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"Never!" said he; "but I am putting a case-I say, and if I were further to abuse that trust by keeping this piece of our common affairs in the dark, and this other piece in the light, and again this other piece in the twilight, and so on, I should strengthen my strength, and weaken your weakness, day by day, until at last I found myself on the high road to fortune, and you left behind on some bare common, a hopeless number of miles out of the way."

"Exactly so," said I.

"To prevent this, Michael," said John Spatter, "or the remotest chance of this, there must be perfect openness between us. Nothing must be concealed, and we must have but one interest."

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"And I, too," said John.

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'Exactly so!" cried I.

"We both have the same end in view; and, honourably seeking it, and fully trusting one another, and having but one interest, ours will be a prosperous and happy partnership."

"I am sure of it!" returned John. And we shook hands most affectionately.

I took John home to my Castle, and we had a very happy day Our partnership throve well. My friend and partner supplied what I wanted, as I had foreseen that he would; and by improving both the business and myself, amply acknowledged any little rise in life to which I had helped him.

I am not (said the poor relation, looking at the fire as he slowly rubbed his hands) very rich, for I never cared to be that; but I have enough, and am above all moderate wants and anxieties. My Castle is not a splendid place, but it is very comfortable, and it has a warm and cheerful air, and is quite a picture of Home. (367)

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Our eldest girl, who is very like her mother, married John Spatter's eldest son. Our two families are closely united in other ties of attachment. It is very pleasant of an evening, when we are all assembled together-which frequently happens and when John and I talk over old times, and the one interest there has always been between us.

I really do not know, in my Castle, what loneliness is. Some of our children or grandchildren are always about it, and the young voices of my descendants are delightful-O, how delightful!-to me to hear. My dearest and most devoted wife, ever faithful, ever loving, ever helpful and sustaining and consoling, is the priceless blessing of my house; from whom all its other blessings spring. We are rather a musical family, and when Christiana sees me, at any time, a little weary or depressed, she steals to the piano and sings a gentle air she used to sing when we were first betrothed. So weak a man am I, that cannot bear to hear it from any other source. They played it once, at the theatre, when I was there with little Frank; and the child said wondering, "Cousin Michael, whose hot tears are these that have fallen on my hand!"

Such is my Castle, and such are the real particulars of my life therein preserved. I often take little Frank home there. He is very welcome to my grandchildren, and they play together. At this time of the year I am seldom out of my Castle. For, the associations of the season seem to hold me there, and the precepts of the season seem to teach me that it is well to be there.

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"Yes. My Castle," said the poor relation, shaking his head as he still looked at the fire, "is in the Air. John our esteemed host suggests its situation accurately. My Castle is in the Air! I have done. Will you be so good as to pass the story."

(348)

Having often received an invitation from my friend Sir Roger de Coverley to pass away a month with him in the country, I last week accompanied him thither, and am settled with him for some time at his country house, where I intend to form several of my ensuing speculations. Sir Roger, who is very well acquainted with my humours, lets me rise and go to bed when I please, dine at his own table or in my chamber as I think fit, sit still and say nothing without bidding me be merry. When the gentlemen of the country come to see him, he only shows me at a distance. As I have been walking in his fields I have observed them stealing a sight of me over a hedge, and have heard the knight desiring them not to let me see them, for that I hated to be stared at.

I am the more at ease in Sir Roger's family, because it consists

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of sober and staid persons; for as the knight is the best master in the world, he seldom changes his servants; and as he is beloved by all about him, his servants never care for leaving him; by this means his domestics are all in years, and grown old with their master. You would take his valet de chambre for his brother, his butler is grey-headed, his groom is one of the gravest men that I have ever seen, and his coachman has the looks of a privy-counsellor. You see the goodness of the master even in the old house-dog, and in a grey pad that is kept in the stable with great care and tenderness out of regard to his past services, though he has been useless for several years.

I could not but observe with a great deal of pleasure the joy that appeared in the countenances of these ancient domestics upon my friend's arrival at his country seat. Some of them could not refrain from tears at the sight of their old master; every one of them pressed forward to do something for him, and seemed discouraged if they were not employed At the same time, the good old knight, with a mixture of the father and the master of the family, tempered the inquiries after his own affairs with several kind questions relating to themselves. This humanity and good-nature engages everybody to him, so that when he is pleasant upon any of them, all his family are in good humour, and none so much as the person whom he diverts himself with: on the contrary, if he coughs, or betrays any infirmity of old age, it is easy for a stander-by to observe a secret concern in the looks of all his servants.

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He did not wish it to be supposed that with so large a body of public servants it was possible for the Postmaster-General to receive personally everyone who thought that he had something that he ought to be allowed to speak about. He did not pretend that any Minister, in the time he had at his disposal, could undertake to do that. But when members of the staff wished to see him upon subjects upon which he thought there was good reason for the interchange of views, he was glad to see them : and they did not suffer by their coming to him in person, direct, or by addressing a memorial in writing to him. He ventured to think it was very much better for them, very much better for the service at large, very much more conducive to the public interest, and better, too, for the Postmaster-General if he was striving to do his best for the service over which he presided, if direct communications should pass between him and his staff, rather than that the staff should seek to have their case put forward by third parties, in Parliament or out of it. And if that were true of general grievances which affected considerable numbers, and grievances which affected large numbers of the staff, still more true was it in regard to appointments and promotions within the staff. Gentlemen outside would be astonished if they knew the

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number of letters he received recommending this or that official in the Post Office employment, who happened to be known more or less, sometimes very little indeed, to the writer or the writer's cousin or the writer's cousin's cousin - for some appointment which was vacant It would surprise them if they knew the number of letters of this character that | he received; and he felt that the service as a whole would have a right to complain if, in deference to representations of that kind, or if any pressure of | that sort which might be sought to be brought to bear upon him, he disregarded the claims of their own servants of approved merit, to put less qualified men over the heads of better officers in order to oblige those who wrote to him in these matters of patronage. The patronage of the Postmaster-General was, unfortunately for him, very large, but it was conducted, or had been conducted, above all things, in the interest of the service, and the appointments that were made were made upon service considerations, and upon service considerations alone. He ventured to say to the members of the Post Office staff that they should be satisfied with the assurance that when they made an application for a vacant postmastership or vacant promotion their claims would be considered fairly upon their merits, without it being necessary for them to ask anyone to use influence with the Postmaster-General to secure that promotion which, if they were the best men, they would get anyway, and which, if they were not the best men, they ought not to get, no matter what support they brought to bear from other people outside, who had less information than he had as to the merits of the rival candidates. With regard to both these matters he appealed for a freer communication between the staff and the PostmasterGeneral, and, he would add, for greater belief in the desire of the Postmaster- General and the high officials who advised him, to do every justice to the different candidates upon their merits,

without regard to outside influence which this or that man might be able to secure. His mind was very full of these matters at the present time. It was a huge organization for which he was responsible. It was not easy to grasp at once all the details of its working; it required time to get to the bottom of the many intricate problems that were brought to them, and when, as was unfortunately the case last year, the time which they ought to have for quiet work in their offices in the autumn was broken into by an autumn session of Parliament the strain became very great, and it was increasingly difficult for a new Minister to make himself master, as he ought to be, of the work of the Department over which he was called upon to preside. In the discharge of this heavy duty it was a great happiness to him, and a great source of strength, to feel sure that he carried with him their support and confidence. (761)

Mr Birrell said his subject was one word-" Progress "-a word that was constantly on their lips, though, strictly speaking, it only meant moving on, as the policeman in "Bleak House" was always telling poor little Jo to do. Nevertheless, it was usually employed in a sense that implied improvement a moving away from something not so good to a something which at any rate was expected to prove a little better. In the same way, going back was generally accounted a bad thing. "The policy of the right hon. gentleman is a retrogressive policy, and, as such, is held in universal detestation by a free people "-he must have heard a sentence like that in some place or other. | But in whatever sense the "right hon." or other gentleman used the

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words progress and retrogression, this much was certain, that society, that great, mysterious body of associated human beings | living in unity and acting and reacting upon each other, this society did move on, whether it wished it or not. To go back was impossible, despite the rhetoric of his 'right hon. friend." They could not go back even if they wished to do so. They could not again breathe the atmosphere of the Plantagenets, or the Tudors, or the Stuarts. They could not think as their forefathers thought, believe as they believed, act as they acted-they must go forward, even though it be to their doom. The question was, therefore, not between movement or no movement. Movement of some sort and in some direction there must be. It was a question of the character of the movement. Was the world becoming day by day more fit for human habitation? Did its inhabitants grow better men and women, more or less capable of living wise and noble lives? |

(300)

Was Bristol, for example, in the true sense of the words, a humaner city, freer from deeds of darkness, shame, lust, cruelty, than it was 400 years ago, and was there good ground for hoping 400 years hence it would be a better place to be born into than it was to-day, and that the character of | Bristol men would consequently rank higher than ever? If they could answer these questions in the affirmative then they were believers in progress. If they compared a savage with that most distinguished man of science, Lord Kelvin, they could not doubt that as between the two there had been a growth of intelligence. But if they confined their attention to the better favoured races they would not be able to assume steady, continuous progress in the development of

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intelligence and character. Although knowledge had accumulated in Europe, the Greek Aristotle, who lived 300 years before Christ, still left on the minds of students the impression of a greater force of pure intelligence than any critical thinker who had succeeded him. If scholars were to be believed, Homer was still the prince of poets, the Greek tragedians remained unsurpassed, the dialogues of Plato still reached the high water mark of philosophical speculation, and Job, Solomon, David, in their several positions, remained untouched by time and unequalled in succeeding ages. What of individual character? Take the Old Testament or the Iliad, or Plutarch's Lives, and what struck the reader was not the dissimilarity of their characters, but their likeness. Great as the achievements of the Western World, anyone placing their achievements | side by side with what they were pleased to call those of antiquity, could see the works of the modern world did not exhibit intellectual superiority over those of the ancients. Some people might of course say "This is all sentimental nonsense. When we talk about progress we are not worrying about Aristotle and Homer and Sophocles, or about men's character in the olden time. When we talk about progress we mean good, honest, downright national progress. Better meals and more of them, better clothes for our backs, and boots for our feet at democratic prices; better houses to live in and fewer bad smells to be poisoned by, antiseptic treatment for our wounds, and anesthetics when we have our teeth out, cheap newspapers, cheap trams, cheap freights, more ways to London, cheap postage, cheap telegrams, cheap telephones, everything cheap except the rate of wages." These were all great things. (420)

(To be continued.)

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