to

if one were to ignore the more childish side of her character. That big natures have such a side was amply demonstrated only the other day by that astute writer who chooses to call himself "John A' Dreams." The question was of the author of The Master of Ballantrae, who, according to this living witness, is the most famous of buffoons when the mood takes him, swearing and even dancing for hours among his intimates till he is pleased to pass from this "maddest of fooling" transcendencies of wisdom in talk." This glimpse behind the scenes helps my task. From this picture I shall be the more readily believed when I describe the pessimist and sceptic of the journal as the veriest madcap of a girl. By its light we shall the better see this penetrating thinker, this ofttimes self-accuser atop a studio table, swinging her mahlstick and the prettiest possible patent leather shoes as she chaffed her companions, serenaded them with her guitar, or lured them off to a champagne luncheon or to the Bois. Like Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, she had her wholesome flashes of idleness: moments when the success of a Laferrière gown was more to her than the Prix de Rome, when she would exchange her working blouse for velvet and sables, or spirit herself off to the Quartier Latin to play pranks with her friend and boon companion, Prince Bojidar Karageorge witch. In these moods she would exclaim, after returning from some great reception, "Voyez-vous, Savoir être folle. Tout est là." At such times she could tie the coveted "mention honorable" to the tail of her pet dog, or, in Russia, would up and away in peasant guise on some madcap errand with a tail of scatter-brained admirers.

Her very love of contrast arose doubtless from the contradiction of her nature. She worshipped her art with a curious fidelity, but she had room in the immense breadth and charity of her mind for appreciating a hundred other things besides her own particular work. Politics, music, literature she had more than a passing affection for. There were moments, even, when she found time for regret that she had not gone to balls like other girls! There was absolutely nothing of the prig about this astoundingly learned maiden. She had no wish to pose as an eccentric, and though she fretted under it, had little desire to emancipate herself from the some

what drastic etiquette of Parisian social life. She desired only the freedom of expressing herself in her art; and this freedom-though cut off before her twenty-fourth year-this extraordinary Russian attained. Such an achievement would only have been possible to the abnormally precocious, but this, more than all things, Marie Bashkirtseff was. There is more than a mere witticism in the saying that this wonderful creature was at least fifteen years old when she was born. As a baby she amuses a room full of people, at twelve she is hysterically in love, at sixteen she indulges in a grande passion, and by twenty assumes, in affairs of the heart at any rate, an attitude of Olympian indifference. And as it is with her intelligence, so it is with her physical form. At twelve she looks sixteen, at sixteen twenty. An evidently lovely child, she was a fascinating woman in her teens, but already in 1880 much of her youthful beauty had gone. The small features (which had nothing of the Tartar in them, as might be supposed from one of her portraits), the modelling of her fine form, the exquisite drawing of the bust were unchanged; but the disease which was to make such havoc with her young life had her already in its grip, and plainly showed its hold on her. The daintiness of her womanhood, the cunning of her speech, the indomitable courage of her spirit were there, but the fever pace at which she toiled, and lived, and thought, was already wearing away the body.

Such a woman cannot but die in harness. No small compromises are possible to her. She admits of no half-and-half. Nothing but the best would satisfy Marie Bashkirtseff, this demand for the superlative in life being carried even into the trivialities-for such I suppose plain folk would call them

of the society she frequented, of the clothes she wore. She asked comparatively nothing of the fancy side of existence, but when it came to a question of society one sees that she cared for little that was second-rate. This feeling was typical of everything she did. Her work challenged all the world. While she accepted no quarter, she gave none. She sacrificed her life rather than renounce her ambition, and this, after all, is the best explanation of her views.

There are personalities which of necessity command an audience. The writer,

MORE than a generation has passed since the Prince Consort declared in a speech upon a public occasion that Constitutional Government was under a heavy trial. The popular imagination converted the phrase into a very different one, which the popular memory has retained. The husband and most intimate and influential counsellor of the Queen was thought to have declared that representative institutions were on their trial. To be on one's trial may sometimes be a very heavy trial, especially when there is no great confidence in the verdict and sentence which may follow. To be under a heavy trial is the condition from time to time of all men and of all things human. The Prince Consort's words were used in the crisis and agony of the Crimean war, and he dwelt with emphasis on the difficulties which are inseparable from our Parliamentary system, and from that last result of civilization, a free newspaper in a free country. During a period of war and of negotiation secrecy is essential, and it is all but impossible. The Prince said nothing which had not been urged with emphasis by the Duke of Wellington nearly half a century before. Wellington in the Peninsular war had to carry on a Parliamentary as well as a military campaign. Napoleon, he said, could run great risks for the chance of decisive successes. No one in France could censure or recall him. But Wellington could not afford to lose a single battle, and that was why he never lost one. He could only fight when he was certain to win. His successes were cavilled at and minimized by perhaps the most unpatriotic Opposition that ever played the part of a doleful chorus to a great drama which had a kingdom for a stage. His strategy and tactics were adversely criticised by politicians who had not even the bookish theories of Othello's arithmetical lieutenant. As Chatham boasted that he had conquered America in Germany, so the rump of a faction hoped to conquer Downing Street in Spain. The consequence was that Wellington had to keep almost as close an eye upon the movements of Parliamentary parties at home as on the movements of Napoleon and his generals in the field.

He had to know not only the divisions of a battle, but divisions in the House of Commons. Defeat meant recall. То these considerations, quite as much as to any peculiarity of his own genius and character, was due the exaggerated caution with which critics, competent from the military point of view, but not understanding the political conditions of the problem he had to solve, sometimes reproach him.

The purpose of the Prince Consort's speech, though he did not, so far as I know, refer to the precedent of Wellington's campaigns, was to point this old moral. It is no derogation from the authority of Parliaments, or from the legitimate influence of the free newspaper in the free country, to show forbearance toward and confidence in men engaged on their behalf in an enterprise of pith and moment. If you have a giant's strength you are not bound at every moment to be showing that you are gigantically strong. The House of Commons can at any moment make and unmake Ministries. The obligation on it, is the stronger to select only the right moment for making and unmaking them. Standing aloof from parties and representing the stable and permanent element in the Constitution which is not affected by general elections, Parliamentary divisions, and votes of want of confidence, the Prince Consort in 1855 was probably the only man in England who could deliver with authority words which it was necessary should be spoken, but which nevertheless it required no slight courage to speak. The nation had been taught in a phrase, which perhaps contains as much truth as any one can reasonably expect to find in half a dozen words, but which certainly does not contain the whole doctrine of Constitutional Monarchy in England, that the Queen reigns but does not govern. A Speaker of the House of Cominons once said that he had only eyes to see, and ears to hear, and a tongue to speak, what the House of Commons bade him see and hear and say. Similarly, the Queen, it is thought, can only think and speak as the Ministry of the day bids her think and speak. The