Lord Roberts, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Kitchener, and hundreds of other Irishmen who have conferred lustre upon the British Empire, are Irish men of the dominant race. The dreamy, unpractical, affectionate, and passionate nature of the Irish Celt shines in poetry, excels in politics, and revels in rhetoric; for the practical affairs of the world it is unsuited. Every American admits as much in private life. A joint resolve, therefore, no longer to allow the futile and exploded fiction of English oppression of Irishmen to impede the good understanding between the two branches of the Anglo-Saxon race is a duty that we owe to each other. Americans see clouds that hang over Britain from a standpoint of impartiality and distance. Englishmen, on the other hand, discern the evolution of an Irish question in the United States which, compared with the Irish question in England, is as water unto wine. Sympathy between us in our Irish troubles is a course dictated no less by prudence than by sentiment. To conclude: Better relations between us can be established only by the diffusion of accurate knowledge, especially by the reorganisation of Newspaper Correspondence; by refraining (notwithstanding Lord Salisbury's example on November 9, when he openly rejoiced at the victory of the Republican Party) from interference with domestic politics; by sympathetic co-operation in regard to the question of the Irish Celt; and by recognition of the identity of interest in foreign affairs as regards the Open Door. Despite all the hard things that have been said of England during the year now closing, the strongest trait in the Anglo-Saxon character, on both sides of the ocean, is pride. Now that the population of these Islands is but little more than a moiety of the population of the States, and the economic centre of the world is shifting from London to the West, the tendency of British writers is to refrain from anything that may seem to bid for American friendship. Their pride makes them reticent. Nevertheless, Great Britain is an ocean outpost of the United States. Upon Great Britain will burst the storm that sooner or later means mobilisation for the campaign that is to end in Armageddon. If Britain were to go under and her Colonies were to be divided among the tariff-loving Powers, American interests would receive scant favour or regard; but even so vast a Power as the Great Republic does not live by bread alone, and the Message of the Anglo-Saxon race will not be delivered to the world unless that race is united in the sympathy of a common aim. BY EGERTON CASTLE Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard 、 -Keats. ROMANCE! Call you that a Romance?' cried the Lady. Why, there is not a woman in the whole story and where is Romance without Love?' Where indeed? And yet I was speaking of no less a work than Kidnapped,' with a special adverting to the Man with the belt of gold and Cluny's Cage. And I had qualified it as 'breathing the very spirit of romance! 'Can there be romance without love?' said the Lady. 'No!' And a very indignant 'no' it was! Yet Stevenson has proved otherwise. Nay: he is not only more romantically inspired in every situation that does not deal with the passion of love than any other author living or dead, but he is also oddly and admittedly perplexed when obliged to take it into account. Indeed he has, it seems, wilfully eschewed what is conventionally regarded at once as the mainspring of all fiction and as the leading motive in human life. Cherchez la femme! Except in 'Prince Otto,' where she appears triumphantly in two delicious presentments (and perhaps for that reason the book, in some eyes, will remain the jewel of the collection), you will seek in vain for her upon her proper throne in any of the works that have gone to make the fame of this Master of Romance. And even you, madam, will not deny him that title?' Womanlike, of course, the Lady begged the question. 'Pray,' said she, with the necessary pouted lip, 'do you then consider that there is no romance in love? 'The gods forbid,' cried I, 'that you or I, madam, should ever look upon love without romance! But romance without love seems a vastly different matter-though, I confess, I never considered the question in that light before. Can we not have the romance of every strong passion, from the passions we share with the animal to passions that are purely of the mind: of Fighting, of Hatred, of Ambition or Devotion, of Paternity or Friendship, as well as of Love for Woman and Jealousy, Joy and Grief?' Here I felt as though I had found at least one joint. There are many words like this one in everyday usance which appear to carry a quite definite meaning, yet would hardly bear the ordeal of strict examining. Romance, in its very sound, if not in its history, does undoubtedly show many points of attachment to that cardinal emotion of life, Love. 'For such, madam, I, with you, hold love to be. Yet love is manifestly but one ray in the scintillation of the word. Were I asked,' said I, ‘to define Romance, in fiction at least, I would describe it as the word-picture of adventures that spring from poignant human motives.' But, having formulated this decisive phrase, I was instantly struck by its deplorable incompleteness. An incomplete definition is less than nothing. It seems, in fact, as impossible to catch the Spirit of Romance in the meshes of words as to lay down a Rule of Beauty or to dogmatise upon the Real Attributes of Genius. Colloquially, of course, both the word itself and its derived adjective seem quite naturally to refer, and with special insistance, to that gentle passion, which, by the way, in romance can be the fiercest of all. What, for instance, to the average ear, would a romantic adventure' suggest, if the love of woman did not figure in it? Are not heroes and heroines of Romance,' from the generally accepted meaning of the term, held to be men and women capable of sustaining a more than ordinarily impressive rôle in love's drama? same. All ages have known the romantic girl,' the maiden who, amid her everyday duties, yearns for emotional strangeness, strenuous adventures, in which the particular type of romantic man in vogue just then shall play Romeo to her Juliet. The special colour of her imaginings has varied, of course; but its spirit has remained the Our grandmothers sighed, in their sallet days, for Byronic youths with pale, wild countenances and irregular propensities. The lady of the Restoration turned her languorous thoughts to fascinating libertines in love-locks and lace collars. A dapper person in brocade, with a nimble turn of the wrist as well as of the wit, smart, brave, and wicked as his own porcelain-hilted court blade, no doubt haunted the pillows whereon the Georgian maiden rested her powdered head. On the other hand, the verb 'to romance' more nearly retains the historical meaning attached to those guileless first efforts of storytelling' which began to be defined by that name in contradistinction to the mere chronicling of facts. No one's acquaintance is too narrowly limited, I take it, not to include at least one friend whose speech is moved by this prolific richness of imagination, unhampered by any paltry consideration of responsibility. Dull, matter-of-fact people are inclined to give ugly names to this predisposition-one which has come down to us from the youth-days of the world. To me, trammelled as I have always been by a narrow-minded attachment to fact, to logic and consequence, it has always seemed a precious and enviable mental possession. I have listened with admiration to a neighbour dilating upon the excellences of his stables, the particular charm of his mail-phaeton, the rare qualities of a certain pair of bays, the interesting virtues of his grooms, the while I and most of the audience knew that his hippic establishment consisted of a butcher's pony and a bath-chair. But that in no way interfered with the speaker's satisfaction—a satisfaction so unctuous and complete that it never failed to impress even the most sceptical listener. Why be too severe ? He merely idealised a particular corner of his life; and, truly, the picture was more interesting to contemplate than the bare reality! In precisely the same spirit, no doubt, did the Romancer of old rectify' the shortcomings of contemporary fact in his Tale of Chivalry, and thereby make it right pleasant hearing. I am told that one of my first nurses was fond of talking of the almost inconceivable grandeur of her previous places: it was, according to her, positively Oriental. One particular infant under her charge never, it seemed, partook of any food but what had been prepared in a massive silver saucepan and stirred with a gold spoon. This sumptuous child slept in a mother-of-pearl cradle, and took his airing attired in a pink satin hat crested with three ostrich feathers. I have often sorrowed that my mother, finding this elemental Spirit of Romance incompatible with the regularity of the nursery, should have parted with so gifted a person at an early period of the acquaintance. Seeing what sort of occupation later life had in reserve for me, I am convinced she was the very nurse to have supplied a valuable influence in my mental training, at that important stage when the brain is most open to indelible impressions. This monotonous routine of the nursery, so sternly insisted on, is perhaps the most immediate cause of that yearning for Romance observable nowadays in every intelligent child-even as the real dulness of Medieval life must have acted, in its days, on children of a larger growth-that yearning which displays itself in narratives of everyday experiences, remarkable for every interesting quality except that of truth. The engaging and confident smile with which a child will preface those statements reveals his inner joy in them as well as his simple unconsciousness of any wrongdoing. Thus has a delicious young hero of four years vividly informed me of an encounter between himself and a specially large crocodile in the dry and peaceful neighbourhood of Queen's Gate. The terror of the announcement was slightly mitigated by a lisp, and by the hero's own sense of humour. But I was immediately reminded of a Sir Gavaine and of the Dragon Slayers. It was quite as artless a tale, and given out with the same desire, obviously, rather to please and to suggest than to be credited. It is worth adding, moreover, that there came a furtive look in the little rogue's eye, at one moment (as he piled up some more precise detail), as if he were himself beginning to believe his own alarming story. Therein lies one of the most precious attributes of the born romancer, one that is almost necessary if he is to convince others, his power of convincing himself. For the art's sake, it is unfortunate that prejudices of modern life and of modern education should have so generally destroyed in contemporary seekers of adventure this primary instinct of 'rectifying' (a good word, I imagine), both in direction and amplitude, the actual course of events, that one delightful mine (so to speak) has been closed to makers of literature. When General Baden-Powell gives us his own account of his share in the making of recent history, what will its interest be (stirring as we know it must prove) compared with the Romance of events such as his daring soul would have had them? Should we not then have read of at least one epic single combat with Snyman the arch-brute . . . and the bright gods know what besides ? The tales of travellers, again, are no longer Travellers' Tales." Could Sir John de Mandeville have accompanied Nansen, whose book, I pray you, would have proved the richer reading? But, indeed, when one poor wanderer, with something of a gift that way, did try to vault over the dull-coloured barriers which hem in the uses of imagination—when he allowed, for instance, his fancy to fly with the wombat and otherwise delightfully to disport itselfwas he not made the object of an absurd solemn scientific inquiry? A thing, we all know, fatal to Romance! Instead of being allowed to admire his pretty fireworks against the sky, were we not shown the charred sticks and the evil-smelling paper-cases? Alas! 'Even your charm, Madam, might scarce survive the ordeal of scientific definition!' The Lady flushed; then suddenly pointed a dimple. 'You could not !' she said. "Could not what?' I asked, suddenly absorbed in the dimple. How strange that a little pit in the cheek, a little dint (as it were) made by the invisible baby-finger of Cupid, should so fantastically heighten the archness of a smile! Define my charm,' she replied. And as she smiled triumphantly there came another dimple, and yet another. I gazed, and the didactic phrase died upon my lips. |