derous expressions of regard and the assurance of his good-will.

Pippin gave vent to no outburst of relief, maintaining a courteous silence, making only one allusion to his late guest, in answer to a remark of Scorrier's: 'Ah! don't tempt me! must n't speak behind his back.'

VI

A month passed, and Scorrier still remained Pippin's guest. As each mailday approached, he experienced a queer suppressed excitement. On one of these occasions Pippin had withdrawn to his room; and when Scorrier went to fetch him to dinner he found him with his head leaning on his hands, amid a perfect litter of torn paper. He looked up at Scorrier.

"I can't do it,' he said, 'I feel such a hypocrite; I can't put myself into leading-strings again. Why should I ask these people, when I've settled everything already? If it were a vital matter they would n't want to hear they'd simply wire, "Manage this somehow!"

Scorrier said nothing, but thought privately, "This is a mad business!' What was a letter? Why make a fuss about a letter?

The approach of mail-day seemed like a nightmare to the superintendent; he became feverishly nervous, like a man under a spell; and, when the mail had gone, behaved like a respited criminal. And this had been going on two years! Ever since that explosion. Why, it was monomania!

One day, a month after Hemmings's departure, Pippin rose early from dinner; his face was flushed, he had been drinking wine.

'I won't be beaten this time,' he said, as he passed Scorrier.

The latter could hear him writing in the next room, and looked in presently

to say that he was going for a walk. Pippin gave him a kindly nod.

It was a cool, still evening; innumerable stars swarmed in clusters over the forests, forming bright hieroglyphics in the middle heavens, showering over the dark harbor into the sea. Scorrier walked slowly. A weight seemed lifted from his mind, so entangled had he become in that uncanny silence. At last Pippin had broken through the spell. To get that letter sent would be the laying of a phantom, the rehabilitation of common sense. Now that this silence was in the throes of being broken, he felt curiously tender toward Pippin, without the hero-worship of old days, but with a queer protective feeling. After all, he was different from other men. In spite of his feverish, tenacious energy, in spite of his ironic humor, there was something of the woman in him! And as for this silence, this horror of control - all geniuses had 'bees in their bonnets,' and Pippin was a genius in his way!

He looked back at the town. Brilliantly lighted, it had a thriving air, difficult to believe of the place he remembered ten years back. The sounds of drinking, gambling, laughter, and dancing floated to his ears. 'Quite a city!' he thought. With this queer elation on him he walked slowly back along the street, forgetting that he was simply an oldish mining expert, with a look of shabbiness, such as clings to men who are always traveling, as if their 'nap' were forever being rubbed off. And he thought of Pippin, creator of this glory.

He had passed the boundaries of the town, and had entered the forest. A feeling of discouragement instantly beset him. The scents and silence, after the festive cries and odors of the town, were undefinably oppressive. Notwithstanding, he walked a long time, saying to himself that he would give the

letter every chance. At last, when he thought that Pippin must have finished, he went back to the house.

Pippin had finished. His forehead rested on the table, his arms hung at his sides; he was stone-dead! His face wore a smile, and by his side lay an empty laudanum bottle.

The letter, closely, beautifully written, lay before him. It was a fine document, clear, masterly, detailed, nothing slurred, nothing concealed, nothing omitted; a complete review of the company's position; it ended with the words,

'Your humble servant, 'RICHARD PIPPIN.' Scorrier took possession of it. He dimly understood that with those last words a wire had snapped. The border-line had been overpassed; the point reached where that sense of proportion, which alone makes life possible, is lost. He was certain that at the moment of his death Pippin could have discussed bimetallism, or any intellectual problem, except the one problem of his own heart; that, for some mysterious reason, had been too much for him. His death had been the work of a moment of supreme revolt a single instant of madness on a single subject!

He found on the blotting-paper, scrawled across the impress of the signature, 'Can't stand it!'

The completion of that letter had been to him a struggle ungraspable by Scorrier. Slavery? defeat? a violation of Nature? the death of justice? It was better not to think of it! Pippin could have told, but he would never speak again. Nature, at whom, unaided, he had dealt so many blows, had taken her revenge!

In the night Scorrier stole down, and, with an ashamed face, cut off a lock of the fine gray hair.

He waited till Pippin was buried,⚫ then, with the letter in his pocket, started for England.

He arrived at Liverpool on a Thursday morning, and traveling to town, drove straight to the office of the company. The Board was sitting. Pippin's successor was already being interviewed. He passed out as Scorrier came in, a middle-aged man with a large, red beard, and a foxy, compromising face. He also was a Cornishman. Scorrier wished him luck with a heavy heart.

As an unsentimental man, who had a proper horror of emotion, whose living depended on his good sense, to look back on that interview with the Board was painful. It had excited in him a rage of which he was now heartily ashamed. Old Jolyon Forsyte, the chairman, was not there for once, guessing perhaps that the Board's view of this death would be too small for him; and little Mr. Booker sat in his place. Every one had risen, shaken hands with Scorrier, and expressed himself indebted for his coming. Scorrier placed Pippin's letter on the table, and gravely the secretary read out to his Board the last words of their superintendent. When he had finished, a director said, "That's not the letter of a madman!'

Another answered, 'Mad as a hatter; nobody but a madman would have thrown up such a post.'

Scorrier suddenly withdrew, and left them to discuss the question of sanity. He heard Hemmings calling after him: 'Are n't you well, Mr. Scorrier? are n't you well, sir?'

He shouted back, 'Quite sane, I thank you.'

note to his memories.

THE story of Realmah, by Sir Arthur Helps, contains a description of a so-called 'House of Wisdom.' This was the dwelling-place of a number of prophets, who possessed differing degrees of prophetic power, lived upon fees, and had incomes varying with the number of their clients. In an outer inclosure two men were living in the deepest poverty. They were called 'Spoolans,' and were contemptuously treated and almost never consulted, since their special gift consisted in predicting events that would occur a hundred or more years in the future. In the next inclosure there were men who were only a shade less miserable. They were the 'Raths,' and had few clients, because they could foretell only what would occur after a lapse of twentyseven years. In another and better apartment there were five 'Uraths,' who could tell what would happen after a single year should elapse; and these men were in good spirits, handsomely dressed, and evidently well off; while the 'Auraths,' who could prophesy what would happen after a month, had a superabundance of clients and of fees. Vastly wealthy were the 'Mauraths,' who could foretell what would happen after three days; but the multi-millionaire of the company was the great 'Amaurath,' who was approached with the awe with which a servant might have approached Sardanapalus, for this man could foresee what would occur after six hours.

This description applies to a common mental attitude toward the future. In

telligence does indeed modify it, and the man of property who is providing for his descendants is by no means on a plane in respect of forethought with a happy-go-lucky southern Negro. The founder of an estate would have need of the services of the most far-seeing class in the House of Wisdom; but the average man would pass by, or at most, in a leisure moment, satisfy curiosity at the cost of a trifling tip. The Amauraths and their great chief would get the rich fees.

If we judge by appearances it seems that states come in the same category; and it is certainly true that a people in its entirety will often act more blindly than a select class would ever do in a private capacity. Yet there is every reason why a state should make use of forethought. A century is as nothing in its life; and yet how many acts do legislatures, congresses, and parliaments pass for the benefit of coming ages? In all that concerns those periods, the national consciousness is dull. Representatives are allowed to take short views and, in their capacity as politicians, are compelled to use their efforts in ways that afford quick results. Where an act insures a benefit that will begin at once and continue forever, the continuance does not tell against it, but counts somewhat in its favor, and more and more, it is fair to say, the nearer part of the endless future counts as a make-weight; but the real test comes when it is necessary to sacrifice something now in order to gain something hereafter. When an economic

measure will cost us something but will enrich posterity, how general and ardent is the support of it? We seem will ing that the earth should be largely used up in a generation or two.

A riotous waste of material resources has gone on, and still continues. The degree of prodigality we have displayed would, if shown by an individual owner of property, tell an alarming story as to his mental state; and yet it is done by a collective body without throwing doubt on the sanity of its members. A nation of intelligent men is doing what no such man, acting in his own interest, would do. There is an economic law which accounts for the course of action we deplore, and it also points the way to a remedy. A lack of altruism, coupled with the possession of keen individual intelligence, causes the depleting of the resources of the country. The state exists for the sake of making individuals act altruistically of compelling them to do much that the general good requires.

The doctrine of 'Economic Harmonies' seemed to prove that, in most production, what is good for one person is good for all others. It afforded a scientific basis for optimism, and for the laissez-faire rule of practical politics. Let men have their way and let the state do nothing it can avoid, and we shall have the best of all possible worlds. Where men thrive, as in the main they do, by successful competition, — that is, by outdoing their rivals in serving the public, the law holds true, and is an important bit of economic theory. The man who undersells others offers the public a better service for a given return. He may be enabled to do it by inventing a good machine, by discovering a cheap material, or by organizing his shop more effectively than do other employers. In all such cases his interests and those of the public are identical; but will any one claim

that this is true when it comes to exploiting forests or hunting game to extermination? Does seal-hunting show the identity of interest of hunters and public? Does the quest of natural gas and the use made of it show this? In these, and in many other instances, the individual wins a profit by what inflicts on the public a melancholy waste. In all mere grabs there is at work a principle of economic antagonism, and not one of harmony.

Exploitation usually makes the individual richer and the people poorer, and it nearly always gives to the individual far less than it takes from the public. This combination of quasi-robbery and absolute waste completely reverses the action of the law of harmonies. It presents two distinct issues, of which the first is whether a kind of property should be given to individuals at all; and the second, what, in case it is so given, the recipients should be allowed to do with it. Wherever a new value is created and the public wealth increased because of individual ownership, the law of harmonies is at work; but where existing wealth is recklessly destroyed in consequence of individual ownership, the law is reversed and the reason for intervention by the state is clear. In general these two cases represent true production, on the one hand, and exploitation on the other, and it is competitive exploitation which shows the most complete reversal of the harmony principle.

If we turn a hunter loose in a wellstocked deer forest, will he so use the game as to perpetuate the supply? Not if there are other hunters who have access to the preserve. In that case he will shoot bucks, does, and fawns lest, while he is sparing the does and fawns, another man may kill them. If he taps a reservoir of natural gas, he will draw off the supply as fast as possible, knowing that his neighbors will do so if he

does not. These cases represent the condition that insures the most injurious, but also the most morally pardonable, type of exploitation. A single individual cannot prevent or greatly reduce the destruction; all he can do is to hold his hands and let others do the destroying and get the return. The game and the gas are at the mercy of whoever is near enough to them to take a hand in the scramble. If the hunter had the preserve well fenced and in his own exclusive possession, he would not exterminate the game. A very little intelligence would make him rear this herd as a ranchman rears domestic cattle; and a similar thing is true of the men who tap reservoirs of gas, since if they could confine and hold their several shares of the elusive material, they would not waste it as rapidly as they do.

Exposing any valuable thing to a free-for-all seizure is insuring the surest and speediest destruction of it, and private ownership marks an advance on this condition, even from the point of view of public interest. Only a monumental idiot will kill a goose that lays golden eggs when he has her securely penned; but when she is at large and other men are chasing her, an intelligent selfish man will do it, since under those circumstances only a quick use of his gun will make her afford to him personally even so much as a dinner. And refraining from shooting would not save the goose. The whole issue lies between this particular destroyer and some other, and the situation fairly well describes the attitude of many who prey on public resources. They would do better, though not usually very well, if they owned the resources outright. Private ownership confers a power to preserve, and affords some motive for doing it, and it is for the state to supply what will decisively reinforce that motive. Resources that are needed by the

public may well be privately owned when, either spontaneously or under compulsion, owners use them for the public.

There will always remain a choice between such a system and a genuine public ownership, under which all exploiters may be made to stand off, and a systematic utilizing of the property may be secured. Here the desirable policy varies according to the nature of the resource, and in some cases private ownership yields the best possible results in the present without sacrificing the future. Taking a positive thought for the future and making an intelligent provision for it is however, in the main, a public function, since in the cases in which the future is recklessly sacrificed, it is the interests of the people as a whole that suffer and not those of the exploiters.

Biologists say that the human race has, at the very least, lived on this planet for a hundred and fifty thousand years. If it is destined to live here for as much longer, of how much comparative consequence is the present year or decade, or even the whole present century? It is microscopic in the life of man, and properly guarding the interests of a century is an indefinitely small part of the real duty of one generation toward the unending life of humanity. Yet at present there is no adequate care for the single century. The friends of conservation scarcely hope for more than the warding off of calamities that will otherwise fall far within that period.

What would be a perfectly ideal course for a nation to pursue with reference to the future? Give its people a keen enough perception of conditions, and altruism enough to estimate the welfare of coming generations at its true value, and how far would it trench on its own immediate gains for the sake of later benefits? The suppo