the Emperor in the movements for the restoration of his power. It was the last effort to drive the foreigners from the country. Saigo had over-estimated his power. Where he had counted on fifty thousand followers, he found but fifteen thousand. His forces were soon defeated, and he himself perished ignobly in a laborer's costume on the battle-field. The revolution was completed.

Japan has taken her place in the ranks of nations. She has "rung out the old-rung in the new." Viewed from any standpoint which permits an intelligent appreciation of the situation and a fair consideration of the rapidity and extent of the changes which have been made, the progress is simply marvellous. Yet is she confronted with difficulties and dangers within and without. Her territory, extending through more than thirty degrees of latitude, has but three times the area of Illinois. Her population numbers thirty-seven millions of people. Her insular position exposes her at all points to maritime attack. She is feeble as to all the usual elements of national power: in wealth, for her people are very poor, eking out scanty subsistence with all the nice economies practised by a densely crowded population; in the means of offense or defense, for she has neither army nor navy, nor the means of creating either; in intelligence, for only a few of the old princely families have any knowledge beyond that pertaining to daily toil in hereditary occupations. Her young and fresh life is grafted on the ancient and hoary imbecility which is the necessary sequence of the long seclusion of an oriental people densely conservative, for whom mental inertia is more potent than all other forces combined, mental, physical, or political.

Professor Rein's work on Japan, the full title of which appears in a foot-note at the beginning of this article, is admirably lucid and concise. Its account of the country is full as to its geography, physiography, fauna, flora, history, manners, language, religion, arts, trades, and resources. One could wish for fuller illustrations of the same excellent character shown by the few that are present. The material is inexhaustible, and much more might have been given of the quaint and florid art and architecture shown in shrines, temples, and tombs, at Shiba, at Asákasa, at Nikko, and at innumerable other places. All careful observers of Japanese movements, both in their individual and national life, must recognize the truthful picture drawn by the writer, when he says: "The Japanese nation is a race of children, harmless, confiding, gay, easily interested even to the point of enthusiasm in anything new, but when only half acquainted with it speedily becoming weary of it, rerum novarum cupidi,

but without steadfastness or perseverance. They are free, tractable, polite, curious, industrious, frugal, sober, cleanly, good-humored, candid, and at the same time suspicious, superstitious, sensual," and it must be added, like all Orientals, not given to the truth. A Japanese once characterized his countrymen as the Anglo-Saxons, and the Chinese as the Frenchmen, of the Orient. SELIM H. PEABODY.

THE STORY OF CHINESE GORDON.*

The deepening interest felt in the fortunes of the heroic soldier who at the present moment is environed with desperate perils in the heart of the Soudan, has inspired the publication of successive biographies portraying the eventful epochs in his career. The able and authentic works by Dr. Andrew Wilson and Mr. Birbeck Hill, describing respectively the "Ever Victorious Army" in China, and the achievements of "Colonel Gordon in Central Africa," have been followed within a year or so by "The Story of Chinese Gordon," by A. Egmont Hake, and at a very recent date by Mr. Archibald Forbes's simply-named book, "Chinese Gordon." Of the two latest, now lying before us, the one produced by Mr. Forbes is avowedly nothing more than a compilation and abridgement of the previous works. has the advantages of brevity, and of a continuation of its narrative down to the arrival of General Gordon at Khartoum a little more than two months ago. It contains a portrait of the General, from a photograph taken during his former sojourn in the Soudan, and is written in the concise, business-like style of the newspaper correspondent. The work of Mr. Hake, on the other hand, has been prepared with a larger aim, and although relying upon preceding biographies for much of its material, has taken from original sources interesting matter not before made public. The literary character of the work leaves nothing to be desired. It is that of a scholarly and practised writer.

It

descended from a race of soldiers on the Gordon side, men of striking individuality, of chivalrous and generous disposition, and a mingling of sunny humor with their sternness and canny Scottish traits. His mother was the daughter of Samuel Enderby, known widely in his day as a London merchant and the owner of many ships, two of which will ever be remembered in American history as those which in 1773 sailed into Boston harbor laden with tea and were relieved of their cargoes by having them summarily tossed into the sea. Mrs. Gordon, as Mr. Hake describes her, was a woman of remarkable character. "She possessed a perfect temper; she was always cheerful under the most trying circumstances, and she was always thoughtful of others; she contended with difficulties without the slightest display of effort; and she had a genius for making the best of everything." She was the mother of eleven children, and of her five sons three adopted their father's profession.

Charles was prepared at Taunton for the Royal Military Academy, which he entered before the completion of his fifteenth year, and left in 1852, at the age of nineteen, with the appointment of second-lieutenant of the Royal Engineers. For two years he did duty at Pembroke, but in 1854 was dispatched to the Crimea, where he engaged in active service in February 1855. How he bore himself during the following months of hard incessant work in the field, Colonel Chesney informs us in a paper written long afterward:

"Gordon had first seen war in the hard school of the 'black winter' of the Crimea. In his humble position as an English subaltern he attracted the notice of his superiors, not merely by his energy and activity, but by a special aptitude for war, developing itself amid the trench work before Sebastopol in a personal knowledge of the enemy's movements such as no other officer attained. We used to send him to find out what new move the Russians were making."

At the close of the Crimean war, Gordon took part in the survey of the new frontiers of Russia as adjusted by the treaty of Paris. In 1859 he was promoted to the rank of captain, at which date he was only twenty-six, and had been in the army a little less than seven years. A year later he was detailed for service in China, where the first notable action in which he engaged was the burning of the Summer Palace at Pekin. This deed of vandalism could not receive his sanction, but he was still merely a subaltern. "It was wretchedly demoralizing work for an army," he grimly remarked. At the solicitation of the Chinese for English aid in suppressing the revolution of the Taipings, Gordon was appointed to the command of a body of from 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers, which had been organized by an American named Ward, and by its continuous successes had

received the title of the "ever victorious army." The death of Ward had left the band without a suitable leader, until, in March, 1863, Gordon accepted the position. It was his first command, but the applause he gained in it has rung through the world.

As

In fifteen months the Tai-ping rebellion was ended. Meantime, Gordon had led his army through thirty-three engagements, in nearly all of which it was victorious. He once received a wound in the leg, but his many marvellous escapes from death or injury gained him the reputation of having a charmed existence. This notion was strengthened among his men by his "constant habit, when the troops were under fire, of appearing suddenly, usually unattended, and calmly standing in the very hottest part of the fire. Besides his favorite cane, he carried nothing except field-glasses, never a sword or a revolver; or rather, if the latter, it was carried unostentatiously and out of sight." a reward for the invaluable services which Gordon rendered the Imperialists, he was raised to the rank of Ti-tu, the highest ever conferred by the Chinese government upon a subject. He also received the rare decorations of the Yellow Jacket and the Peacock's Feather; but the large sums of money several times offered him, he peremptorily refused. "He had spent his pay of £1,200 a year," says Mr. Hake, "in comforts for his army and in the relief of the victims of the Heavenly King. To these ends he had even taxed his own private means. It was not likely, then, that he should now do anything to give a mercenary stamp to his services, or deprive him of the reflection that he had acted in the cause of humanity alone." His own government promoted him one step in the army in consideration of his valor, and somewhat later made him a Companion of the Bath.

When, toward the close of 1864, Colonel Gordon departed for England, it was universally felt by China that she was parting with her greatest hero and her best friend. "Even the rebels," states Mr. Hake, "to whom his name was a terror, admired and loved him." Arrived in his native land, he avoided all publicity, but, "by the fireside at Southampton, once more he told the strange and splendid romance of those fifteen months- a story teeming with the noblest and most lofty incidents of war, with singular encounters, disastrous chances, and moving accidents by flood and field. To listen to it was a new and unique experience; and as Gordon stood every evening for three or four hours descanting on the things he had seen, now pointing to the map before him to explain a position, now raising his voice in sudden anger at defeat, or dropping it with victory in mercy for the fallen, the company was

spell-bound and amazed." During the six subsequent years, "perhaps the happiest of his life," Colonel Gordon filled the position of Commanding Royal Engineer at Gravesend. Here, says one of his biographers :

The

"He lived wholly for others. His house was school, and hospital, and almshouse in turn was more like the abode of a missionary than of a Colonel of Engineers. The troubles of all interested him alike. poor, the sick, the unfortunate, were ever welcome, and never did suppliant knock vainly at his door. He always took a great delight in children, but especially in boys employed on the river or the sea. Many he rescued from the gutter, cleansed them and clothed them, and kept them for weeks in his home. For their benefit he established evening classes, over which he himself presided, reading to and teaching the lads with as much ardor as if he were leading them to victory. He called them his kings,' and for many of them he got berths on board ship. One day a friend asked him why there were so many pins stuck into the map of the world over his mantlepiece; he was told that they marked and followed the course of the boys on their voyages-that they were moved from point to point as his youngsters advanced, and that he prayed for them as they went, day by day."

The life of quiet beneficence at Gravesend closed in 1871, with Colonel Gordon's appointment to the European Commission of the Danube. In 1873 he entered the service of the Khedive, succeeding Sir Samuel Baker as Governor of the Tribes in Upper Egypt. The proffer of £10,000 a year for his services was declined, £2,000 being all he would accept. It is impossible, in the space at command, to specify the labors which Colonel Gordon performed in the ensuing three years. The spirit which animated him, here as elsewhere, is reflected in expressions such as these:

*

"I go up alone, with an infinite Almighty God to direct and guide me; and am glad to so trust Him as to fear nothing, and, indeed, to feel sure of success. * * Sometimes I wish I had never gone into this sort of Bedouin life, either in China or here. Is it my fault or my failing that I never have a respectable assistant with me to bear part of my labors ? * * I say sincerely that, though I prefer to be here sooner than anywhere, I would sooner be dead than live this life. Praying for the people ahead of me whom I am about to visit gives me much strength; and it is wonderful how something seems already to have passed between us when I meet a chief (for whom I have prayed) for the first time."

* *

When congratulated upon the noble work accomplished by him in the Soudan, he replied: "I am neither a Napoleon nor a Colbert; I do not profess either to have been a great ruler or a great financier; but I can say this-I have cut off the slavedealers in their strongholds, and I made the people love

me."

Immediately after leaving the service of the Khedive in 1877, General Gordon accepted the position of private secretary to Lord Ripon, the new viceroy to India; but the place was unsuited to him, and was resigned as soon as he had reached Bombay. War was then imminent between Russia and China, and he was

invited to the latter country, to give aid in the exigency by his presence and advice. He obeyed the summons, and as the results of his wise counsel, China secured a peace with her hostile neighbor on the western boundary, and laid the foundation for an efficient armed force. His assistance was next required by the Cape Government in South Africa, and some months of 1882 were occupied in the attempt to effect a solution of the difficulties with Basutoland. At last there came a time when the hard-worked soldier and administrator might seek muchneeded rest. He retired to Palestine and settled outside of Jerusalem. The rest was, however, to be brief. As Mr. Forbes relates, on January 19, 1884, the English nation "learned with a thrill of glad surprise that on the previous evening General Gordon had left England for the Soudan, having accepted the mission to report on the military situation there, to provide in the best manner for the safety of the European population of Khartoum and of the Egyptian garrisons of the country, as well as for the evacuation of the Soudan with the exception of the seaboard. * * * 'I go to cut the dog's tail off,' said Gordon, on the eve of his departure. I've got my orders, and I'll do it, coûte qu'il coûte.' Ate ight o'clock he started. The scene at the station was very manteau, Lord Granville took his ticket for him, and interesting. Lord Wolseley carried the General's portthe Duke of Cambridge held open the carriage door."

All that is known of his subsequent proceedings has been chronicled in the daily news journals. His present situation is full of danger, and the world watches anxiously for his escape from Khartoum. Mr. Forbes voices the general sentiment in the final sentences of his volume:

"No difficulties will abate his loyal courage; no stress of adversity will daunt his gallant heart. For him life has no ambitions, death no terror. He will do his duty."

BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS.

A NEW American novel, by a lady who writes under the pseudonym of Barbara Elbon, has lately been added to Macmillan's Dollar Series. Like so many recent American novels, it derives its inspiration largely from the suggestions of European life and travel. It may safely be asserted that the great American novel that object of so much mysterious prophecy will not have to go so far in search of its main inspiration; but as no one is likely to imagine the present work to be in any sense a fulfillment of such a prophecy, this consideration need not detain

us.

"Bethesda " is a novel of two figures, one being that of the apocryphal American girl whose name serves as the title, and the other that of an equally apocryphal Frenchman. Both of them are so devoid of flesh and blood that they can hardly be called characters. The fault with both seems to be that idealization has been carried so far as to make

them insubstantial. Moreover, this idealization is rather emotional than intellectual. Very much of it is unrestrainedly so; and that which tries to avoid this, betrays by its confused expression the lack of

that objective grasp of life and its relations which is essential to the production of enduring art. That the writer of this book has a high ideal of character, is unmistakable; but the presentation of ideal character must, to be artistic, be freed from the language of emotion, or at least but tinged with it. It is for the reader to give to the objective portrayal of character its emotional investiture; it cannot be supplied by the writer except at the sacrifice of artistic worth. Bethesda is a beautiful and accomplished girl. Her accomplishments are not all specified, but we learn incidentally that she plays the violin, reads Arabic, and is an adept in several species of literary composition. She has resided for some time in Europe, in the companionship of an aunt, not much older than herself, and whose vulgarity is a striking contrast to her own refinement. René d'Isten is a Frenchman who has had an unfortunate marriage. His wife is living, but apart from him. He is attracted by Bethesda, and she no less by him; and there results a companionship of soul which turns out to be a very serious matter, for her at least. Bethesda returns to America, heart-broken at leaving the man whom she loves, and with a growing consciousness that she has done wrong and that she ought to banish him from her thoughts. She is bent upon doing her duty at whatever cost, and sets herself the task of effecting a reconciliation between René and his estranged wife. In this she succeeds, but almost at the sacrifice of her own life. In her American home, however, she finds certain consolations, and especially that afforded by the conversation of a young clergyman to whom Hegel is the fifth gospel. What this conversation is like, may be well enough inferred from the above fact. It is perhaps not surprising that"in spite of such conversations as these, intellectual perception was still weak and impotent." The book reveals a wide range of reading and thought on the part of the writer. Much of this reading has evidently been sympathetic, but the thought is imperfectly assimilated. This is betrayed by the frequent crudities of expression to be met with. On the other hand, there are felicitous phrases in sufficient number, and a display of talent of an order high enough to indicate that the writer might do valuable work on a less ambitious plane.

THE early edition of the collection of essays on "French Poets and Novelists," by Mr. Henry James, has been out of print for some time, and the Macmillans have now prepared a new and cheaper one. It is exceedingly fortunate that they have done so, for these essays form one of the most notable contributions thus far made to literary criticism in this country, and should be easily accessible to students and the general reader. It must be said of them at once that they are not profound. They are nearly everything else that literary criticism should be. They show in a high degree delicacy of touch and sympathetic appreciation of the works dealt with. They have about them a subtle quality which gives a keen delight to their perusal. The two essays on Balzac, and those on Gautier and Tourguénieff are perhaps the most valuable. With these latter writers, Mr. James himself has certain affinities, and this enables him to treat of them with peculiar sympathy. At the same time, the limitations of his

own nature are seen in this treatment. Those excellences in the work of Tourguénieff, for example, which are noticed by Mr. James, do not constitute its real claim to greatness, but they are what appeal the most strongly to his imagination, and he gives them an undue prominence, so that the essay, while most delightful reading, leaves one with a sense of its insufficiency. What is here said applies also in a certain degree to his treatment of George Sand and others. As far as his appreciation goes, it leaves nothing to be desired; but still there is much which it does not embrace. One is hardly made to realize the genius of Gautier or of Baudelaire, of George Sand or of Tourguénieff, by a perusal of these pages; but to make up for what he thus feels to be wanting, he gets a good many side lights thrown upon them and their work.

MR. GRANT ALLEN has published another volume of his charming sketches of plant life. The collection is called "Flowers and their Pedigrees" (Appleton), and is offered to the public as a first installment of a work which I hope some day more fully to carry out a Functional Companion to the British Flora."

The eight sketches which this volume contains are somewhat longer than most of those which make up his previously published volumes, but are otherwise of the same character. Each one of them takes up some plant or group of plants, and proceeds to account for the peculiarities of its structure, and to show how by natural selection it has become especially adapted to its surroundings. Thus the daisy is taken as a type of the Compositæ, and is made to show not only its own special adaptations, but the general line of development which has been pursued by the great order to which it belongs and of which it illustrates the extreme point thus far reached. The same sort of treatment is given to the strawberry, wheat, cleavers, and the common English arum, or cuckoo-pint. A rare lily and a stray euphorbia serve as texts for two deeply interesting discourses on distribution, and give some idea of the light which this study throws upon geologic and geographic conditions at times far antedating all written history. In reading these pages, one is much impressed with the vitality with which the study of the organic world is informed when done in the light of the all-embracing principle of natural selection. There could not well be a greater contrast than that between the old way of studying botany and the new way which Darwin made possible. In the light which he shed upon it, dry and hitherto meaningless facts become pregnant with interest and meaning as they take their fitting place in the body of botanical knowledge now for the first time truly in process of organization. Most popular science is a thing to be looked at with suspicion; but that of Mr. Grant Allen is both pleasing and sound. His wide and thorough knowledge of the facts of plant structure and distribution is indisputable, and he has in addition to this the literary faculty in a degree quite unusual with scientific investigators. He affects to write from the standpoint of the casual observer; but the reader should not be misled by this, nor is he likely to be, for even such work as these sketches affords unmistakable evidence of the close hold of the writer upon the best scientific knowledge

of his time, to say nothing of the witness of his more serious contributions to the literature of evolutionary biology.

"POLITICS: An Introduction to the Study of Comparative Constitutional Law," is the title of a wellwritten and valuable work by William W. Crane and Bernard Moses, Ph.D., published by G. P. Putnam's Sons. It is a treatise upon the theoretical principles of government, with special reference to those forms existing among modern civilized nations, and particularly that found in our own country. It is, as the title indicates, comparative, and the comparative element is a very large one. It is also historical, and points out the common Aryan origin of the diverse systems which are taken into consideration, and the causes which have led to the marked specialization now existing. The contradiction lying at the root of the theory of our own Constitution is clearly indicated, and the tendency of our government towards centralization fully discussed; dissolution being shown to be the only alternative. The subject is treated in a broadly philosophical spirit, as is well illustrated by the following passage concerning in

ternational relations:

"The innate propensity to destroy or subjugate is only turned in new directions by civilization. It does not always manifest itself as among rude people in common slaughter. On the contrary, there is a growing disposition to mitigate physical suffering. We read with horror of the wholesale murder and rapine of ancient war, of the sacking of cities, and the selling of men, women and children into slavery; but the Englishman of today learns with ill-disguised complacency from the Times that his fields of coal and his machinery have paralyzed the iron industries of France or Germany; and the American is rejoiced to think that competition with our acres and enterprise is undermining the agriculture of Great Britain, although misery is brought to the doors of thousands; and yet both think themselves peaceful, merciful men. The truth is, warfare is still the normal condition of humanity, and in the general scheme of things no doubt necessarily so. Measurably, however, the theatre of contention is now in the domain of opinions. War is only an ultimatum." The work seems to be designed for use as a textbook in the higher institutions of learning, and is admirably fitted for this purpose. It is uniform with the Political Economy of Emile de Laveleye, noticed in the last issue of THE DIAL.

PROGRESS in architecture, and especially in domestic architecture, is one of the distinguishing marks of American culture at the present day. Homes are multiplying in our country at the rate of hundreds of thousands annually, and each year witnesses an increase in the amount of thought given to the appropriateness, convenience and beauty of their structure and ornamentation. Improvements in their sanitary regulations keep pace with amendments in their artistic construction, ensuring an advantage to health along with the gain of refinements and comfort which comes from a higher and wiser order of house-building. The humblest cottages, as well as the proudest mansions, are benefited by this general advance in the science of architecture. No householder, real or prospective, is so limited in aims or means that he may not adopt some of the more rational, enlightened and consistent ideas which are

developing and spreading day by day with regard to the planning, the rearing, the decorating and the furnishing of homes. Even they who have no hope of possessing a house of their own are interested in the houses which others are erecting, enjoying in a generous mood the attractive features which are the latest outgrowth of an expanding art. It is to stimulate and educate this taste for harmonious and felicitous homes, that so many writers are occupying themselves with the subject, producing a series of books which, despite their number, do not become superfluous, or weaken in entertainment or usefulness. As a rule, the literature of this sort is of an excellent quality, embodying fresh and well-considered suggestions conveyed in an animated and winning style. A late specimen appears in the little brochure written by Mr. O. B. Bunce, entitled "My House, An Ideal,” (Scribners). It attempts nothing beyond an outline of the house "good and true'

"from top to bottom, outside and inside," which is the author's ideal of a home, "a retreat," "a spot that endears," "a heaven wherein the best that is within us may blossom." Although there is little pretension in the booklet, it is full of the charm which a cultivated and independent personality and a talent for graceful expression may impart. It presents an enticing picture of a skillfully-designed, honestly-built house, which any one might be glad to enter and abide in, and with whose arrangement and appointments slight fault could be found by the most critical and fastidious minded.

A HOMELIER type of work than the foregoing, yet one touching the subject of the home at manifold points affecting the welfare of its inmates, is that which treats of "Household Conveniences" (Orange Judd Company). It is a compilation from many writers who have had experience in the practical affairs of domestic life, and, appreciating the value of labor-saving devices in every department of the household, have desired to communicate the results of their observation or discovery. The work is arranged methodically, beginning with a description of unique contrivances for service outside the house, and continuing with an account of those which belong in the interior, from the cellar to the kitchen, the dining-room, the pantries, closets, and separate living-rooms. The articles named are not for sale in furniture rooms, or to be met with ordinarily. They are as a rule original inventions, in all cases simple, economical, and easily made by any individual who can handle tools with moderate dexterity. Many of them are particularly adapted to the needs of farmers and residents in the country who have to depend upon their own ingenuity and resources for conveniences essential to comfortable living. The descriptions are clearly and succinctly written, and are often supplemented with pictorial illustrations.

MR. ROBERT BARNWELL ROOSEVELT is well-known to the sportsmen of the United States as one who has been active in protecting their interests by the use of his pen and his personal influence in securing the passage of laws to preserve game from slaughter at untimely seasons, and in encouraging fish-culture in American waters. His several books treating of