the same inconceivable failure of under- | prehensible; it is an old ground of constanding, and men and women, after those tention, and, however little we may like thousands of years, continue inscrutable the perpetual rivalry, we can neither wonto each other? This great misunderstanding apparently will always subsist, and certainly it is the most incomprehensible

of all.

Mr. Hamerton begins his contrast of the two peoples in the schoolroom, and continues it through all the national and domestic institutions, contrasting the culture of the affections in France with their repression in England, the different views of both peoples in respect to rank, their patriotism, their differing kinds of conservatism, their religion, and, in short, everything which deeply affects national character, with a very full knowledge of what we may call from an English point of view the other side of the question; but with not so clear a perception we think of ours, which perhaps he has partially forgotten, and with which, seeing his long inhabitation of another country, he probably, to begin with, was not entirely pleased. Here, however, is something like a statement of his theory as to the mutual judgment of the two nations, which he takes as explaining all their hard thoughts of each other, and which will show at once his position and its defects:

der at it nor find it unreasonable. As for Canada, that is unreasonable more because it is impossible than for any other cause; for certainly we should not at all on our side be content to leave a large section of our country-folk, obstinately tenacious of our language and ways, under French subjection if we could help it. But what Englishman wishes "to sink the French fleet"? We may desire that it should remain inferior to our own, or rather what is at once a better and a more veracious way of stating the fact that our own should be manifestly and indisputably superior to it, which is the most reasonable thing in the world; but to sink the French fleet, unless, indeed, we were engaged in deadly warfare, and its destruction or our own was the only alternative, is what nobody could for a moment either desire or think of, and would be a most serious injury to the world in general; and to place such a fantastic imaginary wish against the other two facts, both of them quite comprehensible, is a proof at once of the failure of Mr. Hamerton's argument, and a singular absence of material on our side for establishing the wished-for balance. As for I cannot conclude this chapter without French of immorality and not the Italians, the question why we should accuse the frankly admitting that national jealousy is reasonable so long as it confines itself to the nothing can be more easy to answer. truth. It is quite reasonable that the French French books, and especially French should want to push the English out of Canada works of fiction purporting to give a and Egypt, and that the English should wish picture of French life and morals, are to sink the French fleet. What is unreason- very much read in England. Italian books able is for two peoples to depreciate each are not so. In themselves the latter are other in books and newspapers, and blacken much less numerous and less attainable, each other's private characters because both so that we have not the material on which are formidable in a military or naval sense. How is it that we hear so much of French French should dwell much more on what to form our judgment. And that the immorality, and nothing, or next to nothing, of Italian? How is it that in France we have they think English cruelty than on the heard so much of English cruelty and bar- cruelty of the Turks, is likewise the most barity, whilst the accounts of Turkish cruelty comprehensible thing in the world. If were received with the smile of incredulity we are cruel, we are much more guilty or the shrug of indifference? Why this so than the Turks. The Turks are unprotender French sympathy for the Irish, exaggressive; they have not the same tenets gerating all their woes? Why this wonderful as we have; their conscience is unaffected sympathy in England for the unauthorized by the laws which dominate Western sys. religious orders in France? How does it happen that everything which seems to tell against

one of the two countries is received with instant credence in the other?

The explanation that it is patriotic jealousy which is the cause of all these misstatements and misapprehensions, is here, we think, not at all carried out by facts. That the French should wish "to push the English out of Egypt" is very com

tems.

maintain that the Mohammedan civilizaThere are persons, indeed, who tion is a more effective Christianity than our own; but these enlightened individuals have not yet succeeded in convincing the rest of the world that it is so, and we are all, French and English alike, united in believing that what is expected from the peoples in the front of civilization is not to be expected from the Oriental. It

seems hardly worth while to insist on | have arisen recently from the bosom of facts so apparent. French society on this subject. The author of "Marie Fougère, who has written under various noms de plume, sometimes as a woman, but who is no less a personage than the present procureur de la république, has made a most energetic and animated protest, describing how in the country "toutes les honnêtes femmes sont effrayées, pour leur enfants comme pour elles mêmes, des tendances que manifeste de plus en plus l'école moderne. Paris nous a lancé comme dernier défi la Terre et l'Immortel: ceci est la réponse de la bourgeoisie lettrée de province." Alas! the réponse is but poorly qualified to maintain its place against the modern school thus objected to. It is like all French fiction, which resembles the immortal little girl of the distich:

When she was good she was very, very good,

And when she was bad she was horrid.

Mr. Hamerton, however, is very strong in his reiterated protest against our general disposition to take French fiction as a just illustration of French morality and manners. He uses the somewhat extrava gant argument that the English old maid reads all about the murders of the day, yet never murders anybody, as an excellent reason against accusing the French public of immorality because it delights in stories of vice. This, however, is not the question at all. Nobody denies that there exist in France the purest lives, the most admirable characters. Nobody now who knows anything about the matter believes, as once an ignorant generation believed, that because the French have not the word "home" the thing does not exist among them -a ridiculous misconception, which only ignorance could ever justify. At the same time, we know that our own novels are more or less truthful representations of the life of our time The very, very good is never the fit many of them admirable, few of them reply to vice. What we want is to see seriously misleading. There are some, ordinary human nature upon that ordinary indeed, which represent life only as it level of life which would be impossible if exists among the frivolous classes, and it were not at least tolerably virtuous. these have naturally no breadth of truth, Of this fact we are fully convincedbut yet are sufficiently faithful to the path that the reeking dunghill of French fiction of life which they portray. This being cannot largely represent the common ex the case, we are not only justified in be- istence of France, or else France would lieving that French novels must be in inevitably fall to pieces. But at the same their way a true expression of life, but time this universal burden of story, this driven to that conviction. In every other consent of living testimony, how is it poscountry they are accepted as such. The sible to accept it as worth nothing? If by drama must deal with stronger effects common agreement realism is understood than are necessary for a portrayal of life, to mean vice in a certain language and being compelled to epitomize in the space country, what can spectators say or beof a few hours the entire growth and délieve? Nothing that Mr. Hamerton says nouement of a tragedy, or, what is even is worth considering as an answer to this more difficult, of the genteel comedy, which approaches more closely to a novel. That we should distrust the existence of pure women in France because their novels are odious, or imagine that every There are some very curious statements Frenchwoman who reads "Madame Bo- about life in England in this book, which vary must necessarily share her inclina- lead us to the conclusion that Mr. Hations or emulate her life, is absurdity; merton must have forgotten his native though at the same time not to have read country in many ways. He tells us that "Madame Bovary 99 a book the name the modern Englishman, for instance, is of which must be forced upon her in a taught and governed in boyhood by cierhundred critical discussions, which are gymen; their feminine allies compel him the things French writers are most cun- to go to church, and to observe the Enning and remarkable in - must be almost glish Sunday if he intends to marry in impossible for a cultivated Frenchwoman England." The last is a most curious who is not a jeune fille. And this is put and entirely French suggestion; and it is forth, recognized, applauded as a revela- rather a pity that it is not true. "Even a tion-and no voice of authority, as far strong-minded Englishman is a little afraid as we are aware, has ever said that it was of a clergyman," Mr. Hamerton adds. Some disclaimers, we are aware, | Another very curious statement is about

not so.

question. It is doubtful, indeed, as he announces on various occasions that he does not read French novels, how far he is a judge.

66

They only dare venture to talk in their own way between themselves in privacy."

our language. "It is only the most culti- | jealousy of their intellectual inferiors. vated English people who dare to employ in conversation the full powers of their noble tongue; the others shrink from the best use of it, and accustom themselves to forms of speech that constitute in reality a far inferior language, in which it is so difficult to express thought and sentiment that they are commonly left unexpressed." Mr. Hamerton adds, in a foot-note, "An English friend of mine, himself a man of the very highest culture, says that the cultivated English keep their talk down to a low level, from a dread of the watchful

This is a very appalling statement indeed. Is it possible that the intellectual classes in England, after expressing or not expressing "in a far inferior language such sentiments as it may be possible to trust to their intellectual inferiors, talk Johnsonese among themselves? How glad must everybody be in that case that he or she does not belong to these painfully "cultivated " people!

MUSICAL OVERSTRAIN. The weariness of long-continued study is proverbial. Its explanation is not far to seek. One portion of our entire being is almost exclusively occupied, and the monotony of the process constitutes in large measure the cause of exhaustion. Relief must accordingly be sought in rest, in the exercise of other functions, or in variation of the form of mental exertion. Such timely and refreshing change enters into all wellordered plans of education. There is, however, in every study a stage at which persistent concentration is indispensable to anything like high development. Reiteration, though tedious, is necessary to full instruction. Perhaps no better illustration of this fact could be found than that which is constantly evident in the cultivation of music. One could hardly conceive of anything more truly monotonous than a continuance of that tax of patience, piano-practice. No doubt inclination and inborn faculty may do much to create an interest, but the most enthusiastic learner will sometimes, notwithstanding, rebel against the exactions of musical cram. It has even been stated by a German observer that much of the nervous delicacy so common among girls is traceable to excessive diligence at the piano, There is more than a grain of truth in this observation. The limit of moderation, indeed, may not be capable of exact definition, for a longer or shorter period would naturally suit the need and capacity of different persons. One or two hours of practice, it is probable, would rarely prove excessive. When, however, six or eight hours are daily absorbed in repeating a humdrum series of manipulations, the wonder is that nature long endures the drudgery. Yet this is the common lot of many who aspire to skilful execution. The coveted perfection doubtless is often approximately reached, but the associated circumstance of nervous overstrain will suggest a

doubt whether such qualified excellence is altogether desirable. At all events, it is but reasonable to allow that proficiency so dearly purchased, is not, for young people of deficient nervous tone, a social necessity, especially if they be also void of any special artistic aptitude. Nay, even for those whose health and energy permit them to enjoy, if they choose, the privilege of musical hard labor, a frequent interlude of rest and recreation is no less needful than discreet.

Lancet.

THE ADVANTAGES OF THE CONSCRIPTION IN FRANCE. -The absolute unity of sentiment between the military and civil popula tions is a great compensation for the burden of universal service. Another is the increase of manliness and the improvement of national health. Of the reality of this improvement I cannot entertain a doubt, having myself frequently known young men who had gained greatly in strength and activity by their military service, and who felt and acknowledged the benefit. This is peculiarly valuable in France on account of the too close confinement of youths in the public schools. The universality of military service has been accompanied by a great increase in the number and activity of the gymnastic societies, and it has led to much military drill within the schools themselves. The sons of peasants acquire some education in the army, which is a valuable instrument for spreading a certain amount of elementary culture, and even more than that, through the regimental libraries. The sons of gentlemen, besides the benefit of physical exercise, are often stimulated by the hope of promotion to improve the education they already possess.

P. G. Hamerton, in "French and English.' Macmillan's Magazine.

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