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correspondence; as to the harsh ones, they abound; on Frenchmen especially his satire never tarries: "The greatest nation in the world is made up of a set of scapegraces, inconsistent, anti-artistic, illogical, bigoted, and not even possessing the religion that comes from the heart." He was a senator of the Empire, not out of any particular liking for a dynasty or a principle, but because, as he said, "tyrants had over Republicans the advantage of washing their hands;" in his official capacity he was once called upon to make a speech in the Senate, and as it was his first public address he felt rather timorous. "I gained courage," he writes to the Inconnue, "when I bethought myself that I was speaking to two hundred fools." On another occasion he relates to the same person how, answering a toast to European Literature at a dinner of the Literary Association, presided over by Lord Palmerston, he gravely spoke nonsense in English for a quarter of an hour, which seemed to be highly appreciated by the so-called learned men who listened. Further on he writes: "You cannot imagine my disgust for our present society; it seems as if it tried, by its stupid combinations, to augment the mass of annoyances and troubles which are necessary to the order of the world." Speaking of Englishmen, he says that individually they are stupid, but as a whole admirable. Few things, in fact, find grace in his eyes. On marriage, he says that nothing is more repulsive: "The Turks, who bargain for a wife as for a fat sheep, are more honest than we Europeans who daub over this vile transaction with a varnish of hypocrisy but too transparent." It may be seen at this stage how the scepticism of the first days has begot a cynic. He might have sought happiness in union with a lovely and amiable woman (for he was a great favourite with the sex); but he discarded marriage and women by principle. Much of this insensibility is revealed in the following lines: "The other day I went out boating on the Seine. There was a quantity of small sailing-boats filled with all kinds of people about the river. Another large one was freighted by a number of women (of those of the bad tone). All these boats had gone to the shore, and from the largest emerged a man about forty years old, who had a drum, and who drummed away for his own amusement. While I was admiring this lubber's musical dispositions, a woman of about twenty-three comes up to him, calls him a monster, says that she followed him from Paris, and that it would fare ill with him unless he admitted her to his party. All this was going on ashore, our own boat being twenty yards away. The man with the drum was drumming away while the woman was remonstrating, and he at last told her with much coolness that he would have nothing of the kind. Upon this, she ran to the boat furthest from the shore and jumped into the water, thereby splashing us abominably. Although she

paradox, and that the "Unknown" must have been singularly destitute in feminine dignity and self-respect could she have endured to be told that she was only separated from such a class of women by poverty. We hope the "Unknown" did endure it and approve of it, for, unless the Quarterly has entirely misunderstood Mérimée's meaning, no worse construction could be put on a very sensible remark.

had extinguished my cigar, indignation did not prevent me, nor my friends, from saving her before she had swallowed a glassful. The handsome object of her despair hadn't stirred, and he muttered between his teeth, Why take her out if she wanted to drown herself?' ... The question to which this incident gives rise in my mind is, why are the most indifferent men the most beloved? That is what I should like you to tell me, if you can."

Such was his opinion on feminine love. Believing as he did that a man is no longer cherished from the moment he shows any affection for the woman he distinguishes from others, Mérimée probably deemed that the best way of avoiding misery and pain was not to love at all. Perhaps the unknown might have replied to his query that she used precisely the means alluded to to win her illustrious correspondent's heart; but in any case it may be affirmed that she did not succeed.

II.

It is within the present writer's recollection to have met Prosper Mérimée at one of those Parisian cafés which form the resort of the pith of the literary world. The place was generally well attended by famous men, but it was never more crowded than when Mérimée happened to be there. His brilliancy of conversation, the effective manner in which he poured out the overflowing of his wit, made of him one of the most desirable men of Paris. On this occasion a young sculptor of talent was holding forth on artistic theories, and he came to speak of glory with the fervency of an adept. "La gloire !" said Mérimée, with a caustic smile. "Do you then believe in glory, young man?"

This exclamation remained in our memory as the dejected profession of faith of a wasted life. Such, indeed, was Prosper Mérimée's; and it can be safely affirmed that this unfortunate result was provoked by counteraction against nature, and the valuable information afforded by his correspondence goes to support this view. Throughout the emptiness of his life prevails. To sum up, he sifted languages, literatures, and characters; he studied his species in all parts of the globe; and, as a just retribution for spurning all subjects of study after devoting his attention to each, instead of drawing consequences from the synthesis of things, he sickened, and looked about him for something to love or to like. Failing in his endeavours, he led the brilliant and sterile life of a delicate désœuvré, and listlessly wandered through the drama of life, obviously without object, and certainly without desire. What was the use for him to apply his energy to some great work; to labour for a definite enterprise ? He was a sceptic, and much of a cynic too; his soul was as well closed to narrow egotism as to a noble faith in the perfectibility of human attempts. Vanity he had none; he cared not a whit for glory. If he achieved a few masterpieces it was for his amusement, not for others he despised others too much for that; and in his sometimes heroic contempt, the

trace he would leave of his passage in this world troubled him but slightly. As most men who look upon the details of life too critically, he had lost sight of the good features of human nature only to give paramount importance to its vices. He commenced life on the defensive : suspicion bred bitterness; bitterness bred scepticism, scepticism bred the cynic. It is clear that such negative sentiments were not primarily in his heart, and that they derived their origin from mistaken notions. It is also clear that this singular man's heart never thrilled with love, and that a fatal distrust, on which we have commented, deprived him of a solace which might have made of him a far different individual from the polite, caustic, stoically desponding Mérimée, whom Renan gives as a type of a period. The "Unknown" was merely the recipient of those confidences which every mind has an irrepressible tendency to unfold; but that alone is no proof of amorous affection. Proud as he was, Mérimée doubtless selected her as the fittest person to preserve his secrets; and perhaps another deception might be added to the others, could he know that even this trust has been betrayed. Howbeit, the Inconnue was no more than a confidante. She might perchance have been more had she liked ; and her own letters to Mérimée would show if she is responsible for preventing a very distinguished man from seeing clearly through his mistakes, and reconciling himself with his fellow-creatures.

This, however, is merely speculation, and one should only reason by facts on such delicate ground. What facts we have lead us to point to Mérimée as the most unhappy of men. In the tumult of court life, amidst the uproar of the gayest society, he was more forlorn than in the solitude of a desert. His heart was dry to the core; the eventualities of daily existence were to him as the phases of a nightmare, in which he was forced into playing a part although convinced of its vanity. He must, indeed, have longed to cast off the clay as well as his official gear. His death was in unison with the mournfulness of his life: it occurred shortly after the overthrow of the Second Empire. France was going to pieces; no one thought of a single individual in this whirling tempest, and Mérimée's demise was not more noticed than a simple soldier's. He expired in the arms of two faithful English friends. Two hours before breathing his last he wrote the note which closes the second volume of his correspondence. He was borne silently to the grave, momentarily forgotten. No doubt he would have approved of this oblivion and indifference.

Houses of the Poor in Towns.

QUESTIONS Which take strong hold of the benevolent feelings are often discussed to little purpose, from neglecting in the first instance to divide the subject properly. If points in which it is possible to effect direct improvement are not distinguished from other points in which improvement can only be the work of indirect and often remote agencies, practicable and impracticable proposals have to bear a common discredit. The Housing of the Poor is a question of this kind. Even in the best considered enumerations of the mischiefs incident to the crowded and unwholesome dens in which the poor, whether in town or country, too commonly live there is often much confusion between evils which admit of a precise and assignable remedy, and evils which will only disappear in the train of other evils of which they are really the offspring. Till lately, at all events, the feature in the housing of the poor which has been most generally singled out for attack is overcrowding. All the ills that the poor are heirs to have been set down to this cause; and if the reformer has been unable to resist the conviction that the conditions which generate overcrowding are not within his control, he has been tempted to give the matter up as hopeless. Yet all the time he has simply approached the subject from the wrong side. He has considered not what the houses are which the poor live in, but how many they be that live in them. He has made the mistake from which bodies as eminent as the College of Physicians have not escaped, and assumed that overcrowding is the one crying evil against which war has to be waged. It is the object, in part, of this paper to show how injurious this mistake may be to the classes about whom it is made. The question will chiefly be treated in its relation to the poor who live in towns. Not of course that the poor who live in the country are not quite as badly off, both as regards the quality of their houses and the number of dwellers in them, as the town poor. Before the laws of sanitary science were properly understood, it was a common theory that the peasant in his cottage enjoyed, at all events, the blessings of pure air and water fresh from the spring. That pleasing delusion has been disposed of. We now know that air and water are as likely to be poisoned in the country as in the town, and we know, too, that though the overcrowding of houses in a given area is naturally greater in towns, the overcrowding of human beings within a given house is quite as great in the country. But, except in one important particular which will be pointed out further on, these evils must be traced to different causes, and be treated by different remedies from those which apply to

the case of the town poor. And, great as the need with regard to the country undoubtedly is, it is hardly quite so immediate as it is with regard to towns. In the country the mischief is not being made worse every day by the natural increase of population, and by the effect of what are called street improvements. Nor is the action of the mischief on those subjected to it so continuous in the country as it is in towns. The labourer's work lies, for the most part, in the fields, and the children's playground is in the open air, not in the stifling back-yard of a small town court. If the inmates of the cottage are poisoned by want of drainage and ventilation at night, they breathe fresh air for a part at least of each day. In towns, on the other hand, the room in which the poor spend the day is often that in which they have spent the night; or if they go to work in shops or factories, it is the place, not the atmosphere, that they change. In towns, too, the evil has been growing worse every year until quite lately, and in all but a few it is still growing worse. We sometimes speak as though in London there had been a real change for the better, owing to the efforts made by the various philanthropic societies which have taken the matter in hand. But these efforts have not only made no appreciable impression upon the defective housing they found in existence, they have not even kept down the additions which are constantly being made to it. The annual increase of population in London is about 40,000, and the clearance required to make room for a single new building-the Law Courts-turned 4,000 persons out of their houses. The oldest of the philanthropic societies has been at work for more than a quarter of a century, and all that it and its successors have done in that time is to provide decent houses for 26,000 persons. If this be set against the growth of population in five-and-twenty years, and the repeated clearances made during that time in every direction and for every sort of purpose, it will be seen that in London the work has still to be begun.

Happily it is no longer necessary to prove that so long as the houses of the poor are wanting in all the requisites which go to make life healthy or decent, it is of little avail to attempt to improve their condition in other ways. As the connection between mind and body has been better understood, we have learnt that it would be as reasonable to look for grapes from thorns as to expect sobriety and energy from men who habitually breathe air which, if they were not acclimatized to it, would at once generate low fever. Acclimatization is not a process which can be undergone without paying the penalty; and familiarity with unhealthy surroundings, though it may act as a safeguard against acute disease, must tend to produce a general depression of system which is hostile alike to either bodily or mental activity, and naturally tempts those who suffer from it to seek a momentary stimulus in gin. All this will here be taken for granted. The points to which this article will be confined are the causes to which the evils in question are to be attributed, and the nature of the remedies of which they severally admit.

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