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tradition has thus gathered about the American Embassy in London. Mr. Bryce in his seven years of service laid the foundations of a not dissimilar prestige at Washington; and, invaluably assisted by Mrs. Bryce, the British Embassy became in his hands what the American Embassy in London was

The Nation.

in the hands of Mr. Lowell and Mr. Hay and Mr. Choate. Mr. Page in London is certain to prove a reversion to the type of scholar-diplomat that, before the coming of the millioniares, was America's distinctive and most agreeable contribution to international intercourse.

NIETZSCHE AND THE WOMAN.

I found Valeria with a largish book open on her lap, a furrow of perplexity across her brow, and a troubled look in her intelligent eyes. Then I noticed upon a little table by her side was a pile of other books, which I judged, by their binding and general aspect, were of the serious sort.

"I am so glad that it occurred to you to call this afternoon," she greeted me. "You can be of the greatest possible help to me."

I felt that one of the most cherished ambitions of my life was perhaps about to be realized, and I said so. I raised an interrogative eyebrow and awaited an explanation.

"We have a meeting here to-morrow night," she said. "A lot of women, you know-all women."

"Suffrage?" I asked, feeling a little damped. "I am afraid I can't be of much use if—"

"Oh, no, no, not this time. Nothing quite so formidable, and yet, I don't know-no, its a meeting of the Women's Home Culture Circle, the local branch of it, you know, and we're going to talk about the Philosophy of Nietzsche. Now, naturally, as it's in my house I shall be expected to say something, and I want to say something that sounds intelligent. I want to be bright. So I got all his books I could from the library, and I made Roger buy me this one and bring it home last night." She held out towards me the book she had upon her lap. It

was the latest volume upon the Philosophy of Nietzsche.*

"I don't find myself getting much brighter, the more I read," she went on, "in fact, I can't make out so far what sort of man he was. He says some awful things. Was he really as awful as he seems to think we ought to be?"

"Yes," I replied, "I think he was quite as awful as he says you ought to be. But in what particular way do you gather from these volumes, does Nietzsche charge you to set about being awful?"

"Oh-well-I

was thinking about love and that sort of thing. Was he that sort of man-was he like-like Lord Byron, I mean?"

"He was most stupendously unlike Lord Byron," I replied. "Byron was always in love; Nietzsche never was. His sister says of him: 'All of his life long my brother remained completely apart from either great passion or vulgar pleasure.' She says further 'that every inclination to a feminine personality quickly changed to a tender friendship, however fascinatingly pretty the fair one might be.' You see, he wasn't much like Byron, was he?"

"No. I think he was horrider, do 't you? Perhaps his sister didn't know much about him, you know. Sisters don't always, do they?"

"You might say that at to-morrow

"The Philosophy of Nietzsche. An Exposition and Appreciation." By G. C. Chatterton Hill. Ousley, Fleet Lane, London. 78. 6d.

night's meeting," I suggested "it would be a most illuminating criticism."

"Try not to be more disagreeable than you can help," Valeria said, "but tell me, as shortly as you can, what were his views about women. That's what the discussion is sure to turn on to-morrow night."

"Happily, those views may be summarized," I responded. "He says distinctly somewhere I forget where, but I can easily find you the passage, I daresay that they are always cats or birds, or at the best-" I hesitated. "Well?"

"Cows," I added. "He calls Georges Sand," I went on hastily, "a milch cow with a fine style.'"

"Oh, they are cats," she said, "that's rather obvious. But birds?—I don't know. What sort of birds do you think he meant we were?-parrots, magpies?"

"Personally I have not the slightest doubt he meant geese," I replied. "But he insisted on their essential affinity with cats. He says somewhere else that 'woman is essentially unpeaceable, like the cat, however well she may have assumed the peaceable demeanor.' I don't fancy the militant Suffragette would have surprised him a bit. In fact, he anticipated the coming of Mrs. Pankhurst."

"Did he?" she asked. "Where? I should like to say something about that to-morrow night. That' would look bright, wouldn't it? Besides, it would annoy Mrs. Buff-Orpington so, and I like doing that."

"I think Nietzsche would have loved you, anyhow," I said. "In you he would have recognized the Eternal Feline. I'll see if I can find the passage I mean." I picked up "Beyond Good and Evil" from the little table and found the passage without difficulty. Some appreciative library reader had marked it deeply in the

margin. I read it out: "The weaker sex has in no previous age been treated with so much respect by men. as at present-what wonder is it that abuse should be immediately made of this respect? They want more, they learn to make claims, the tribute of respect is at last felt to be well-nigh galling; rivalry for rights, indeed, actual strife itself, would be preferred: in a word, woman is losing modesty. And let us immediately add that she is also losing taste. She is unlearning to fear man; but the woman who 'unlearns to fear' sacrifices her most womanly instincts. That woman should venture forward when the fear-inspiring quality in man—or more definitely, the man in man-is no lenger either desired or fully developed, is reasonable enough and also intelligible enough; what is more difficult to understand is that precisely thereby woman deteriorates. This is what is happening nowadays: let us not deceive ourselves about it! Wherever the industrial spirit has triumphed over the military and aristocratic spirit, woman strives for the economic and legal independence of a clerk 'woman as clerkess' is inscribed on the portal of the modern society which is in course of formation. While she thus appropriates new rights, aspires to be 'master,' and inscribes progress' of woman on her flags and banners, the very oppositerealizes itself with terrible obviousness-woman retrogrades. Since the French Revolution the influence of woman in Europe has declined in proportion as she has increased her rights and claims; and the 'emancipation of woman,' in so far as it is desired and demanded by women themselves (and not only by masculine shallow-pates), thus proves to be a remarkable symptom of the increased weakening and deadening of the most womanly instincts. There is stupidity in this:

masculine well-reared

movement, an almost stupidity, of which a woman-who is always a sensible woman-might be heartily ashamed."

"At once a diagnosis and a prophecy, you see," I added, closing the volume.

"Yes," she said. "I shall say that tomorrow night, only I shall put it the other way, so as not to feel too unoriginal. I shall call it a prophecy and a diagnosis. But, I say, 'shallowpates'! He wouldn't have thought much of The Men's League for Woman's Suffrage, would he?"

"He called them in anticipation, 'idiotic friends and corrupters of woman' and 'learned asses,'" I said.

"He might have left out the 'learned,'" said Valeria. "But, however he might have disliked the Suffragettes," she went on, "he would at least have admired them for their pluck, wouldn't he?"

"I'm not so sure even of that," I ans

The New Witness.

wered. "Anyhow, he would have had small sympathy with their martyrdom-martyrs didn't appeal to him. He says somewhere else that 'martyrs have been a great misfortune in history. Even at present a crude form of persecution is all that is needed to create an honorable name. Phut! does it alter anything in the value of an affair that somebody lays down his life for it?'"

"What I can't help feeling about bim is," she said presently after a pause, "that if he was not-like Lord Byron he ought to have been. It seems inconsistent of him, somehow. I believe I should have liked him better if he had been."

"I'm quite sure you would," I agreed, "and that proves, doesn't it, that Nietzsche, even with his limited experience really did know a good deal about women."

Hubert Bland.

REFRAINS.

Clocks and the sea and all rhythmic things can charm the mind or madden it, and all things that repeat them. selves can call on the fancy and be heard; for the human mind loves an echo, even as children do; it loves to expect recurrence and hear it and be satisfied. Therein lies, partly, the pleasure that metre gives. For all verse-forms are in substance this: a pattern of sound is built up, and then repeated in an order fixed or varied cunningly, to engage and mock or satisfy the ear. The pattern must have clear identity, and one thinks of the "hexameter curling-crested," and that distinctive ending of dactyl and spondee which gave it precedence over the old plain iambic-for the iambics had no true ending; they would come apart at any point. It is a pattern that can

vary enormously and still be itself:"Then to him answer'd again great

Hector helm'd with the lightning, 'Alas, Telamon's son, god-born, that art lord of a people,

Try me no more, but know I am not as a green lad strengthless

Nor as a woman unlearn'd in the lore of the sword and the battle.” The thing is a rhyme of rhythm, invented a millennium before the rhyme of vowels that we know, but still a possibility in modern verse, though the new rhyming has really filled its place. Campbell uses such rhythm-rhymes like a drum: in "Hohenlinden":"By torch and trumpet fast arrayed Each horseman drew his battle blade, And furious every charger neighed To join the dreadful revelry. Then shook the hills with thunder riven,

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And the boldest held his breath,
For a time.

Here one sees also to some degree another form of pleasure which these repetitions may have for the ear. It is that expectation of ingenuity which is alternately aroused and satisfied as one listens to certain vulgar, cheerful, topical songs-that, for instance, wherein "Months and months and months," or, in a French parallel that is still more vulgar, "Tout, tout, tout dou-oucement," has to be fitted in some way that will make sense, to the end of every stanza. "How will he get to the 'months' this time?" questions the mind, or, “What will happen so very, very 'doucement' at the end of this verse?" And as the resource of the rhymster survives another test, the mind chuckles and applauds. Songs are no doubt the right place for refrains, and the mere presence of a refrain may add something of the song-quality to the quite pedestrian

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The desire of convivial audiences to have something manageable to sing themselves has made a delightful addi. tion to the resources of the cheerful lyrist.

On a higher plane a like concession has been made to the vocal, youthful cheerfulness of one part of our congregations. There is a fine joyousness, for example, in the chorus of "Onward, Christian soldiers" and in many a familiar friend of our church-going infancy, and, in a rather different form, this same exultation appears again in religious poetry of deeper tone. The "Benedicte Omnia Opera" is one of the most stirring hymns of praise in the world, and it is almost one long refrain. Its bidding so often repeatedBless ye the Lord, Praise Him and magnify Him for ever"-as it strikes again and again on the mind moves it to an exultation which the music alone could not have given. Something the same is the effect of that great Psalm (the cxxxvi.) to whose refrain Milton added rhyme and a modern verse form, though it needed no remodelling to take rank as English poetry:"O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is gracious, and his mercy endureth for ever.

O give thanks unto the God of all gods, for his mercy endureth for

ever,

O thank the Lord of all lords, for his mercy endureth for ever."

The refrain alone even in English prose gives the lyric quality which the Hebrew rhyme of sense, however irregular, always gives, and there is added here, as in the "Benedicite," the cumulative magnificence of for ever heaped upon for ever. When the theme is not exultation but sorrow, the lyric power of the Hebrew repetition is perhaps still greater, even where the refrain is no more than an unrhythmic echo:"Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; Ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech:

For I have slain a man to my wounding,

And a young man to my hurt." The supreme example, of course, of this old lyrism felt through the veil of modern prose is that great chapter in Samuel, which in spite of its prose form is perhaps the noblest threnic poem in our tongue:

"The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen!

-How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle!

O Jonathan thou wast slain in thy high places.

-How are the mighty fallen, and the

weapons of war perished!"

But the massed effects of the "Benedicite" and the Psalm that Milton made a hymn are really little more than an affair of quantity, for mere reiteration has a kind of hammerlike efficacy that strikes fire from the soul on which it beats long enough. The mysterious and beautiful "Pervigilium Veneris" has an echo even within its oft-repeated musical refrain:—

"Cras amet qui nunquam amavit,
Quique amavit cras amet."

and the mere numerical frequency with which the chime of cras amet returns has the assertive power of an English curfew bell. The thought of love is burned into the brain as the song runs on, and every verse seems to ring and echo with the name of it. Perhaps, too, it is only this emphasis of repetition that makes so horrible the refrain of certain ballads and songs whose theme is horror:

"Why does your brand sae drop wi' blude,

Edward, Edward?
Why does your brand sae drop wi'
blude,

And why sae sad gang ye, O?'
-'O I hae kill'd my father dear,
Mither, Mither;

I hae kill'd my father dear,
Alas and wae is me, O!' "

-and there is also, of course, the pause, the moment of waiting, the hanging back of the tale on its march; but there is something moving merely in the repetition of those vocatives, and, where the poem ends on a curse, Edward's deliberate "Mither, Mither" is, dramatically, also terrible.

"The curse of hell frae me sall ye bear,

Mither, Mither;

The curse of hell frae me sall ye bear:

Sic counsels ye gave to me, O!" Horror may come, too, by a device that is more obvious, by the re-emphasis of a background or a striking circumstance. Again and again the mind is bidden to pause and listen to a storm without, or look at the gay staging of a dreadful scene. Tennyson, archaizing in "The Sisters," uses the first of these effects:

"I rose up in the silent night:

I made my dagger sharp and bright, The wind is roaring in turret and tree.

-I curl'd and comb'd his comely head;

He looked so grand when he was dead.

The wind is blowing in turret and

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