ing of the sword. We are finding much that is discouraging and much that is cheering. We are seeing that we have been sadly deceived by hordes of politicians, who have been seeking to feather their nests in the name of universal philanthropy, and cliques of theorists who have passed off upon us their empty speculations for solid wisdom. We have learned that mighty as is talk, it is not almighty; and great as is the pen, it can not save us from the sword-and, in fact, now appeals to the sword to save its schemes from contempt and its liberties from destruction. We have learned that whatever men may think about the nation, thinking is not acting; and stubborn facts look us sternly in the face, in spite of all our attempts to theorize them away.

spirit. The author is sometimes said, indeed, totion in the school of stern reality, under the schooldeal with mind and the soldier with matter; but this is not a fair distinction, since the whole material world is the constant theme of the scientific and poetical and economical pen; and, moreover, the valor of the soldier marvelously inspires poetry and eloquence, and moves popular enthusiasm. The truth is, that the author deals with the mind mainly in its ideas and tastes, while the soldier deals more with its purposes and acts. A battle is called by eminence an action; and there is nothing which probably concentrates so much force of will within the same time, or more controls the conduct and institutions of men. Nor does the effect end with the deed, for valor in the field carries its force and its glory into social and international life, and a brave people have a commanding power over their age and give great force to their ideas and usages. We, of course, can not say that the sword can make converts to religion, for the true religion is not of this world; yet no missionary can be successful without possessing qualities essentially militant, such as would have power in any camp; and nothing is clearer than that the nations who have been converted by such heroes, when they have opportunity to show their pluck in the field, prove by their conduct that the sword of the spirit does not enfeeble the more carnal weapon, and Christians are never cowards.

We are learning the superficiality of much that has passed under the name of education, and seeing to our shame that mere learning is not of itself vital power, and that the memory may be crammed while the judgment is impoverished, and the tongue may be swift while the will is languid and the hand and foot are feeble. Comparing our power with that of our sturdy fathers, who fought and labored before this age of print and talk had begun, we find ourselves not wholly flattered by the parallel; and we must confess that our energy does not keep pace with our knowledge, and we do not do as well and as much as we know. We evidently need to consider, in a more practical way, not only the matter but the manner of our duty-not only what is to be done, but how we are to do it; and in both respects the new generation may learn much from the discipline of the camp and the logic of the sword. have not only mistaken the loose leaves of changing opinion for the substance of truth, and failed to test every declaration by practice, but we have too often taken it for granted that every man is not only to

We

We, as a nation, are learning now as never before the difference between opinions and actions, as we put to the practical test the large amount of political speculation and paper warfare that has been set before us by the press. Our editors have led us to suppose that the issue of the contest was wholly in the field of opinion, and the important point to be considered was what is to be thought upon a certain controverted question. The substantial and undisputed foundations of government were left unnoticed, and the whole emphasis was given to a mat-think for himself in the most conceited individualter of opinion as to the future of our territories, or the controverted relations of sections. They comparatively ignored the question that a military man asks at once, What is to be done; and what are the qualities most likely to do it? The lords of the penwho had been shedding so much ink for years, and forgotten that there is a more costly liquid that their wordy strifes may cause to be shed-seem to have supposed that there was no sterner implement than that which they pass so glibly over the willing paper; and if they thought at all of stirring hot blood, they comforted themselves with assurance of their ability to change their ground at pleasure, and say or unsay what they please. A military training compels a man to begin with the other side of the matter, and think, not of ideas and schemes, but of actual men and things. If he is asked what is the course to be pursued with a new territory or with an enslaved people, he will consider what can be done, well aware that after the opinion or abstraction goes forth the land or the race stands just as it was before, unless some actual measures can be taken to change it for the better.

If we are dealing with a class of men, whether masters or servants, who are not habitual readers of our newspapers, but subject to instincts and circumstances more potent, the point to be decided is what these people actually are, what will they do, and what can be done with them? As the pen has made a great mistake in its estimate, it must now look to the sword for rectification; and we are studying anew the temper and prospects of our naVOL. XXIII.-No. 136.-N N

ism, but we have carried individualism into action, and set up self-will in the place of civil and social and religious allegiance. The idea of authority has been made light of, and it is undoubtedly true that thousands of our restless young men have lately learned, for the first time in their lives, from the discipline of the camp, that some orders are to be obeyed other than those which each man issues by right of the autocrat within his own soul. It may be that Providence, in pity on us for the decline of the spirit of rightful obedience, is teaching it to us in the mightiest, certainly in the most imperious of schools; and the hosts who have had their conceit so fearfully pampered by being treated as dictators on all subjects by the dashing journalists and declaimers of the day, find the nonsense taken out of them, in a wonderful way, by a few days' drill and a few weeks of genuine campaigning under officers who must be obeyed.

We are taking useful lessons in the philosophy of organization, and learning that it is not the height of wisdom or of power for every man to do what is pleasing in his own eyes. The authority of the camp is not only putting a wholesome check to the license of the press, but curbing the restive temper of a people who have been too ready to believe that each man is an independent sovereignty, and may secede at will from the body politic and social. So we are to study anew the science and the art of society, and the order of the sword is interpreting to us as never before the wisdom and the power of due organization. The pen, indeed, has its own power,

gathering its staff of editors about the editor-in-chief, and relying upon the support of a corps of readers, numbering, sometimes, hundreds of thousands. But the nation and the world would fare ill if there were no stronger organizations, and all associate activity were to rest upon a basis as vague and vacillating as items and articles, and a companionship as loose and shifting as that of the readers of newspapers and sensation novels. We are probably to suffer some bitter disappointments from our want of organic discipline, and we must expect the magnificence of our egotistic musings and schemings to be pretty roughly rebuked when we call the powers of combination into play, urge a central authority which we have never truly acknowledged, and are called to an obedience that we have never cherished. Ideas, aspirations, impulses, we may abound in, and we are surely not wanting, as a people, in the stuff that heroes are made of; but how shall these materials be worked into shape and brought to bear together upon the true point? This is the great question that con

of some available soldier of fortune to cloak their schemes and to favor their intrigues; and it may be that such men will be again placed at the head of affairs, and again saved from failure by being killed by squadrons of office-seekers more formidable than armed brigades. But the soldiers we need to invigorate the nation, to teach our writers how to add valor to intelligence and give reality to speculation. The pen does enough to honor the sword to claim some substantial return, and we advise the authors, lecturers, editors, and even the preachers of the land to study carefully the ways of the camp and the field, and take home with them to their inkstand the lessons that they learn. If they do this, we have no fear that the pen will be destroyed or supplanted by the sword, but are sure that it will have a finer point, a freer flow, a more luminous perception and positive power.

Editor's Easy Chair.

is a pity when an author is too sensitive to

cerns the future of the nation. We have, indeed, criticism, or rather to the remarks which are

publicly made upon his character and talents, because in this day of entire freedom and facility of talk by types, every body can find the opportunity of saying just what he likes of every body else.

There are, indeed-and every man who is likely to be mentioned in print, ought to bear it in mind— two kinds of criticism. One is criticism, and the other is not. The painful, puerile, and pitiful personal gossip about famous people which is circulated in newspapers is one of the penalties of reputation. And it is of several kinds. It may, for instance, be the kind of talk in which Mr. Somebody indulged about Thackeray, two or three years ago, in Town Talk; or it may be the tone of the Saturday Review toward the same gentleman; or it may be the comment upon Mr. Dickens's private history; or, still again, the assaults upon personal character which greeted Mr. Buckle's "History of Civilization."

a certain kind of organization in business, and every great business establishment is a kingdom or an army in miniature; but the authority and the obedience rest mainly upon the purse, and is binding during mutual profit or pleasure, and does not rest upon the allegiance that the country claims from its citizens, and which the sword urges with a logic quite its own. Moreover, we must remember that with us the greater portion of the organizing practical mind of our people has been withdrawn from the public service by hope of private gain, and that our strongest men do not crowd into politics, or into the army and navy. Our ready talkers and writers have had things very much their own way, and from lack of leaders who feel and impress upon others the sense of loyalty, and carry with them the force of personal authority, we have suffered much, and perhaps may take wholesome lessons in these respects from neighbors who are otherwise our inferiors. Certainly our public personages have not mastered the great art of governing men by dignity of character and obedience to consti-petually lecturing Mr. Thackeray upon not being a tutional authority; and statesmanship needs among us some of the ruling qualities that the camp tends to foster, especially the quality that commands well because it serves faithfully, and serves faithfully that it may command well.

We confess that we anticipate much good to our people from the rise of a superior class of military men, who shall give our people something of the spirit that shall strengthen our thinking by manly energy, and make the conduct more than opinion the object of interest. Common as it is to dread military despotism, we are more afraid of the despotism of the pen and the stump, quite sure that a true soldier who knows what men are, and who understands the difficulty of governing well, will not be likely to mistake words for things, and to venture upon mad schemes that time and experience will be sure to bring to naught and the schemers too. We do not say that our rulers should be soldiers, although we believe that the best sovereigns, even of the late ages, have been military men; and the two presidents whose administration has left the strongest mark upon our country learned strength and order in the camp and field, and by a brave will knew how to deal with the talkers and scribblers who are always insisting that they ought to hold the reins of the Government. We are not afraid of what a great soldier will do to our people, but we do fear much from what the prating demagogues will do by using the prestige

The London Saturday Review, for instance, is pergentleman. It sneers and girds and gibes at him. It makes faces, so to say, at a charming and beneficent and sagacious satirist. But the spectacle is so old, of anonymous mediocrity carping at genius, that the talk provokes no feeling of any kind, and would naturally run along the gutter and disappear with the other slops of the week, except that the object of it gives it importance by considering it and by being evidently wounded by it. In his pleasant Roundabout Papers the author can not help an occasional" pish," at the Superfine Review, as he calls it.

But he ought to remember that when he consented to go into print he agreed to go into the pillory of personal remark. As a man of the world, it is a pity that he could not bear it with equanimity. For the only rule of comfort is to hold your tongue. Don't defend yourself. Let them lay on as they will.

But do you take good care never to cry hold, enough. What savages want is an expression of pain. They may crucify you and tear your heart out piecemeal, but if you can only contrive to smile through it all, they are balked and disappointed.

It is advice easy to give and hard to follow, Don't defend yourself; but it is the part of wisdom. If you are a general, and newspaper critics call you to account, aspersing your motives, your character, your sagacity, don't defend yourself. Leave that to the great advocate, Time.

If you are a statesman, and obliged, as great men

have sometimes felt themselves to be, to appear to ❘ and the love of man, have sought to understand the be a traitor to the great cause in order more effectu- method of Nature-in other words, the way in which ally to serve it, don't defend yourself, nor explain, God governs the world-and they frequently explain nor exculpate. Whoever works for the welfare of that method differently from the current interpretamankind must consent to be misunderstood, derided, tion. And how they catch it! Splash comes that and crucified. Honesty and wisdom justify them- infinitely stagnant twaddle about infidelity and selves at last; but if you contemplate them sus- atheism which has been immemorially squirted piciously at any particular moment they may seem upon every individual honest thought which differs to be far enough from honest or wise. from the general honest thought, or, more truly speaking, unquestioning assent and want of thought. Shall these men, more than the others, betake themselves to self-defense? Clearly not; for the appeal of every man who writes is not to the next newspaper, whether it calls itself a sacred or a secular paper. It is to the collective conscience and common sense of mankind. That tribunal judges him, and he can not escape its verdict. Whether he defends or explains, or is smart or is bitter, that terrible tribunal finally determines his case without appeal. If Mr. Thackeray is no gentleman, if Mr. Dickens can not construct a plot, if Du Chaillu never went to Africa, if Dr. Temple is a corrupter of the human mind, they can not escape the final pub

So if you are an author, understand that you must be slandered and pecked at, like all the rest; but, above all things, don't defend yourself. Don't be an author unless you can hold your tongue and smile, whatever is said about you and your works and ways. Dickens defended "Little Dorrit" most successfully in the Household Words, but it was a great mistake. Somebody said that he had no plot in the story, that he wrote at hap-hazard, and took his striking points out of the newspapers-citing in illustration the spontaneous combustion in "Bleak House," and the fall of Mrs. Clennam's old house in "Little Dorrit." Dickens wrote a capital reply. It bristled with sharp wit. It stung the accuser through and through; and left him not only utterly discom-lication of those facts, any more than worthy old fited but utterly ridiculous.

Still it had been better not to do it. Every body knew that the assailant was only one person. He roared through the loud-resounding speaking-trumpet of a review, but it was only one small voice; and what that voice said was, of course, assumed; for it was not stated as knowledge. Now the assumption was based upon the story itself; and therefore it was the story that would finally settle the question. If that evidently justified the assumption, the word of the author could not possibly withstand that impression. If it did not justify it, the criticism was of no importance, and would presently show itself to be so by the blank oblivion into which it fell. But the flash of the author's blade as he strikes a man of straw to the heart reveals forever that there was a man of straw to strike.

Besides, the very defense suggests a sense of injury upon the author's part, which carries with it an unpleasant feeling of weakness and nervousness. We do not want to feel that a man like Dickens can be so seriously hurt by such feeble blows, or by unfriendly blows of any kind. We want him to feel so secure in the love and sympathy of readers that he shall only smile at the thrusts of critics. It makes us jealous that he does not confide in us if he defends himself. What man wants his brother to prove to him that he did not tell a lie?

And if you begin to defend yourself there is no end. What is to prevent Mr. Anonymous from wagging his wise head in a newspaper or magazine, and declaring that there really seems to be no evidence that Mr. Du Chaillu has traveled in Africa? He has certainly written a very agreeable book; but then, and then, and then, and so forth.

Now shall Mr. Du Chaillu defend himself? Shall he indignantly, or sorrowfully, or brilliantly, or sarcastically show that he has been in Africa? When Mr. Kinglake published "Eōthen," it was quite a popular theory that he had made up the work from travels that he had performed in his London library, not in the East. Was it for Mr. Kinglake to prove that he had actually been to "historic Belgrade?"

Or, to take another class of writers like John Stuart Mill, Buckle, and the authors of the Essays and Reviews-they do not escape the same general kind of treatment, but why should they undertake to defend themselves? They are men who, in the fear of God

Samuel Richardson can set aside the verdict of bore, or Mrs. Aphra Behn of foul.

FOURTEEN years ago this Easy Chair was sitting one day in his cool room in Florence-cool, although it was Italy and summer. A knock at the door was followed by the brisk entrance of one of the few men in Europe that Mr. Easy Chair then cared to seeRobert Browning. How delightful the hour that followed was, those at once know who know Robert Browning. It ended with a promise of meeting at Browning's tea-table that evening.

In the evening the same alert, robust, thoroughly English-looking man presented to his wife one of the thousand young Americans who had read with eager enthusiasm her then recently-published volumes, which had a more general and hearty welcome in the United States than any English poet since the time of Byron and Company, who were the poets of our fathers.

The visitor saw, seated at the tea-table in the great room of the palace in which they were living, a very small, very slight woman, with very long curls drooping forward, almost across the eyes, hanging to the bosom, and quite concealing the pale, small face, from which the piercing, inquiring eyes looked out sensitively at the stranger. Rising from her chair she put out cordially the thin, white hand of an invalid, and in a few moments they were pleasantly chatting, while the husband strode up and down the room, joining in the conversation with a vigor, humor, eagerness, and affluence of curious lore which, with his trenchant thought and subtle sympathy, make him one of the most charming and inspiring of companions.

A few days after the same party, with one or two more, went to Vallombrosa, where they passed two days. Mrs. Browning was still too much of an invalid to walk, but we sat under the great trees upon the lawn-like hill-sides near the convent, or in the seats in the dusky convent-chapel, while Robert Browning at the organ chased a fugue of Master Hugues, of Saxe-Gotha, or dreamed out upon twilight keys a faint-throbbing toccata of Galuppi's.

In all her conversation, so mild and tender and womanly, so true and intense and rich with rare learning, there was a girl-like simplicity and sensitiveness and a womanly earnestness that took the

heart captive. She was deeply and most intelligent- | last sacrifices for principles which we really value.

In the midst of the great war the great city has very much its usual aspect. Although it is mid- -It is mid-summer, and the voice of Commencesummer the streets are thronged, buildings are go-ments is heard in the land. We may therefore not ing up in Broadway and elsewhere, the theatres are open, the cafés are crowded, and there is an unusual sobriety and peace.

In

nor the heaven-soaring lark, but you may hearken | themselves-ward probably precedes the other. Dan Chaucer; nor will you hear the multitudinous other words, very few of the sinners who live upon murmur of all the birds near and far, but you may this planet and are called men, by way of briefly excatch the song of all the poets of all times. pressing all sins in a monosyllable (see the pastoral letters aforesaid), publish magazines or transact any other kind of business for the benefit of other people

ticular business of magazine-publishing is that the more the public is pleased the larger is the profit of the merchant.

And if, in that calm nook, in meditative meads you may not stray, you may muse upon the broad expanse of my Lord of Verulam; the fair and co-exclusively. The condition, therefore, of the parpious reaches of James Harrington's Oceana; the soberer shades of Algernon Sydney; or in the trim paddocks of Clarendon and Burnet. Or in that still retreat from the fierce sun and news of fiercer war, Fielding shall jest with you, and John Boccaccio wile the languid hours, or John Bunyan shall frown the Italian John away.

But the public has nothing to do with the private affections of the purveyor of that mental food which, when properly served for consumption, constitutes the literary feast called a magazine. Consequently he does not serve this or that dish because his friend Tom or his cousin Matilda cooked it.

When the mighty chef de cuisine littéraire, who is known to us as editor, begins his great duty of composing the monthly menu, or bill of fare, he writes

And if, in the passionless seclusion of this nook, we might reason with the immortal tinker who wrote the Sunday Robinson Crusoe, might we not say for the Southern John, that his sweet simplicity and wit are greater than his license, and that even his indecency has the artlessness of Robin Goodfel-down the rarest, richest, choicest meats and morsels low? Ah, saintly John of Bedford jail, the mind that finds no difference between Paul de Kock and Giovanni Boccaccio would see none between Charles Second's Duchess of Cleveland and the sea-born Venus.

Where is this nook? Well, it is not one but many. It is one of a system of placid coves, of sheltered bays, that open suddenly out of the stony and brick shore of the streets. It is a land-bound harbor along which the lotus grows. You drift in, and you dream the day away. There are other spectres there, but few and silent. They glimmer about with upraised eyes or heads bent over. Is it for stars they look, or pearls? Shakespeare or Vaughan?

Is it still a riddle?

Sailor of the street, it is a second-hand book-store.

REVEREND Bishops have a kindly habit of issuing pastoral letters, in which, doubtless-for Mr. Easy Chair has never read one-much spiritual assistance is bestowed upon those who do read them. The rescripts come, from time to time, probably pointing out the path of duty, and supplying scrip and staff, as it were, to walk therein.

he has in his larder or can find in the market. If his dearest bosom friend, Thomas, brings him a tough drum-stick of turkey-buzzard which he has deviled, and a total stranger offers him the tenderest of delicate ortolans, do you think he hesitates between the two? Not at all, brethren, not at all. He says to his friend, "Tom, you know that I love you; but the public, for whom I have promised to provide a dinner, does not like deviled tough turkey-buzzard drum-sticks; while I know that it has a wonderful weakness for tender ortolans, with delicate breadsauce-so you see that I have no choice." And the honest purveyor keeps faith with the public, and loves his friend just as dearly as he did before.

The thing to do, then, dear brethren, is evidently to offer your commodity, not yourself, to the cook. A magazine is a peculiar feast. You must bear that in mind always. You must consider the fitness to the purpose of the article you offer. Why be disappointed if your barbecued ox is not found appropriate for a déjeuner à la fourchette? If you chance to have a paté de foie gras about you-à la bonne heure! That is to say, all right. If you do have it, send it at once; and be perfectly sure that it will be accepted. But if it is not-if it is returned to It has occurred to Mr. Easy Chair that, in humble you-look again. See if it really be a paté, or someand distant imitation of so good and venerable a cus-thing else-possibly eel-pie, for instance. tom, he might occasionally issue a few words of advice and consolation for the benefit of those who not yet having entered the somewhat narrow and difficult way of magazine writing, would most gladly enter thereat, and do contemplate with wistful eyes those that gayly walk therein.

He is so constantly receiving private letters of inquiry, and is really, and without banter, made aware of so much honest desire and wishful talent, that it will not be thought impertinent if he makes a few suggestions.

In the first place, dearly beloved fellow-authors for such you are, whether or not your works come to the press or the public-magazine writing, unlike kissing, does not go by favor. The editor is a person who has (ideally) a clear perception of what he likes as an individual, and also of what the public likes. When he has determined whether he edits his magazine for himself or the public, he has done his first duty. If for himself, he will please himself in every way he can. If for the public, he will try first of all to please them.

Now a reputable magazine is published by merchants who believe that they can help themselves by innocently gratifying the public. The view

And you may be very sure that every thing sent is fairly considered. Every hamper is carefully opened, whether the writing of the address be recognized or not. And for the very simple reason that experience has taught the chef that his choicest morsels are quite likely to arrive from entirely unexpected points. Then, too, if you were in the kitchen you would know that a great deal of game is sent in by famous shots which is laid aside as not quite up to the mark. A crow brought down by Berdan even, would not be preferred, by a chef fit for his place, to a pheasant snared by an unknown bungler unworthy to be the least in the rifle-corps.

Finally, then, brethren, do your best. Send the result confidently to the cook. If he thinks it succulent and seasonable, he will take it, pay you for it, and serve it up at his table. If he does not like it, he will not use it because he likes you, or because it is sent to him by one person rather than another. Would you, the most sensitive and honorable of persons, pay your friend the price of sound woolens for damaged blankets? Would you buy orange-trees of him when you wanted cauliflowers? You may wish to help him; and you may, indeed, take his blankets and orange-trees, and give him money.