scholiasts,' he never assumed an editor's rôle to be an 'intellectual eggdance' amid a host of sensitive interests. Nor did he begrudge, even to the youngest critic, the pleasure of flaunting some innocent rags of research the mere swaddling clothes of learning -in the face of his profound and gentle scholarship. 'Great tranquillity of heart hath he who careth neither for praise nor blame,' said the wise à Kempis, who knew whereof he spoke; and I have many times heard Dr. Furness quote with approval those stern and splendid lines in which Dr. Johnson, confiding his dictionary to the public, expresses his frigid insensibility as to its reception.

Indifference to dates was but one feature of that serene unconcern with which Dr. Furness regarded the hidden personality of Shakespeare. He was not merely content, he seemed glad to know no more of the poet over whom he had spent his life; and because 'every assertion connected with Shakespeare is accompanied, as a groundtone, by the refrain "it is not unlikely," he found such assertions to be little worth his while. 'We cannot tell whether Shakespeare was peevish or gentle,' he wrote, 'sedate or mercurial, generous or selfish, dignified or merry; whether he was a Protestant or a Catholic, whether he loved his home or liked to gad abroad, whether he was jocund or sombre, or whether he was all these things by turns, and nothing long.'

Even the Sonnets afforded to Dr. Furness's mind no key to the enigma. He held that Shakespeare followed the fashion of his day, a fashion borrowed from Italy, which made of the sonnet a personal thing (no Italian would have dreamed of writing a sonnet on Venice and the Rialto as Wordsworth wrote

sonnets a dramatic form. They seem spoken by one human being to another, spoken in accents of grief, of doubt, of ecstasy, of despair; but in this manner do all Shakespeare's characters speak. This is the impelling force of the dramatic spirit, peopling earth and sky; not the impelling force of the personal spirit, seeking to take the world into its confidence. Shakespeare may even be permitted to bewail his outcast state, without our beginning straightway to sniff a peccadillo.

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That the dramatic spirit which baffles scrutiny should have made a powerful appeal to Dr. Furness was right and reasonable. It was the appeal of consanguinity. Like all his race, he had the actor's gifts: not only spirit and fire in declamation, not only the flexible voice and the appropriate gesture; but the power to lose himself past finding in every character he portrayed. Those who have heard him read, know what I mean. The clarion call of Henry the Fifth before the gates of Harfleur, his prayer upon the field of Agincourt, these things were not mere elocution, however noble and effective; they were passionate appeals to man and God, breaking from the lips of one whose head was reeling with the joy of battle, whose heart was heavy with the awful burden of authority. It was as a boy of fourteen that Dr. Furness first heard Fanny Kemble (Mrs. Peirce Butler) read Shakespeare's plays, and his enthusiasm awoke, never to sleep again. It was as a listener, not as a student, that he received his most powerful and durable impressions. To this early influence was due, in large measure, the preservation of the dramatic feeling through a long life of patient and laborious research.

From Fanny Kèmble, too, came the gift of Shakespeare's stage gloves, most precious and most honored of relics. Their history is a notable one. In 1746

they were presented by William Shakespeare, a poor glazier, 'whose father and our poet were brothers' children,' to John Ward, when that generous actor played Othello at Stratford-onAvon, and devoted the night's receipts to repairing Shakespeare's monument in the church. John Ward, with a sense of fitness as pleasing as it is rare, gave these gloves in 1769 to David Garrick, who bequeathed them to his widow, who bequeathed them to Mrs. Siddons, who bequeathed them to her daughter, Cecilia, who gave them to Fanny Kemble, who gave them to Dr. Furness in 1874. It is not often, in these days of millionaire collectors, that the right things belong to the right people so consistently and persistently as have these worn gauntlets.

Dr. Furness's power of sustained labor seemed well-nigh miraculous to a generation which stands forever in need of rest and change of scene. For forty years he worked on an average ten hours out of the twenty-four and, under pressure, thought little of adding a few hours more. For twenty years he lived in his country-seat at Wallingford, remote from the importunities of the town. Here in the uninvaded seclusion of his noble library he sat, resolute and absorbed, while the long quiet days merged into the quiet nights.

With the inspired sagacity of the scholar, he admitted to this solitude. only the scholar's natural friend and ally, the cat. Generations of cats sat blinking at him with affectionate contempt as volume after volume of the Variorum drew to its appointed close. Companionable cats accompanied him on his daily walks through sunny garden and shaded avenue, marching before him with tail erect, rubbing themselves condescendingly against his legs, or pausing, with plaintive paw upraised, to intimate that the stroll had lasted long enough. Warrior cats, to

whom was granted the boon of an early and honorable death, drank delight of battle with their peers on many a moonlight night, and returned in the morning to show their scars to a master who reverenced valor. Siamese cats, their pale-blue eyes shadowed by desires that no one understood, brought their lonely, troubled little hearts to his feet for solace. And all these wise beasts knew that silence reigned in the long working hours. They lent the grace of their undisturbing presence to the scholar who loved to lift his head, ponder for a moment over the soul-satisfying nature of their idleness, and return to his books again.

"To those who think, life is a comedy; to those who feel, a tragedy.' Dr. Furness, thinking profoundly, feeling intensely, with a sad heart and a gay temper (that most charming and lovable combination!) replaced illusions with philosophy. His rare powers of conversation, his marvelous memory, his information, which, unlike the information of Macaulay, was never 'more than the occasion required,' his unfailing humor, his beautiful vocabulary, rich yet precise, his swift light sentences, conveying important conclusions, all made him the most engaging of companions. There was no talk like his, so full of substance, so innocent of pedantry, so perfect in form, so sweetened by courtesy. Well might it have been said of him, as Johnson said of Burke: 'If a stranger were to go by chance at the same time with him under a shed to shun a shower, he would think, "This is an extraordinary

sent him their verses, dramatists their plays, and novelists their stories. Authors who meditated writing essays on Shakespeare's dogs, or oaths, or firearms, and who seemed unaware of the existence of a concordance, sought from him counsel and assistance. People who were good enough to believe that Shakespeare really wrote the plays attributed to him by his contemporaries, were anxious that Dr. Furness should be made aware of the liberal nature of their views. To one and all the great scholar lent a weary and patient ear. To one and all he gave more than their utmost dues.

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unsus

A man of exquisite charity, speaking evil of none; a man of indestructible courtesy, whose home was open to his friends, whose scant leisure was placed at their disposal, whose kindness enveloped them like sunshine; yet none the less a man whose reserves pected by many were proof against all; a past master of the art of hiding his soul, addicted to silent pleasures, accessible to silent pains.' It is not the portentous gravity of the Sphinx which defies the probe, but the smiling gayety which seems so free from guile. One had to know Dr. Furness long and intimately, to understand that his dominant note was dramatic, not personal, and that his facile speech betrayed nothing it was made to hide.

That the task upon which his life had been spent, and which his death left uncompleted, should be taken up by his son, was to Dr. Furness a source of measureless content. In the preface to The Tempest, published in 1892, he recorded his indebtedness to his father, to the hand whose cunning

ninety years have not abated.' In the preface to the revised edition of Macbeth, published in 1903, he recorded his indebtedness to his son, to the younger hand which had been intrusted with the work, and had accomplished it so deftly. When Dr. Furness died in August, his last volume, Cymbeline, was fast approaching completion. It will be published in mid-winter, just as he left it, the fifteenth play of his editing; and with it will appear Julius Caesar, the third play edited by Mr. Horace Howard Furness, Jr. A monument of scholarship, a verdict, final for many years to come, a rich mine for possible successors.

For Dr. Furness always maintained that he would have many followers in the field of Shakespearean research, that, in the future, other students would do his work over again, and do it differently. He was content to be a step of the ladder, and he knew better than most men that 'the labour we delight in physics pain.' The beauty of his surroundings, the magnitude and perfection of his library, the honors done him by English and American universities, the close companionship of his third son, Dr. William Henry Furness, intrepid traveler and explorer, these things lent dignity and relish to his life. He lived it bravely and mirthfully; he stood ready to lay it down without regret.

Six weeks before his death, being then in perfect health, he wrote to me: 'My grave yawns at my feet. I look down into it, and very snug and comfortable it seems.' In the gallant acceptance of life and death lies all that gives worth to man.

I

WHEN We think of a thorough-going conservative we are likely to picture him as a stay-at-home person, a barnacle fastened to one spot. We take for granted that aversion to locomotion and aversion to change are the same thing.

But in thinking thus we leave out of account the inherent instability of human nature. Everybody likes a little change now and then. If a person cannot get it in one way, he gets it in another. The stay-at-home gratifies his wandering fancy by making little alterations in his too-familiar surroundings. Even the Vicar of Wakefield in the days of his placid prosperity would occasionally migrate from the blue bed to the brown. A life that had such vicissitudes could not be called uneventful.

When you read the weekly newspaper published in the quietest hilltown in Vermont, you become aware that a great deal is going on. Deacon Pratt shingled his barn last week. Miss Maria Jones had new shutters put on her house, and it is a great improvement. These revolutions in Goshenville are matters of keen interest to those concerned. They furnish inexhaustible material for conversation.

The true enemy to innovation is the traveler who sets out to see historic lands. His natural love of change is satiated by rapid change of locality. But his natural conservatism asserts itself in his insistence that the places

which he visits shall be true to their own reputations. Having journeyed, at considerable expense, to a celebrated spot, he wants to see the thing it was celebrated for, and he will accept no substitute. From his point of view his present inhabitants are merely caretakers who should not be allowed to disturb the remains intrusted to their custody. Everything must be kept as it used to be.

The moment any one packs his trunk and puts money in his purse to visit lands old in story he becomes a hopeless reactionary. He is sallying forth to see things not as they are, but as they were once upon a time.' He is attracted to certain localities by something which happened long ago. A great many things may have happened since, but these must be put out of the way. One period of time must be preserved to satisfy his romantic imagination. He loves the good old ways, and he has a curiosity to see the bad old ways that may still be preserved. It is only the modern that offends him.

The American who, in his own country, is in feverish haste to improve conditions, when he sets foot in Europe becomes the fanatical foe to progress. The Old World, in his judgment, ought to look old. He longs to hear the clatter of wooden shoes. If he had his way he would have laws enacted forbidding peasant folk to change their ancient costumes. He would preserve every relic of feudalism. He bitterly laments the division of great estates. A noble

man's park with its beautiful idle acres, its deer, its pheasants, and its scurrying rabbits, is so much more pleasant to look at than a succession of marketgardens. Poachers, game-keepers, and squires, are alike interesting, if only they would dress so that he could know them apart. He is enchanted with thatched cottages which look damp and picturesque. He detests the model dwellings which are built with a too obvious regard for sanitation. He seeks narrow and ill-smelling streets where the houses nod at each other, as if in the last stages of senility, muttering mysterious reminiscences of old tragedies. He frequents scenes of ancient murders, and places where bandits once did congregate. He leaves the railway carriage, to cross a heath where romantic highwaymen used to ask the traveler to stand and deliver. He is indignant to find electric lights and policemen. A heath ought to be lonely, and fens ought to be preserved from drainage.

He seeks dungeons and instruments of torture. The dungeons must be underground, and only a single ray of light must penetrate. He is much troubled to find that the dungeon in the Castle of Chillon is much more cheerful than he had supposed it was. The Bridge of Sighs in Venice disappoints him in the same way. Indeed, there are few places mentioned by Lord Byron that are as gloomy as they are in the poetical description.

The traveler is very insistent in his plea for the preservation of battlefields. Now, Europe is very rich in battlefields, many of the most fertile sections having been fought over many times. But the ravages of agriculture are everywhere seen. There is no such leveler as the ploughman. Often when one has come to refresh his mind with the events of one terrible day, he finds that there is nothing whatever to re

mind him of what happened. For centuries there has been ploughing and harvesting. Nature takes so kindly to these peaceful pursuits that one is tempted to think of the battle as merely an episode.

Commerce is almost as destructive. Cities that have been noted for their sieges often turn out to be surprisingly prosperous. The old walls are torn down to give way to parks and boulevards. Massacres which in their day were noted leave no trace behind. One can get more of an idea of the Massacre of St. Bartholemew's Eve by reading a book by one's fireside than by going to Paris. For all one can see there, there might have been no such accident.

Moral considerations have little place in the traveler's mind. The progressive ameliorations that have taken place tend to obscure our sense of the old conflicts. A reform once accomplished becomes a part of our ordinary consciousness. We take it for granted, and find it hard to understand what the reformer was so excited about..

As a consequence, the chief object of an historical pilgrimage is to discover some place where the old conditions have not been improved away. The religious pilgrim does not expect to find the old prophets, but he has a pious hope of finding the abuses which the prophets denounced.

I have in mind a clergyman who, in his own home, is progressive to a fault. He is impatient of any delay. He is all the time seeking out the very latest inventions in social and economic reforms. But several years ago he made a journey to the Holy Land, and when he came back he delivered a lecture on his experiences. A more reactionary attitude could not be imagined. Not a word did he say about the progress of education or civil-service reform in Palestine. There was not a sympathetic reference to sanitation or good