be ascribed the lack of such a power as public conscience. There seems to be no thorough expression of the national judgment upon, and condemnation of, public crimes and abuses. The press is the only organ through which such judgments can be fulminated; but American journalism is either afraid or unwilling to ascend the tribunal. Now and then some manly journal will denounce crime without fear or favor; but our press, though without a censorship, is more timid and reticent than the press of any European country. The people naturally grow careless in noting political misdemeanors which are never thoroughly exposed, much less punished. The public conscience, which, if properly trained, could become as sensitive as individual conscience, is blunted. Most of our newspapers seem to regard crime as good material for jokes. The column of police reports is frequently far more humorous and "spicy" than the column of wit and humor. An embezzling clerk furnishes fun for the whole side of a comic paper. These may seem little things, but they indicate pretty fairly the turn of the popular mind. Haste and hurry, the national failing, spoil also nearly all our literary work. What crude, unfinished articles are to be found in our professedly literary periodicals! Their aim seems to be to exact as little thought as possible from their readers. We find dainty little meaningless poems, pretty stories, light superficial essays that can be thoroughly mastered whilst lounging on a hotel piazza, or travelling in a railway car. Some of our journals depend for original matter on one writer, who is obliged to write the editorials, review the books, criticize the drama, report the local news, and discuss the money market. Even where a paper has a large corps of writers there ever seems a hurried tone in the

editorials, which gives evidence of disjointed thinking, and a desire to "fill up," as journalists put it. The higher English journalism is far superior to ours in point of thought and deliberate writing. No editorial article is inserted in the Times until it has been thoroughly examined, weighed, and approved by the entire editorial corps.

Until this homely virtue of slowness with sureness is practiced by our writers, we shall look in vain for an American literature. One of our "novelists" boasts of having written ninety large romances, and her publishers, with the newspapers, pronounce her an "American classic." When quantity, not quality, makes an artist's productions classic, our novelist's claim may be allowed. Even geniuses like Walter Scott and Dickens wrote themselves out long before they reached their last novel. The lesson which our writers must learn is the lesson which the whole country must learn festina lente.

The American character must train and correct itself. We have no neighboring nations to keep us balanced. We are by ourselves, and if we are not exposed to the meanness of copying from other nations, we have not the advantage of their greater experience and culture. The people are rich in manifold excellent traits, in high-toned patriotism, in unbounded energy, in liberal patronage of the arts and sciences, and a noble ambition to develop the land with which God. has blessed them. If the peace of quiet energy would come upon their restlessness, if thoughtful examination would enter into their religious and political speculations, if care and patience would take the place of the spirit of brilliancy and sensation which pervades most of their literary and artistic work, the nation would rise into higher and nobler civilization. We trust that our essay, which we fear illustrates

I.

66 TRIFLES LIGHT AS AIR."

66

PIERRE FRECHON invariably called the nondescript vehicle of which he was the owner a cabriolet of the first class," but by any other name it could not have been less uncomfortable. In dinginess, discomfort, and in the astounding variety of groans and strange noises that it contrived to emit, it certainly was "of the first class," but Pierre generally managed before starting to conceal the equivocal meaning of his pet epithets.

On a certain evening in February Pierre's cabriolet jolted lazily on the road between Paimboeuf and Nantes. It contained but two passengers, both men, who grumbled

unceasingly at the slowness of the "cabriolet," and kept up a constant war of words with the conducteur. One of the passengers was Monsieur Jérémie Hercule Blanque, a middle-aged clothdealer of Bordeaux, going to Nantes on business; the other was Gaston de Francheville, who, having been visiting a friend. at Paimbœuf, was now on his way to his mother's château near Nantes.

"Figure to yourself, Monsieur," Blanque was saying, having ceased for an instant to exchange compliments with the driver, "Figure to yourself the immense advantage of Christianizing China and the Feejee Islands! When they had civilization they would require fashion and dress coats. Figure to yourself the yards and yards of broad

cloth ces autres would consume! Parbleu! c'est magnifique! the progress of civilization. I assure you, Monsieur, that I consider it a blessed privilege to assist our missionaries with my mite."

"You cast bread upon the waters that it may return," Gaston de Francheville began. "Pierre!" he called out to the driver, "Stop! There's somebody lying in the road."

"Ma foi!" responded Pierre's drawling voice, "I see nothing."

"Are you blind? The light from the lantern falls on it-a dark object at the edge of the road."

"You are right, Monsieur le Comte," said Pierre, alighting, lantern in hand. "Ma foi c'est une femme!"

"A woman!" echoed Gaston, jumping to the ground.

"One never knows what may happen," muttered prudent Monsieur Blanque, taking advantage of the absence of his fellow-traveller and Pierre, to transfer his watch and purse from his pocket to the leg of his left boot.

"A woman out on such a night!" And Gaston joined Pierre at the side of the road, where, with the leafless branches of an old thorn tree waving above her like skeleton fingers, a woman lay prone on the rain-soaked ground. She was wrapped in a cloak of the stuff called waterproof, which was anything but proof against the swiftdescending torrent of mingled sleet and rain. She was insensible. Between them, Gaston and Pierre carried her to the cabriolet. Her hood fell away from a fair, girlish face, framed by clustering brown hair, that under the gleams of the lantern seemed threaded with gold. Her eyelids, pale and pure as the petals of a camellia, did not tremble in the light, and there was no trace of color in the exquisite lips.

"She is dead!" cried Pierre. Gaston kept his eyes on the fair

young face, and prayed that it might not be so. They laid her carefully on a seat, obliging the merchant to vacate his place, which he did the more readily as he noticed the sparkle of a diamond on the nerveless hand that had escaped from the wet folds of her mantle. Monsieur Blanque felt much relieved in spite of himself. He had a genuine respect for wealth; he was sure that no woman who wore a diamond ring could have designs on his property.

"What will you do with her?" demanded he.

"Leave her at one of the Nantes hospitals if she does not make her wishes known before we reach the city," answered Pierre, taking out a flask of wine, and forcing a portion of its contents into the girl's mouth.

The cabriolet pursued its slow course. After a while the girl shivered, and moved her head with a faint moan.

Gaston rather clumsily divested her of the wet cloak, and supplied its place with his overcoat.

"Very imprudent, young gentleman, very imprudent," put in the cloth merchant, who, since he had heard Gaston called Monsieur le Comte, looked on him with increased interest. "Though young myself, I would not have done so, but youth, unaccustomed to the cloth business, is ever imprudent. I assure you, Monsieur le Comte, that if your coat has not been sponged the dampness will greatly inj-sacr-r-r-r-re!"

A crash and a sudden shock cut short his speech. The cabriolet with its usual deliberation sunk on one side.

"A wheel off, Messieurs !" Pierre laconically announced.

"Where are we?"

"Four miles from Nantes-a quarter of a mile from the château de Francheville."

"That's fortunate," said Gaston.

"Drive on to the château. They'll give you a bed there, for you'll not be able to find a wheelwright tonight."

Pierre grunted an assent to this proposition, and groped about in the dark to ascertain the extent of the injury.

"I deceived myself, gentlemen," he said, when he had completed the examination. "It is not the wheel. It is a broken axle. You'll have to alight, and walk to the château." Expostulation was useless. "What would you?" demanded Pierre, calmly eyeing his passengers. "Can one drive on with a broken axle? I ask you that, Messieurs!"

Gaston supplied himself with all the rugs and blankets he could lay hands on for sheltering the lady, and the two passengers got out on the road, while Pierre drove towards the château with his disabled vehicle, leaving them to follow as best they could.

Monsieur Blanque was only upheld from sinking under this misfortune by the consciousness that his valuables were in a comparatively safe place, and that his coat, having been sponged, would not be likely to suffer from the rain. When Gaston tendered him the hospitality of the château, he had grown nervous. "People don't give anything for nothing," reflected this profound student of bourgeois human nature. "One never knows what may happen. The château de Francheville may be a high-sounding name for a den of thieves. What if the Comte and the conducteur are in league to rob the junior member of the firm of Drap et Blanque?"

Disturbed in mind by these frightful conjectures and groaning in spirit, Monsieur Blanque toiled over the yielding soil of the road, feeling like a lamb led to slaughter. Gaston was compelled to carry his charge. The only sign of con

sciousness she gave, was a moan uttered at intervals.

Monsieur Blanque, who had fallen in the rear, suddenly uttered a stifled exclamation. Gaston stopped. Monsieur Blanque had stumbled upon one of the softest places in the very soft road. The sticky yielding mud clung to his boots. He stood on his right foot, and pulled up his left; then he stood on his left and pulled up his right, and then da capo. Poor Monsieur Blanque !

"Sac-r-r-r-re! help! dame!" he cried in answer to Gaston's inquiry. His struggles were as vain as they were violent. His boots had been made to accommodate his corns, and when at last he extricated himself, one of his boots remained a prey to the tenacity of the soil. His anguish was excessive when he discovered that this was his left boot-the boot that contained his money and watch.

To plunge in after it would be to renew his troubles. To ask his companion's assistance, incumbered as he was by the unconscious girl, merely to recover a boot, would seem ridiculous, and Monsieur Blanque could not bring himself to confess that the lost boot contained his valuables. In an agony of perplexity, he entered the warm hall of the château.

The appearance of guests rather surprised Madame de Francheville; but she regarded hospitality as a duty to be exercised with discretion and a frugal mind. She welcomed her son and Monsieur Blanque with stately cordiality, while wondering whether the remains of the game pâtés left from dinner could be warmed up for these hungry newcomers.

Madame de Francheville's rich pearl-colored silk and delicate point lace thoroughly impressed the cloth merchant with a sense of the perfect respectability of his fellowtraveller.