lage or local town at exactly the same price if they, and all the rest of the well-to-do, would pay over the counter and refrain from running up long bills. They wax eloquent over the sufferings of dumb driven cattle, and are as thorns in the side of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, if a horse strains at his load or limps in his walk; but they do not think of the hardships undergone by their own under-servants, worked often to madness, despair, destruction, by their immediate superiors; nor what will be the ultimate fate of the worn-out old laborers, "hands," employés of all kinds, when dismissed for incapacity and beyond the power of self-support. Those poor creatures will suffer then even more than the heavily-laden horse or the lost dog. Their capital of youth and strength is spent, and it has been impossible for them to lay up any store for their old age. If we had this self-respect no employer would suffer that one who had given him these gifts, the sole capital of the worker, should ever want when they had been spent in his service. For the religion of self-respect in more places than one joins hands with that of Christ, and is the manly form of a virtue where the other is the feminine. And again, those who have no true self-respect-this being the rootwork of respect for others, while arrogance is not selfrespect-ignore the sufferings they themselves inflict on their subordinates by their imperiousness, their insolence, their want of consideration. Before they have risen from their knees, after they have been making the formal confession of infinite sinfulness prescribed by the Churches, they will blaze out into reproaches and angry objurgations against the servants. This I have seen and heard myself. Had these pious people had one ounce of true self-respect, could they have done this thing? -could they, writing checks for their subscriptions to various worthy charities, haggle and fight for their miserable little savings of a few pence in the cost, wholly unappreciable in their income, while vital to the poor flowerwoman with her large family tugging at her skirts-to the laundress selling her capital of time and strength for such inadequate interest?

Now this vile habit of haggling with the poor was not characteristic of the self-respecting gentry of olden times. This is not saying that there was never a close-fisted curmudgeon in a slashed doublet; never a "Gripe-menall" in chain armor; never a vixen in a peaked stomacher; nor a shrew in a starched ruff;

nor a scold with a "laced head." Human nature is a sadly constant quantity, and has a desperate trick of breaking out in the old places; and all the quality of olden times were not equally self-respecting. Recreant knights had their turn as well as the gallant and loyal ; spurs were hacked off as well as buckled on; and noblesse oblige was to some no better than the squeak of a scrannel pipe at a village fair. But bargaining with "base churls" was not possible to those of the real sort. To give largesse as became their state was more in the way of these minor Joves than to lessen the already meagre portion of poor old Baucis and Philemon by scantlings of pennyworths. When they robbed and oppressed, it was in a high-handed and irresponsible kind of way, with a certain magnificent brutality, a certain irresistible weight of power, like Apollo slaying the children of Niobe or the vejoves" smashing down the young vines. When they had their Isaac of York, they pulled out his teeth or roasted him at the fire on a gridiron like to that of St. Lawrence. They compelled him to part with his rose nobles as if they had been so many daisies of the field; but they did not demand discount on a few shillings as we do; they did not chaffer with industrials of a painful hard-working kind, and they did not compete on their own ground with workers whose earnings were their very life, and the lives of their little ones. They were brutal, but not mean; tyrannical and oppressive, but not higgling. They built their robber castles and burst out on the luckless passers-by as so many kites swooping down on pigeons; but they would not have robbed the glee maiden of her guerdon, nor have entered into the contest with her on her own ground.-New Review.

FOOD FROM PRIME SOURCES. -The food which is most enjoyed is the food we call bread and fruit. In my long medical career, extending over forty years, I have rarely known an instance in which a child has not preferred fruit to animal food. I have been many times called upon to treat children for stomachic disorders induced by pressing upon them animal to the exclusion of fruit diet, and have seen the best results occur from the practice of reverting to the use of fruit in the dietary. I say it without the least prejudice, as a lesson learned from simple experience, that the most natural diet for the young, after the natural milk diet, is fruit and whole-meal bread, with milk and water for drink. The desire for this same mode of sustenance is often continued into

after years, as if the resort to flesh were a forced and artificial feeding, which required long and persistent habit to establish as a permanency, as a part of the system of everyday life. How strongly this preference taste for fruit over animal food prevails is shown by the simple fact of the retention of those foods in the mouth. Fruit is retained to be tasted and relished. Animal food, to use a common phrase, is "bolted." There is a natural desire to retain the delicious fruit for full mastication; there is no such desire, except in the trained gourmand, for the retention of animal substance. One further fact which I have observed-and that too often to discard it- -as a fact of great moment, is that when a person of mature years has, for a time, given up voluntarily the use of animal food in favor of vegetable, the sense of repugnance to animal food is soon so markedly developed that a return to it is overcome with the utmost difficulty. Neither is this a mere fancy or fad peculiar to sensitive men or oversentimental women, I have been surprised to see it manifested in men who are the very reverse of sentimental, and who were, in fact, quite ashamed to admit themselves guilty of any such weakness. I have heard those who have gone over from a mixed diet of animal and vegetable food to a pure vegetable diet, speak of feeling low under the new system, and declare that they must needs give it up in consequence, but I have found even these (without exception) declare that they infinitely preferred the simpler, purer, and, as it seemed to them, more natural, food plucked from the prime source of food, untainted by its passage through another animal body.-Longman's Magazine.

PROFESSOR HUXLEY AS A CRITIC ON CHRIS

TIANITY.

-"Nazarene and Pauline tendencies in the primitive Church," that is the now oldfashioned criticism with which Professor Huxley would overwhelm the "counsel for creeds," as he is pleased to denominate the theologians, who have exposed his ignorance. According to his dictum the Nazarene doctrine was a phase of Judaism, and it was superseded by Christianity later on. He conceives that an impartial consideration of the evidence must refuse the authority of Jesus to anything more than the Nazarenism of James, Peter, and John." Thus runs in this month's Nineteenth Century the latest bull from the Sovereign Pontiff of Agnosticism. But even the

doctrine of Jesus would be of small consequence to him, as he frankly confesses, if it run counter to his judgment. He does not believe in spirits, or, as he terms it, "the pneu. matological doctrine which pervades the whole New Testament," consequently it does not matter to him what the evidence is. Wherever it conflicts with his own superior logic he contemptuously rejects it. Why, then, has it pleased him to rouse much hubbub because he was called an infidel? Probably because it enabled him to write a number of articles in which he could air his second-hand destructive textual criticism, give his inapt narrative from Eginhard, and now finally make merry over Newman's opinions about modern miracles. Rock.

BROMIDE OF ETHYL AS AN ANESTHETIC.Bromide of ethyl, which was recommended as an anæsthetic in dental practice by Herr Schneider, dentist to the German Emperor, at the Munich Odontological Congress held last year, has since that time been employed in a large number of cases by Dr. Friedrich Herz, a dental surgeon in Vienna, who contributes an interesting paper on the subject to the Internationale klinische Rundschau of April 14th. He uses a simple inhaler like that of Skinner, with some cotton-wool inserted to soak up the bromide of ethyl, of which he pours in about half an ounce at first, adding a little more afterward if required. In some cases less than seventy-five grains proved sufficient. Anæsthesia came on rapidly, usually in one or two minutes, and then was sufficient for from five to eight extractions. The patients took the bromide far better than chloroform or ether, neither struggling so much nor presenting any unpleasant symptoms after waking up. Some patients, who had previously suffered a good deal from ether, expressed themselves as highly delighted with the new drug. Dr. Herz has not tried the bromide on young children, but he thinks it will be found very suitable for them, in consequence of its not unpleasant taste and the simplicity of the apparatus required. How far bromide of ethyl would be applicable in important operations cannot as yet be stated. Blum, of Bamberg, however, repeated the inhalation at a single sitting, and was enabled to extract thirty-two very firmly set roots. It may be mentioned that, according to Lewin, bromide of ethyl does not induce paralysis of the heart.-English Mechanic.

I.

GOUNOD is not a difficult subject. To quote his own phrase, in that picturesque imagery of words which is his speciality, his soul stands behind a pane of crystal glass," and the man who cannot see it must be blind. He is open-hearted as all rich natures are. If a man is reserved his reserve is generally due either to timidity, which is a weakness, or to design, which is a vice. The author of Faust, on the contrary, finds it a necessity to be frank, and he satisfies this necessity all the more freely because he feels sure of his authority over the minds of others, and of his power to win their hearts. He loves to quote that magnificent saying in the Bible: "Whoso loveth his life shall lose it; but he that loseth his life shall find it." If any man ought to find much, certainly Gounod should, for few men have sacrificed as much as he.

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As will be expected, he does not keep. all his ideas for his compositions. He has such a stock of thoughts that he has no need to economize them in conversation. Besides he is a delightful man to converse with. To the attractiveness of a subtle. intellect trained by a sound early educa-tion, he unites a rare gift of natural eloquence, an expressive and original manner which lends remarkable piquancy to his talk. To call him a gossip would be not only disrespectful, but also inappropriate. A gossip uses meaningless and frivolouswords. Gounod's talk is as distinguished by the depth as by the brilliance of the insight which characterizes it. Still he does talk endlessly, especially when the subject is one of those which rouse him, and when his companion knows how to keep the ball rolling. For he has nothing in common with those gentlemen to be found everywhere, who do not converse but only hold forth; interesting they are,.

no doubt, and even amusing, but at the same time overpowering; such, for instance, according to the verdict of his contemporaries, was Lord Macaulay. Gounod never lectures, and never preaches. He has in the highest degree the rare quality of knowing how to listen. You utter a remark, raise an objection, or suggest a doubt, and he is up at once, following the clew that you have indicated, and exerting all the vivacity of a youth and the earnestness of an apostle, modified by the kindliness of a lovable nature, to convince you of his views. This is partly due to his habitual courtesy, but much more to his open-minded sincerity; for he thinks that every argument is worth consideration, and that every idea deserves to be examined.

Nor need one fear that he will dwell too long upon one subject. His ever lively imagination supplies him with infinite change, and he flies from one to another with perfect ease and grace. He prefers discussions on philosophy and morals, supported by very remarkable disquisitions on the Scriptures, with which he has a perfect acquaintance. He has never forgotten the teaching of his masters at his Carmelite school in those days, now half a century ago, when he was studying with a view to taking orders. Still, he by no means despises artistic questions, and though not one of those musicians who can talk of nothing but music, this is the subject to which he can most easily be drawn. Those who know him intimately could produce a voluminous and delightful collection of his talk on all kinds of topics. Meanwhile, pending the production of this tribute to his honor, it may be of interest to the readers of this Review to learn a few of his ideas on various subjects, taken down as he uttered them and faithfully transcribed by one of his habitual companions.

II.

A topic of frequent and lively discussion is this, Have great performers, instrumentalists or singers, the right to be called artists ? Here is what the man who has had more to do with them than any one else thinks of this matter :

"An artist must of necessity put his personality into his work. To thrill the impersonal soul of a public that is indifferent or is thinking of other matters, blasé if not ignorant that is to say, whose sensibility has had its

edge taken off by an excessive refinement or else has never been aroused by culture-it is not enough to use the mechanical notes of a well-trained parrot accurately repeating a lesson learned by heart. If a singer does not put into his execution a portion of his own sensibility, then neither the natural qualities of his voice nor the skilful devices of his art will be able to arouse our sensibilities, however magnificent may be the idea of which he is the interpreter. What we call artistic sentiment or artistic intelligence is not easy to define; still, it is a most important element, for it is simply this which distinguishes a painter from a photographer, a Rembrandt from a sign-dauber. Ars est homo additus naturæ,' says Bacon; and no better definition of art has been found up to the present day. We may say that the performer is, or ought to be,

999 Homo additus arti.'

And he quoted apropos of this from Augustine's quaint dialogue De Musica, which, though little known, is a most interesting treatise. Gounod's view is that the interpreter of music works hand in hand with the composer, just as the artist works hand in hand with nature. The work created by the composer's sensibility and imagination has to be recreated by a different sensibility and a different imagination-an intelligent reflection, so to speak, of his own-by being presented in life-like form before the public. Too frequently the interpreter fails in his task, and plays false to the author, by distorting the thought which it is his mission to translate. But when he is a man equal to the task, he is a most valuable ally of the creator. Gounod, who never forgets a kindness, is always ready to acknowledge what he owes to the three women who, by good fortune, have come across his path-Pauline Viardot, Madame MeislhanCarvalho, and Gabrielle Krauss. He relates with pleasure how in 1851, when he was attending the rehearsals of Sappho his first public appearance as a lyrical composer-the aria of the third act, "Take a dying woman's blessing," seemed to him to be transfigured as it came from the lips of Madame Malibran's famous sister. The melody that he had conceived in his heart, and brought to birth with his tears, had been assimilated by a heart worthy of his own; and the intensity of the pathos in that page was heightened by the sensibility of the singer.

But this collaboration of the performer with the composer is only complete when the fire that animates the former is kindled by the creating mind. The reason why

all composers take such pains to direct the study of their productions is not only to make sure that scrupulous accuracy is observed in the translation of their thoughts, but also to galvanize their expounders by this initial spark, by means of which they in their turn transmit the current of electricity to the public. With his ready wit, his copious diction, and his power of expression, Gounod is inimitable in his criticisms on the character of the part that is being rehearsed. The dullest musician would find it impossible nct to execute his task properly after hearing the master explain its meaning in language glowing and picturesque, and yet admirably pointed, while his accuracy of expression, his perfect clearness, and his penetrating warmth of manner are aided by his angelic patience.

One piece of advice which he is forever giving to his interpreters, and which certainly gives rise to astonishment until one accurately grasps its meaning, is this, "Above all, my children, no sentiment, I implore you, no sentiment." The words must not be taken literally; for listen now to his own explanation of them :

"True sentiment in music is simply intelligence and sincerity of interpretation. Nothing is more ridiculous or more artificial than that false sentimentality, that pretentious hunting after effect, that exaggeration of refinements, that pushing to excess of contrasts, which make grand passages sickly, weaken rhythm, retard movement, emasculate style, and enfeeble thought-in a word, utterly destroy the character of a work. What is required in execution is not sentiment but expression-accurate and honest expression, the outcome of restrained feeling and internal responsiveness, that artist's intuition, which we vainly endeavor to define."

As regards singing in particular, I once heard him say to a young girl who meant to go on the stage, and who, while gifted with natural abilities, as well as careful training and intelligence, spoiled them by a thick and heavy utterance :

"The musical voice is better and better the more nearly it approaches to spoken words. A purely vocal note, however beautiful, must be varied and made distinct by words, which alone supply expression, dramatic sentiment, warmth, and life. A pure, clear, and distinct utterance is the first law of the art of singing."

Two anecdotes will show precisely what Gounod means when he says to the expounders of his works, "No sentiment."

One which I heard from himself goes back to the production in 1858 of Le Médecin malgré lui. Meillet, the baritone, was rehearsing the part of Sganarelle. He finished one musical phrase with one of those vulgar rallentendos so familiar in the traditional Italian opera, which, however, made absolute nonsense of the theatrical situation. "No, no, no!" cried the "that is all wrong !! Why on

master,

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earth do you go to sleep over this cadence?" To produce an effect," replied the singer. Gounod proceeded with all his energy to explain the scene--and indeed to hear Molière explained by Gounod, both essentially French in their genius, was the perfection of lucid commentary. At last the fellow said quietly, "So you don't want the rallentendo. Just as you please; I only did it for your sake. We shall produce no effect, that is all." To this day Gounod, as he thinks of the man, bursts out into that delightfully open, childlike laughter of his.

I was an eye-witness of the other incident at the time when Sappho was revived at the opera in 1884. The incidental róle of the Shepherd was entrusted to one of those third-rate tenors whom our French theatrical slang calls "grandes utilités," and whose artistic pretentiousness is on a level with their own mediocrity. This individual strained every effort to put into a passage which he considered too simple for himself everything which the composer had not put into it; false points, misplaced subtleties, and incongruous vocal effects. In vain did Gounod endeavor at every rehearsal to drive into the dullard's narrow brain the true meaning of the pagan chant in honor of sensuous panthe

ism.

At last, despairing of success, he jumped up in the tiny stage-box whence he was supervising the rehearsal, and half vexed, half in jest-for his anger is never serious-he shrieked at him : My good friend, would you oblige me? Do sing that passage like a brute."

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Gounod is very quick in judging a singer's artistic capacity even before hearing him sing. "I look into his eyes," he says; you can always see the voice in the eyes.

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If you have not seen the author of Faust at rehearsals, you cannot have any idea of how much may be learned in half an hour by those who fancied they had nothing to learn. nothing to learn. Nor is it extraordinary