Negative influences may be as demoralizing as positive. There is no fruitfulness in negation; there is no upbuilding in a barren realism which amasses all the facts of a degraded and hopeless human nature. But why should the Study fall into this didactic statement of truisms? Because, for the moment, it seems necessary to revert to some basic lines. The prevailing downward, néant tendency of so much of our literature, especially in fiction, is not perhaps of forethought intended to be demoralizing. It is largely purely imitation, from wrong standards, or from a misconception of the standards of masters in literature; it is little more than the fad or fancy of a day. It is partly an affectation, from a misconception of the real spirit of the age, which is one of struggle, of struggle for equality against intrenched privilege, but which is also one of hope. The theory of equality does not legitimately lead to the gospel of worthlessness and despair any more than it does to lawlessness and disorder. It needs more malignant influences than yet appear to land this republic in despotism by the familiar path of individual insubordination. There are signs already of reaction. It lies with the writers of America to open wide the new day, to infuse hopefulness into life, to fight materialistic tendencies, to cease to expect to make the world better by the exhibition of its debasement and vulgarity, and to hold up an ideal for inspiration. It is believed that literature needs only to apprehend its responsibility to

or public obligations by the literature sympathy-sympathy with youth, with which is the food of the mind as grain is the struggling masses, with the public of the body. school, belief in love (not hate) as a social solvent, and apostleship of the Ideal. "The ideal," he says, "is not a world of fantasie, so remote and so different from reality that one must despair of ever attaining it; the ideal is the lively representation of the realities of which we bear in ourselves the germ." He addresses himself to youth because in the young he finds most clearly reflected the disease of the times, and also the most hopeful promise of the future. He treats youth seriously; its sufferings are real; the disease which afflicts it is not a puerile pose, it is real and of the gravest interest. Its origin is in the general crisis of our epoch. "Scepticism, realism, the factitious life, transitory results of modern civilization, constitute a sad educational medium (un triste milieu pédagogique). The human plant does not prosper in it....The abnormal existence that we lead has produced a lowering of the human vitality." The author's diagnosis of the evils of the time is as searching as it is fearless. But he does not leave us in a blind alley. With equal perspicacity and charm of style he traces the indications of a more hopeful life, and points out the paths to a better future. Even young France is becoming weary of negations, of facts without soul, of a life unilluminated by any ray of the ideal. There is indication in man as he is, of that which he may become: "to become what we are capable of becoming, that is the object of life. That is our part. Fac tua, sua Deus faciet." This value set on life is the keynote of the new teaching. And in his analysis of the causes of the current moral confusion and indifference, the author makes it clear that he appreciates the responsibility of the written word.

assume it.

IV.

The American who wishes to comprehend the depth and sweep of the campaign in France against the materialistic spirit, against realism "and lawlessness, which, under the standard of the Ideal, strives to make seen of all men the true worth and the true object of life, cannot do better than to read the Jeunesse of M. Charles Wagner, a volume which has rapidly gone to its fifth edition, and which in English would be of great service in this country. M. Wagner, born in Alsacia, and a pastor in the Reformed Church, is not a reactionist either against democracy or science; he is in accord with the mod ern spirit, and the note of his volume is

VOL. LXXXV.-No. 510.-96

It would be quite impossible to put into a single volume a true description of the youth of America and their habits and tendencies, or to make any single study of them that should fit the various types of all our latitudes and of our many nationalities. The author has in France a subject more homogeneous. But in the youth as seen in the mirror of French life we recognize many traits universal in our time, and, indeed, we have a class of young people whose portrait is drawn in Jeunesse. Mechanical inventions, facility of intercourse, fashion, tend to uni

their tastes. And it all has a quiet humor and an exquisite literary flavor. The same may be said of the succeeding chapters: "Grangerism," from Granger's Biographical History; on "Portraits of Mary, Queen of Scots"; on some "Portrait Inscriptions"; and on "Poetical Inscriptions."

The author's accuracy in research, his curious learning, his lively humor, and power to give charm to details, were exhibited in his Curiosities of the American Stage, which is a delightful supplement to his Plays and Players. It has a place in a notice like this rather on account of its literary quality than for its faithful delineation of the mimic life of the stage. But it is in two other volumes, The Literary Landmarks of London and the, later, Literary Landmarks of Edinburgh, that Mr. Hutton has rendered the most distinguished service to literature. For there is nothing more important in regard

to the respect for books of which we have spoken than the preservation of the traditions of literature, the flavor of human interest and personality in it. Both these volumes, on London and on Edinburgh, filled with portraits and drawings of the abodes of authors, are as far as possible from being dry guide-books de place; they are, indeed, so accurate and comprehensive as to excite the admiration of the cities, which take shame for leaving this important work to be done by an American; but they contain the very essence of literary history, are full of personal anecdote and allusion, and have a charm of narrative, of brightness, of fun, and of pathos which is quite another thing than the gabble of professional valets de place. The reader would be tempted, were it not for offending the author by an exaggeration, to exclaim, "If Hutton makes my literary guide-books, I care not who makes the literature."

Monthly Record of Current Events.

POLITICAL.

UR Record is closed on the 14th of Septem

5th of September, resulted in a decisive victory for the Democrats. L. K. Fuller, Republican, was elected Governor of Vermont on the 6th of September, and Henry Cleaves, Republican, was elected Governor of Maine on the 12th.

On the 18th of August orders were issued by the Governor of New York for the assembling of the entire National Guard of the State at Buffalo, to enforce the law during the strike of railroad switchmen at that place, the beginning of which was noted in our Record for October. On the 24th a conference of the chiefs of other railway labor unions decided not to order a sympathetic strike, and the grand master of the switchmen's union declared the conflict at an end, advising those who could do so to return to their places. The greater part of the militia were at once withdrawn.

In Tennessee several other attempts, besides that mentioned in our Record for October, were made by the free miners to liberate the convicts employed in the mines, but without success.

The cholera continued to rage with great fatality in southern Russia, causing, according to official reports, nearly 3000 deaths daily. About the 20th of August it appeared in Hamburg, Germany, and soon afterward broke out in Antwerp, Bremen, Havre, and other cities. Within the next week there were cases of the disease in London, Liverpool, and some other places in Great Britain. On the 31st the steamship Moravia, from Hamburg, arrived in New York Bay with cholera on board. Twenty-two deaths from the disease had occurred among the passengers during her voyage. The survivors and crew were at once quarantined in the lower bay, and vigorous measures were taken to prevent infected vessels from passing through the

August 15th.-The new British ship Thracian was wrecked off the Isle of Man, and twenty-three persons were drowned.

Angust 25th.-The British steamer Anglia was capsized in the Hooghly River, India, and fifteen of her crew were lost.-An explosion occurred in a coal mine at Bridgend, Wales, and nearly 100 miners lost their lives.

August 31st.-The steamer Western Reserve was wrecked in Lake Superior, and twenty-six lives were .lost.

September 11th.-In a collision on the Fitchburg Railroad, Massachusetts, nine persons were killed and thirty-seven injured.

OBITUARY.

August 22d.—In Rio Janeiro, Brazil, Marshal Manoel Deodora da Fonseca, ex-President of Brazil. August 23d.-At Canandaigua, New York, Myron Halley Clark, ex-Governor of New York, aged eightysix years.

August 31st.-At Livingston, Staten Island, New York, George William Curtis, aged sixty-eight years. September 5th-In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Daniel Dougherty, lawyer, aged sixty-six years.-At Scituate, Massachusetts, Thomas William Parsons, poet, aged seventy-three years.

September 7th-At Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, John Greenleaf Whittier, aged eighty-five years.

THE TRUE STORY OF THE SURRENDER OF THE MARQUIS CORNWALLIS. HAD the honor done me once to be ap

I pointed provisional secretary and treasurer

of the State Chapter of the Society of the Sons of the Revolution, or of the American Revolution; I never can remember which. (To this unhappy fault of memory I owed my early removal from the responsible and remunerative office, for the offspring of the two societies were like the first pair of brothers, not wholly in unity.) In the discharge of this office I became acquainted with a good deal of history which has satisfied me that the commonly received versions are far from accurate. Among the true accounts which I thus received is the following story of the surrender of the Marquis Cornwallis, related to me by an eyewitness, and which is of course true.

I was seated one day in my office, when there was a tap at my door. It differed essentially from either the deferential tap of a client, or the more imperious rap of the creature who carries around a packet of long, narrow invitations to settle, the acceptance of which keeps a man poor. This knock was light and tentative, and yet had in it a certain assertion.

"Come in," I called.

It was repeated. I knew then that it was not the gentleman of the narrow and inconvenient invitations. He never waits to be invited twice. Sometimes he comes even when a response is withheld. I called more boldly, "Come in."

The door opened slowly, and a person entered-a little, old, dried-up-looking individual with a little, old, dried-up black face, surmounted by a little, old, dried-up black beaver. The white corners of two little eyes, or of what from their geographical position I supposed were eyes, were visible. The visitor, with his back to me, closed the door without the slightest sound, as carefully as if a creak would have blown the house down. Then he turned and faced me. "Well?" I said. "What is it?" "Sarvent, suh. Is dis de place whar you gits you' money?"

"No, it is not," I said, feeling that I was safe within the bounds of truth this far.

""Tain't?" He reflected a little while. "Dis de place dee tole me is de place." He gazed all around curiously.

"Who told you?" I asked.

"Dee. Who is you? Is you de American