From "Japan's Stage and Greatest Actor." By From Harper's Magazine. the stage effects. True, the methods magnificent stuffs, stiff with embroidare different. Thus, for example, the ery of gold and cascades of crystals, entrance and exit of the actors from and wearing the high geta or wooden the front of the house, through the shoes-practically short stilts, without audience, strike the uninitiated as pe- firm bracing-he advances, describing culiar and, with the other curious dif- first with his right and then with his ferences, have the effect of distracting left foot a clean semi-circle, forming the mind from the acting; but once get the figure eight, as a skater does on the used to these unusual proceedings, and outer edge. I have read several deits fine quality is apparent. Danjuro is scriptions of the real cherry-blossom one of the most remarkable actors I festival, as formerly witnessed in the have ever seen. He ranks with Irving, Yoshiwara; but for costly gorgeousness Booth and Salvini. His range of char- and rich costumes, the procession, as acters seem greater than his illustrious put on the stage of Danjuro's theatre, European contemporaries, including, as with the old actor in the rôle of the they do, not only youth and age, priest most beautiful woman, certainly surand soldier, acrobat and schoolmaster, passes, in bewildering effect, any of but the impersonation of female parts, these accounts. which Danjuro renders with consummate skill. During my stay in Japan I had an opportunity of seeing Danjuro in many parts. To-day he appears as a handsome, dashing warrior, flashing a sword, on horseback; to-morrow as a devout priest, with shaven head. His make-up is simply perfect. A powerful and spiritual princess in one play, Danjuro astonishes you with his royal yet feminine bearing, and in another thrills you as the chief character in the magnificent attire of a courtesan, going through with the heavy geta, which is called the hachimonji ni aruku (figure of eight walking). Japanese plays are not infrequently laid in the Yoshiwara. The most gorgeous spectacular drama I witnessed while in Japan, and in some respects the most unique performance I ever saw in any country, was a new play by Fukuchi Gen-ichiro. In this drama Danjuro takes the leading part. The costumes surpass anything that I ever saw on the stage, and their cost, even in Japan, must have been enormous. The procession, as the leading characters slowly passed through the audience on the "flowery way," or elevated walk running from the stage to the front of the theatre, suggested the stately cavalcade at the coronation of an Eastern potentate rather than the annual cherry-blossom festivals of the Yoshiwara. This mode of entrance for a man of Danjuro's age involves a mar vellous bit of acrobatic acting. Clad in AT THE HUNGARIAN EXPOSITION. You are surprised, doubtless, at the surroundings I have described-the café, the guests, the wide, gayly thronged street. You had an idea that Hungary was one of the out-of-the-way places of the earth, inhabited by strolling gypsy bands playing on queer instruments; that it was browsed over by herds of goats and sheep attended by barelegged shepherd-boys blowing Pan-pipes. You fancied, perhaps, that its only productions were certain brands of mineral waters of highly pronounced and widely advertised medicinal properties, or odd varieties of silver bangles and girdles worn by male and female peasants shod in high boots, into which are tucked trousers of unusual width and looseness. If you have thought none of these things, I frankly confess that I have. Before I had been in Buda-Pesth many hours, however, I felt my preconceived notions vanish. I walked out upon the wide boulevard, the Andrássy-üt, and, with a bewilderment that never left me while I was in Hungary, looked back at the Cafe Drechsler, where I had just dined-a really superb building of light stone incrusted with carvings and decorated by life-sized statues. Further progress up the Andrássy-üt increased my wondering admiration. In almost every block I found other spacious cafés, ablaze with lights and thronged with other gayly dressed people-not in impossible baggy trousers and boots, but in French bonnets and Worth dressesall sipping their coffee as they listened to the weird strains of Tzigany music, with its hesitating notes, intricate crescendoes, and nervous soarings-a music so infectious and inspiring that hardly a slipper was still. Every now and then I came upon an octagon, which widened the broad thoroughfare into a "place" with a Hungarian name all z's and c's, surrounded by great apart ment-houses and hotels, their broken roof-lines massed against the sky in picturesque effects so different from those produced by the endless man sards of Paris in their never-varying height. Still further up the street were the lights of spacious city villas, with gardens and big trees, while at the very end, a sweep of a half-circle, its diameter-line marked by a series of towers hung with banners and festooned with myriads of colored lanterns-was the main gate of the exposition. Night is not the best time to judge of an exhibition of this kind, I said to myself as I paused. Night is too forgiving; its masses of shadows conceal too tenderly. Night is never really honest. Even its artificial high lights add to the sins of its kindly deception. The glimpses that I caught through the wide entrance of the main gate were, to be sure, all inviting. There were vistas of winding gravelled walks, ablaze with electric lights, and stencilled here and there with the black shadows of overbending trees outlined against the sky; avenues of great marble palaces fretted over with Oriental tracery, and ending in broad flights of steps guarded by big bronze figures; clusters of magnificent domes, minarets, and towers. But my better judgment and my former experiences taught me to weigh these effects before giving rein to my enthusiasm. I knew something of the power of the gas-man and of the scenic painter. The same tricks I had seen played elsewhere were being used here, except that this background was the deep blue of the starlit night, instead of the canvas drop of the stage. Many an architectural sham, all of painted boards or deceptive plaster, could be concealed, I knew, by a well-hung lantern or the shadow of a well-draped flag, while minor details could be none the less cleverly managed. Only a year before, in Vienna, one night, I had seen my own beloved Venice so charmingly reproduced, with its canals, gondolas, old palaces, and quaint streets, that I was fool enough to believe the very pigeons on the window-sills were sound asleep, until I examined them the next day in broad daylight, and found them but lumps of painted clay. Yet, for all my better judgment, I walked on here at Buda-Pesth, looking about me in wonder, gazing up at the myriads of lifeless flags hanging limp in the soft night air, until I found myself opposite the little kiosk, beyond which no human soul could pass without losing half a crown-none except beatified directors, royal families, and holders of season tickets. "How many tickets shall I take out of this twenty-mark gold piece?" asked the young lady, in very good French. "One this time, if you please;" and I passed in, with nineteen marks leit in my pocket. I came upon one building, to be sure, which puzzled me, even in the glamour of the twinkling lights—or, rather, one group of buildings. They were built on the margin of the lake, and were reached by the sanded plank and painted portcullis. The first story was genuine at least so I thought; for I am mechanic enough to know good masonry when I see it, even in the dark, and the turning of the groined arches, all in honest red brick stained by age, savored more of the trowel than of the brush. But the top courses, I was sure, were of canvas and cheap boards. This building had its full revenge on From The Forum. INSTABILITY IN AMERICAN PUBLIC LIFE. The necessity for considering locality in the selection of persons for high national offices embarrasses the Amer ican people at every step. No man, with rare exception, can have any considerable opportunity for public service, although he may be in accord with an overwhelming majority of his countrymen, unless he also happen to be in accord with the locality in which he dwells. When Mr. Webster was Secretary of State, Mr. Choate was the undisputed head of the American bar, unless Mr. Webster himself were to be excepted. It might easily have happened that, at the same time, the man of all others in the country fitted for Secretary of the Treasury would also have dwelt in Boston; or the fittest persons for these three offices might have been found living together in New York City; yet it would never have done to make Choate Attorney-General, or Abbott Lawrence Secretary of the Treasury, while Webster was in the Department of State. I suppose it would scarcely cause a remark if the three most important men in the English Cabinet dwelt next door to each other in London, or had adjoining estates in the country. In England an able public man can be elected to the House of Commons from any part of the three kingdoms. If he be valuable to his party, he is entirely independent of the influence of any one constituency. He can be kept in service for his whole life if his party need him. This renders an able man who is valuable to his party entirely independent of the influence of the local constituency. Thus every able Englishman is sure of continued public service. The careers of Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and Charles Sumner would have been impossible, had they happened to dwell in cities or districts opposed to them in opinion. New York is the greatest city in the United States. William M. Evarts was for many years the foremost living advocate. Yet his national service, so far as it was dependent on a seat in either House of Congress, lasted but six years. Take the list of the great lawyers of the United States to-day. See how many of them, who, if they were Englishmen, would be assured of a permanent place in public life, are almost wholly debarred from an opportunity of political usefulness by the accident of residence. There is not a man in the country today who is secure of an opportunity for official service lasting more than six years ahead, excepting a judge. There are probably not ten men out of the Senate of the United States who have a reasonable expectation of a term even so long. Now this insecurity and brevity in the term of public service make the American statesman impatient and in a hurry to accomplish his public purposes. If he be ambitious, he must hasten to make his mark. If he have at heart some great measure for the public good, he must accomplish it while he has the power. He must make hay while the sun shines. He must work while it is day; for the night cometh wherein work. This hurry is in strange contrast with the quiet and deliberate security of the Englishman. It puts us at a great disadvantage in legislation and administration. no man can This disadvantage is especially manifest in our diplomacy. The American Secretary of State is eager to sign his name to a treaty, and the American ambassador or minister, to get the credit of some accomplishment for his country's advantage before the curtain shall fall on him. If he begins a negotiation and do not get through with it, if the negotiation be not a failure, he himself, at any rate, is a failure. How this delivers us into the hands of the quiet, secure, patient, steady Englishman, who knows that if the thing be not done this year, it will be done in some future year, and expects to be there himself to do it. This want of security in public office, this hurry to make a mark, make the American statesman ambitious to effect some reform, or find and create some issue that does not arise naturally of itself. So political parties, or restless and energetic men who are elected to Congress or State Legislatures, are constantly seeking some new line in which they can take a lead be fore they are retired. Plenty of examples could be given. The scheme for biennial elections in Massachusetts always seemed to me to have no foundation in any real popular desire, but only in the desire to secure an issue. Now the Englishman who, if he be fit for it, is assured of his place in the country's service, is in no hurry. The American must act, or some other actor will take his place. The Englishman can wait. England can wait. England is in no hurry. She can watch always her opportunity to take advantage of the impatience of her antagonists. This great chess-player, since she be came the first power in Europe, after the fall of Napoleon in 1818, has made few false moves. Other countries scold at her, and revile her, and charge her with perfidy. But she bides time. She keeps her eye steadfastly upon her object. In the main, I think the charge of duplicity against her is without foundation. If she gets the advantage of her antagonists, it is tueir own fault and not hers. ner From "Statesmanship in England and in the United States." By Senator George F. Hoar. From The North American Review. THE "VORTEX" OF FICTION. Fashion grows with what it feeds on, and unquestionably the extreme vogue of this particular kind of book, the prose story, has drawn into its vortex many talents which had no original tendency in that direction. For example, Stevenson, manifestly born to be an essayist and perhaps a philosopher, was dragged, as a magnet draws a the needle, to the irresistible rock of storytelling, and "Treasure Island," begun as a joke for a boy's newspaper, was made the pioneer of a series of tales to which the author's exquisite style gave the persistence of literature. In Mrs. Humphrey Ward a most accomplished literary critic has been lost to us; in Mr. George Moore a candid student of sociology; in Mr. Stanley Weyman a historian of the school of Robertson. Among the departments of literary energy which are now the most neglected is scientific philosophy of sort so brilliantly illustrated by two of the great men who have disappeared since 1888, by Tyndall and Huxley. The class of writer which they represented, the pioneer in physical discovery, who is also a splendid popular exponent, combining accurate research with the exercise of imagination and style, has ceased to exist in England. Mr. Wells might have risen in it to the highest consideration, but he prefers to tell little horrible stories about monsters. On all sides we may see, and we ought not to see without acute alarm, the finer talents being drawn from the arduous exercises to which nature intended to devote them to the facile fields of fiction. The result of all this is that, to an extent which ought to occasion all serious observers no little alarm, the great reading public is rapidly becoming unable to assimilate any ideas at all, and to appreciate impressions it requires to have them presented to it in the form of a story. The multitude of readers grows every hour, but with these masses those individuals become fewer and fewer who are able to follow the pathways of thought without the help of knowing what Edwin did and what Angelina wore. Specialists push the subdivision of observations about fact to an even more extreme nicety; but they only address other specialists. The rest of the world prefers to take its information and its excitement from two sources of entertainment, the newspaper and the novel. It is almost certain that if "Modern Painters" or "The Grammar of Assent" or even "The History of Civilization" had been published within the last ten years, it would have 722 scarcely attracted any attention at all, outside a narrow circle. It is more than probable that Buckle and Newman if not Mr. Ruskin, would have resigned themselves to the inevitable, and have tried to present their views and convictions in the form of tales. а twenty recitations week, without which her craving for knowledge cannot be satisfied, she finds a world of smaller interests with which she seriously identifies herself or as seriously lets alone. There are the Philolethians or the Idlers, and the Colonial Dances, From "Ten Years of English Literature." By and the concerts, and the Shakespeare Edmund Gosse. the From Scribner's Magazine. THE HEALTH OF COLLEGE WOMEN. The health of the college woman leaves something to be desired. But it is Americanitis rather than the college education that is to blame. Americanitis may be defined as the desire to "get on," regardless of everything else. It is Americanitis that prompts farmer's daughter to get a college education and make opportunities for herself better than those her mother and father had before her. Therefore she goes to a small college, in a small town, with a preparatory department at tached, where she often begins her education as a "junior prep." She furnishes a single room in which she, and often a room-mate, study, sleep, eat, make their clothes, and sometimes do their laundering. She keeps up in her studies, joins a choral class, a literary society, and the Young Women's Christian Association; goes to chapel once a day and twice on Sunday-and very often falls in love and "gets engaged" besides. At the beginning of her senior year she breaks down. She ought to. It's the very least she can do out of respect to herself as a human being. The situation is but little changed in the larger and richer colleges, where the great proportion of the undergraduates are poor girls, the daughters of clergymen, or missionaries, or business men in moderate circumstances; girls to whom their education is the means to an end, bread and butter and bonnets for themselves, certainly, and perhaps a college education for a younger brother or sister. Once in college an ambitious girl gets into a swim of things she wants to do. Besides the fifteen to Clubs, and the lectures, and all the complexities of new thoughts and new personal relations, all of which this tense young woman wishes to take at a gulp, as great opportunities of life, and with a solemnity that defeats their very end. This is perhaps not unnatural while so many of our American girls have still to seek their culture otherwhere than in their own homes, the while they are still too young to realize that not what they acquire, but what they enjoy, is at once the test and the measure of their culture. Co-ordinate with Americanitis as interfering with the health of the undergraduate is her inheritance of what I should like to call, if nobody objects, Johncalvinitis-meaning that contempt for the body which is, let us hope, the last outcropping of those old Puritan ancestors of ours, who prayed as if they had lost their souls, and ate as if they had lost their bodies. I am very sure of this because I have watched the undergraduate eat, and she eats badly. She chooses her food apparently from pure caprice or from a personal idiosyncrasy that ought to be reformed. Doubtless she knows very well, having learned it in the laboratory, that proper nutrition is secured only by the combination of certain food substances in certain proportion; nevertheless, she makes her luncheon of bread and butter and tea, and pie, if she feels like it, and her dinner of a soup and a salad. There is still much to be done, you see, in educating the gustatory instincts of the college woman, as undoubtedly there is still room for improvement in the composition and preparation of the daily bills of fare, even in our largest and richest colleges. When, to the elemental education in cookery which the ideal college for women is going to supply, there is established, also, a chair of gastronomy for the education of the American palate, and the elevation of the Ameri |