תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

another village, at the house of his married sister, and there he made the acquaintance of the schoolmaster who by his teaching opened new horizons to the young peasant's mind. This schoolmaster belongs to the radical party, who believe it to be their duty to enlighten the people upon the social injustice which is done to them. He talks very much in that sense to the young man, and expects to find in him an obedient pupil; but, unfortunately, Theodore in the meantime meets a girl who inspires him with a violent love, and after that happens he only dreams of getting rich and of marrying her.

Having with great difficulty obtained the permission of his father, he goes to the chief manager of the manufactory, and asks him for work. Here we have put before us two curious representatives of the old and the new generation of tradespeople. The director is one of the tyrants so well depicted by Ostrovsky. Proud of his riches, he recognises no limits to his power, and he cannot endure the notion that a workman may discuss the amount of the wages he pleases to grant him. He never condescends to make any formal agreements with his workmen, and they are obliged to trust everything to his sense of justice, if they are to enter the manufactory at all. The son, on the contrary, is imbued with the modern socialistic and radical ideas; he deplores the inequality of fortunes, sympathises with the victims of his father's despotism, but himself enjoys very little liberty, and can do nothing to help his brethren. His only pleasure consists in telling them what he thinks about the bad organization of society, or, in other words, in revolutionary propagandism under his father's roof. Theodore is much perplexed by these opposite views, and is at a loss how to behave in such circumstances. At this point, the interesting tale abruptly stops, remaining unfinished; but we hope that the completion of it will not be long postponed. Will the hero get entangled in the net of the revolutionary propaganda, or will his good sense preserve him from it? In every instance, the picture drawn by the author is true to nature, for the life of the peasant is no more free from temptations and dangers than that of the classes above him. The rising generation in the agricultural districts refuse to follow the steps of their forefathers; they seek new paths, and begin to prefer the more agitated life of towns to the calm existence of the country. The rural commune puts a drag on this movement, but it will not be able to stop the tendency for ever.

A Marriage and a Death in the Imperial Family.

The fêtes of the season have been abruptly interrupted by unexpected mourning in the Imperial Family. The young Grand Duke Viatcheslaw, the son of the Archduke Constantine, and nephew of the Emperor, has, at the age of sixteen, been suddenly snatched away by brain disease. Born in Poland, in 1862, at the time when his father had accepted the post of Viceroy of that country, and still dreamt of reconciling it to Russia, a national name was given to the child, in

order to propitiate the Poles. Some persous pretend that the Grand Duke Constantine seriously aimed at becoming the King of Poland; and though this supposition is plainly false, it may be admitted that he had some other grand objects in view, and that he really sought to further between the two hostile parties. Such hopes were soon overthrown by the events which followed; but, nevertheless, his youngest son remained his favourite, as he also was that of the Grand Duchess. Great expecta

peace

tions were founded on the score of the boy's abilities. At the Court it was known that the young Viatcheslaw was endowed with an intelligence beyond his years, and that it was likely he would be the glory of the family. The autopsy made after his death disclosed an organic defect in his brain, which made a longer life impossible.

So mixed, however, is the course of this life, that, a month ago, another family event caused grand festivities to take place at the Emperor's palace. The Grand Duchess Anastasie, daughter of the Czar's brother Michael, married the heir of the throne of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. The nuptials were most splendid. The double religious ceremony was performed at two o'clock in the afternoon, followed by a dinner for all the military and civil functionaries who have the right of being presented at the Court. The invitations included their wives and daughters, and the banquet terminated by a kind of ball, where the only dance was a Polonaise. As the ladies, on such occasions, wear the national dress, consisting of a white satin gown embroidered with gold, a long velvet train, and the hair dressed in a way called kokoshnek, the common dances cannot be gone through, a slow walk, like that of a Polonaise, being the only possible thing. However, by way of compensation, the nuptials were followed by balls daily for two weeks, and the arrival of Lent itself would not have wholly stopped them, if the death of the young Grand Duke had not thrown a black veil upon society.

More Political Assassinations,

The

The Reds cannot be quiet for long; they are again to the fore. foul murder of Prince Krapotkin, the Governor of Kharkow, is claimed to be their deed; for, as usual, they boast of it, alleging that it is a praiseworthy act of justice. Last Sunday Prince Krapotkin was driving home from a ball in a close carriage, when a shot was skilfully. fired through the window, grievously wounding him. The doctor could not save him, and after suffering for three days he died from his wound. The clever murderer, after having fired his deadly shot, escaped; and we know by experience how little ground there is to hope for his discovery in the future.

This crime has a connection with another political affair, and may justly be considered as the consequence of it. An attempt to free some political prisoners, who were in custody at Kharkow, occurred some days before; and the leader of the riot, Fomin by name, had been arrested and ordered to be brought before a court-martial for trial. This announce

ment was made to him on the Saturday, and on the Sunday Prince Krapotkin was killed. Though there could be no real doubt about the connection of the two affairs, a report attributing the crime to personal revenge was put into circulation, and found some believers; but the revolutionary party did not choose that this impression should last. They hastened to publish and to spread throughout Russia a proclamation, stating that they claimed the deed as their own. It is true that a difference was made between the penalty inflicted on General Mesentzef and that in this new case, but the difference is so slight practically that it hardly needs to be taken into account. It is affirmed that the chief of the gendarmes was sentenced to death by the revolutionary Court of Justice; while the governor of Kharkow has fallen under the shot of a voluntary avenger. As the latter belongs to the same camp as the executioners of the sentence on the General, we do not see much practical distinction between them. We fancy that the victims chosen by the underground Court of Justice will not much care about the particulars of their sentence; and will be but imperfectly comforted by learning that they have been wounded, not by an official executioner, but by a voluntary avenger of society's wrongs.

Unfortunately this sad event has not stood alone. We learn to-day that disturbances have occurred at Kiev. Blood has again been shed. The police were informed that suspicious persons were living in a certain house of that town, and resolved to make a visit of search; but as soon as the gendarmes reached the door and summoned the lodgers to let them in, they were met by a shower of projectiles. This obliged them, in their turn, to have recourse to arms. An officer was killed on the spot; another received a severe contusion; and three policemen were wounded. The fight did not prove less serious on the other side: five women and eleven men were arrested, of whom four are reported to be grievously wounded. A search of the house resulted in the discovery of all the materials for a printing-office; of false seals belonging to different administrative departments; false papers, revolutionary pamphlets, and a store of revolvers and daggers.

These events, taking them together, are not of a tranquillizing kind; and if we add to them the fact that the underground press continues to flourish, mocking all the efforts of the Government, there is some reason to look with anxiety into the future. The impunity with which the murderers attack their victims-escaping always from the hand of justice -is the saddest side of the recent events. In these ways the Reds are encouraged to persevere in their tactics, being made bolder every day. The Government replies, it is true, by punishing severely the culprits it seizes; and in this way civil war becomes more and more violent. What will be the end of it? Nobody can yet tell.

T. S.

CONTEMPORARY LITERARY CHRONICLES.

AT

I. CHURCH HISTORY, &c.

(Under the Direction of the Rev. Professor CHEETHAM.)

T the head of the works which come before us at present we must place Professor Max Müller's "Hibbert Lectures" (Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as illustrated by the Religions of India. London: Longmans; Williams and Norgate); for inquiries into the very ground and root of religion precede those which relate to existing forms of religion. It is needless to say of anything which bears the name of Max Müller that it is learned, ingenious, and interesting; yet the present work seems to have somewhat less freshness than most other productions of the accomplished writer; it has somewhat the air of having been produced rather because he had to say something than because he had something to say. The Hibbert Trust, even with its much wider conditions, will probably not wholly escape the fate which has too often befallen the Bampton and the Hulsean.

That Mr. Max Müller in lecturing on religion should to a certain extent repeat himself was almost inevitable; for he had already treated the "Science of Religion at some length. It is, we think, unfortunate that after admitting the difficulty -nay, the impossibility-of defining religion, he still attempts something very like a definition: for to speak of a "mental faculty" which "enables man to apprehend the infinite," is to bring in all the endless discussion about the meaning of the word "faculty," for which Mr. Müller proposes to substitute "the Not-yet," about the infinite, and about man's apprehension of the infinite. No doubt the temptation was great to reply to critics of the "Science of Religion," and the discussion itself is ingenious enough; but we really cannot feel that it helps us in the consideration of historical religion. It is with a sense of relief that we pass from this abstract contemplation of the "infinite" to the clearer words of Mr. Codrington, who writes from his own experience and not from his inner consciousness. The religion of the Melanesians consists. ... in the persuasion that there is a supernatural power about, belonging to the region of the unseen There is a belief in a force altogether distinct from physical power, which acts in all kinds of ways for good and evil." Here we seem to have, in few and simple words, the root-idea of natural religion, not only in Polynesia, but everywhere. Mr. Müller's illustration of the unconscious "apprehension of the infinite" from the apprehension of colours by savages, who have only names perhaps for three or four, does not seem altogether happy; for the sensation of colour is purely physical; there is no reason to doubt that savages have precisely the same colour-sensations that we have, though they are rarely equal to the abstraction of naming all colours as such, apart from coloured objects:* but the infinite is an abstract concept-if it be a concept-and not the object of sensation at all.

66

66

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

It was of course inevitable, in speaking of Indian religion, that the theory of solar myths should be introduced. People wonder," says the author, "why so much of the old mythology, the daily talk, of the Aryans, was solar:-What else could it have been?" There is here perhaps an allusion to Mr. J. A. Symonds, who (The

*See Mr. Grant Allen's interesting work on "The Colour-Sense; its Origin and Development." London: Trübner and Co.

[ocr errors]

Greek Poets, 2nd Ser., p. 25) does speak somewhat irreverently of those who "fancy that the early Greeks talked with most damnable iteration' about the weather." We agree with Mr. Symonds, and think that a plain answer may be given to the question, "What else could they talk about? So far as we know, they talked about man and his doings; and when that subject was exhausted they imagined other beings more or less like man, and talked about them and their doings. Not that we deny that many myths have their origin in meteorological phenomena; it is quite clear that they have; but we think that Professor Max Müller's followers have gone astray after Solarism in much the same way that De Brosses did after Fetichism. We are very far from believing that a glowing ball in the sky-and the sun can have been no more to primitive man-appearing day after day, can have been the perpetual object of wonder and talk even to "the awakening consciousness of mankind."

We have not hesitated to express our dissent from Professor Max Müller on one or two points; but apart from these we have nothing but praise. The accounts of Fetichism-where it will probably be new to most readers to discover that "fetish" is no savage word, but simply the name (feitiço, an amulet) which the Portuguese sailors gave to the object which they saw savages venerate; of the relation of the Veda to the history of early religion, with the curious particulars about its oral transmission; of Henotheism, Polytheism, Monotheism, and Atheism, as they appear in Indian thought; of ancient philosophy and practical religion, perhaps, most of all, are full of interest, and could, probably, have been given by no other person with the same vivacity and fulness of knowledge that has here been imparted to them by Professor Max Müller. Even to students of his other works these lectures will give some fresh matter for thought, while to those to whom the study of comparative religion is new they cannot fail to be in the highest degree interesting and stimulating.

Here and there we meet with expressions which strike us with a little surprise. For instance, Professor Müller speaks (p. 231) of darkness and sin as "ideas which seem to us far apart." Surely to those who are familiar with St. John's Gospel the ideas of darkness and sin are very near. And not only so, but in Christian writings and Christian ritual evil is perpetually identified with darkness, and good with light; the place of dawn was the site of Paradise; the west, which seemed to swallow up the light, the abode of the powers of evil. The turning to the east in worship, which is common in churches everywhere, is but a recognition of the natural symbolism of the "Day-spring." We notice (p. 39) pown for powiki, and πράσινη for πρασίνη.

Mr. John Pryce's Ancient British Church (London, Longmans) is a historical essay which gained the prize at the National Eisteddfod of 1876. Nothing can be imagined better adapted to correct the notion which is, we think, generally prevalent in England, that the productions encouraged by the Eisteddfod are, as a matter of course, of a loose and rhetorical kind, very much overvaluing every scrap of Welsh literature, and paying little attention to that of the world in general. Far from being infected with Kelticism, Mr. Pryce's essay is a sober sketch of the early history of the British Church-so far as it can be known-founded on a careful examination of the best authorities. It seems a little odd to describe Coel, the supposed father of the Empress Helena, as king of Colchester; as to the authenticity of the legend, Mr. Pryce is no doubt quite right in saying that "the arguments against Helen's British origin seem conclusive." If there is any truth at all in the legend of St. Alban, he would seem to be rather a Roman than a British saintthough no doubt cultivated Britons did sometimes assume Roman names. But so far as we have observed, Mr. Pryce's errors are rare and his merits considerable. Probably the little that can be known about the ancient British Church has never before been collected in so convenient a form.

Nothing is more remarkable in the literary history of the last few years than the revival of interest in the eighteenth century. Since De Tocqueville directed attention to the fact, that the ideas which burst into light at the French Revolution were prepared and incubated in the previous century, there has been a continually increasing body of literature devoted to it. It was for a time much neglected; the ecclesiastical history, in particular, of the eighteenth century was for a time almost forgotten; the Georgian era was a by-word in England for all that was low and unsatisfactory in religion, in art, and in poetry. The learned and able men of the Oxford movement turned their thoughts to the Primitive Church and to the

« הקודםהמשך »