twenty minutes, purring like a pussy. And now he comes without Mrs. Ursa. 15th.-There has been thunder about all day, and this afternoon some twenty good flashes of lightning, but no rain. After dinner I was reading, over my cigar in the garden, Garnett's selection from Coventry Patmore, which seems to contain that poet's salvage. After enjoying my favorite poems I turned once more to the very spirited but to me incomprehensible piece called "To the Unknown Eros," and found it no more luminous than usual. It is a Spirit though it seems red gold; And such may no man, but by shunning, hold. Refuse it, though refusal be despair; And thou shalt feel the phantom in thy hair. As I reached that line, though I was unconscious of any wilful act of refusal, red gold not being much proffered in these parts, I felt the phantom in my hair-just at the nape of the neck-and a very unpleasant sensation it was. When I recovered my presence of mind, the phantom proved to be a very big moth, which had settled there and was flapping its wings. I do not suppose this is altogether what Patmore meant, but it was an apt illustration. It is an annus mirabilis for Lepidoptera. 19th.-Went to town for several days. A flat not far from Victoria had been lent us, or I should not have gone so dangerously near the stores. But probably rooms nearer Piccadilly would have been still more dangerous. We have been reading aloud in the evenings lately Doughty's "Arabia Deserta," which is a powerful piece of writing, though mannered; and a passage in praise of precious stones has taken such hold of the feminine mind that I have been afraid to act as escort in shopping thoroughfares. This is what D. says: "The Oriental opinion of the wholesome operation of precious stones, in that they store the mind with admirable beauties, remains perhaps at this day a part of the marvellous estimation of inert gems amongst us. Those indestructible elect bodies, as stars, shining to us out of the dim mass of matter, are comfortable to our fluxuous feeble souls and bodies; in this sense all gems are cordial, and of an influence religious. These elemental flowering lights almost persuade us of a serene eternity, and are of things (for the inestimable purity) which separate us from the superfluous study of the world" (i. 315). Certainly pearls are very beautiful objects, and their wearers as certainly find them "comfortable" and "cordial;" and the two or three thousand pounds one has to pay for a necklace may be an exceedingly good investment into the bargain if it persuades us of a serene eternity. Conscience would be for once on the side of the expense. The lady at the Royal Academy whom Sargent has painted in her pearls does look to have a very tranquil soul, as though separated from the superfluous study of the world. What pearls they are, and what paint! But if I had the money to spend I should buy my immortality directly of Mr. Sargent rather than of Mr. Spink. How good the Chamberlain is too! People may grumble that there is not much revelation of character in the face, beyond keenness and will; but is there in the living face? And to make the eyes big and yearning, as Watts too often does, by way of "divinely through all hindrance finding the man" behind them, is not to paint a portrait. I meant to spend an evening at the House of Commons, but the heat forbade both that and the theatre. I shall never forget the impression of Chamberlain's cleverness made upon me one night in committee of the Home Rule Bill. He had charged Mr. Gladstone with some opinion which that gentleman indignantly repudiated. "At any rate my right honorable friend the chief secretary used to hold that." "No, no," said Morley, feeling safe in following suit and smiling at Chamberlain's apparent discomfiture. But it was a trap. The forefinger went into the waistcoat pocket, and an ominous slip of paper was drawn out. "My right honorable friend has doubtless changed his opin- | estimation, the fall of Lucifer. 20th, Sunday. Went to Church. Service Gregorian, preacher Gorian. At least he thought he was, but what he really resembled was an earwig endeavoring to extricate himself from a filbert, and frantically waving his flippers. The matter was what that shrewd judge Mr. Pepys would have called "unnecessary." What a bore it must be to have foolish imitators! In the afternoon to St. Paul's, where the service is said to be the best in Europe; but ah, the reredos! How awful for three or four venerable clergymen to have the responsibility of decorating a cathedral! The days of bishop builders are gone by, and probably the professional architect has it all his own way, except for the occasional pressure of public opinion. I could not get near enough to the choir to judge of the new ceiling, but the general color effect seemed good. He sadly lacks humor, or, what comes to the same thing, a sense of proportion. To console myself I walked round the Albert Memorial, and found Hiram and Bezaleel an excellent tonic. Tom met us in the afternoon at the Academy, and took us, as usual, to criticise the construction of the hayricks. He was much impressed by a picture called "Whoa, steady!" wherein were represented two plough-horses, the one capering while the other stood impassive; he vowed he had never seen so steady a horse in his life and was determined to purchase it, if he could find out from the painter where it lived. I could not get him to admire Clausen's "Crow-boy," who was evidently, he thought, one of the present soft generation, spoilt by too long keeping at school, even if he had not got, as he suspected, St. Vitus's dance; La Thangue's ducks, too, very much puzzled him. We dined at 's, and talked about ghosts. L. gave us the only true and genuine account of the Glamis ghost, in whose room he had slept since its happy decease. I told the story of my grandfather and the headless horseman, and of the ghost who rolls my lawn every 29th February. F. had seen too many ghosts to believe in them. She told us how when the clock struck twelve a party consisting of an old gentleman and three girls used to appear nightly in her bedroom. Once she determined not to open her eyes, but a strange rustling all around the room roused her curiosity, and when she looked there were ears of corn mixed with poppies thrusting themselves from behind each picture frame. The old gentleman seemed much amused. 21st. Stood for some time on the doorstep drawing in the electrical force of London, and feeling like a mouse in oxygen. It is only we country cousins who really enjoy London, just as it is only Londoners who really enjoy the country, and the enjoyment on both sides may be a good deal due to misunderstanding. A little chap from Seven Dials is said to have called a lark "a bloomin' cock-sparrow in a fit," and I may be doing even greater injustice to the passers-by when I fancy them pulsing with the high fever of existence. I am glad London has found singers of late. Some very genuine poets have not been kind to it; "that tiresome, dull place," says Gray; 22nd. To my dentist, who gave me and Cowper is more impolite still; but the laughing-gas, and "charmed ache then he was mad. In Kensington with air;" dreamt that I was being Gardens I met K. for the first dragged down through a sea of blood. time since our disagreement. He Went to the club to write letters and treated me very civilly, like a lunch, and recover tone; then walked stranger, though we had been close through the park to make calls. How friends for ten years. That is the worst rare it is to find ladies in society who of your idealist; all his friends are know what they think about anything! angels and all his opponents -; so They hand on opinions like counters, that to cross him is to experience, in his all of which are of equal conversational value. If your ears are long enough you may hear the judgments you have just expressed, original as you may think them, being passed on to Mr. X. as the merest commonplace. One pleasure of an excursion to town is the sight of pretty dresses. In the country the dress of the upper class becomes plainer and plainer year by year as that of the classes below waxes in flamboyancy. Perhaps some ladies push the principle to an extreme. One of my neighbors while waiting for the train at station, where she is not known, was accosted by a farmer and asked: "How many did her master keep?" (i.e., how many servants); and the photographer pronounces it impossible nowadays to obtain an artistic picture of any country lady, because their dresses fit so ill. Ladies whose husbands have made a fortune recently and buy a country "cottage with a double coach-house," should be clever enough to take the hint. The grand jury have returned a true bill against Dr. Jameson and his companions. Popular opinion in England seems much less in their favor than when the first trial began with cheers in court. Even the Times would hardly like now to print a panegyrical ode on the incursion. But the Johannesburg apologists in the reviews make such startling admissions, that without waiting for the trial one is almost tempted to quote Tacitus: "Is habitus animarum fuit, ut pessimum facinus auderent pauci, plures vellent, omnes paterentur," and to translate "Such was the degradation of Anglo-African character, that a monstrous outrage was undertaken by a few, projected by many more, and tolerated by everybody." 23rd.-Came down in the train with Archdeacon - One of Smith's newspaper boys amused me very much by pressing on him the sporting journals. He told me of a very sharp lad who once offered him the World, and when he shook his head, explained "Christmas Number, sir." I have no doubt our Berkshire breed is very virtuous, and it is far from stupid, but one does someLIVING AGE. VOL. XI. 567 times wish for a little of the cockney smartness. It strikes me that "paiper," for "paper," which must have come to London from Essex, is less fashionable along the line than it used to be, and may quite go out, like the v for w, of which Dickens made so much. Driving home from the station in the dogcart I had an awkward spill. The horse was very fresh, and I suspect had not been properly exercised. A mosquito (for we have mosquitoes) stung him in the ear, and he reared a good deal and then bolted. In turning a corner we upset and were thrown on to a bank, William, for his sins, being underneath and I on top of him. Luckily a broken Ishaft was the whole extent of the damage. 24th.-Explicit Education Bill, and no one will grieve much except the clergy, who in politics may be safely disregarded. It would be interesting to know the secret history of the withdrawal. Was it that the Education Department, having asked for devolution, drew in its horns before the fierce attitude of the teachers, led by Yoxall and Macnamara? Or was it that Sir John Gorst's skill had not been equal to his ambition, and so the scheme was really unworkable? Or was the bill faulty, from lack of knowledge because the right people were not consulted-the inspectors by Sir John Gorst, Sir John himself by the Duke of Devonshire? These are secrets of the prison-house. Anyhow, the government's loss in prestige is terrible. Harcourt, of course, was equal to the occasion; very amusing and sophistical, with much sarcasm about the bishops pushing on the bill "by hook or crook." Why not "crozier and closure"? We sadly want a demagogue on the Unionist side, to cite Shakespeare for his purpose and make the worse cause appear the better. Bacon has an interesting passage in one of his essays on the qualities that bring success. "There are a number of little and scarce-discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate. The Italians note some of them, such as a man would Archdeacon of little think. When they speak of one papers had not contained any remarkthat cannot do amiss, they will throwable review. The answer was that the it into his other conditions that he hath Poco di matto; and certainly there be not two more fortunate properties than to have a little of the fool, and not too much of the honest; therefore, extreme lovers of their country were never fortunate." 26th.-Q. has reprinted some of his Speaker causeries, and delightful tabletalk they are. One can read them, too, now without the tail of one's eye being caught by some unsympathetic Radical effusion. Of course, the literary gentlemen of other journals, who know that their journalism will not bear reprinting, turn up noses and take credit for their moderation, which is all fair and proper. Q.'s criticism has the flavor of first principles that one associates with Oxford scholarship and philosophy. For the honor of Oxford I am glad to see a protest against Mr. Hardy's system of the universe, and also an additional paragraph on Davidson's "Ballad of a Nun," a poem that, with all my admiration for D., I have never been able to read a second time. Q. explains that the style on a first reading blinded him to the sense. In that misfortune he was not alone. On a certain Monday morning late in '94 a queue of respectable middle-aged ladies thrust its way along Vigo street into the "Bodley Head," asking for copies of the "Ballad of a Nun," by a Mr. Davidson. When the pressure was a little eased, the publisher ventured to inquire the cause of the sudden demand, as the Saturday had charged them on their souls' health to procure it. Dear archdeacon! He knew the story from the "Gesta Romanorum" or from Miss Procter's version, and too carelessly assumed that D. meant the same thing. The one of Q.'s papers I incline to regret is that upon Samuel Daniel, and for an entirely selfish reason. Loving Daniel, I should be sorry if he were "boomed." My feeling about him is very much that excusable jealousy which made Q. himself refuse Gigadibs the explanation of a certain "Troy" custom. (See the preface to "The Delectable Duchy.") I 27th. Since my wife and daughter learned the bicycle I have found it a little difficult to join them in excursions; so I took the opportunity of their going on a visit to hire a machine. The broad path at the north end of the garden proved a capital ptising ground, as it has a gentle slope. learned to balance myself on he step, and then on the saddle, before attempting to tread. Then for some time my legs kept no pace with my desires, but I was not discouraged, and after a few days I ceased running into the flowerbeds. I determined not to show myself in the road till I could travel safely down all the garden paths, and turn all the corners, so that when I went for a trial trip I found I had nothing to fear, though I felt a little shy at first in passing wagons. The roads are execrable. This year they should have been better than usual, as the District Council has taken them over, and the contractors have no inducement, as the farmers had, to delay mending them till too late for the flints to work in; so the metal was put on in good time, but the drought has made them thoroughly rotten again. Down in the vale they use granite instead of flints, and if the parsons and farmers who compose the council would only take to cycling, we should soon see flints discarded here also. We should see also the hedge clippings swept up. What I especially dislike about bicycling is the second or hind wheel jolt after one has kept one's temper over the first. What I especially enjoy is the exhilaration of running downhill. I find, too, that my ideas flow more easily when in rapid motion,-this may be a sign of decrepitude, but if I descend to register them they are gone. Some scientific genius should invent a bicycle-phonograph into which one could talk. To bicycle amongst country villages is a very good way in which to test their ethos. In some places the traveller is laughed at, or tripped up, or stoned, or the children spread tacks across the road; in others, perhaps only a mile or two distant, he is as safe from molestation as in a London suburb. I have noticed-and the experience is not palatable to my Radical friends, but it is this-that where the natives are barbarous it is a sign that there is no resident squire or no competent par son. AN From Blackwood's Magazine. EXCURSION IN THE ATLAS MOUNTAINS. BY WALTER B. HARRIS. To state that the usual delays occurred in making a start is unnecessary. Those who know Morocco only from report are probably aware that everything is "to-morrow," and that as often as not "to-morrow" extends itself over an unlimited period of time. So none of our party of three Englishmen, much less the natives who were to accompany us on our short expedition, evinced the least surprise when "tomorrow" extended itself over a couple of days. Rather, our surprise was that the written permission and firman of the Moorish sultan ever came at all. We had wearied of Moorish dinnerparties, of hot rides in uniform, and all the paraphernalia attending a special mission of a minister plenipotentiary to the Moorish court. Even the delightful orange-garden, with its trees full of bloom and fruit, had begun to pall upon us, and the three of us who could find leisure to quit Marakesh, as the southern capital of the empire of Morocco is called, made up our minds for a jaunt to the cool snow-peaks that showed up clearly enough through the heat haze of the plain. But at length the necessary letter arrived from the sun, addressed to the Kaid Sid Madani el Glawi, to visit whose castle and territory we had, through her Majesty's minister, entreated permission. The Kaid of Glawa, as he is usually called, holds jurisdiction over a large portion of the Atlas Mountains to the east and south-east of Marakesh, and it was in this direction that we had decided to go. Our reasons were several; we had only a short time at our disposal, and rather than try any previously untrodden route and fail, we determined if possible to travel over the pass which the late Joseph Thomson had crossed, and which I myself, in going to and returning from Tafilet, had been over twice. With the letter a verbal message arrived stating that the colonel of a regiment and a considerable bodyguard would be told off to accompany us. Of all the incapable and retrograde creatures in the world commend me to the colonel of a Moorish regiment; for pure incompetency to do anything in the plains, much less cross the Atlas Mountains, he is surpassed by none, save the mounted men he holds under his command, and in this bodyguard we saw our only obstacle and likelihood of failure; so we did the best thing under the circumstances and forgot all about them. The kaid of Glawa being at this time in Marakesh, undergoing the yearlyoften monthly - process of being squeezed by his superiors, I delivered the letter in person, asked for a couple of guides to go with us, and a letter to the acting governor, and settled the whole business in ten minutes. One curious but common example of things Moorish, however, was brought to my notice this, that the guides could not travel over the first portion of the road with us, which led through the tribelands of Misfiwa, on account of the ever-existing warfare between the na |