fearless the band of rebellious leaders! In the sphere of action, Robert Owen was a Victorian, and so was Lord Shaftesbury. In the sphere of words, Disraeli's early novels uttered the cry of the poor. Carlyle's pamphlets raised the 'condition-of-England question,' and cleft great rents in the self-satisfaction of accepted Liberalism. Under his indignant influence Ruskin gave to the service of man the powers meant for the delight of artistic drawing-rooms. William Morris followed the same disconcerting course. Mill disowned the labors of a lifetime, and turned to Socialism for his hope. Matthew Arnold penetrated the skull of Philistia with a sling and stone. Dickens wrote of the poor and of children till they grew into living and sensitive things. Thomas Hardy revealed the primal, the essential, sorrows and ironies of common life. The Fabian writers designed a gradual and systematic upheaval and overturn of economic existence. All these subversive agents were Victorian, and it is absurd to think of an age as stable and selfsatisfied in cruel equanimity when forces so fiery and persistent were undermining the ground beneath the feet and piling explosives there.

In the less political arts also it was an age of strong revolt. In painting, Turner and Whistler were Victorians,

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after all; and, what may seem more surprising now, the Pre-Raphaelites were accounted rebels. Only the Royal Academy remained unchanged, nailing a glorious 'Semper Eadem' to its mast, where still it flutters. Among novelists, what daring of new passion in the Brontës! What wealth of thought in George Eliot (after all)! What splendor of vitality, what freedom and breadth of vision in George Meredith! In poetry, with generous abundance, Browning restored the gravity of thought to verse; Swinburne lavished upon the age a defiant passion of beauty and revolution; Landor an impassioned perfection; Rossetti a jeweled enchantment. These are the names which we ought to think of when we speak of the Victorians, though we do not think of them. What half-century in our history can show genius so various and of such high endowment as the years between 1840 and 1890? It was an age of singular activity and freedom of thought, pursuing truth or beauty without reserves, untrammeled by political censorship, and not stifled in floods of political rewards. Preeminently it was an age of revolt, and only ignorance or selfconceit can prompt our generation to condemn it for the dull traditions and mediocre moralities which, in fact, it summoned to trial and deposed.

NATIONS, like individuals, are apt to live in ignorance of the repute which they bear among their neighbors, and even among their friends. Then comes a great war, and their eyes are opened: secret hatreds, misunderstandings, and treacheries are revealed, and they realize what was being thought of them in the days when they counted on the good will, perhaps on the admiration, of all the world.

But if war brings cruel surprises of this kind, it also brings in many cases a consoling revision of estimates; the strain may prove not only the material strength of a people, but the value of the still more important ideas upon which depend their spiritual vitality and power of resistance. When this is the case our neighbors think of us for the future according to the qualities we have displayed in the hour of danger, and they rightly attribute these qualities not to the effort of the moment, but to the fundamental character of the community and its historic training.

It has fallen to me within the last few months to examine statements from Allied and friendly countries as to our national prestige before the war and our probable influence after it. The impression left upon my mind is a strong one. As to the past I think there can be no doubt that for thirty years we have been deliberately slandered and belittled by our enemies, working to undermine all belief in our intellectual vitality, by means of suggestion, of substitution, and of carefully manipulated evidence.

The whole book trade of the Continent was passing under German control. In great universities of neutral countries 'the students, and even the teachers, knew of and used German books, but were ignorant even of the existence of English books. They even argued that good English books did not exist.' No wonder: for our supplanters had taken care that English literature and art should be known to that country mainly through the medium of vulgar post-cards, cheap erotic novels, and the plays of our few decadents and cranks. Of one such play another deponent says: 'What an absurdly false view of British medical men (who as far as I have been able to see, are an excellent type of men) do we get by looking at them through this writer's spectacles! I do not wonder that his plays were immensely popular in Germany before the war.'

Another remarks, quite independently, that in his country no one would consult an English doctor even in an emergency; it would be fatal, for the English have no science. Again it is no wonder; for from a different source come instances of scientific as well as literary fraud. A new operation or method is invented in England; in the German periodicals, which supply the world's scientific information, the discovery is ignored, until some German practitioner has adopted it successfully. It is then announced under his name, and goes forth as 'Piggensticher's operation,' the latest proof of Germany's supremacy in science.

To an English professional man it is difficult to deal with such conduct; he puts his trust in the greatness of truth, and has hitherto failed to realize that it would be better to see truth prevailing by less expensive means than universal war. Propaganda is simply disinfection — a disagreeable necessity in a world where treachery is endemic.

But I have an equally strong impression that for the immediate future at any rate the war will have cleared the air. A typical piece of evidence is this, from a native of a country not too favorable to us. We have been reading the touching book of a hero's letters which you kindly sent us. . . . We have never loved England and the English as we do it during this war in which you are staking your all to save the liberty of European nations.' From a French naval officer comes a warm appreciation of another young Englishman's war letters, and from an American the remark, 'Your war literature is more convincing than all the diplomatists in Europe.' A Spaniard, a Chinese official, and an Italian soldier claim with pride that of all nations it is in each case their own which has by nature most in common with ours. A Scandinavian assures us that in the world after the war English life and character will be eagerly studied, to find the secret of our national greatness.

I do not know whether this will be so; but I think it well may be, and with good reason. It is clear to most even now, and will hereafter be clear to all, that this war is a clash not of interests, but of ideals, a struggle not between countries so much as between alternative forms of life. The German offers the world two ideals in one scientific method and the reign of force. For their attainment the price

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is slavery and decimation - in other words, military service under an autocracy. The bargain, even for the German himself, is a bad one, for by it the state takes everything and gives almost nothing. Our individualism, on the other hand, may be said to take almost nothing, but to risk everything. It is true, but the risk has not yet ruined us, and we shall not repeat it.

In the meantime the heroism of our sons has ennobled all their forefathers, and shown of what enduring stuff our civilization has been built up. It lasts because it is fitted to human life, which is not made out of mechanical method and brute force, but is in its nature social and universal, abhorring cruelty and privilege. When they once more have leisure to think and compare, the majority of mankind, whose chief concern, after all, is life, will not fail to mark the difference between the world as dreamed by the Treitschkes, Bernhardis, and Reventlows and the world as actually made by the Englishman; between existence under cast-iron theories, relentless laws of nature, and survival of might, and our practice of live-and-let-live, which accords with the most fundamental distinction between manhood and beasthood.

The League of Nations will be a final proof: to the Englishman it will be but a greater freedom, a widening of his earthly home; to the German theorist it will bear the terrible aspect of a new world, into which he cannot enter unless he turn and repent and become one with those whom he has despised and violated. We shall be judged once more by our fellow men; and this time the judgment will be a truer one. For the future let us see to it that we are better known.

'COLD dinner!' exclaimed Frederic. 'I'm sick of cold salmon and salads and blancmanges.'

'Cherchez la femme,' I replied. 'Not Dora again?' he groaned. 'Yes, Dora again,' I sighed. 'Why don't you give her notice? I'd make a better cook myself.'

'Unfortunately,' I said, 'I'm unable to give this Dora notice. I'm speaking of the Dora who threatens a hundredpound fine or six months' imprisonment, or both.'

'What is it this time?' asked Frederic.

'Gas,' I replied.

'It's all gas,' said Frederic.

'No, it is n't,' I said. 'It's electric light too, and shortly it will be coal. I have had a notice from the gas company, warning me to keep a constant watch on the gas metre in case I exceed the rationed allowance. If I do exceed they must report me to the Board of Trade, who will fine me a hundred pounds or imprison me for six months, or both. I've been to the gas office and they've given me halfan-hour's careful instruction on reading the metre, but I don't understand it in the least. There are three faces. On the right one the hands always go forward like a clock. On the middle one they always go backward like the barometer. The third, I believe, is neutral. But I defy anyone to understand them. I'm sure the gas company must be deploring its lost opportunities now it is for the first time awake to the utter inability of the public to read its metres check its consumption of gas. was wondering, dear, if you would mind if I had the metre hung in the

or

I

hall, where the barometer is, or stood on the dining-room mantelpiece in place of the clock. Or I might have the coal cellar turned into a sittingroom for me. The metre is there already, and we shall not want the coal cellar for coal, as we shall be able to keep the coal ration in the scuttles. The only question, as far as I can see, is which of us will go to prison,' I continued.

'I shall, most certainly,' said Frederic eagerly. 'I am the head of the house and as such responsible for its actions.'

'No, dear,' I said tenderly, 'I must accept responsibility for the confidence you repose in me. I will go to prison and you shall pay the hundredpound fine.'

'Pardon me,' said Frederic stiffly, 'but I insist on going to prison. I will consent to no half-measures. I will gladly pay the hundred-pound fine on condition of being sent to prison for six months.'

'Frederic,' I said, 'how can you be so selfish? You know it is my turn to go to prison. I gave way to you about food hoarding and obscuring lights at dusk and everything else, and now it is my turn. I can't help it that they would n't prosecute you. My innocent and quiet mind longs for the hermitage of a prison cell. Think of it. No shopping no servants, no catering, no bacon, no lard, no cheese, no syrup, no offal, no responsibility. Your meals brought hot to you by a servant who cannot give you notice. It would save my reason, which I feel is just going when I buy leeks and artichokes at the grocer's, and the butcher's window is

full of daffodils and blackberry jam; and I bought the marmalade yesterday at the oilshop and the kippers from the baker. And, Frederic,' I said, 'I believe they compel you to have a hot bath in prison, at least I know they do in the workhouse, and I expect it is the same in prison. There will be no more hot baths here with the limited gas and coal ration.'

A groan from Frederic made me pause. The agonized expression on

Punch

his face wrung my heart. I expect I'll have to let you go to prison, Frederic dear,' I said, 'now that I think of the baths. A bath you must have even if you have to go to prison for it you shall go.'

The light of inspiration broke over Frederic's face.

'Why could n't we both go?' he cried.

'Why not?' I said; 'it certainly says "or both."

You kept geese gray geese - at Fotheringham because there was a common and a pond, and not because there was a European war and gray geese were handy at earning their own living. The pond was by the church, and by the pond was a blackthorn bush, its white blossoms showing stark and dazzling against the pale blue sky of spring. Directly you saw the geese in their muddy habitation next the blacksmith's you knew there must be a common and a pond, and probably a church. There were cottages round the edge of the common, most of them very old indeed, two brand new a landlord's concession to democracy.

The church was new too, brand new, horribly new. It was full of edges. The rooftree was aggressively straight, the windows mathematical. Even the rose tree over the porch had to be fastened up with new bits of cloth - compelled to feel at home.

The old church had been burnt down some said by the suffragettes before the European War. And the new one was only finished at the end of 1914. It marked a period. Its new edges marked a new age. There were no monuments in it- only the Roll of Honor.

Some two hundred names made a good showing, the village thought. It was proud of its Roll of Honor. There had never been anything so public which concerned it quite so intimately. It had been designed by the vicar's daughter, who had learned painting. It was headed Dulce est pro patria mori, and it had a border of purple grapes, which the village thought very talented and suitable. The names were entered in copy book hand, very nice and even, and several of them had crosses against them. The crosses were not so even. It is not easy to do gold crosses regularly. But the vicar's daughter