homeward. Gordon, as usual, was the life of our party.

Mr. Morton enclosed the following letter from McCabe, written in April, 1865: MY DEAR NASH:

treatment from me.

Although I do not know when there will be an opportunity of sending this, still I can't refrain any longer from inflicting a letter upon you, albeit you have done nothing worthy of such harsh Well, old boy, I miss you a great deal, and I'd love to have some of our chats and rides and walks over again. I'm not given to saying complimentary things or I sh'd put down something to your "credit side” in speaking of my charming

visit to "Gravel Hill" but that sort of thing sounds insincere on paper, and besides "you ought to know," as the dear young ladies are wont

to say.

Well, I've been paroled but I have, at present, no idea that I could stand up and swallow the "Oath." I feel more like spitting out one-a real, round old cavalier oath such as Rupert or "wild George Goring" swore at the "Puritan curs." Everybody here, however, is taking it, nor do I think a man ought to refuse when he is going to remain in the country. After all it is a question for every man to settle for himself.

My intention of going abroad remains unchanged, and I trust by the blessing of God to be able to sail by October. I propose going first to England, and if I cannot find employment there, thence to Australia. How much I would love to have you as my compagnon de voyage! A cool head and a brave heart are good to have by one's self-pshaw! how awkward! I mean, are good in a companion! In short, old fellow, when I wrote that balderdash I meant to express my deliberate conviction that your head piece is pretty level, and that you aren't the greatest coward in the world, and that I wish you'd go with me.

Now write me about that famous school, and tell me what you propose doing. You haven't proposed to the fair maid of Roxabel, have you? Alas! poor Yorick! these one-legged men are terrible fellows. Now give my warm regards to Judge Marshall's family, and remember in counting up your friends that you have none who love you more sincerely and heartily than

GORDON MCCABE.

In one respect, at least, Joseph Conrad is unlike Henry James. The latter became more and more difficult as he advanced in years, so that some of his latest writings, "The Outcry," for example, are for the average reader an impenetrable thicket. Conrad, on the other hand, seems to increase in amenity. Surely his latest novel, "The Rover," is, with the possible exception of "Victory," the "easiest" of all his books. Although written by a seafaring man about a seafaring man, the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. This is a

story of the south of France in the Napoleonic era, and the interest is concentrated on a single character, who is one of Conrad's greatest creations. The idea of sacrifice, which is fundamental in Conrad's novels-one has only to recall “The Rescue" and "Under Western Eyes”— is here again dominant; nothing could be more splendidly serene than the way in which the old sea-dog steers toward death. We had learned to love him before this final incident; but nothing in his life became him like the leaving of it. The dignity of style which marks every book by Conrad is here also nɔtable; it furnishes a reason for his superiority to most of his contemporaries.

Like Browning, Ibsen, and Wagner, Joseph Conrad finally won his public without making any compromises; for the superior clarity of the sentences in "The Rover" has no similarity to any sort of "writing down." The old jokes about Conrad are heard no more. Who was it who used to call his admirers the Conradicals, and insist that the novelist was unreadable? Was it the same man who put one of his novels against the wall, shot it with a revolver, and found that the bullet had failed to get through the first chapter?

There is only one of Conrad's novels unworthy of him, though he would never admit it. This is "Victory," which won him a new public. I cannot swallow Mr. Jones, who seems to me just the languid, bored villain whom I have encountered as frequently in melodrama as infrequently in life.

In a previous issue I said that I had never heard of Sarah Smith, or of her novel, "The Doctor's Dilemma." Well, just as I expected, I have since heard several times of both. I am informed that the famous Hesba Stretton (of whom I had heard) was none other than Sarah Smith; that there is sufficiently complete information about her in the Second Supplement of the Dictionary of National Biography; that her novel, "The Doctor's Dilemma," was published at London in three volumes, 1872. Could any two authors possibly be more unlike than Hesba Stretton and Bernard Shaw? Yet he did not disdain to borrow from her. He must

have borrowed his title, for to suppose the contrary would be to imagine that there was one thing in the world of which he had not heard. Of all the letters I have received about Sarah Smith, the following, from Justice John S. Dawson, Topeka, Kan., is the most interesting:

DEAR SIR:

Probably some of your readers will volunteer give, but I'll tell you what I learned about her from her brother, a fine old English gentleman who emigrated to western Kansas and became my neighbor and revered friend until his death some ten years ago.

more information about Sarah Smith than I can

Sarah Smith, born "somewhere" in England, was one of five children,-Harriet, Eleanor, Sarah, Benjamin and Alice. She early showed some literary aptitude and was encouraged thereto by Charles Dickens. Owing to the plainness of her name, she adopted a nom de plume, Hesba Stretton, the word "Hesba" being made from the first letters of the Christian names of her sisters, her brother, and herself,-H, E, S, B, A. I never heard of "The Doctor's Dilemma," but many years ago I read some of her books, "Paul's Court ship,' ," "Cobwebs and Cables," and I think some others which my memory now confuses with the writings of E. P. Roe. Their style and trend were much alike, as I recall.

But the most interesting incident concerning Sarah Smith, or rather Hesba Stretton, for I was not aware that she had published any books un

der her own name, hangs around her little story, "Jessica's First Prayer," which could be read in half an hour, just such a story as used to pear in Sunday-school leaflets a generation ago, and neither better nor worse than most of its

kind.

ap

It chanced, however, about the time of its pub

lication, that Sarah Smith was prominently active in relief work for famine sufferers in Russia. As an appreciation of her work, the Czar ordered "Jessica's First Prayer" translated into the Russian language, and a copy of it placed in every public library in the empire. The notoriety thereby occasioned caused a great demand for the little story, with the result that Sarah Smith made quite a bit of money by it. But that is only part of my tale. Some years later, Sarah Smith wrote an article for a London paper, containing a scathing denunciation of the Siberian exile system. This so greatly enraged the Czar that he ordered the little book to be taken from the libraries of Russia and burned by the public hang.

man! This caused another world-wide demand for "Jessica's First Prayer," and ere it subsided,

Professor Charles A. Beard, who, just before the catastrophe, returned from a year's stay in Japan, and upon arrival in his Connecticut home was immediately summoned back to assist in the proper restoration of the city of Tokio, which invitation was a high and well-merited compliment, writes me that he is now "amid the greatest scene of desolation in the history of human calamities. But the human spirit rises indomitable. More than 60,000 houses and shacks have been lifted from the ashes in one month and the whole city is a hive of industry." I think the name should be changed from Tokio to Phoenix.

Last year I wrote elsewhere the careless remark that after the fall of manna ceased in Old Testament times, it had Which shows never been heard of since. how little I know about it; for Robert T. Pound, of Labina, Mont., writes me that the Scientific American for July, 1922, says: "Washington has received from Bagdad samples of Turkish manna. This manna falls like dew during the autumn months, hardening into the form of grain. It is supposedly the same substance used by the children of Israel. . . . It is a good substitute for sugar and honey, and sells for 45 cents a pound." Thus it is literally the bread of heaven, and the old Jewish historian knew almost as much as some of his critics.

Those who are still worried about the younger generation should attend to the following story, which I assure them is literally true. Not long ago an undergraduate told me that he personally did not like to drink, and did not drink except when home on vacations. "Even there," he said, "I do not really want to drink. But what shall I do? I can't bear to hurt father's feelings."

T

HERE was a young artist in New York who wanted to place his work before the public. Forthwith he called on a dealer with one of his pictures to ask if he might have an exhibition. Quoth the dealer: "I don't see how that can be managed just yet. You are not known." The applicant naturally wanted to know how he was to become known. "Through an exhibition," the dealer gravely replied. In my mind's eye I have ever since seen that young artist travelling around in a circle, waiting to gain by some miracle the reputation that will enable him to gain a reputation! Incidentally the picture has set me to thinking about the whole matter of exhibitions. In them, quite as much as in the studios, the history of art is written. The author is unknown until he is published, the composer is unknown until he is played. The artist is in the same box.

There is some curious light thrown upon this subject by Thomas Cummings in his "Historic Annals of the National Academy of Design," printed in Philadelphia back in the sixties. Americans were interested in art a long time ago, and as early as 1802 there was talk in New York of founding an institution which by 1808 succeeded in obtaining a charter as an Academy of Arts. What appears to have been its first exploit as an exhibiting body was academic enough to have congealed the blood of even the most æsthetic citizen. Robert Livingston, our ambassador to France, sent over a number of casts from the antique. These were set up in a building on the east side of old Greenwich Street, which had been erected for a circus or riding-school, and the New Yorker was told that on the purchase of an annual admission ticket for $5 he might come and gaze his fill. Probably there was a smaller fee for a single admission, but it did not matter. The casts presently went into storage and the Acad

emy itself lapsed into a kind of hibernation. It lay dormant for nearly fifteen. years, but in 1816 it was revived and Governor De Witt Clinton, though resigning as president, marked the occasion by an interminable and gorgeous address. Cummings thought well of it, saying: "This was probably the first address delivered before any Academy of Arts in the United States. It was delivered before the citizens of the first city in the first State of the Union, and it will not be objected to that it should be said that it was by the first man in the State."

With all due respect to Mr. Cummings, I fear that some of the governor's hearers must have gasped over his eloquence. Here is a specimen, too sublime to be overlooked:

There are certain mighty pillars which support the complicated fabric of society, and there are distinguished ornaments which beautify and embellish it. Upon agriculture, manufactures, and commerce; upon science, literature, morality, and religion, all associations of the human race must rely for subsistence or support-but the Fine Arts superadd the graces of a Chesterfield to the gigantic mind of a Locke. They are the acanthi which adorn the Corinthian columnthe halos which surround the Sun of Knowledge: sphere of innocent amusements, increase the they excite labor, produce riches, enlarge the stock of harmless pleasure, expand our intellectual powers, improve our moral faculties, stimulate to illustrious deeds, enhance the charms of virtue, diffuse the glories of heroism, augment the public wealth, and extend the national reputation.

If the folks in 1816 believed all that, they could have believed anything. They must have been a little sceptical, because the permanent collection that the Academy got together proved but a dubious magnet. Cummings mourned over the failure of the institution. But he was a shrewd old boy and put his finger on the cause of the Academy's ill fortune: "It was to be found in the unchangeableness

and he was absolutely certain of this if he had the presumption to knock at the door! Dunlap has told what happened once to Cummings and F. S. Agate when,

on turning away from their rejection, they encountered John Trumbull, then president, and complained. He backed up the curator in his assertion that he