FROM MAYFAIR TO MARATHON.*
TILE affectation of point which is visible in this title is found too pervadingly in the book, mingled with something of levity or flip- pancy, and a tone of moralizing that touches upon the extremes of over-strictness or of canting " good-feeling." The book, how- ever, is clever and readable. It displays a good deal of know- ledge of foreign life and manners, especially in France ; and it has many remarks savouring of sense and depth, as well as smart- ness, on some of the social and political questions of the day.
A tour to France and Italy,'with a short trip to Greece, is the nominal subject; but the narrative is subordinate to remarks on affairs, pictures of life, rather trite sketches, though very well done, and outpourings of personal feeling or opinion which smack of the egotistical. But the essential nature of the book is com- mentary ; occurrences, characters, and scenery, being more or less used for the remarks they suggest or the information they enable the writer to furnish, rather than for the description of the things themselves.
" Calais as a School of Ethics" affords opportunities for sketches of the unfortunate, the profligate, and the silly, who gather in that refuge of the embarrassed or the socially-banished. A visit to a French friend in the provinces serves to introduce, in the form of conversation or discussion, the apprehension as to the future which pervades the French mind ; preventing the development of the country's resources, since men will hoard instead of improving when they anticipate a probable necessity of flight. The political feelings of France are another topic, varied by social sketches of a French chateau, and a picture of French " sport." The theatres of Paris and other towns involve a severe account of the immo- rality of the French drama; balls and parties induce further political discussions, and a picture as severe of the general as of the theatrical literature of France. A journey from Paris to Mar- seilles and Naples is chiefly occupied with an account of the bad management, delays, and extortion of the hotels, and the steam- boats whether by river or sea. It is smartly done ; sometimes so specific in its facts that the charge must either be true or the accuser is wilfully inventing. The indifference, absence, or pro- crastination of our Consul at Marseilles, is not here censured for the first time. Still there seems something like a set deter- mination to complain. At Naples there are more sketches of society than elsewhere ; a picture of its political and social condition far darker than even Mr. Gladstone's; and very dis- couraging accounts of the troubles and extortions to which tra- vellers must submit. Rome is equally gloomy. Remove the French, employ the Austrians, or keep them away, and there would be a speedy end to the ecclesiastical government, as well as to the lives of the ecclesiastics. After leaving Rome, there is not much of importance. Ancona is chiefly occupied with passport troubles, and the Greek part of the business is brief enough.
As regards information, the French section of the book is the most valuable ; probably because the writer has most expe- rience of the country and the people. The first view of the genuine province when he goes to visit his friend the Count, with a reflection tacked to it, will give an example of the writer's style.
"It was in the cold grey of a winter's morning, with a drizzling mist falling, that I drew near my friend's house. Mere waste, more folly, struck me at every step; dung-heaps piled before the doors of the peasantry's cot- tages, and putrid masses of animal and vegetable offal. The rain was wash- ing away all virtue from the one, while the other, rotting and festering, sent up foul health-destroying steams, just as in England. • * * "I also saw something else which struck roe as significant. My friend lives near a fortified town, and lately the fortifications have been silently put in a perfect state of repair, and the mines hollowed out beneath the neighbour- ing heights, to blow into the air a besieging army which should take posses- Ai= of them to command the town, have been carefully looked to and com- pleted. All silently, without even a paragraph in the local papers ; while in the town of which I speak, alone, there are arms and equipments complete for no less than 60,000 men. " It is a sad fact, my British public, that foreign nations have little love for you. From Paris to Stamboul, and thence to St. Petersburg, nobody has a good word for you. You are hated and envied everywhere. Hated by the .Absolutists for your liberal opinions, hated by the Liberals for not support- ing them in their need, I am afraid, my British public, you will one day have to choose between them ; and, prudent and wise as your neutral policy may be, I hope, but I doubt, that you will always be able to hold it."
The retardation of agricultural improvement in France by the state of uncertainty in which the public mind is kept, is dwelt upon on several occasions. This is the statement of a passenger in a railway carriage. "I mentioned these ideas to my companion, and regretted the want of ex- perimental farming in France : he soon silenced, however, all arguments I could allege in its favour. "'I have had a grandfather and two uncles guillotined,' said he ; 'their tole crime being that they were rich and high-born. Our family had one of the most magnificent chateaux in Touraine razed utterly to the ground during the first Revolution, and in 1898 we suffered severely again.' I am, I believe, personally liked in my department, and under the old system I represented it nearly twentyyears in Parliament ; yet shall I tell you that my house is an eyesore to all the Democrats far and wide. They call me "that Count." 'hey say I have too much land ; and though I try and keep en as friendly terms. with my neighbours as possible, it is not three years ago since I had to stand a sort of siege ; and if my house had not been a strong one, and my servants personally attached to me, I should have been plundered of everything to a certainty, and my house fired over my head afterwards. Some half dozen or so of wretched misguided men began the riot down here; and they being joined by the worst refuse of the neighbouring villages, their numbers increased till they became a party of desperate ruffians so formidable as to make every householder tremble for miles round.
*From Mayfair to Marathon. Published by Bentley. " 'The fact is, we all feel that the end is not yet, and that we are to 1300 things as bad as all that have come and gone already ; and I know that at the first outbreak of disorder, the mob would make for my place, because I am known to be a rich man, and seize everything it contained. I would turn every acre I have into money, if I did not feel it a duty to remain and hope bravely on to the last. But to make improvements, to breed cattle, to drain, to build, to increase the general prosperity of agriculture by costly experi- menta,—I feel I am not capable of doing this, when I cannot see my way clearly for a day, and do not know who or what would reap the fruit of my labours, or if they would not be lost altogether. There is also another reason. The law of entail and primogeniture being abolished in France, my fortune after my death will be shivered into many fragments, as it reached me with,- out those family assocjations, those attaching ties of many generations, which often make a man's property so dear to him in England.'"
Much as late events would seem to indicate the contrary, the writer is of opinion that a great improvement has taken place in the French character.
" The race of Frenchmen, indeed, has vastly altered, even within these last ten years ; and I think the men of our day have more stuff in them ; ay, in spite of recent events, my public, we may expect—reasonably, ra- tionally expect great things of them. The national character has become more simple and masculine. The light wits of other days, the graceful courtiers, the marquises of petit soupers and the cell de bceuf, have vanished into limbo and given place to other and better men. The modern Frenchman has scant courtesy about him, and usually speaks his opinion plainly out with small ceremony. He is beginning to be generally well educated and informed, to travel, to think, to be moderate, just, upright, and pious,—yes, pious. The want of faith, of belief in anything, has been the ruin of the noble intellects of France ; it has led them to cui-bono everything, and been the most fertile source of public troubles. This their rulers have at last, at last perceived, and in the future politics of France the Church is destined to play a great part. Religion is now used as a political engine, just as infidelity was in the last century. Now you cannot play with religion ; and begin with it how you will, it will soon be far beyond your control. Even now while I am writing, a purer and a better faith, hope and trust in a higher power than that of man, is rooting itself deeply in the hearts of many, and will bring forth good fruits in the right season."
The following hints as to the profligacy of Paris do not con- tradict the previous sentiments, because the writer holds that Paris is not France, but cosmopolite, so far as regards pleasure and moneymaking. " Let us go to the theatre. It is the Palais Royal,' and there are five differ- ent pieces, all short and high-spiced, to be acted. High-spiced indeed they are, full of false sentiment and the worst licentiousness, all wrapped up in pleasant wit and lively songs. Not one honest thought or healthy moral from the first to the last. One piece especially, (it is called • Un Charge de Cavalerie,') is decidedly the most filthily obscene performance I ever wit- nessed, carrying its obscenity beyond words into actions. Yet it was Sun- day, and the house was full of young men and girls, out for their weekly holiday, drinking in poison with every breath they drew.
"And as I listened very thoughtfully and mournfully, and looked with purged English eyes upon all this, I almost believed I could see the spirit of another revolution, more terrible than the past ones, sitting in the midst of the ungodly crowd and rejoicing.
" Let us go to the ball at the opera : a wild scene of riot if ever there was one. It is crowded to suffocation ; yet there are two every week, one here, and one at the Opera Comique. It is not, therefore, the single holiday of a people, spent in a new pleasure, in which a little licence may be allowed; it is the habit, the custom, the common thing with them, as Jullien'a concerts may be with the Londoners. " An immense space, the stage and pit of the theatre, is brilliantly lit up, and an excellent band, under the direction of young Musard, is playing lively airs, while some three or four hundred people are dancing hike mad things. The dancers are mostly masked ; and all, or nearly all, in extrava- gant costumes, in the worst possible taste. To describe a tenth part of the wild licentiousness, the indecencies, the songs, the speeches which take place in this palace of infamy, this very high temple of the Vices, would be a thankless and impossible task. Let us go into the Foyer, where the better part of the guests, many of the most distinguished men in Paris, never fail to assemble. Shouting women, screaming, laughing, quarrelling, speaking words which should blister their lips, such is what we hear ; and costumes more fit for a place which shall be nameless, than for what we see at a ball. Nay, do not ask me to take you into the boxes, or to any of those supper- houses on our way home : what passes there beggars belief, and almost pos- sibility.
"And as I learn, mark, and inwardly digest all these things, and lighting my cigar walk musingly home through the wet streets, I can see the spirit of another revolution, more terrible than the past ones, standing in the midst of this ungodly city and rejoicing."
We pass over Rome and Naples ; but in these days of dreams about a Greek empire, it is not amiss to have a glimpse of a Greek kingdom. "Modern Greece, indeed, is in the most singular position. She has a free constitution ; yet everything has been gradually made to depend upon the King. A Ministry there is none ; and opposition to the Government would be looked upon as a personal affront to the Sovereign. The Fermis free also; but is bought, or bullied, or cajoled into silence; and the Deputies have found out the means of prolonging their useless sittings not only the whole year, but finding out that there are thirteen months in it, in order to in- crease their salaries. The elections are worse than the worst things that have been written about France; and Government influence is so openly and unblushingly exerted, that soldiers, bayonet in hand, have been placed to in- timidate voters into giving their suffrages. "Public credit is diminishing ; the population increasing infinitely more slowly than it ought; the national character is deteriorating daily ; and as for the Court the less said about it the better, for the things related of it are absolutely too bad to be believed. "Even Athens itself is a poor wretched town, importing from foreign countries many of the commonest necessaries of civilized life; without wealth, without commerce, without society ; and it promises to grow worse instead of better. Even the number of travellers in Greece has fallen off very much of late years, and Athens almost depends upon them. Travelling in Greece is next to impossible to ladies and invalids, for there is not a de- cent or even a clean hotel in the country; and whoever wishes to see it must make up his mind to stiffer positive hardships, compared with which rough- ing it in tents among the Arabs is luxury."
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