/ ' * **? 7 THE CONSERVATIVE REVIEW MAY, 1899. No. 2. VOL. I, A QUESTION OF NATIONAL HONOR. By Hon. Williafm Henry Fleming. EVERY American citizen who values the honor of his country ought to acquaint himself with the facts re- garding our war with the Spaniards, recently ended, and our war with the Filipinos that is still in progress. We need not concern ourselves with all the details. A few salient points will serve to guide us, if we really wish to find the truth and are willing to face it when we find it. Strictly speaking, there was but one declaration of war by Congress, and yet, for all practical purposes, we have had two wars. The Spanish-American war, which began April 21, 1898, practically closed with the signing of the peace protocol, August 12, 1898. The American-Filipino war began on February 4, 1899, two days before the peace treaty of Paris was to come up for amendment and ratifica- tion in the United States Senate for there was never any intention to reject the treaty as a whole. The only amend- ment desired was one disclaiming permanent sovereignty by us over the Philippine Islands and promising ultimate independence to their inhabitants. In entering upon the war with Spain our country rose to a height of moral grandeur not surpassed in all history. The tender pain of sympathy for Cuba, joined to our righteous indignation at the murder of our sailors aboard the Maine, begat in the American heart a stern determination to break once and forever the chains of Spanish oppression in the 2 200 A Question of National Honor. Western Hemisphere. How swiftly and nobly this purpose was executed the whole world knows. The magnanimity of our people, the bravery of our sailors and soldiers, the splen- did victory of Dewey, the supreme self-sacrifice of Hobson, furnished fit material for an epic poem, heroic in every part. Under the ennobling influence of such achievements we had a right to expect that our Administration, in dealing with the Filipinos, would guard carefully the national good name and still further establish our moral leadership of the world. But therein we have been sorely disappointed. Whether we have gained in physical power may be open to difference of opinion, but that we have lost in moral prestige scarcely admits of a doubt. It is hard for us to repress a blush of shame when we look at the simple record of facts. The Filipinos had long been oppressed like the Cubans, and like the Cubans had rebelled. The destruction of Mon- ti jo's fleet gave us the mastery over Spain in eastern waters, but a Spanish army prevented us from capturing and hold- ing Manila. Dewey was a straightforward, honest-minded man who believed that the Administration at Washington would remain true to the plain declaration of Congress in beginning the war that we did not aim at the acquisition of territory by conquest. He therefore saw no impropriety in his making use of Aguinaldo and his followers to help con- quer Spain. In the consequent prospect of Filipino inde- pendence Dewey, as a liberty-loving American, found noth- ing to deter him from such purpose, but much to urge him on. Indeed, the first thought of this consummate tactician, thousands of miles away from American reinforcements, was no doubt to make prompt use of every available local means to strengthen his own position and weaken that of the enemy. Our consular officers, Pratt, Wildman and Wil- liams, agreed with him on that point, and so it was ar- ranged among them that Aguinaldo and seventeen other revolutionary chiefs, all of whom were then in Hong Kong, should return to the Philippines and put new life into the rebellion against Spain. Guns and ammunition were sup- plied by us, and Aguinaldo raised a large army and besieged Manila from the land side, and was largely instrumental in bringing about the conditions that forced the surrender of that city on August 14, 1898, after American reinforcements had reached Dewey, and two days after the signing of the peace protocol with Spain, but before the news of such sign- ing had reached Manila. Had the surrender of Manila been delayed until official information of the peace protocol had A Question of National Honor. 201 been communicated to Dewey he could not have attacked Manila, and thus our whole attitude toward Spanish pos- sessions in the East would have been far less advantageous than the one we were really enabled to assume in negotiat- ing the treaty of Paris. No one at all acquainted with the facts will deny that but for Aguinaldo's assistance to Dewey Manila could have held out long beyond the date of its sur- render on August 14, 1898. Nor did Aguinaldo confine himself to land operations. He secured ships which Admiral Dewey allowed "to pass in and out of Manila Bay in their expeditions against other provinces," according to the testimony of Major-General F. V. Greene, U. S. V. Thus Admiral Dewey and our consular representatives sanctioned the rebellion of the Filipinos against Spanish authority, and accepted and used them as our allies, and we profited by their services, our Government knowing all the time they were fighting for their independence with much the same hopefs and aspirations that animated our revolu- tionary soldiers in 1776. Newspapers of late have contained some thinly veiled complaints against Dewey for having "blundered" in hold- ing the relations that he did with Aguinaldo. But not so. He deserves no such criticisms. He knew nothing of the sinister purpose that was forming in the mind of our Ad- ministration to seize the Philippine Islands by conquest of arms in violation of the purpose declared by Congress at the beginning of the war. No doubt he found it difficult to understand exactly what was expected of him, for in one of his dispatches he insisted that our Government should "de- clare its policy." After the surrender of Manila on August 14, 1898, we had no further fighting with Spain. But the Filipinos kept up their aggressive warfare on Spanish troops in order to establish the independence for which they had from the first been contending. They captured arms and munitions and prisoners, and drove the Spanish soldiers from nearly every part of Philippine soil, except at Manila and Iloilo. The revolutionary government, under which they had accom- plished so much, was succeeded later on by a government more republican in form, modeled after our own as far as conditions would admit. With the fall of Manila the independence of the Filipinos aa against Spain was practically assured, and with grateful hearts they were ready to hail us as their heroic deliverers, 202 A Question of National Honor. and, no doubt, to reward us with any military or commer- cial advantages we could rightfully ask. They knew our Congress in going to war had declared against the acquisi- tion of territory by conquest. They knew our past history was one glorious struggle for liberty and the equality of man before the law. They knew our Republic rested on the broad principle that all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. They knew we had promised independence to Cuba, thousands of miles nearer to our shores. They knew that their own arms had helped us to conquer Spain. As showing their expectations and their confidence in us, note the following extract from Aguinaldo's proclamation of May 28, 1898: "The great nation, North America, cradle of true liberty and friendly on that account to the liberty of our people, oppressed and subjugated by the tyranny and despotism of those who have governed us, has come to manifest even here a protection which is decisive as well as disinterested toward us, considering us endowed with sufficient civiliza- tion to govern by ourselves this unhappy island." What a disillusioning revelation it must have been to these patriots when they found out that our great liberty- loving republic was rushing troops half-way around the world to crush out of existence their young republic whick had sprung into being as an inspiration from our own high ideals. The case stated to a point is simply this : The Fili- pinos asked us for our consent to their independence. We refused. Hence the American-Filipino war. That is the "nub" of the whole business. Readers (if there be any) of the debates appearing in the Congressional Record toward the close of the last session, will be put to their wits' end to harmonize the seemingly contradictory statements contained in many of the speeches pro and con on the subject of our relations to Aguinaldo and his followers. Opponents of the Administration's policy quote freely from the letters of our consuls showing the agreements made and partly acted out with Aguinaldo. Sup- porters of that policy cite the dispatches from our State De- partment refusing to make any promises, etc. The apparent contradiction is easily explained. It is only a matter of fixing the dates of the several transactions. In the early stages of the war with Spain our Consuls and Dewey freely accepted the services of the Filipinos as our allies, knowing they were fighting for independence, of which our State Department was fully cognizant, and this course of dealing A Question of National Honor. 203 continued until reinforcements reached Dewey and our Ad- ministration conceived and began to put into gradual exe- cution the purpose of grabbing the Philippine Islands as a prize of war. After that time our State Department began to "disapprove" and hold aloof. It was then and thus that Filipinos were transformed from friends into enemies and from patriots into rebels. One of the earliest of these cautionary dispatches was sent to Consul General Pratt on June 16, 1898, as follows: "Avoid unauthorized negotiations with Philippine insur- gents." Another was sent to Consul Wildman on August 6, 1898: "If you wrote Aguinaldo as reported by Hong Kong corre- spondent Daily Mail, your action is disapproved and you are forbidden to make pledges or discuss policies." Again, on August 15, 1898: "Take no action respecting Aguinaldo without specific directions from this depart- ment." But this change of policy came too late. While no one claims that we had made any precise or technical agreement with the Filipinos, yet all must admit that our general rela- tions to them had already become fixed by our own conduct, and no word of future caution to our Consuls could absolve us from obligations previously assumed toward the Fili- pinos. There is abundance of proof to sustain this state- ment. Note, for instance, the following extract from a pub- lic speech by our Consul General Pratt at Singapore, June 8, 1898, in response to a complimentary address from the Filipino colony at that place. "I am thankful to have been the means, though merely the accidental means, of bringing about the arrangement between General Aguinaldo and Admiral Dewey which has resulted so happily." In a communication to the Secretary of the Navy, dated June 27, 1898, Dewey speaks for himself as follows : "At the same time I have given him [Aguinaldo] to under- stand that I consider insurgents as friends, being opposed to a common enemy. He has gone to attend a meeting of in- surgent leaders for the purpose of forming a civil govern- ment. Aguinaldo has acted independently of the squadron, but has kept me advised of his progress, which has been wonderful. I have allowed to pass by water recruits, arms and ammunition, and to take such Spanish arms and ammu- nition from the arsenal as he needed. Have advised fre- 204 A Question of National Honor. quently to conduct the war humanely, which he has done invariably." From another high authority, speaking from personal ob- servation, we learn that for four months prior to October, 1898, "in and out of the harbor of Manila vessels passed floating the flag of the Philippine Republic saluting and being saluted by American men-of-war." And Major General F. V. Greene, in his testimony before the United States Commissioners at Paris, said, referring to Aguinaldo and his troops: "The United States Government has to some extent made use of them for a distinct military purpose, viz: to harrasa and annoy the Spanish troops, to wear them out in the trenches, to blockade Manila on the land side, and to do as much damage as possible to the Spanish government prior to the arrival of our troops." On July 4, 1898, just four days after the arrival of the first detachment of American troops in the Philippines, General Anderson, who was in command, addressed a letter to Agui- naldo as "Commanding the Philippine Forces," and after assuring him that the United States "has entire sympathy and most friendly sentiments for the native people of the Philippine Islands," said: "For these reasons I desire to have the most amicable re- lations with you, and to have you and your people co-operate with us in military operations against the Spanish forces." From August 14, 1898, when the Spanish forces at Manila Burrendered, to February 4, 1899, when the actual hostilities of the American-Filipino war began, the two armies re- mained side by side, or more accurately, perhaps, face to face. The important question to answer is, why did these armies come into conflict? Why should these recent allies in arms against a defeated foe turn their guns upon each other? Were the Filipinos in rebellion against the United States? No. Aguinaldo had taken no oath of allegiance to ws, a* Washington had taken to England, and until the ratifica- tion of the treaty of peace we had no proprietary rights at all in their islands, except in the limited territory we occu- pied with our troops, and even that they helped us to win* Did we condemn their rebellion against Spain? By no means. We approved and aided it. Were they attempting to drive our troops from off the strip of land occupied by them, or were they committing outrages within their own A Question of National Honor. 205 lines that demanded redress at our hands? Certainly not. What then did the Filipinos demand? Simply that we should consent to their independence. That was the head and front of their offending. They would have gladly accepted our friendly assistance in preserving order and establishing a stable government, and would have welcomed an American protectorate with whatever concessions it implied. As early as April 30, 1898, Consul General Pratt wrote our State Department as fol- lows: "The General (Aguinaldo) further stated that he hoped the United States would assume protection of the Philip- pines for at least long enough to allow the inhabitants to establish a government of their own, in the organization of which he would desire American advice and assistance." In the proclamation of June 23, 1898, establishing the Revolutionary Government, it was distinctly announced that its "object is to struggle for the independence of the Philip- pines until all nations, including the Spanish, shall ex- pressly recognize it, and to prepare the country so that a true republic may be established." There was never a day when all danger of a clash be- tween the American and the Filipino armies could not have been averted by a simple statement from our Administration that we did not intend to subjugate them, but to aid them to independence. Astute diplomats may seek to cover it up; shrewd politicians may try to turn public attention away from it, but the plain truth remains that it was our refusal to consent to the ultimate independence of the Filipinos that was the cause of the conflict of arms that began at Manila on February 4, 1899. It is equally true that the re- sponsibility for the bloodshed that followed must rest on our Administration unless it can justify that refusal. Agui- naldo's object was independence. McKinley's purpose was subjugation. Which was right? That is the question to be answered before the bar of public opinion now and here- after. As to who were the immediate aggressors in beginning the firing on the night of February 4, there seems to be some dispute. Our dispatches naturally tended to put the blame on the Filipinos, but the wires were under our censor- ship. When our soldiers return home and are mustered out and feel free to talk we will doubtless get much more light on that subject. The writer has seen a letter from an Amer- ican officer engaged in the first fighting between Manila 206 A Question of National Honor. and Caloocan, in which he said: "The worst of it is, the fighting began from our ranks." By what standard of morality will our imperialists seek to justify our conduct toward the Filipinos? Certainly not by that highest of all codes of ethics which the Great Teacher enjoined upon his followers when he went up into the Mount and spake as man never yet spake. If the stand- ard enjoined by divine revelation be too high for human virtue, will they appeal to our own political sermon on the Mount, the Declaration of Independence? We hear them every day, in their hopeless extremity, repudiating the long accepted truths of that immortal document. Can they find excuse in the truths of science as discovered by human rea- son? Some of the master minds in that realm have demon- strated that the highest civilization will some day be reached through natural evolution of the golden rule, when egoism will flower out into altruism. One of the latest gen- eralizations of science finds expression in these pregnant words: "That the moral law is the unchanging law of progress in human society is the lesson which appears to be written over all things." So that, whether we follow the light of reason or the light of revelation, we arrive at the same conclusion as to the wisdom of moral conduct. The true measure of a people's civilization is found in their re- gard for the rights of others. Loyalty to country is noble, but loyalty to country and to truth is nobler still. Commodore Decatur, at a banquet at Norfolk in 1816, gave his famous toast: "Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong." Then the sol- dier spoke. Hon. Carl Schurz, in the United States Senate in 1872 said: "Our country right or wrong! When right, to be kept right! When wrong, to be put right!" Then the statesman spoke. Some men never see the truth in this higher form. Their miscalled practical wisdom is too shortsighted to discover it. It lies just beyond the contracted circle of their vision. Judging from articles, editorial and otherwise, in the daily press, one would infer that there are many people in the United States who view the acquisition of the Philippines as parallel in political significance to the acquisition of Louisi- ana. No half truth could be farther from the whole truth. The taking of that vacant domain in the temperate zone rep- resented genuine American expansion, because American citizens could make homes there, rear families, and develop A Question of National Honor. 207 the same sturdy civilization, based on equality of rights, that existed in the older States. But our American citizens our white race cannot make permanent homes as far down in the tropics as the Philippine Islands, already thickly populated with an acclimated race, nor have our imperial- istic politicians any intention of giving the Filipinos the full and equal rights of other American citizens. A promi- nent physician, now residing in California, who graduated eight years ago from the University of Leiden, in his native country of Holland, and who is familiar with Dutch Colonial affairs, writes in a recent letter: "In the Dutch East Indies Europeans only survive to the second generation. A third generation is unknown." That the imperialists have no in- tention of benevolently expanding American equality of citizenship so as to embrace the Filipinos, nor of making the Philippine Islands a co-equal part of our country, is mani- fest from the following extract, taken from the McEnery resolution, that passed the Senate on February 14, 1899, by the vote of the Administration party: Resolved, etc., "That by the ratification of the treaty of peace with Spain, it is not intended to incorporate the in- habitants of the Philippine Islands into citizenship of the United States, nor is it intended to permanently annex said islands as an integral part of the territory of the United States," thus attempting to reverse the legal and constitutional results of what they had done in ratifying the treaty without amendment. In other words, we Americans will not concede to the Filipinos the rights that pertain to American independence, nor will we permit them to have their own independence; which, being further translated into plain words, means, the Philippine Islands are to be neither States nor territories, but colonial dependencies, governed, in defiance of our own Constitution, by a military satrap at the will of an alien power. Evidently this is not the extension of American- ism, but the adoption of a new policy foreign to every prin- ciple of Americanism. Expansion means the enlarging of the same thing, not the taking on of a different thing. No one but a blind man ought to have any difficulty in dis- tinguishing between the expansion of Jefferson and the imperialism of McKinley. One was the natural evolution- ary growing of the Republic. The other is a foreign fungus that, if not removed, will sap the life of the Republic. Our diplomatic difficulties in connection with the Philip- pines were largely of our own creation. Had our Adininis- 208 A Question of National Honor. tration not yielded to the greed of conquest, had it only acknowledged the right of the Filipinos to ultimate inde- pendence, the complexity of the situation would have re- solved itself into comparative simplicity. The course of wisdom was to be found in the course of simple honesty, and that was the independence of the Filipino Republic under friendly American protection. Their government, already in existence, could soon have been made, with our assistance, stable and effective. Indeed, considering the environments, the islands were singularly free from disorder, and Agui- naldo was hailed as a popular hero save by Spanish and American sympathizers and would, no doubt, have fur- nished in his own person that individual pre-eminence of some one man that seems so necessary in every movement to build up a popular government on the ruins of a des- potism. A free government evolved by the intelligent na- tive classes out of local conditions and suited to local needs, would ensure more of life and vigor to the native races (if that be our pious object) than any domination we can im- pose on them. There is deep wisdom in the statement of Macintosh that, "Governments are not made; they grow." From that truth springs the whole philosophy of local self- government. Our imperialistic apologists must seek some justification before the bar of public opinion they still feel the necessity of paying that homage to virtue and hence they tell us that this weak republic in the East would be a prey to European rapacity. This tender solicitude is in strange contrast to the assault we ourselves have made upon the flag of that republic, and the wretched slaughterings that have been committed there. If a European power should attempt to seize the Philippines now, we would have to fight that power and the Filipinos. Whereas, had we consented to their independence our joint forces could have met the at- tack. If we convert ten million friends into ten million enemies, our position is weakened by twenty millions. It is just as hard to see any military advantage that we have gained by our breach of faith with these people as it is to see the commercial advantages we are to reap from that "open door" trade arrangement, by which competitors nearer the field, with lower freight charges, can undersell us, and by which we are to give the Eastern world an instructive object-lesson against our high protective tariff policy, to the infinite delight of our English cousins, and to the utter disgust of our home consumers, when the market-price of A Question of National Honor. 209 competitive articles at New York shall be higher than at Manila. The attitude of our imperialistic preachers and newspa- pers is one of the most surprising phenomena of the war. Some of these representatives of the lowly Nazarene evince a boastful spirit of world-grasping political ambition, and a callous indifference to the blood-letting going on in the Philippines that would better typify Pagan Eome than Christian America. These good men, no doubt, have per- suaded themselves gradually into the belief that they are affected only by a sincere desire to promote the mission-work of the Gospel. But in diagnosing their cases, one can scarcely fail to discover, as a subtle irritant to their mis- taken fervor, a latent desire, (of which they are, of course, unconscious), to strike a blow at another church which at least acknowledges the same Grod and the same Saviour. Nothing can beget a higher elevation of soul than a broad and charitable acceptance of the religion of Christ. But nothing is more destructive to wise political action than religious fanaticism and sectarian contention. Religious freedom in the Philippines was an assured thing when Spain's power was broken, and the denial of inde- pendence to the Filipino Republic, with the consequent laughter of Filipino patriots by American soldiers, must surely retard the efforts of our Protestant missionaries to gain a favorable hearing for a new religion or a new church against the old. From what text in the Bible could one of our missionaries now preach a sermon to the Filipinos, without either condemning the conduct of his own countrj or provoking a smile of derision from his hearers? He might enthuse over the exalted precepts of Christianity, but he would not dare to try to enforce them by citing our example as a Christian nation. If the rewards and punishments of moral laws attach to- nations as to individuals, we will have to pay a penalty for our conduct toward the Filipinos. That penalty will come not only in lives and treasure, but in the blunting of our national conscience and in the lowering of our political ideals, which always help to lift a people out of the mud, even though they may not raise a people to the stars. The conclusion of the whole matter is that while our sol- diers, ever obedient to orders, and bravel in the face of perils, are winning the plaudits which the world always gives to heroism, our Administration is writing one of the 210 A Question of National Honor. most shameful chapters in the whole history of American statesmanship. The people of the United States still have it in their power to regain much that has been lost. Let them stop this un- righteous war and recognize the independence of the Fili- pino Kepublic. Such an act would not be evidence of cow- ardice, but proof of a love of justice. Our Administration needs less party pride, more genuine patriotism, and a higher type of moral courage the courage to do right. THE BROWNING LETTERS. By Georgina G. Buckler. 1. The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, 1845-1846, with Portraits and Fac-similes. In two volumes. Harper & Brothers, New York: 1899. <* A MAN'S foes shall be they of his own household." This jLJL is one's first reflection upon the extraordinary un- veiling which Mr. Robert Barrett Browning has made to us of the inner life of his father and mother. We ask ourselves how the son of the man who wrote "House," of the man whose proud boast it was to have a "soulside" shown only to the woman whom he loved, could bring himself to expose that soulside to the public view; or how the son of a woman who refused a dedication from her husband because she could not bear to have words from him "which the world might listen to" could let that same world read the words which of all others she held most sacred. The unveiling is astounding, take it as we may. Whether or no we regard the end as having justified the means is another question, and will be answered by each reader according to his tem- perament. Yet a further point may be raised in the inquiry, whether even if justifiable this publication was or was not expedient, that is to say, whether it heightens or diminishes our respect for the poet-lovers. Does the code of literary honor suffer? And if so, does the cause of literature gain? It will be easier to answer these two inquiries after a brief statement of what the letters really are. In two thick volumes Mr. Robert Barrett Browning has given us 286 love letters written by his father, all, in fact, except one which was restored to and burnt by him, and the complete 296 from his mother. They range over a period of twenty months, from January 10, 1845, to September 19, 1846. Those of the first four months mark an earnest at- tempt, on her side at least, after a Platonic friendship. Browning, then a man of over thirty, and by his own show- ing anxious to retain his bachelor freedom, opened the corre- spondence by writing to praise her verses, but in a few days 212 The Browning Letters. he was relying on her letters as his greatest help to work. She, though "rejoicing" in being "articled" as his "corre- spondent," after three weeks' acquaintance by letter, and owning to "great sympathies in common," yet had for her ambition, as she tells him on February 24, 1846, that he should forget she was a woman and let them "be friends." Her delicate health, coupled with her fame as a poet, served for many weeks to blind her to the most obvious of all possi- bilities. When it became a fact, and when Browning after many entreaties obtained an interview with her on May 20, 1845, and on the strength of this one conversation wrote asking her to marry him, she appears to have been genuinely distressed. The offending document was returned, and for some months the letters and interviews proceed on a less emotional basis. But before the close of 1845 marriage is spoken of by both of them as a definite arrangement, of which only the date depended on her health. From this time onward we have love letters pure and simple, showing a steady crescendo of devotion on both sides. The last eighteen were written by the pair in the week between their secret marriage, noted down by Browning as their ninety- first time of meeting, and their flight from London. After September 19, 1846, they were never separated, and the let- ters accordingly cease. As we put down this bulky corre- spondence, it is amusing to remember Browning's words in his second letter, January 13, 1844: "See how I go on and on to you, I who, whenever now and then pulled, by the head and hair, into letter-writing, get sorrowfully on for a line or two, as the cognate creature urged on by stick and string, and then come down 'flop' upon the sweet haven of page one, line last, as serene as the sleep of the virtuous!" To her letter- writing was always a pleasure, though, as a matter of course, her energies forsook former channels when this new one was once established and old correspondents became a burden. Now, whatever else may be claimed for this publication, it is certainly unique. Among the married couples who have kept all each other's love letters, there has hitherto never been found one either with letters of sufficient exter- nal interest to justify publication, or with a son inclined to publish them. Here for the first time in all experience we have the opportunity of tracing the entire course of a love affair other than our own. "Love as she is wrote" has come before the eyes of most of us, but never from the pens of two total strangers. That they are dead does not free us from The Browning Letters. 213 the sense of shame-faced amazement with which we listen to their love-making and read the deepest secrets of their hearts. Amazement is, however, not altogether an unpleasant sensation, and even shame may have its compensations. It is here that individual differences of temperament come in. To some the feeling of having profaned the Mysteries will be swallowed up in truly sympathetic interest. To others the sense of treading on forbidden ground makes even inter- est seem an outrage. Of course, many of these letters might have been published without exciting any such comment. By a judicious selection the reader's interest might have been equally roused, and his self-reproach as an eavesdrop- per avoided. Any autobiography of nearly 1,200 pages is likely to contain much that would be better omitted, and in this instance, before the end of the two volumes, the reader's sense of intrusiveness is heightened by weariness and sur- feit. The conjugation of the verb "to love" has been much the same since the world began, and not even a poet and a poetess can rob it of its monotony. It is true that this con- stitutes half the book and more. But if all the love-making were omitted and such parts only preserved as the writers would themselves have consented to see published, we should have a small volume full of true literary and not morbid interest. Mrs. Browning herself, though valuing letters "as the most vital part of biography," qualified this statement by saying, "not that I would not myself destroy papers of mine which were sacred to me for personal rea- sons." Browning goes further, and cries out against pos- thumous revelations which lay bare "these passions of the now passionless, errors of the at length better instructed," and even more tersely and decisively he says: "Burn any- body's real letters." In ignoring these clear wishes of his parents, Mr. Robert Barrett Browning shows his preference for the Fifth Commandment as stated in dough's "Latest Decalogue," and his hope for "advancement" in some shape from an inquisitive and unsensitive public. He will prob- ably get it. So far the question has merely been, what moral right a man has to publish the secrets of the dead. If this right is denied at the outset, our obvious duty is to leave the book unread, so as not to profit by the crime. If, however, we admit the privilege of the literary executor to use his own discretion, our criticism becomes one rather of differing taste than of Wholesale censure. The book leaves on us a pleas- 214 The Browning Letters. ant or unpleasant sensation, according as curiosity or deli- cacy prevail. But beyond the question of taste we saw also the question of expediency. What are likely to be the feel- ings of the reader as he lays down the book? Will he ad- mire the styles, thoughts and characters of Mr. and Mrs. Browning more or less than he did before? In the first place, no one could fail to take a quickened interest in the life and circumstances of the two lovers. Most people know from the biographies that Elizabeth Bar- rett, in consequence of an accident at the age of fourteen, was leading a dreary invalid's life within closed doors, when Kobert Browning's strong devotion that would take no denial roused her almost against her will into a second birth of life and love. Never were there two gems of more differ- ent quality, or shown in more different settings. Browning stands before us first and last as the ideal Prince Charm- ing strong in health, except for the headaches which give Miss Barrett so much cause for delightful anxiety endowed with "serene spiritual eyes" and other personal attractions; the polished and versatile favorite of society, though caring little for it; the idol of an excellent father, mother and sis- ter, who ask no inconvenient questions and are never jealous; the author of poems increasingly appreciated and increasingly remunerative; in short, a man so highly blest by nature and the world that it only needed the supreme blessing of a worthy and requited love to complete the whole. This he was destined to find in Elizabeth Barrett, the very complement to all his characteristics. Miss Barrett seems to have been, until she came under his influence, ignorant of the meaning of happiness. She say& herself, in March, 1845: "I have lived only inwardly, or with sorrow for a strong emotion." Even the external cir- cumstances of her life were depressing. Her mother had been long dead. Her father, who might well stand for a Brutus or a traditional English parental tyrant, only ap- pears in her life as a monster of severity and selfishness. He excites at best a sort of shuddering affection, and his rare caresses are irksome because his harshness drives all his children into deceiving him. He was insanely opposed to his daughters' marrying, and the very idea of openly thwarting him terrified Elizabeth, than whom no one could have been more sensitive about outside opinions, into a se- cret engagement and an elopement. The reader is left won- dering whether the sister Henrietta, who afterwards achieved matrimony herself, cut her Gordian knot as Gaylord Bros. Makers Syracuse, N. Y PAT. JAN. 21,1908