Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

a few enjoy the personal confidence of the Emperor. The Minister of the Imperial House, Count Woronzow-Dashkow, is a rich man of ancient family and unblemished integrity, who never meddles with politics. Prince Obolenski, Court Marshal, is an influential personage, but has never any idea of possessing an opinion differing from that of his sovereign; and General von Richter, Commander of the Imperial headquarters and President of the Committee for Petitions, hated as a German and a Protestant, strictly confines himself to his business, and is esteemed by the Czar for his honesty and loyalty. The present Finance Minister, Vishoegradski, is in his way a clever man, who has contrived to raise the rate of exchange, and converted 5 per cent. loans into 4 per cent. ones, but only by vastly increasing the capital of the debt, and by extending the period of the sinking fund from twenty-five to eighty-one years, while he has scraped together every available rouble by the harshest taxation, and so impoverished the mass of the agricultural population. The Ministers of War and Public Instruction, General Wannowski and Count Deljanow, are without political importance. The chief of the general staff, General Obrutchew, is considered the principal advocate of a French alliance, but has been obliged to renounce his journeys to Paris, which he made for promoting his ideas under Alexander II., the present Emperor allowing no similar interferences, which might hamper his future policy.

The Empress Marie Feodorowna (originally betrothed to his elder brother), an ainiable and popular woman, of a naturally gay temper, is the head of all Court festivities, but she does not pretend to exercise any influence over her husband, which explains why the domestic life of the Imperial couple is so happy. Her nerves are said to have been much shaken by the railway catastrophe of Borki and the late attempt on the life of the Czarevitch in Japan, as well as by the illness of her The heir-apparent is too young, and seems too insignificant, to have any present importance. The eldest brother of the Emperor, Grand Duke Vladimir, is a man not without talent, who has been frequently chosen by the Czar to represent him at foreign Courts, as on the ninetieth anniversary of the Em

younger son.

peror William I, and also for soothing the discontent in the Baltic provinces, in which mission, however, he entirely failed owing to the instructions inspired by Podobenoszew. His wife, the Mecklenburg Princess Maria Paulowna, is certainly the most gifted person of the Imperial family, who had the courage to stipulate as a condition of her marriage that she should remain a Protestant, the first time in one hundred and fifty years that this has occurred in Russia. Her position is therefore a difficult one, but she maintains it with firmness and tact, and the accusation of the so-called Count Vasili-now unmasked as a French spy, Mondion-in his book La Société de St. Pétersbourg, that she played the part of Bismarck's agent and dabbled in German intrigues, is simply ridiculous. Two other German princesses marrying Grand Dukes also remained Protestants, Princess Elizabeth of Hesse, wife of the Emperor's brother, Sergei, and Princess Constantin of Altenburg, but the first named embraced the orthodox creed when her husband was made Governor of Moscow.

Personally, the Emperor is said to be kind-hearted, though at the same time hot-tempered, while a strange vein of timidity pervades his character. He does not like new faces, and prefers to communicate with his Ministers and generals by writing rather than by word of mouth, because he does not like discussions for which he is not prepared. He is, of course, obliged to receive hundreds of persons, but avoids long conversations, if he feels unable to cope in argument with his interlocutors. His personal commerce with those in whom he has confidence is therefore very limited, and he dislikes intercourse with eminent men, because he fears the influence they may exercise upon him, being very desirous of appearing independent. For instance, he has discarded be Count Adlerberg, a real man of business, who always accompanied Alexander II. in his travels, and when he goes abroad he is surrounded only by those who have no opinion of their own. Yet the Emperor is very accessible to the advice of fanatics like Podobenoszew, because their resolute convictions impose upon him, and because, above all, he fears foreign influence.

After all, Alexander III., notwithstanding his private virtues, is far from being a happy man or a successful ruler. He

feels his life to be in constant danger, as evidenced by the immense apparatus of police and military force by which he is surrounded, particularly when travelling. The Nihilist plots have somewhat abated, because the conspirators have been ruthlessly put down, but no one knows whether the danger of Nihilism has been diminished. According to a well-informed observer,* acute Nihilism has become chronic, the hot-headed fanatics ready to risk their lives in attempts of violence have decreased, and the omnipresence of political spies has suppressed the free discussion of political affairs; but the mass of the

[blocks in formation]

ACCIDENTAL CONVERSATION.

MR. BESANT will probably find plenty of people to agree with him when he says,' as he does in his "Voice of the Flying Day," that after some six weeks of country solitude there comes a strong longing on the townsman for the talk of the people in trains and omnibuses, on park seats and in penny steamers. Many people let the listening for amusing things said by strangers become part of their daily life, and when away from town for long, miss this accidental conversation as they miss the play or the opera. And by accidental conversation we do not mean conversations with strangers, but those conversations which take place in one's presence, and of which one is a silent spectator. To the men and women who cultivate a taste for this accidental conversation a journey by train or omnibus is as good as the theatre. If you once get bitten with the love of this form of dramatic representation, you have only to sit quiet in a corner and witness many a delightful comedy enacted before your eyes. It will be said, perhaps, that the scenes are apt to end abruptly, and the plots are often not sufficiently indicated; but against this must be set the perfection of realism displayed by the actors, and the immense variety of the stories. Possibly, in many cases, the taste for accidental conversation has to be acquired; but this can be said of a hundred good things, from oysters to tobacco. When acquired,

*A. V. Samson-Himmelstjerna, St. Petersburger Schilderungen und Briefe, Leipzig, 1891.

however, it is a most precious possession, for it relieves the tedium of self-transport immensely. Occasionally, no doubt, one may pass a day, or even a week, without hearing anything worth hearing; but, then, there is always the delight of the hunter--the quest for the good thing, and the sense of double delight when it is found.

Before, however, attempting to indicate the best way of encouraging acciden tal conversations, and illustrating by example the sort of game run down, we must clear up a point of honor connected with the subject. It may be urged that it is mean and dishonorable to sit behind your paper listening hard all the time to what some old gentleman is saying to his niece as to glories of his youth, and that a self-respecting person would endeavor to distract his mind-if necessary, with the shipping intelligence. To this proposition we must give a distinct denial. Without stooping to the excuse of the witnesses in Court, who "just set the door a wee bit open," and then declare that

[ocr errors]

the voices forced themselves upon their ears in such a way that, do what they would, they could not help hearing every word," we boldly declare that a man has a right to listen and to overhear all accidental conversations, subject to this limitation, that he does so with the bonâ-fide intention of getting there from the amusement which is expected at the theatre, and nothing but that. nothing but that. Any other reason for listening is to be condemned. A man has no business to listen to anything which is being said about himself or his friends or

[ocr errors]

relations in ignorance of his presence. Again, he has no business to listen, if, though the talkers do not know him, he knows them. In either of these cases there is a personal relation established between him and the talkers, and it would be a betrayal of the courtesies of life to take advantage of the fact that the talkers had forgotten his presence. It is only when a man can feel that the people to whose words he is listening are total strangers whom he has never seen before, and whom he will never see again-who are, in fact, as far as he is concerned, mere shadows on the screen-that the delights of accidental conversation can be freely indulged in. Fortunately, these are the conditions which usually prevail in public conveyances in London. Come like shadows, so depart," is the rule of the knife-board. As a concrete example of the manner in which the line must be drawn between assisting at a comedy of real life and mere eavesdropping, we may give the experiences of an inveterate practiser of the art of listening. The person in question had taken possession of a new house a day earlier than he intended. Strolling round his garden he heard behind the fence the voices of two countrymen: "When do the folks come in?'' "To-morrow.' "What sort be they?" Here it was obvious that to listen further would be to act a very dishonorable part; and accordingly the householder in question had nothing to do but to sigh as a lover of accidental conversations, and depart like a man of honor. When, however, he found himself sketching under one side of a high hedge, while a couple of unknown hedgers were trimming on the other, he could listen with a perfectly easy conscience. What he heard on the occasion in question was well worth hearing. So they did take the hemlock and boiled it, and gave it to the 'oman; and the 'oman died." "Did er, now!" Was it some new tale of rustic poisoning that was being related, or some ancient fable, old perhaps as the Odyssey, which was being re-dished by one of the hedgers for the other's benefit? Who shall say? The sketcher heard no more. Not be cause he was seen, or because the men were called away, but simply because there then occurred one of those longdrawn pauses which are so remarkable a feature of real country talk. The inter

[ocr errors]

val remained unfilled, and whether it was Mary, the mason's daughter, or somebody in those "very old ancient times you've heard tell on," who drank the hemlock, remained and remains a mystery. Some people would, no doubt, be disappointed at anything so incomplete as this. These will prefer the scenes of genteel comedy one gets in a first-class railway-carriage. The present writer has no hesitation in saying that the very best piece of acting for vivacity, naturalness, and good taste that he has ever witnessed, he saw as a corner seat spectator on the London and South-Western. The dramatis persona were an elderly but handsome and wellbred man of the world, anxious to amuse himself by a flirtation, but even more anxious not to commit himself, and a clever and exceedingly good-looking old young lady of about nine and twenty. A better acted or more finished little comedy it is impossible to imagine. Every point was taken up and given its proper value, and not a gesture or a tone was overdone. But, it may be said, this must be an im aginary case, people never talk before a stranger. Not, perhaps, if you look ag gressive. If, however, you retire behind your paper and make it quite clear that you have no sort of intention of trying to join in the conversation, and are, in fact, a person of no account, they will be pretty sure to take you at your word, and treat you as part of the carriage furniture. In order to assume this carriage-furniture status, however, it is imperative not to speak. Do not say, May I move this bag?" "Allow me, May I open this window a little ?" Such phrases at once break the spell, and put out the actors. The only way to secure a good representation is to sit like a log, and either look out of the window or into your newspaper. In third-class carriages such precautions are, however, hardly necessary. The poorer classes are accustomed to publicity, and perform in public without any sense of uneasiness. The most thrilling scene will sometimes take place with five on each side. It was once the good fortune of the present writer to be in a thirdclass Underground carriage, when a respectably dressed woman and a man, who can best be described by saying that he looked like what is described in the servants' advertisement columns as a "thorough indoor," got in. The woman's first

66

99 66

words were as good as any ever invented by novelist or playwright to open a sensational story" He never knew till the day he followed her to the grave that she wasn't his mother." Then followed a very exciting but very tangled conversational web, from which one could dimly gather that somebody was keeping somebody else-apparently the "thorough indoor"-out of a great deal of money, and that there was a great deal of oppression and knavery going on, again apparently against the "thorough indoor," who sat all the time deeply interested, as well he might be, and asking an occasional and usually irrelevant question. Above everything, the "thorough indoor" was to see a third person before he was seen by the other side, and " put it to him." There was just a chance that he might do right, but a still stronger one that it would all be no good. At this melancholy conclusion the train stopped, the respectable woman in black got out, followed by the "thorough indoor," and the scene "closed in," leaving the spectators with an intense, but unfortunately unassuagable, thirst for more light. Told barely, the story sounds comic, but at the time the earnestness of the speakers left no doubt that it was a real tragedy they were discussing, one of those "strange things" of English middle-class life which Mr. Wilkie Collins loved to dissect.

Occasionally, the people who train themselves to listen in railway-carriages will do more than merely witness "little comedies" enacted before their eyes, or see odd characteristics exhibited. If they are lucky, they may hear some really good "yarn" spun, as poor people spin them to each other. Try to get a laboring-man to tell you a story, and he will make it as colorless and bald as an affidavit. Hear him, however, in the ale-bouse, among his own people, and it is a very different story. The present writer once heard an

he

old peasant in a third-class carriage begin to give a friend a chapter of autobiographical reminiscences which was worth going a hundred miles to hear. "Yes," began, or rather went on, "And I can mind seeing four men hung in a very rustic manner. It was back in the rick burnings. I was a lad; but they were hung just opposite our door for a warning. They was tried in Wells, and they brought 'em down to the country where I was, in a wagon, sitting on their own coffins, and every village they passed through they tolled the bells. They was to be hung opposite their own cottages. They put up a gallows with four ropes, and they stood one of these big wagons boarded over, underneath, and when they had fastened the men up, they put in the horses and drew the wagon away from under their feet. Law bless you, they kicked there for more nor half an hour, and their polls was drawn out half a foot, and all as red as fire. It was just against where we lived, and I saw 'em banging there till it was dark. They'd set the ricks on fire, you sec. There used to be a lot of it, and they wanted to stop it and to make these I am speaking of a warning." . . . Whether this hideous "rustic manner" of hanging was ever really pursued we do not know, but certainly the old man spoke as if he were speaking the truth; and when he turned to give an account of the bull-baiting on Mendip, and how the young chaps used to run in and catch hold of the rope, and then run out again before the bull could get at them, it was clear that he was not romancing, for such displays of village cruelty and prowess have often been described. But, true or false, accidental conversations certainly form no small part for many people of the charm of town life. They are not better than the woods and fields, but they are a considerable compensation.-Specta

tor.

SCIENCE AND SOCIETY IN THE FIFTIES.

BY MRS, ANDREW CROSSE.

a

THE experimental philosopher, as rule, is blessed with a love of fun and humor, and possesses perhaps in a higher degree than his brethren of the pen, a happy facility for mental relaxation. The

Germans would probably seek to explain this condition of mind, as due to the intermittance of objective, in distinction to the continuity of subjective trains of thought; but these are hard words, and

as Bishop Berkeley says, metaphysicians first raise a dust, and then complain they cannot see. It is a fact, and that is enough for us, that scientific men are generally cheerful minded, and can take pleasure in wholesome frivolity; they, more easily than scholars or poets, can get out of their sphere of work, can more easily unbend the bow, and restore thereby the balance of their physical wellbeing.

This was certainly the case with Faraday -though not perhaps conspicuously to the world at large, with whom, his relations were those of a solemn teacher of nature's mysteries, a grave exponent of her laws, and above all a man of such abstruse originality that he seemed a dweller in the very empyrean of thought.

[ocr errors]

One of the earliest visits we paid in London, after our marriage in 1850,was an afternoon call on Mr. and Mrs. Faraday at the Royal Institution. My husband was on terms of intimacy with the great electrician, being himself an enthusiastic laborer in the same field-a field whose limits were even then known to be as illimitable as Cosmos itself.

I had never yet seen Faraday. A feeling of awe overcame me, as we ascended the long flight of stairs leading to the Upper Chambers of that famous house in Albemarle Street. With the knowledge that we were approaching the Arcana of Science, I was in no condition of sympathy with the fools that rush in, but rather felt restrained by the reverent spirits of those who fear to tread, on sacred ground. The very sound of the homely door knocker, rapped on my heart. Youth and ignorance are ever diffident at least they ought to be-and they were in the days that are past. We entered, and were kindly greeted by Mrs. Faraday, who led us through the outer siting-room, into an inner sanctum; there was Faraday himself, half reclining on a sofa—with a heap of circulating library novels round him; he had evidently rejected some, that were thrown carelessly on the floorbut his eyes were glued on the exciting pages of a third volume.

"He reads a great many novels, and it is very good for him to divert his mind," said Mrs. Faraday to us, later on.

It was a touch of nature, delightfully reassuring; the feeling of awe gave place to warmest human sympathy, when the

philosopher in his most vivacious manner, and his ever cheery voice, welcomed us, not forgetting however to place a mark in his book.

These were winter days, a busy time with "lectures" and laboratory work; but we wanted to engage the Faradays to pay us a visit at Fyne Court, in the late summer, when they would be able to get away from London. Mr. Crosse, who fully shared in Faraday's delight in a thunder-storm, said laughingly, that he hoped we might have a "rattling good storm, to welcome them to the Quantock hills;" adding "but I am sorry to say that we are not unfrequently disappointed, owing to that abominable Bridgwater river which carries off some of our best storms."

"the

This remark led to a discussion upon the electric attraction of river systems, and the consequent distribution of rain. Schönbein's recent researches on ozone were touched upon, in reference to its excess in the atmosphere, or its absence, being possibly in some way connected with influenza and other epidemic disorders. Dr. Faraday then asked Mr. Crosse about his experiments upon carrying and transferring power of electricity. In conclusion he remarked, on hearing of Mr. Crosse's success in the transfer of pure silver through distilled water by slow electric action, that there can be no doubt that that power has been astonishingly influential in bringing about many of the earthy and metalliferous arrangements of the globe."

[ocr errors]

The conversation had begun simply enough, about the novels of Lever and Trollope, and the promise of the first Exhibition, which was to be opened ere many months; but science was too near to both these enthusiasts for them to remain long without touching on the subject.

Leaving the eager talkers to their allotropic condition of oxygen in the atmosphere, and the ceaseless interchange of atoms in the earth beneath; Mrs. Faraday drew me aside, and candidly told me, in much kindness, and with true wifely wisdom, that our house, was of all places, the one where she could not permit her husband to spend his holiday. She was well aware that Fyne Court had its laboratories and foundries, in short had electrical arrangements from garret to basement,

« AnteriorContinuar »