reasonable amount of freedom which ought to belong to every private individual, you are endangering that freedom of thought and action when you do anything that tends to promote war.

Ellesmere. I know that you often think that my remarks are irrelevant and absurd, and sometimes when I am most in earnest you think I am most in joke. But I hold that the greatest part of the miseries of human life proceed from dulness. Some people are dull, and they must molest other people to get rid of their dulness. War is a most interesting game, and those who have the power of playing at it, will play at it, unless they can be amused in some other way. Sir Arthur.

"War is a game which, were their subjects wise,
Kings would not play at."

Milverton. There is something in what Ellesmere says, only I should make the important alteration of substituting the words want of culture for dulness.

Now I will state the matter in somewhat of an abstract way. In any great war there are about twenty or thirty persons who may be charged with having been the prime movers of it. They are, for the most part, kings, statesmen, diplomatists, writers, and great speakers. Most of them are middle-aged or elderly gentlemen. According to the average value of life, they have about twelve or fifteen years' expectation of it. One would really think that they might employ these twelve or fifteen years a little better than in concerning themselves with war. But the real fact is, that, most of them, except the writers, are very ignorant. They know nothing of science, they know little of literature. Of real statesmanship, too, very little. Many of them, I daresay, have scarcely realized the fact of which science has informed us, that this planet is a very small and insignificant body, and that to rule over a little more or a little less of it, is not a thing to be proud, or to be ashamed of. I remember that Jean Paul says, "On travelling from one village to another the path appears as long to us as to a mite which creeps on a map from the name of one to the name of another; and to loftier spirits our sphere may, perhaps, be a globe for their children, which is turned and explained by their tutor." If you could once implant in the minds of these governing men a love of individual culture, if you could show them what a poor thing it is for a man to pass through this life, knowing nothing of the laws of nature, nothing of all the wonders of the world (for though this planet is small it is very wonderful), they might see that there is some knowledge worth their while to acquire before they quit this world. I hold with Goethe, that there is no such thing as waste in creation. I cannot believe but that it will profit a man's soul hereafter to have gained know

ledge during its residence here; and the souls of many of those men who have had great opportunities in this world, will find themselves very bare and shivering, and as uncultured as the souls of those who have had fewest opportunities in this world, when they come to enter into another state of being.

These, however, you may well say, are but mere fancies. I rest, however, on solid ground when I say, these men who promote war might find a much higher ambition for all their energy and all their talents.

[Here Mr. Milverton was called out of the room.]

Lady Ellesmere. I am only going to say what I believe Leonard would have said for us women if he had not been interrupted. I know he would, for he has said something of the same kind before.

I am not one of those women who have any notion of seizing power from men. I do not blame the efforts of many of my sex who are endeavouring to gain a more reasonable recognition of our talents and our powers. But there are several of their objects with which I do not sympathise; and I fully admit the mental superiority of But this I do say, that I most earnestly believe that if we had more political power, or, at least, more political influence, it would be well-used.

men.

In the first place, we are more pitiful than you men. I believe that the anguish caused by this present war has entered more deeply into the souls of women than of men.

Well then, again (I hope you will not think me presumptuous), we are less likely to be led away by what you men call "great ideas." I have never heard, or at least only once in my life, any woman of any nation express a wish for increased territory. Our circle may be more confined, but within that circle I do think that we take a wiser view of things in general. We are more oppressed by a sense of the real difficulties of life. We care more than you men do, that the people about us should be well housed, and well clothed, and well fed. Everywhere the woman is the person in almost every household who looks most anxiously to the physical well-being of the household. And this, I contend, carries with it a wisdom of its own. Brother Leonard sometimes has an air of patronizing us in what he says, and I think he hardly does us justice. In reality, we are his best supporters; and if ever his diatribes against war have any success, it will be through us women.

Ellesmere. I have nothing to say against your remarks, my dear. I admit that your sense and judgment are admirable as regards those affairs that come justly within your province, and I acknowledge that you are eminently practical. I am quite willing, when there is a council of war held by us savages, that the squaws should have a voice in the proceedings.

For my own part, I don't mind telling you what horrifies me most in war. Now don't exclaim, when you have heard what I have got to say, "Oh, that's so like Ellesmere! He always takes a perverse view of every question." I say, then, that what I detest most in war is the cruelty to the animal creation. My mind is full of pity for those good creatures the horses. They have had nothing to do with the causes of war; their vote has not been taken; but they have to bear not the least share of the agony. I sometimes regret that mankind ever succeeded in taming horses. I think, too, that if we had to do all the draught-work ourselves, there would be much less inclination to go to war than there is at present.

Sir Arthur. I should be contented if the men who promote war really took a fair share of the danger, and ran the risks of private soldiers. I think it is perfectly monstrous that a man should, as it were, blow the trumpet, and yet keep in the rear.

Ellesmere. My dear Sir Arthur, you must not think me rude; but really, you imaginative men do put forth most unreasonable propositions. You want those whom you call "promoters of war" to partake the dangers of the common soldier. Now, in many cases these promoters are the commanders of armies. Surely, the duty of a general—a sacred duty, in many instances, for the preservation of his own soldiers-is to keep out of harm's way. Except in extraordinary instances, his sword is worn only for form's sake.

Sir Arthur. I must own that there is something in what you say, Ellesmere.

Mauleverer. Nobody can accuse the first Napoleon of want of courage; but, if I recollect rightly, he was only wounded once, and then by a spent ball, which hit his boot. No, it is inevitable that these "promoters of war," who, as Milverton justly described them, are kings, statesmen, authors, diplomatists, and orators, must inevitably keep out of harm's way. This is one of the many infelicities of mankind, which, as I often tell you, cannot be avoided.

I

Sir Arthur. Well, then, Ellesmere, what do you propose? must say, and I, too, do not wish to be rude, that you object to everything, but propose nothing.

Ellesmere. I have nothing distinctly to propose. Nay, more, I believe I talked nonsense to you the other day, Sir Arthur, when I said that if ever war were put down, it would be by some great movement- -some kind of crusade-of which I did not see my way to specifying the nature. I have thought since of what I said then, and I am inclined to believe that the desired object will not be accomplished in this way. There is, I suspect, nothing to be done in this matter but bringing thought gradually to bear upon the whole subject. Milverton is horribly disappointed because the

writings of Bastiat, Erckman-Chatrian, and others, of course including his own, seem to have had so little effect in their generation. [Here Mr. Milverton entered the room.]

I am saying that you are horribly disappointed, Milverton, because the writings of sundry enthusiastic persons who have written against war, have had so little effect in their own time. I think you show an unreasonable impatience in expecting these writings to have an almost immediate effect. Recollect, that to produce any great effect on any question in which the world is interested, how many thousands of people have to be convinced. You writers are always so impatient for visible results. You think, when you have proved anything to your own satisfaction, that all other persons must forthwith acknowledge the truth of your conclusions, and must proceed to act upon them: And must proceed to act upon them, I repeat; for you seem to forget the inevitable delay and hesitation which mostly take place between intellectual conviction and practical action upon that conviction.

I mean to be very encouraging in what I say now upon this matter. Go on writing and protesting, and storming, if you like, against the evils of war; but all I say is, do not expect immediate results. Your time will come, not, perhaps, in your own ageMauleverer. Which is, no doubt, a great satisfaction

Ellesmere. But that time will come. No effort that is worth anything is ever lost.

Sir Arthur. Yes; as Byron says

"For Freedom's battle, once begun,

Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,

Though baffled oft, is ever won."

Milverton. We all know that there is a great deal of truth in what Ellesmere says. Moreover, we may take some comfort from what has happened in the world's history in similar cases. There has been some great evil-some world-wide folly-such as duelling, or judicial torture, or persecution for religious opinions. The horrid evil has gone on, apparently without any abatement in many generations, when all of a sudden the evil thing has fallen away from mankind, like a garment which no longer fits, and you are unable to say, "who has done this ?" No doubt thousands of persons have been concerned in the doing.

Therefore I say, with the sanguine Ellesmere, let us go on writing and protesting, and, to use his phrase, storming against the evils of war, being sure that in good time some grand result will come of all our labours which hitherto appear to have been so lamentably fruitless.

Ellesmere. I must have a last word. Milverton has quoted from

Jean Paul to-day. He (Milverton) once made me read a work of the said Jean Paul. It did not quite suit my commonplace nature, which pines for distinct statements clearly enunciated. But I was much struck by the wealth of good metaphor which the good German expended in this work. One of these happy metaphors has ever since remained in my mind; and, oddly enough, it was only last evening, when we passed a pond in our homeward walk, that this metaphor recurred to me. Jean Paul says, "The frogs cease croaking when a light is placed on the banks of the pond." That is all you want-light-and a great many things besides the croaking of frogs (which, for my part, I rather like) will cease, when once a sufficient light is brought to bear upon them.

IX.

I ADD a short chapter, recording a conversation in the afternoon of the same day on which the foregoing conversation took place.

Lady Ellesmere had been telling Mr. Milverton what she had said in the morning about women being his best allies, in the general crusade against war. Yes," said Sir John; "Pope says that 'every woman is at heart a rake.' I don't know whether that is true, but I admit that every woman is at heart a quakeress, except in the article of clothing."]

Milverton. The best human beings of the present day, the women, are in full accord with the greatest, or, at least, the shrewdest men of past times. I am tired of always giving you my own poor thoughts upon this horrid subject, war. Yesterday evening I solaced my soul by looking round these bookshelves, and taking down works which I knew would have something in them that would be entirely consonant with my feelings on the subject. What a blessing books are, seeing that one can always choose one's companions from amongst them, in whatever mood one happens to be!

Ellesmere. Yes; you can pass by the Opera Omnia of Ellesmere, of which, however, I do not see a large paper copy in this room; and you can take down your Sir Arthur "On the Becoming," or your Cranmer on the "Loveliness of Taxation;" and you can revel in community of thought with these great authors. And, moreover, you can shut them up the moment that you find they are beginning to disagree with you.

Milverton. There was one book I did shut up. It was Sir William Temple's works. I was dreadfully disappointed at finding that he was only partially on my side.

Sir Arthur. Let us hear what the others said.