milk!" W. had studied Jackson-" that story seemed like him." Had he ever personally known Jackson? "Oh! yesoften talked with him: Jackson was a very simple man." This story had "so great a significance to me in the fact that one man out of that mass-the formal, conventional, everywhere first considered-dared to be perfectly plain, himself, frugal, hopeful."

I quoted Henry George as calling Jefferson among the greatest of the great." W. said: "Yes, greatest of the great: that names him: it belongs to him: he is entitled to it."

THURSDAY, Dec. 6.

66

W. spoke of Edward Carpenter-he had had a visitor with a letter of introduction from him. Carpenter is a youngish man, not now over thirty-seven, I should say: Italian in appearance: radical of the radicals: one of the social fellows in England who get constitutions by the ears-stir up thought, progress. Strange to say, too, Carpenter is really liked by the dons, the fellows on top: liked in spite of his radicalism, his espousal of hated ideas." Carpenter was "a Shelleyite ": England now seems full of Shelleyites so much so, I question at times: Isn't there too much of this? too much crying, screaming, for progress? Shouldn't the brakes be put down?" He called Carpenter "a noble fellow." What would come out of this life was yet to be developed." It had for him "the pathos of a half-shadowed history."

I spoke of a paragraph credited to Huxley in which he described the gradual growth of the power to speak without notes. W. said: "It was right for him to do so: indeed, I should say to anyone, take the bull by the horns at the start: discard the notes go on your own hook: it cannot be discovered too soon that this is the only real public speaking-the speaking without a barrier." Again: "Beecher once said to me: 'I thank my good fortune that nature almost from the first possessed me of such readiness, alertness, that I could speak freely.' This is the conclusion of all men who speak or know speakers: I never realized it myself-never till the later years: but if I had the path to go over again-knowing what I know now-I should put that

among the first of studies. I have always been forensically in a bad way myself."

SUNDAY, DEC. 9.

I mentioned Tolstoy. W. felt he did not "know" Tolstoy. "Tolstoy has been unfortunate in his translators: how much of his failure to impress me is owing to this I could not say: much, I am confident: the most wretched miserable stuff has been palmed off on us as transcripts of the original." He had "tried to read" some of these books. One of them-Anna Karenina -I have downstairs still: wrestled with it at the time: never had such a task: I had heard somewhere-some distinguished critic had said so that this was Tolstoy's best book-that this was most rich in the larger qualities ascribed to him: so, in spite of myself, I persisted-went through with it-feeling that along somewhere the truth would out-I would get my reward: but nothing eventuated: the book was big in bulk alone-it seemed to me there must have been at least three volumes in that one: all my plodding failed to relieve it of its dulness." He had read Turgenieff "fitfully." He said: "Even Turgenieff suffered from imbecile translations." He reverted to Tolstoy. "There's an ascetic side to Tolstoy which I care very little for: I honor it-I know what it comes from: but I find myself getting to my end by another philosophy; in some ways Tolstoy has cut the cord which unites him with us: has gone back to mediævalism to the saturninity of the monkish rites: not a return to nature-no: a return to the sty. But Tolstoy is a world force -an immense vehement first energy driving to the fulfilment of a great purpose."

(To be concluded)

PATRIOTISM IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA

O

SYDNEY BROOKS

N Saturday, October 21, passing through Trafalgar Square, I noticed an unusual crowd at the foot of Nelson's column and the column itself hung with festoons of laurel. It was the one hundred and sixth anniversary of the great Admiral's victory and death at Trafalgar, and the Navy League, after its wont, was commemorating the occasion. Scores of wreaths and crosses were distributed round the base of the column. Capetown sent an anchor fashioned out of everlasting flowers. From Esquimault came a giant maple leaf, with the rose, shamrock and thistle entwined. Far-away stations in New Zealand, in British Columbia, in China, had forwarded each its appropriate tribute. More personal still were the offerings of the descendants of officers who had fought under Nelson, recalling names only less splendid than his and men-of-war only less famous than the Victory herself. There were no speeches, no attempt at any further demonstration. The crowd gazed at the heaped-up memorials in silence and in silence went their way. Elsewhere the exercises were of a more imposing character. At Liverpool the Nelson monument was decorated with flags, wreaths and streamers and contingents from the training ships, the nautical schools and the seamen of the port took part in the display. On board the Victory at Portsmouth garlands of evergreens adorned the masts and yard-arms, a wreath was placed on the spot where the Admiral fell, the national anthem was sung, and the historic signal, in the code used at the action, was flown. The Victory's anchor, lying on Southsea beach, was similarly decorated, the men from the local naval barracks were paraded, and there too "God Save the King God Save the King" was sung. But in London, apart from the decoration of the Nelson column, the only overt celebrations of the day took the eminently British and practical forms of a conference on sea-training in the afternoon and the annual banquet of the Navy League in the evening. It

seemed to me on the whole as mild and inoffensive a way of being English as could be wished for.

Yet, unpretentious as it was, that little demonstration marked none the less a great change in English habits, and possibly too in the English outlook and temperament. Nothing like it at any rate would have been possible a few years ago. It is only quite recently that we English have gone into the commemorating business and we are still far from being experts at it. Up to the very end of the nineteenth century I doubt whether it had occurred to anyone that the anniversary of Trafalgar called for any special recognition. The Navy League only took the matter up as part of its general scheme for sustaining public interest in naval affairs, and for some years its demonstrations were regarded with as much curiosity as sympathy. In one of Mr. Kenneth Grahame's delightful child-sketches he most charmingly portrays the efforts of a girl patriot to interest her brother in the twenty-first of October. "It's Trafalgar Day,' went on Selina, trancedly: 'Trafalgar Day-and nobody cares!'" Her brother is quite unmoved; he would much rather be hunting moles. Why can't we do something?" she bursts out presently. "He he did everything-why can't we do something for him?" "Who did everything?" inquires Harold. "Why, Nelson, of course," says Selina. "But he's-he's dead, isn't he?" asks Harold. And there, in that little scene, you have what was until the other day the national attitude of England toward her past and her heroes epitomized. Nobody cares-and he's dead, isn't he? A dozen years ago, when it was easier to purchase a Union Jack in Chicago than in London, one might, so far as outward observances went, have lived a lifetime in England without suspecting she had a history. The anniversary of some great event came round and all the notice it received was a few articles in the newspapers. Little attempt of any kind, and no official attempt whatever, was made to visualize it before the popular mind, to drape it with parades and addresses and formal celebrations, or to point its place and significance in the rich continuity of British annals. Under pressure, however, of the emotions roused by the Boer War, a change that had long been preparing became manifest. The democracy grew vocal and even ̧

vociferous. Within the last few years we have seen in the multiplication of pageants all over the country the stirrings of a real, if belated, feeling for the past. We have seen the centenary of Nelson's death commemorated with a unique unanimity and impressiveness. We have seen Leagues and Societies of all kinds springing into active and fruitful life to familiarize the people with the responsibilities of Empire. We have seen a more or less concerted effort to imperialize education. We have seen in the growth of the movement for setting aside Queen Victoria's birthday as an Imperial festival a sustained and methodical attempt to make the Empire a vital and realized part of the national consciousness.

But with it all we are still, as a people, singularly deficient in the sense and pride of history. It is partly, no doubt, because we have so much history behind us, because our annals are so long and crowded, because we feel that if we once started to celebrate we should hardly know where to begin or where to leave off. It is partly also because, as is natural to a people living under a monarchy, Englishmen have got into the habit of looking to the Crown for a lead in all matters of pageantry and formal rejoicing and have somewhat discontinued the habit of improvization on their own account. And it is partly, too, because the English, while far from being a subjective people, yet do not feel the need of symbolizing their emotions. Their strength is preeminently in action, and they lack the gift of dramatic and imaginative sympathy which in other nations acts as a spur to public ceremonials. But whatever the cause the fact itself is indispensable, that, when compared with almost any other people, the English are amazingly devoid of a historical consciousness. Compared with their own kinsmen in Wales, Scotland, Ireland and America, they have next to no memory for the past at all. Compared with the French or the Germans they are equally backward in their appreciation both of the State and the Empire. In France the organized teaching of citizenship obtains throughout. What is called instruction civique is a regular part of the educational curriculum. From the age of eleven boys and girls are taught everything that concerns the life of the citizen, his position in regard to the State, his rights, duties, and responsi