trait ornamented the mantel shelf. With what satisfaction Wendell did the honors of the old Somerset Club at Boston, an institution whose membership is recruited among the old families of New England! And, when a fact, a relic, a contact of any sort offered an understanding of the past, what a commingling of imagination. and sympathy enabled him to link it up with the past, to illustrate the discovery and to make dead things live once more!

These things are one side of his activity. It must be recalled, to estimate the importance of his work, that thousands of students at Harvard drew something from his teaching of English literature and of literature in general; that his conception of American literature, which he presented in the work devoted to that subject, rooted the American mentality deep in the English, because of the linguistic tradition; that the last volume to which he gave his energy, The Traditions of European Literature from Homer to Dante, deliberately rooted the intellectual effort of the old world in the Greco-Roman heritage, and proposed to the lettered public (over there a revelation) classical antiquity as the common heritage of our common civilization:

Whoever will take the trouble to read, side by side, the Book of Ruth and the story of Nausicaa, will probably come to feel, perhaps with surprise, that Ruth was written ages ago by some one whose nature was far less like our own than was the nature of the poet who ages ago set down the story of the Phaeacian maid at play with her hand-maids.

A victory of humanistic inspiration and the highest intellectual tradition over other temptations! One could see that in Barrett Wendell, a depth of frank Puritanism existed, which

nearly related him to Carlyle, to Ruskin, to Emerson, always inclined to prefer the dangerous inner light to the standards of the city; one could see that if he appreciated, in France, the application and energy and virtues of the foyer, he would have had but slight sympathy for the qualities of elan and honor which constitute our lack of logic in the eyes of certain strangers. Yet, by a faithfulness at once instinctive and reasoned, to the imperishable Mediterranean heritage, this northerner with the eyes of a dreamer, and rather reserved speech, the gentleman of the reticent and distinguished manners, did not hesitate in his opinion as to where civilization was developing. His sympathies from the beginning of the war did not waver for an instant.

Germany was disturbed, from the opening of the struggle, by the all-tooclear affection which this American writer showed for our land. As her officials, better than ours, knew the importance of well-considered opinion in the universal conflict which they knew to be imminent, Barrett Wendell was requested, in the spring of 1914, to make the same stay in Berlin that he had made in Paris. I do not know what his official reply was, but this is what he wrote to me on the 15th of that year which was so full of events.

The invitation was an honor. The conditions of the course, however, were disturbing in many respects, and my ignorance of German would have rendered vain the social side of my visit. As for the rest, although my family came to America from eastern Friesland, I have never come to feel a real sympathy for the German character.

The last joy which France afforded Barrett Wendell, it may well be said, was the title of doctor, honoris causa,

which the University of Strasbourg, the reviving institution of P. Janet, of Pasteur, and of Fustel de Coulanges, at its formal re-opening bestowed upon this American, who knew how to be, in his own way, a good European. The encomiums which accompanied the diploma summed up thus the reasons for this distinction:

.The first of the Hyde lecturers in France 1904-1905, he placed our country before his countrymen in a new light, and told them, in a well-known book, what they ought to think, especially of the French family, and our foyer, of our universities and faculties. At the beginning of the war, when it was still confined to Europe, he proclaimed where his sympathies were, the sympathies of a noble soul attached to that which was highest in the grand traditions of western humanism.

Barrett Wendell had not yet received information of this distinction, when he wrote on February 5, 1920, to an American friend who from Paris sent him the news:

Nothing could have given me at the same time so much surprise and pleasure as the honors which have been conferred on me by the University of Strasbourg...

During the years of the war, my health rendered me useless, and I was almost beginning to think I had always been so. That is the principal reason why this homage rendered to my previous work, done at a time when I was capable of accomplishing something, is a great pleasure to me, still more, an unbelievable aid. And this pleasure is of a quality which it could not have had at any other moment. Whoever has known France as I learned to know her in 1904-1905, could not fail to love her. To become, in some sort, a part of France at the very hour when France was finding herself again after having undergone in the most noble way, the most marvellous test, in my opinion, during her thousand years of history-that is to me an emotion which passes the power of words.

Tell educated Americans, from us, in what rank they should place this man who has gone, whose literary baggage was not very large, whose reputation never appealed to the general public, whose influence was, none the less, great in the wide milieu of Harvard. His friends in France are unanimous in regretting that a loyal heart has ceased to beat, that a fine intelligence has ceased to function. They know what place their country has in the thoughts and emotions of this American of a noble stock.

Of the many mysteries with which life is filled, none appear more strange than the evident perception of the supernatural in animals. That they do see and hear what is hidden from the human eye is a story as old as that of Balaam's ass. The animal saw, it even lay down in its efforts to avoid the threatened danger, but it

took a miracle to open the eyes of the prophet before he could perceive the angel with the drawn sword standing in the way or realize the danger from which the animal had saved him. Tales even more strange are told of animals coming to give warning of an approaching death in a family with which they appear to be in some unexplained

way connected. That of the foxes that gather round Gormanston Castle when the head of the family is dying has been told too often to bear much repetition, though my friend the late Mrs. Farrell, of Moynalty, County Meath, gave me a few details that I do not think have yet appeared in print.

She told me that she was a great deal with her grandfather, Jenico, the twelfth Viscount Gormanston, during his last illness, and described how the foxes came in pairs, some evidently from a long distance, for their coats seemed covered with mud and their brushes trailed on the ground. Many of them passed through the farmyard, in which there were many fowl, but they never attempted to touch any of them, but went on till they came in front of the room in which the dying man lay. There they crouched down. on the grass, their eyes fixed on his window and refusing to stir, though the grooms came and kicked them up, when they would move on for a few paces and then crouch down, gazing up at the window as before. The dogs came and 'sniffed' at them, then slunk away, recognizing the supernatural. This continued till after the funeral, when they all went away in pairs as they had come. The crest of the Gormanston family is a running fox, and a fox also appears as one of the 'supporters' of its coat of arms, but how that animal first became connected with the family none of them know.

As strange, and perhaps even more 'uncanny,' is the account of blackbeetles enacting the part of 'deputy banshees,' as a witty friend calls them. I give the account as it was written to me by Mrs. P., who belongs to an old Irish family:

'Yes, of course you can make any use you like of what I told you about

the blackbeetles. They came when my brothers and father died. I was not at home at the time of my mother's death, and never thought of asking my sister, who was with her at the time, about them. I remember telling my mother that I had been to the kitchen and found the wall covered with blackbeetles, and taking my brother to see the sight (for it really was a sight). The wall behind the range was black with them. My mother cautioned me not to say anything to my father about it, for it would only worry him. The next day we heard that one of my brothers had died at school. The same thing happened when my youngest brother died, and also when my father was first taken ill and two nights before his death.

Strange to say, the beetles only came into the kitchen, and, as far as I know, were only seen by a member of the family.'

Another Irish family has a white cat for a 'deputy banshee.'

Some friends who lived in County Kildare told me that a young officer who was quartered at the Curragh came by invitation to fish in the River Liffey, which runs through their grounds. He was late in coming in to take leave of them before returning to the camp, but explained the delay by saying that he had been trying to catch a pretty little white cat which kept running round him close to his feet, but that whenever he thought he had got his hand upon it, the creature managed to elude his grasp. They all exclaimed. They had no white cat, had never seen one about the place, and did not know anyone who possessed a white cat.

A few weeks later the young officer came to call, and in the course of conversation reminded them of the white

cat he had tried to catch on the occasion of his last visit. He told them that as he was driving back the cat sprang out of the hedge by the roadside and ran backwards and forwards across the road close in front of his horse's feet, and that the horse seemed to be afraid of it. When he got back to the camp he told his brother, who was staying with him, of this strange Occurrence. His brother, he said, looked very grave, but said nothing. the next day they received a telegram telling them that their father was dangerously ill, and two days later one to say that he was dead. He then learnt that a white cat usually appeared to a member of their family before the death of one of it; but asked my friends not to mention his name, as the subject was one his family did not like to have discussed.

Birds have also been known to enact the part of 'deputy banshees.' Mrs. B. writes as follows:

'You ask me about my bird stories so here goes!

'Robins, usually looked upon as lucky birds, have always been to me little harbingers of misfortune and sorrow. The evening before I was sent for to my father's death-bed, a robin came into the hall, perched upon the banisters, and sung as if it would burst its little throat.

'Like the general run of people, I have always had a horror of a single magpie, and not without reason, as many instances in my life have proved. Once, when I was staying at Cloyne, in County Cork, my youngest sister, who was ill at the time, came to stay with me in the hope that a change of air might be of use to her. She, however, grew worse, and I took her to Dublin for further treatment. Her illness terminated in an operation which proved fatal.

'When I returned home, my maid told me that the Sunday before my sister's death a magpie had followed her the whole way from the house to the Roman Catholic church, a distance of two miles. Sometimes it flew down quite close to her feet, and then on before her again. It waited while she was in the church, and then flew back before her again in the same strange way.

'When my grandfather was dying a magpie could not be kept off his window-sill, upon which it stayed for two or three days tapping with its bill on the glass. After his death it disappeared.'

In the following instance, also told me by Mrs. B., the magpie seems to have come to warn of approaching trouble, not of a death.

'On March 4, 1911, when I was walking in the fields behind the house with my dog, a magpie followed me the whole length of one field, flying backwards and forwards before my path. When I came in I said to my sister, 'I wonder what misfortune is going to happen to me now. I have simply been haunted by a magpie this morning!' That afternoon I was, as you know, thrown from the dog-cart and my leg broken.'

Mrs. B. has no idea whether there is any connection between her family and magpies, as in the case already mentioned, and it seems strange that she should have so great a dislike to a bird that appears to take such an interest in her!

Dogs seem to be especially sensitive. to the supernatural.

Early in the year 1916 I was living with my sister, Mrs. Gilliat, at Arch Hall, in County Meath, when the sad news came that her only remaining son had been killed in action in France. At about ten o'clock that evening Mrs.

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Gilliat's son-in-law, Mr. Kilby, who * with his wife was staying at Arch Hall, went out as usual to look around the yards and see that all was in order, taking with him a young Airedale dog and a West Highland terrier. He went out by the back door, and as soon as he got into the stable-yard he was surprised to hear most extraordinary sounds, as of some person or animal in great pain. The Airedale lay down trembling in every limb; the little terrier put her tail between her legs and ran as fast as she could to the stable, where she had her puppies. Although the sounds appeared to come from the direction of the lake, Mr. Kilby went first to the stables and cow-houses, but found all there quiet as usual. Thinking that some of the young cattle might have been 'bogged' in the soft ground round the lake, he went in that direction, dragging the trembling dog after him by the chain. The moon was shining brightly, and he could distinctly see the cattle lying down peacefully under the trees. Still the wailing went on, and from his description it seemed to resemble the 'keening' made by hired mourners at a West of Ireland 'wake' or funeral sounds which, once heard, are not easily forgotten. He returned to the house with the still trembling but now willing dog, and told his wife of the extraordinary sounds he had heard and how terrified the dogs had been by them. She said that she had heard similar crying the night after her uncle Admiral Singleton's death, but could not account for them. The next morning he told some of the men in the yard about the strange noise, but they took it quite as a matter of course. 'Sure, it was the banshee you heard. She does always cry like that when one of the family dies. It was the Captain she was crying for.'

It is clearly evident that both the dogs recognized the supernatural, though an Englishman would not be likely to think of a banshee.

A few years ago I was staying at Rostrevor, and met there a young lady who was so crippled by arthritis that she was not able even to stand without support. She and her sister lodged. with a Miss L., whose mother also had a lodging-house in another part of the town. One evening Miss L. told the invalid and her sister that she was going to stay that night at her mother's house, as her aunt, who was there at the time, was very ill and wished to see her. She saw that everything in the house was in order and locked the front door, but left that into the yard open, so that her dog, an Irish terrier, who was generally kept shut up in the back yard, would be able to roam through the house and keep guard over it.

Miss D. told me that she and her sister, who slept in a different part of the house, went to bed at the usual time. As she was not able to look at her watch, she could not tell how long she had been asleep, but it was quite early in the night when she was awakened by what sounded to her like someone uttering piercing screams. She could not get out of bed, and her sister did not come to her. Presently the sounds came nearer, and she discovered that they came from the dog, who was howling as dogs howl at the moon or at high notes of music. When they came close to her door the howling ceased. Miss L. returned early the next morning and told them that her aunt had died at about one o'clock that night, and that soon before her death she had inquired for Miss D., in whom she took a great interest. Miss D. said she could not say exactly at what hour the dog had awakened