance for this representa- its moral correlate, and this attention will tion), we leave out of the question; we be allowed to be a part of democracy by consider them only with regard to their its bitterest enemies.. Its very excellence contribution to this particular kind of lit-is that it attends only to what is human in erature. Wordsworth represents what is each of us, and demands no special claim best in modern democracy. He looks at of character and position before it will the poor not as the picturesque retainers, devote itself to remove grievances and the grateful dependents of their social mitigate suffering. Of course, this means superiors; he sees in them specimens of attending more to the needs of the lowly humanity interesting on their own ac than the exalted, for they are greater, and count, but he often fails to render his also they are the needs of the majority. picture of them interesting, because he This is a gain worth paying any price to specializes what is characteristic of the secure. But, as a matter of fact, we do class without specializing what is charac- pay a price to secure all excellence; and teristic of the individual. Where he aims the price we pay for a complete recogniat pathos, he sometimes drops into pro- tion of every need is, that we have somesaic triviality. We should have expected what lost the subtle power of emotion most of his readers to agree with us in which belongs to an indirect expression thus describing his "Alice Fell," if Mr. of all dumb need. Gray represents the Arnold had not included the verses in his eighteenth-century glance at the life of selection from the poet. The attempt to the poor, -a glance full of sympathy, describe in poetry such an incident as a but essentially a glance from afar. They child having her cloak caught in a coach- are still the dumb masses. They are cerwheel and replaced by a benevolent pas-tainly "our own flesh and blood," in the senger seems to us, we must say, in spite sense that they feel those sorrows and of this formidable vote on the opposite hopes which their poet feels also. side, a very good illustration of what pa- some fond breast the parting soul relies," thos is not. It might almost be set by in the palace as well as the cottage. But the side of the caricature of Wordsworth | they are hardly our own flesh and blood in the "Rejected Addresses" as a speci- in Mr. Gladstone's sense. They are not men of what is puerile when it should be beings whom we have any notion of callchildlike. This incident is too trivial for ing into council as to the sanitary or the most passing allusion, but the homely, educational arrangements which affect every day sorrows of the poor may be their welfare. From this point of view, most pathetic when shown us by the light the notion of helping them out of their of a far-off sympathy, transient as the dumbness, and endowing them with the gleam that fringes a flying shower, while franchise, must be allowed to strike the yet if hammered at through six or seven reader with horror. A neat, slated roof verses they become simply tedious. De- does not more disadvantageously replace scribe the incidents of village life at which what Gray carelessly calls a straw-built the "Elegy" glances from afar, and you shed, than the new view of the agricultu

"On

those equally misinterpret who insist on
labelling it as either good or bad. This
particular side of it seems to us to be re
gretted, but it is inseparably associated
with so much that is a cause of satisfac-
tion, that we would rather speak of its
dangers than its evils. It is intimately
associated with what Carlyle meant by
veracity. People are always mistaking
unreserve for truthfulness, and if there
were no connection between the two, they
could not be confused. Our contem-
porary literature is marked by instances
of this unreserve that would have been
inconceivable to our grandfathers; an
allusion to the legend of Godiva with
which we remember a specimen of it
being greeted many years ago, would
have lost all its point by this time, so
many have followed Godiva's example.
And the fashion is reflected in fiction.
Our greatest writer of fiction expresses
all she means. Hers is not the art that
calls up a train of suggestion with half a
word, we never feel in closing the volume
that she has roused a set of recollections
in which the original note is drowned;
her words linger in the memory with all
the strong characteristics of their own
individuality; but they stir no hidden
spring, surprising the reader with the
revelation of depths of emotion within,
perhaps forgotten, perhaps never fully
known.
And the words which convey
the writer's whole meaning, though they
may convey it perfectly and admirably,
can hardly, according to our understand-
ing of the word, convey what we mean by
pathos.

ral laborer replaces the old, with regard | part of that democratic influence on the to his place in poetry. Wordsworth does social code to which we have so often. not regard him from this point of view adverted, -a change which it seems to us exactly, but he is not so far from it as he is from the view of the predecessor with whom we contrast him. We feel that the Bastille has fallen, that the "Rights of Man" are in the air, that America has set an example of successful rebellion, that the first Reform Bill is on its way, that democracy, in short, is a growing power. The poor are dumb no longer; they can Occasionally be very tedious. We cannot look at a thing at the same time from at hand and from afar. The "humane century," as Mr. Frederic Harrison has called the eighteenth century, was just in time for its educated men to look at the poor with sympathy, and from afar. Earlier ages were too soon for the first; our own, and apparently all following ages, are too late for the last. The transition age supplies the elements of pathos. It may seem to be putting a strain upon the theory of political life thus to connect it with literature, and that homely, everyday life which supplies literature with its subjects. But those who care least for politics are moulded by politics. That perennial life in which each one of us partakes, makes up in permanence what it lacks in vividness; its hopes and fears become our hopes and fears to some extent, and even they who turn away from all political interest and try to lose themselves in the past, discover in the echoes to which they cannot deafen their ears something that by its very continuity forces them to fear it or admire it, somehow or other, to wish that this or that may come of it. However, it is not so much the direct influence of democratic feeling on literature that we would The loss of the pathetic element in trace, as its influence on literature through literature is great. With it, we lock the the medium of the social life. The ten- door of escape from unendurable comdency of our age to leave nothing unsaid passion, we forbid ourselves ever to conis impressed on our attention by every template pain without actually sharing it. newspaper and almost every book we We lose the medicine for many a sick open, and is forced on our belief by its mind, the spell that recalls without its record on contemporary legislation. Why bitterness many a bitter memory, the was obstruction never a part of the tac mediator that teaches us compassion tics of opposition until our own day? for many a hated foe. We lose that Not because people have suddenly dis- refuge from the pressure of individual covered, as a truth of which their fore- sorrow which is so little the discovery of fathers were ignorant, that while you a civilized age, that the singer whose insist on discussing a measure it cannot words most recall it is the earliest known pass into a law, nor because members of to our race, telling us how the obsequies Parliament are less high-minded than they were, but simply because the whole tone of general taste was in former days against such a method of procedure, and in our days is with it. The change is a

of a hero released the tears they did not cause. "His loss the plea, the griefs they mourned their own." Nor let it be thought that we speak of a merely sentimental loss; the thing we describe is,

continued through that month. January was colder still, the thermometer once or twice approaching - 50°, but in the early part of February a violent storm was accompanied by a remarkable rise of temperature (to+20°), and followed by some mild weather, since which the thermometer has again fallen, reaching — 39° a couple of days ago.

This, however, I am informed by the inhabitants, is the mildest winter that has been known for many years, and I have no doubt that a temperature of - 60° is not uncommon in severe winters.

after all, the literary reflection of a view
of the sorrows of life needed by all.
What we can never forget, we must at
times put far from us, and contemplate
through the softening medium of thoughts
that blend sorrow with hope. What
pathos is in literature that resignation is
in life, and if a democratic age fail to
recognize the excellence of this virtue, it
is because men forget that apart from it
no manly effort is possible, and for the
majority of lives, no sustained cheerful-
ness. They know it little who think it
the foe of energy; the truth is, that
energy loses half its efficacy in a nature It is strange how much less one feels
that knows nothing of resignation. Do this extreme cold than might be imagined.
we mean to urge that the literary quality | For the first day or two it was unpleasant,
thus nobly related should be made a con- but after that the system seemed to ac-
scious effort? All we have said shows commodate itself to it, so that a day when
that we hold such an attempt to be self- the temperature was anywhere above
defeating; at the first effort to attain -15° felt quite warm and pleasant. To-
pathos, it takes its inexorable flight. But day, for instance, I am writing with my
we do not think that the endeavor to window open, although the thermometer
avoid its foes is equally vain, and the is several degrees below zero, and there
most deadly among them, that love of the is a light breeze. There have been days,
ridiculous which is quite equally the foe it is true, when - with the thermometer
of all humor, is what, for our own part, near -30°, and a strong breeze blowing,
we feel among the most serious dangers filling the air with snowdrift like a dense
of a democratic age. While the inquest fog-outdoor exercise was most unpleas-
over a heart-rending calamity is inter- ant, probably resulting in a frozen face,
rupted with laughter at every grotesque but such days were not very numerous, a
or absurd expression in the account of strong wind, even from the cold quarter
the disaster, while the pages of Punch (the northwest), sending the temperature
are the chief study of the young in their up in a way that I cannot quite account
leisure hours, and while the bracketed for.
"laughter" in our Parliamentary reports
calls the attention of the reader to state-
ments in which there is no wit or pleas-
antry, or any possible source of them, we
shall lose the pathetic element in litera-
ture, and a great many other good things
also. Against this vulgarizing tendency
of our time we would gladly see a strong
and conscious effort, being certain that
it would encourage not only those facul-
ties which make literature pathetic, but
also that it would reinforce the sources
of all true humor, as much the friend to
true pathos, as it is the foe of its vulgar
and libellous caricature.

From Nature.

WINTER LIFE AT FORT RAE.

IT was not until the beginning of December that our winter really set in, but when it did so there was no mistake about it, as the first of the month began with the thermometer at -34°, and except for some mild weather at Christmas, the cold

Now the climate reminds me of Davos Platz, the sun having considerable power; there is, however, more wind. Yesterday the black bulb in vacuo read 82°. The only drawback is the intense glare from the snow, which makes colored spectacles a necessity.

During the first part of the winter we were a little anxious about food, not that we were in any danger of starvation, as the Indians had brought in quantities of dried meat in the autumn, but dried meat is a most unpalatable article of diet, and requires strong teeth and a strong digestion; and then the fishery was not as productive as usual, and the daily produce of the nets (which are set under the ice) was gradually diminishing. At last, however, the deer made their appearance some forty miles from this, and since then our supplies of fresh meat have come in regularly. Rabbits, too, have lately become most numerous. These animals are the great resource of the Indians in times of scarcity, but they are not always plentiful. They are said to attain their maximum once in ten years, when they seem to

suffer from a disease which shows itself in lumps on their heads; the following year there is hardly a rabbit to be seen, and then they gradually increase for an other ten years.

The winter has passed very uneventfully. On November 17 and two or three following days there were magnetic disturbances of great violence, due, no doubt, to the large sunspot. The displays of aurora at that time, however, were not of any remarkable brilliancy; we have had far brighter ones since, with far less magnetic disturbance. But as a rule the auroras have not been remarkable, though a night seldom or never passes without more or less-the brilliant colored ones one reads about are conspicuous by their absence. For the most part they are all of the same yellowish color, showing the single characteristic bright line in the spectroscope, but a bright aurora usually shows more or less prismatic coloring along the lower edge, with a spectrum sometimes of one or two additional bright lines, as a rule towards the violet end of the spectrum, though on one occasion I observed a bright band in the red.

Aurora is very rarely seen until night has quite set in, but on three occasions we have seen it shortly after sunset, and on these occasions it was of a reddish or copper color, as though partly colored by the sun's light; it must, I think, have been associated with thin cloud. Its motion and shape showed it to be aurora.

The terrestrial radiation thermometer placed on the snow generally showed a depression of from 10° to 20° on every calm, clear day throughout the winter, even by day when sheltered from the sun. The lowest readings were, as might be

expected, with the dry north-west wind. Sometimes the first warning of an impending change of wind to the south-east was given by a rise of this thermometer before the barometer was affected.

A thermometer suspended on the outer wall of the observatory at times read 9° or 10° lower than one in the screen, owing to radiation, and I think that the common practice of exposing unsheltered thermometers may explain some of the low temperatures sometimes reported from this country.

Our daily routine of observations goes on very regularly. Lately wolves have taken to prowling about the neighborhood, and the observer on duty goes to visit the thermometers armed with huge club; of course a gun or axe cannot be allowed near the observatory on account of the magnetic instruments.

a

A remarkable epidemic of influenza made its appearance here in January. We first heard of it among the Indians far to the north-west of this. When it arrived here it attacked every soul in the place - Indians and whites fortunately in a very mild form, and we hear that Fort Simpson, on the Mackenzie, suffered in the same way. Such an occurrence is most unusual in this country. With this exception we have all enjoyed good health.

We expect the ice to break up about the middle of June, and then will come the reign of the mosquitoes, which make the summer the most disagreeable season of the year in this country. Fortunately they do not last long in this latitude, and by the end of August, when we set out on our homeward journey, they will be over. HENRY P. DAWSON.

Fort Rae, March 25.

TREES AND SMOKE. A recent investiga- | those regions. The oak seems really the only tion by Herr Reuss, of the injury done to trees by the smoke of smelting-works in the Upper Hartz region, yields the following among other results. The smoke is injurious, he states, mainly by reason of its sulphuric acid. All trees are capable of absorbing a certain quantity of this through the leaves, whereby they are rendered unhealthy, and often killed. Their growth in the smoke is irregular and difficult. Leafy trees, especially the oak, resist the smoke better than the Coniferæ. No species requiring humus or minerally rich soils prosper in

tree that can be successfully grown. Trees that have been injured by the smoke are not exempt from injury by beetles. All smelting authorities should unite in effort to prevent this injury to vegetation. By instituting sulphuric acid manufactories, effecting condensa. tion of the smelting vapors, the evil may be greatly reduced, and brought to a minimum. Places cleared of vegetation by the smoke may be brought under cultivation again after removal of the injurious cause. (Herr Reuss's report appears in full in Dingler's Journal.)

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