bers. More range could not be procured, for there was none. The country was scorching all around him. In December some more fortunate owners had driven their stock into Arizona, but it was too late now to think of that. The attempt would be madness, for there was no feed along the

route.

In the San Francisco market sheep had gone steadily down to twenty-five cents per head. Then they ceased to be quoted. There were no takers. The local market was glutted with mutton, for the sheep men sought thus to save some small share of their investment. Fifty cents for a sheep, skinned and dressed, was the ordinary price. Clearly, he could not dispose of his stock. It is doubtful if he could have even given them

away.

The feed upon the ground had dried up long ago, and had been swept away in clouds of dust by the hot winds, which came like the breath of a furnace from the scorching sands of the Mojave Desert.

One day in early March, Charles and his herders had killed two thousand lambs knocked them in the head, ruthlessly, to prevent starvation. It was pitiful, but there was no room for pity.

At last Sydney saw that but one resource was left him. He would establish a matanza forthwith, and slaughter his flocks for their pelts. The little shearing house down upon the creek bank was speedily prepared for the work. In two days it was in full operation, killing at the rate of five hundred per day, and the green hides were being cured for transportation.

But a greater calamity even than the loss of his flocks was in store for the man. One Friday night his wife was taken suddenly ill, and on Sunday they carried her to rest in the old Mission churchyard in San Buenaventura. Upon her breast a little baby lay, fairhaired and waxen-fingered, which had never opened its eyes upon the world.

Sydney seemed to give up everything after the funeral, going about everywhere as one in a dream. He was listless and restless. All interest had gone out of life.

VOL. VI.-II.

It was at this time of trouble that the image of Agnes Denton, fair and smiling, again rose before him. He would go to her, he thought. Though she might despise him, she would still pity him and comfort him in his sorrow. He was very humble now. Whatever of her great sympathy she chose to accord him, he would accept it thankfully, and would ask for no more.

At first, I think, he only wanted to be near some one who knew him and who would condole with him in his sorrow. Don José and the Doña were kind, but they did not know and could not understand.

He began at once to prepare for his departure from Southern California. His business affairs were soon arranged; his pelts disposed of to the best advantage, to a peripatetic Basque dealer in hides and tallow, and he was ready to start. The cabin he would leave as it was, simply locking the doors and placing the key in charge of Don José. There was nothing but his immediate personal effects that he cared to take with him, and some day in the future, perhaps, when he was happier, it might be a source of melancholy pleasure to return here for a season and to muse over the happiness which had gone out of his life forever. The cabin and its contents were safe from molestation until his lease of the land expired, five years yet.

It was on the 25th day of April that he mounted his horse-a splendid animal, kindly loaned him for his ride into town by Don José-and turned to bid farewell to valley and mountain and whispering pines.

"It is the day upon which my five years' probation expires," he muttered, smiling sadly.

Slowly he rode into town and stabled his horse. Then, from force of habit, he entered the postoffice and asked for mail. A newspaper was handed him, but he put it into his pocket without so much as a glance at the handwriting in which it was directed.

He thought of it again at supper that evening, and pulling it out, prepared to glance over it, while waiting the filling of his order. It was a copy of a New York paper, he no

day or night. He arose as we drove up, and tottered out into the sunshine. His gait was feeble and stooping, his eyes lacklustre, his hair silver-gray, his hands nerveless, and his whole appearance that of a man prematurely aged. He partook freely, with very little urging, of our liquid supplies, and afterwards grew quite garrulous. He was a trifle daft, I concluded, for he jumbled Homer and Virgil and the latest market quotations together in inextricable confusion. It was evident, however, that his education had been excellent. With a grandiloquent wave of the hand he placed the whole valley at our disposal, and then tottered back into his cabin as we rode off.

Thus, it is said, he treats all campers and wayfarers. At other times he sits alone in his cabin, muttering to himself and smoking, and, in times of high winds, bending his head to catch the music of the pines, and waiting-waiting-for what?

Sol. Sheridan.

THE gift by a foreign country to the United States of a statue of "Liberty enlightening the World," carries with it a compliment of no inconsiderable significance. It is a testimonial to the fact that Liberty has found a congenial home within our confines. And what is Liberty? "Liberty," says Victor Hugo, "is the climate of civilization."

But in the face of this, what do we see? Alien writers and lecturers coming to this country, assuming the right to teach the people, and proclaiming Europe as an exemplar, because they have been reared in an older civilization and received its approval. Throughout their discourses Europe is their standpoint, and the way things are done in Europe is their standard. But who is prepared to accept this criterion? Who, among Americans, is willing to admit that the new world would be altogether better for instruction from the old? Thomas Jefferson makes the admission, it is true, but in a way from

which it is not necessary to dissent. During the days of his diplomatic service abroad, writing to James Monroe, he says:

"I sincerely wish that you may find it convenient to come here; the pleasure of the trip will be less than you expect, but the utility greater. It will make you adore your own country, its soil, its climate, its equality, liberty, laws, people, and manners."

What would be the effect of such advice upon this generation? Let an American hailing from any of the States of the Atlantic sea-board travel abroad today, and he will no doubt find a great contrast between that life with which he is familiar and that which he observes. But let a resident of any of the Western States make the same tour, and to him the contrast will be much more marked, and the patriotic profit of travel, perhaps, be greater, because the recent States of the Union, within the last three or four decades, have come to more closely resemble the country of Jefferson than do the

colonial States themselves. Remote from that sea-board which is most exposed to the Old World, they have, without effort, preserved traditions and developed traits which are still called American, though often designated in deference to foreign criticism, "Philistine."

The first traveler, while he pursues his way, is more apt to become enamored of European life, and lingers abroad; but the other, more sensible to the artificial character of his new surroundings, will probably become more attached to the life which he has left behind, and long to return: he will think with Hawthorne, that the years he spends on a foreign shore have a sort of emptiness, and that he defers the reality of life until he breathes again his native air. This predilection in favor of his own country does not arise from any incapacity to enjoy the magnificence of the old civilization, its treasures and refinements, but he distinguishes after his own manner between a salon and a home, between passing pleasures and permanent interest, between false standards of conduct and what he regards as the more serious duties of life. Such a man has little sympathy with Europe. But the other is impressed differently: bred, perhaps, in a State that, by closer contact with the old world, has fallen into many of its ways, accepted its criteria, and submitted to its censorship, he is not so jealous of the distinguishing characteristics of his native country. He takes pleasure in possessing the real of which before he had only an imitation. But he is only one of a large and may be increasing class living on the eastern verge of our continent, who look upon America as a poor copy of the master prototype across the wa

ter.

Europe possesses the accumulations of the ages, which are, it is true, drawn upon by America, but discriminatingly; and this wise discrimination is, or has been, one of Columbia's cardinal virtues. She rejected manners, morals, ideas, and rule, and in these vital respects became a law unto her self. What influence Europe exerted over early America was, for the most part, nega

tive: the fathers of the republic, by knowing Europe, knew what to avoid. Principles were formulated and constitutions made in consonance with an ideal government in which the most people should be the most benefited. But the conspicuous feature of them all was their antagonism to the prevailing foreign methods. In these principles and instruments there was but little copied ; it will even be admitted that they showed considerable creative intellect, something which is often denied to America; and, at the time of their adoption, Europe rather noisily proclaimed them the height of originality, not to say worse. Certainly the mother country disclaimed all responsibility for the new creation, and America was left to her own destiny.

But what this country might have been without Europe's example and contribution, has occasionally afforded a subject of speculation for curious minds. Disraeli, in one of his novels, makes Shelley, who figures for the time as a character of fiction, exclaim: "I wish that the Empire of the Incas and the Kingdom of Montezuma had not been sacrificed; I wish that the republic of the Puritans had blended with the tribes of the wilderness." Then, he thinks, the Americans would be an original. people, and have a nationality; otherwise

not.

But such rank originality as this would be hardly desirable. A people with pretensions to a race, language, and skin of their own might have resulted; and while this would have gladdened the poet's heart, it would not have contributed to the substantial happiness of mankind. No; the essence of American nationality must be sought and found in the republican form of government and all that flows from it; for the distinguishing characteristics of the people are not in the color of their skins, but in the color of their minds; not in the words they adopt to express their ideas, but in the ideas themselves.

A nationality founded on institutions, ideas, manners, and morals is, however, subject to change. If formerly, as it has been remarked, the influence which Europe ex

erted on this country was to a large extent negative and advantageous, of late positive influences have prevailed which seem to war with the design and true distinction of America. Due to this cause is the fact often observed, that the United States do not now possess in the same degree the national virtues which adorned their early history. There is not among all classes the same attachment to democracy and confidence in its success, nor the same simple life. The political ideals have fallen from the establishment of liberty and happiness to ends less worthy and more material. The old school of statesmen would inquire what ef fect innovations would have upon man, the new school upon money; and where there was once a people there is now a populace. Under a paternal policy special interests have been so fostered, to the general loss, that great inequalities of wealth have resulted, creating those conditions in this country most favorable to the growth of European institutions.

Even now throughout the Atlantic States foreign tastes and manners have taken hold of a large section of society. There is a mania for English "form" and French modes, and rules and regulations as to conduct and costume are not only accepted from abroad, but eagerly sought. In matters of etiquette and dress, America is without a convention. What is indigenous is inelegant.

When the Duc de Chartres and the Comte d'Artois introduced English sports and fashions into France to the prejudice of their own, even the Court of Louis xvI., on the score of national pride, condemned their course, and required them to abandon their folly. And Carlyle indulges his sarcasm when he refers to the period, and says: "O beautiful days of international communion! Swindlery and blackguardism have stretched hands across the channel and saluted mutually."

In this country public opinion, that unique force, is opposing the Anglo and other manias which afflict the land, but not always with success. Sports, wines, vehicles, lan

guage, manners, arts fine, culinary, and dubious-are supplanting our own, and with increased intercourse the danger is from an inundation which will sweep away the results of a century of independence. Indeed, public opinion itself is not impregnable to attack. Fifty years ago, when Tocqueville wrote his "Democracy," it may be said without pessimism, that America had a more marked individuality, and even more creditable characteristics than are observable today. Notwithstanding the severe drawing of the old master, the picture he has given us of the United States at that period is refreshing to contemplate. The people were happy, equality of conditions had some reality, excessive individual importance was unknown, corporations were undeveloped, the avenues to office were clean, the voters, to his knowledge, had never been bribed, and politics were a field on which the best men of the day were proud to contend. Employment was universal, leisure exceptional, luxury discouraged, and the tyranny of fashion no more submitted to than that of King George. Men were still intensely serious in the work of maintaining free government without selfish incentive, and their patriotism amounted even to vanity. "If I say to an American that the country he lives in is a fine one, 'Aye,' he replies, 'there is not its fellow in the world.' If I applaud the freedom its inhabitants enjoy, he answers: 'Freedom is a fine thing, but few nations are worthy to enjoy it.' If I remark the purity of morals which distinguishes the United States, 'I can imagine,' says he, 'that a stranger who has been struck with the corruption of all other nations is astounded at the difference.""

Such enthusiastic sentiments serve to show how much more the people esteemed their own country than any other, and how far they were from falling into that fatal flattery imitation.

But what may be the causes which are leading the Republic from her quondam simplicity, her notable morality, her intense democracy, and are reducing her to a condition little better, if at all better, than other

nations in these respects? What has put this country, after so much early resistance, at last within the influence of the old world, whose tastes, manners, and thought are known to be inimical to republican life?

Thomas Jefferson has undoubtedly given us an important clue. During his life-time he attributed the virtue of his fellow citizens to the fact that "they have been separated from the parent stock and kept from contamination, either from them or the people of the old world, by the intervention of so wide an ocean." Here, then, is the cause of the change: the ocean no longer intervenes. It has practically dried up, leaving but a narrow channel to cross. The shore which was for Jefferson about two months distant, is for us less than a week for travel, and less than a moment for thought!

Tocqueville, with prophetic vision, anticipated many evils which would beset the new Republic, but contamination by contact with Europe he left to the finer patriotic instincts of Thomas Jefferson. The ocean was then a real barrier between the two continents, the winds and the waves beating back adventurous craft, and allowing few to break their lines. No prophet, however endowed, would, one hundred years ago, have ventured to predict this marvelous annihilation of space! Europe and America are today, for most purposes, as closely bound together, by grace of electricity and steam, as are California and New York, parts of our own continent and country. Aye, more so, for in the one case the highway is free, and the expenses of transportation less. And the West might as well expect ultimate immunity from Eastern influence, as the United States hope to keep its institutions intact, on account of the intervention of what was once an ocean, but is now a "pond."

The question then suggests itself, as a corollary, Should not America, self-reliant and firm in her principles, discourage too close a communication with Europe, whereby a fickle and perverse generation might become enamored of a condemned civilization, and fall away from their own? The Israelites, when they observed in their wanderings that other

nations had royal establishments, cried out for a king; and such was the force of example that they disregarded the advice of their judges to put not their trust in princes, and later had reason to repent it. The same people, in servile imitation, worshiped idols when most favored by the living God. "What the eye does not see the heart does not crave for." And we also know by proverbial wisdom the effects of touching pitch and loving danger. Therefore, if the products of European life are detrimental to our own, there should certainly be a discriminating moral prohibition against them.

The old world bears about the same relation to the new that Judaism bears to Christianity. The ever constant surprise to the Pharisees is that so much good should have come out of Nazareth. The old law was rejected by the Master, in-so-far as it was inconsistent with the new. The disciples turned their backs upon the religion of their fathers and let the dead past bury its dead. The new dispensation had come, better and more hopeful.

The traditional policy of this country, as declared by Monroe and Madison, and by Washington himself, in his farewell address, is to leave Europe severely alone. Says Washington: "Europe has a set of primary interests, which, to us, have none or a very remote relation." Again: "The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible." Monroe declared that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety."

Europe was, as it is plainly seen, an object of suspicion, from which nothing was asked. Washington thought that such were the resources, and "the peculiarly happy and remote situation" of this country, that it could, without loss, assume an attitude of entire independence.

Is this policy still pursued? Has not the diplomatic service been extended unnecessarily? Has not the United States, without