LITERATURE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15820, 19 July 1913, Page 14

LITERATURE.

Special Beviews, and GleaniDgs from Various Sources.

"COLD IN THE HEAD."

A CHAPTER ON DREAMS,

By Constant Reams.

I had- meditated a second article on' " The Handicaps of W. E. Henley," who not only, as I ventured to point out a week or two back, was an unconquerable soul, but was also an unsuccessful journalist and an unappreciated poet. I had just got my ideas in nice order under the i second", heading when, one of the doors in the Palace of Night having been left ajar, out of the cavern escaped " Cold in the j Head," which, although one of the' smallest of the Sicknesses, paid me such assiduous attention that, what with sneezing, coughing, and blowing my nose, my nicely arranged ideas speedily took their departure, Dr C. W. Saleeby, in his book on " Modern Surgery and Its Making," quotes Pasteur as saying: ''It is in the power of man to make all parasitic diseases disappear from the earth"— a very appropriate dictum in view of the smallpox scare in Sydney and in the North Island; Rene Vallery Radot, in his " Life of Pasteur," mentions the curious fact: "In England in the eighteenth century, before Jenner's discovery, attempts had been made at the direct inoculation of smallpox. In some historical and medical Researches on Vaccine, published in 1803, Hnsson relates that the King of England, wishin.fr to have the members of his family inoculated, begaii by having the method tried on six criminals condemned to death; they were all saved and the Royal Family submitted to inoculation." This by the way, however. Commenting on Pasteur's declaration that man has the .power to banish all parasitic diseases, Dr Saleeby says: —

The time has already come when, we may say that the words are being justified. The parasitic diseases are being made to disappear from the earth, and the twentieth century will substantially achieve the consummation devoutly to be wished for, which the nineteenth century, and Louis Pasteur above all other men, provided that knowledge which i<s power. Since Pasteur's time the tropical diseases have been investigated on his lines, and their ezternimaiion waits upon human volition alone. We underv stand and can control cholera and ' plague, malaria and yellow fever and sleeping sickness. Pastevrr'6 greatest pupil, Robert Koch, found the tubercle bacillus in 1881, a date which therefore marks the beginning of the end of the most deadly of all diseases. At the other end of the scale one may obtain relief from, even the" common cold" by means of an appropriate serum—not to mention the surgeon's possibilities in remedying the nasal errors which encourage the micro-coccus catarrhalis. There" is no end whatever to the services present and to come of this saviour of mankind.

What Maeterlinck pleasantly symbolises as " Cold in the Head." and what science severely casses as the "Micro-coccus catarrhalis," at present holds me firmly in his or her grip—l am not sure of the gender of the intruder, and no appropriate "serum" was, in my case ; forthcoming. On the contrary, I inclined towards the less scientific but homelier remedies immortalised by M3rk Twain m his unforgettable sketch entitled " Curing a Cold." I am not prepared to pledge my word of honour that, the treatment therein described is identical' in every particular with that I ara at present undergoing; but the quotation serves to 6<othe my troubled mind and exactly siuts my mood: —

The first time I began to sneeze a. friend told me to bathe my feet in hot water and go to bed. I did so. Shortly afterwards another fHend advised me to get up and. take a cold shower bath. I did that also. Within an hour another friend assured me that it was policy to "feed a cold and starve a fever." I had both. So I thought it best to fill myself up for the cold and then keep dark and let the fever starve awhile. In a case of this kind I seldom do things by halves. I ate pretty heartily; I conferred my custom upon a 6tranger who had just opened his restaurant that morning; he waited near ine in Tespcetful silence until I had finished feeding my cold, when he* inquired if the people about Virginia were much afflicted iwth colds. I told him I thought they yere. He went out and took in his sign. 1 started down towards the office, and on the way encountered another bosom friend, who told me that a quart of salt water taken warm would come as near curing a cold as anything 'in the world. I hardly thought I had room for'it, but I tried it anyhow. Tlie result was surprising. I believed I had thrown up my immortal, soul.

Now, as I am giving my experience only for the benefit of those who are troubled with the distemper, I am writing about, I feel that they will see the propriety of my cautioning them against following such portions of it as proved inefficient with me, and acting upon this conviction I warn them against warm salt water. It may be a good enough remedy, but I think it is too severe. If I had another cold in the head, and there was no course left me but to talfe either an earthquake or a quart of warm salt water, I would take my chances on the earthquake. After the storm which had been raging in my stomach had subsided, and no more good Samaritans happening along, I went on borrowing handkerchiefs again and blowing them to atoms, as had been my custom in the early stages of my cold, until I came across a lady who had just arrived from over the plains, and who said she had lived in a part of the country where doctors were scarce, and had from necessity acquired considerable skill in the treatment of simple "family complaints." I knew she must have had much experience, for she appeared to be 150 years old. She mixed a decoction composed of molasses,, aqua fortis, turpentine, and various other drugs, and instructed me io take a wine-glassful of it every 15 minutes. I never took but one dose; that was enough; it.robbed me of all moral principle, and awoke every un-, worthly impulse of my nature. At the end of two days I took a few more unfailing remedies, and finally drove my cold from my head to my lungs. I got to coughing incessantly, and my voice fell below zero. I conversed in a thundering bass, two octaves below my natural tone. I could only compass my regular nightly repose by coughing myself down to a state of utter exhaustion, and then the moment I began to talk in my sleep my discordant voice; woko rne up again. My case grew more and more seriouß every day. . . I finally concluded to visit San Francisco, and the first day I got there a lady at the hotel told me to drink a quart of whisky every 24 hours, and a friend up town recomiiended me precisely the same course. Each advised me to take a quart; that made half a gallon. I did it, and still live.

2\ow, with the kindest motives in the world I offer for the consideration of consumptive paiients the variegated ceurse of treatment. I have lately gone through. Let them try it; if it don't cure it can't more than kill them.

I plead guilty to adopting at least part of Mark Twain's preliminary treatment— I went to bed. I am a great believer in what an old family physician was wont to call "the equable temperature of bed." At the same time thero is a world of truth in Mr E. V. Lucas's sage remark: "Breakfast in bed is not the joy some persons would have ns think it—there are crumbs." Oscar Wilde immortalised himself in his essay on "The Decay of Lying," bat there is room for yet another essay on "The Decay of Lying in Bed." Mr 6. K. Chesterton baa tried his hand in this direction, but with not too great success, although suae of Ms observations axe worth reproducing. For instance, he writes—the essay es included in "Tremendous Trifle! ".a " Ear those who study, the

great art of lying in bed tihere is one emphatic caution to be added. Even for those who can do their work in bed (like joumalists)J still more for those whose work cannot be done in bed (as for example the professional harpooners of whales), it is obvious that the indidgence must be very occasional. But that is not the caution I mean, g The Caution is this: If you do lie in bed be sure you do it without any reason or justification at all. I do not speak, of course, of the seriously sick. But if a healthy man lies in bed let him do it without a rag of excuse, , then he will get up a healthy man. If he I does it for some secondary hygienic reasop, if he has some scientific explanation, he may get up a hypochondriac." Mr Chesterton supports his main theory with the following interesting argument :—

The tone now commonly taken towards the practice of lying in bed is hypocritical and unhealthy. Of all the marks of modernity that seem to mean a kind of decadence there is none more menacing and dangerous than the exaltation of very small and secondary matters of conduct at the expense of very great and primary ones, at the expense of eternal ties and tragic human morality.. If there is one thing worse than the modern weakening of major morals it is the modern strengthening of minor morals. Thus it is considered more withering to accuse a man of bad taste than of bad ethics. Cleanliness is not next to godliness now-a-days, for cleanliness is made an essential, and godliness is regarded as an. offence. A playwright can attack the institution of marriage so long as he does not misrepresent the manners of society. And I have met Ibsenite pessimists who ■ thought it wrong to take beer, but right to take prussic acid. Especially this. is. so in matters of hygiene; notably, such matters as lying in bed. Instead of being regarded as it ought to be, as a matter of personal convenience and adjustment, it has come to be regarded by many as if it were a part of essential morals to pet up early in the morning. It is, upon the whole, part of practical wisdom ; but there is nothing good or bad about its opposite. Misers got up early in the morning, and burglars, I am bformed, get up the night before. It is the great peril of our society that all its mechanism may grow more iked while its epirit grows more fickle. A man's minor actions and arrangements ought to be free, flexible, creative; the things that should be unchangeable are his principles, his ideals. But with us the reverse is true; our views change constantly; but our lunch does not change. .Now, I should like men to have strong and rooted conceptions ; but as for their lunch, let them have it sometimes in the garden, sometimes on the roof, sometimes on the top' of a tree. Let them argue from Ihe same first principles, but let them do it in a bed or in a boat or a balloon. This alarming growth of good habits really means a too great emphasis on those virtues which mere custom can ensure, it means too little emphasis on those virtues which custom can iii:«v:' quite ensure, sudden and splendid virtues of inspired pity or inspired candour. If ever that'abrupt appeal is made to us we may fail. A man can get used to getting up ta 5 o'clock in the morning; a man cannot very well get used to bein" burnt lor his opinions. The first experiment is commonly fatal, i.et us pay a little more attention to those possibilities of the heroic and unexpected. I dare say that when I get out of this bed I shall do some deed of an almost terrible virtue.

Mr Chesterton is on the right lines when deprecating the conventional idea in regard to lying in bed. The thought that to lie in bed is wrong goes far to destroy the benefits to be derived from "an altogether perfect and supreme experience." Probably when one is forced by sickness to take to one's bed the sense of wrongdoing in the act goes far to hinder recovery. Given the proper conditions, bed may be made a delightful place—despite the crumbs. For instance, amid the differing circumstances under which "Browsing in Bookland" can be pursued, nothing can excel or surpass the delight of browsing in bed. Here I call my old friend ""Hgornet" to witness. It is a long time since I took him off the shelf, and a 6 I turn the pages to find the wanted extract my eyes linger lovingly on m3ny favourite passages:—

I read in bed—in fact, there are cer-

tain books which I do not care to ceruse elsewhere. Time and again, when sleep hour has struck, have I scanned my shelves in doubt as to what volume

I should carry to my bedroom. Usually I have come ■ back to the same select few. Thackeray has named " Mon-

taigne's Essays" and "Howell's Letters" as companionable bed-books. As to the latter, I agree; but the former has always' been difficult to me. I realise that "he is charming, but foT me he has no charm. Which, then, are my bed books?

Thackeray himself holds an honoured

place. "The Roundabout Papers" were born for bed-reading; so were. "The Four Georges'-'; so, too, his "Letters." No one knows how to chat as well as he did, and often has he talked me to

sleep. For I read until my eyes will no longer keep open, until I no longer understand my author, until the words run one into the other, then close the volume and extinguish the candle; no gas or electric glare for me. I know no line of reason which I apply to my bed-reading, which is ruled by reason just as much as is the worldarid no more. I read, no matter how late be the hour at which I go to rest. On the other hand often I have betaken myself to. bed, preferring to read there to" doing so in my armchair. In winter, of all seasons, is" bed-reading commendable. How cosy a warm bed, a soft pillow, a glowing fire, my candle, and my book. Let no man say he has exhausted the pleasures of life who has not read in bed on a frosty night. As to women, I do not fancy bed-books ap peal to them—at least so I judge from the replies of the few to whom I have ventured to speak on the subject; women are Beldom literary browsers. Once even I read right through the night, the book "The Virginians." The early dawn—it was summer—knocked at my window, and bade me extinguish my little light, which I did, read on, rose at my accustomed hour, and none the worse. Probably none the better. Certainly I had done well. Had I slept I might have dreamt of what, who can tell? Better a good book in the hand than a bad dream in the brain.

As a boy, in common with all other boys, I had dinned into my eaTs the ancient adage, "Early to bed and early to riso makes a man healthy, wealthy, and triee," an adage founded on a fallacy, as the boy when he frrows to be a man invariably 'discovers, k the charming but seldom read essay on "The Casuistry of Roman Meals"—Low comes it that Do Quincey is so shockingly neglected?—the 14 volumes o! his works aire an inexhaustible store for the student, to say nothing of Professor Masson's notes— De Quincey enlarges delightfully on his owm quaint sentence, "Everywhere the ancients went to bed like good boys from 7to 9 o'clock." Bichard Maddleton— in many respects akin to De Quincey, and certainly a sharer of his almost matchless prose his posthumous papers, recently issued under title " The Day Before" Yesterday," writes most charmingly " On Going to Bed": —

When the winter fiTes were burning their merriest in the grates, or when the summer sun was melting to crimson shadows down in the western fields, we, pressing our noses on the window panes in peaceable discussion of _the day's cricket, or dreaming our quiet dreams on the playroom (loot, would hear a heart-breaking pronouncement fall tunelessly from the lips of the Olympians, "Come, children: it is time yon were in bed." It needed no more than Hint .to bring ont hearts to zero with a run and set our lips quivering in elotuxeat

of darkness.

Roll in on the souls of men;

creep Under tiie waters of sleep?

but supremely useless protest. Against this decree there was, we knew, no appeal; and we pleaded our hopeless cause rather from habit than from any expectation of success. And even while we uttered passionate expressions of our individual wakefulness and vowed our impatience for the coming of that golden age.when we should be allowed to sit up all night, we were collecting the honoured toys that shared our beds, in mournful recognition of the inevitable. It was not that we had any great objection to bed in itself, but that fate always decreed that bed-time should fall in the brightest hour of the day. . . ... . And, even while we were thrilling to find that our normal environment could prove so amusing, the Olympians would realise our existence in their remote eyries of. thought and would send us, stricken with barren germs of revolt, to our uneventful beds. . ...''. .In winter time the bedroom ■ would seem cold after tlie comfortable kingdom' of the hearthrug, and the smell of scented' soap, was a poor substitute for the friendly fragrance of burning logs. So we would undress as quickly as possible and lie cuddled up in the chilly bedclothes holding our own cold feet in uor hands as if they belonged to somebody else. But if it happened that one of us had a bad cold, and there was a (ire in the bedroom, we would keep high festival, sitting in solemn palaver round the camp fire and toasting our pink toes like- Arctic explorers, while the invalid lay in bed crowing over Ids black currant tea or hot lemonade. It was pleasant, too, when natural weariness had driven us to our beds to lie there and watch the firelight laughing on the walls; and the invalid for the time being was rather a popular person.

It needed a man like Middleton, with his wonderful understanding of, and deep love for, children, to point out the tremendous injustice under which the modern child labours in comparison with the children of the ancients. In Caesar's day everybody—man, woman, and child—went to bed early simply because they could not afford candles. This brings out my point— a point Mr Chesterton failed to make clear—that getting up and going to bed belong not to the moral virtues but are rather the outcome of economic causes. I quote De Quincey in support of my argument—not so much perhaps because I am in love with the argument, but because I desire to put De Quincey in proximity with Middleton that the style and finish of their sentences may be mutually discerned :—

Now, it was a principle of ancient warfare that every Hour of daylight had a triple worth as valued against hours

That was one reason—a

reason suggested by the understanding. But there was a second reason, far more remarkable; and this was a reason suggested by blind necessity. It is an important fact that this planet on which we live, this little industrious earth of ours, has developed her wealth by slow stages of increase. She was far from being the rich little globe in Caesar's days that she is at present. The earth in our days is incalculably richer as a whole than in the time of Charlemagne; and at that time she was richer by many a million of acres than in the era of' Augustus . . . Such being the case, the earth, being (as a whole) in that pagan era so incomparably poorer, could not in the pagan era support the expense V>f maintaining great empires in cold latitudes. Her pulse would not reach that cost. Wherever she undertook in those early ages to rear intin in great abundance it must bovivlicre Nature would consent to work Vi partnership with herself; where warmth was to be had for nothing; where clothes were not ro entirely indispensable but that a ragged fellow might still keep himself warm; where slight shelter might serve; and where. the soil, it not absolutely richer in reversionary wealth, was mere easily cultured. Nature in those days of infancy must come forward liberally, and take a number of shares in every new joint stock venture before it could move. Man therefore went to bed early in those ages simply because his worthy mother earth could not afford him candles. She, good old lady (or good young lady,, for geologists know not whether she is in that stage of progress which corresponds to grey hairs or to intimacy with ' a certain age')—she good lady,would certainly have shuddered to hear any of her nations asking for candles. "Candles, indeed!'' she would have said, ''whoever heard of such a thing, and with so much excellent daylight running to waste as I have provided gratis! What will the wretches want next?"

The daylight provided gratis was certainly "undeniable" in its quality and quite sufficient for all purposes that were honest. Seneca even, in his own luxurious period,'. called those men ' lusifugae' and by other ugly names who. lived chiefly by candle, light. An immense majority of men in Rome never lighted a candle unless sometimes in theearly dawn. And this custom of Rome was the custom also of all nations that lived round the great lake of the Mediterranean. In Athene, Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor, everywhere the ancients went to bed like good boys from 7 to 9 o'clock.

This extract I offer in favour of Daylight Saving, and also as. proof that there is nothing new under the sun. The latest "fad"—the, advanced legislation of the twentieth century—is but a borrowing from the pagans. 1 have already mentioned that so soon as I felt the grip of "Cold in the Head" I went to bed, not taking quite so long over the process as might be inferred from the length of this introduction, or dissertation, or whatever else it can be called. And, although I took a book to bed with me, I was not in a condition to read it. Consequently I had to put up with a bad dream rather than a good book. The thing followed in strict sequence—to bed, to sleep, to dream. My dream was a troubled one, and at the time it seemed remarkable. Could I have but recovered it as it opened out before me, I might have laid claim to creative power. But, alas so soon as I came back to consciousness it eluded me. Reginald L. Hine, in his beautiful book on "Dreams and,the Way of Dreams" has a fine chapter on "The Recovery, of Dreams," which is headed by an apt quotation from Sidney Lanier: And now from the vast of the Lords, will the waters of 6leep

But who will reveal to our waking ken The forms that swim and the shapes that

Mr Hino commences by saying: "The sleeping side of our life is, roughly speaking, one-third of the whole, and one may sately allirm, as the result of scientific study, that there is no cessation from dreaming in the state of sleep, though but few of the dreams we dream ever come to the surface of waking consciousness." And again: "The elusive nature of dreams is so well known as to have become

proverbial. . . . The more delicate these, visions of our sleep, the less hope that we shall hold their beauty in our memory." Then follows a very beautiful passage: —

We are taken by sleep into the spirit world, and it is granted to us to pick tho flowers in the gardens of dreams, but for all that we may not carry them away. They fall from our lianas at the threshold of the dawn, and 'we 'have, on waking, only some faint reminiscence of their fragrance. Wo walk along the avenues of dreams with the immortal dead, whose names are as shining lights in the dark history of the world, or we go hand in hand with dear ones who ..have passed before us into the unseen. Our hearts burn within us as we hold sweet fellowship with them, but at parting a cold sense of forgetfulnoss is east upon us. AJI that they said, all wisdom they revealed, every secret they shared is recalled and goes with Ihem into the outer darkness beyond cur sight, And sometimes a dreamer will come suddenly upon the vision of the beloved and see the face that turns to beauty all his waking life. It is some consolation that there remain with us the vague, indefinite spirit of our dreams. It is only the shadow of a shadow, yet it is something, and its graciousiiESS helps to lighten om labouring days. It is but a small thing recovered from the wreckage of our ('reams, yot it serves to teU us how fair

and stately were those vessels of our sleep that foundered upon the rocks of dawn,

The Dominion of Dreams is a weird and wonderful region, to which Fiona Macleod, among thj poets, has done full justice. Mr Hine divides the dominion into two distinct and separate provinces. He writes: "It is necessary to be clear upon one vital matter at the outset. In the kingdom of dreams there are two provinces, separate and distinct from each other, and the citizens of the one have no commerce or dealings with the citizens of the other. There is a great gulf fixed to divide their respective territories. The one is the province of the spirit, the other the province of the body. The dreams of the one are not the dreams of the other. There are dreams which the body plays out upon the of the mind in sleep, and of these the originating causes are well-known, and the shifting scenes may be traced without difficulty to the changing physical sensations of the earthly player. And there are dreams ot the spirit,"in which our 'tarda corpora' plays no part, dreams fashioned by the soul in its long-drawn wanderings in realms beyond the reach of the scientist's research." The beginning of my dream beJonged to the first category. Evidently it was founded on the fact that I had attended the 'graduation ceremony last week, and that I also happened to be passing the Caledonian Ground when that popular place of resort was disgorging after the football match, Kaikorai versus Zingari. I recall but little clearly. It seemed that I was one of a vast and angry horde travelling on a light railway down the Kaikoria Valley and pursuing Sir Robert Stout, who, distinguished by the Zingari colours, was sprinting down the line at a great rate. What the outcome of the pursuit was I cannot say, since a sudden shower of newspapers blotted out everything from my view. Mr Hine devotes a paragraph or two to the physical causes of dreams and, seeing that my dream was directly incited by "cold in the head," the' following extract may be both permissible and approoriate.

We have written nothing as yet of the dreams that spring from physical causes, or the dreams of the body, as we called them in an earlier page, to. distinguish them from the "dreams of the spirit." No book that would deal with dreams at all can afford to overlook these earth-born children of sleep. They are not the most nrecious of her children, yet they are the most numerous. They do not show light upon the celestial nature of a man, but they are a line representation of the manifold concerns of his terrestrial life. The things we have said and done and suffered in the strength of our labouring days are not accomplished and finished once for all as a tale that is told. They return upon us in the hours of night, and whether it be for good or evil, for pleasure or pain, the tale of them is retold in the whisperings of our dreams. Nay, more than this, the things we did not do, but which we longed to do, the words which had to be left unsaid, the thoughts that never came to birth: the impression of these also lingers in the nervous structure of "our physical bodies and fulfils itself when the hindrance of the day is removed.

It is a pity that there is so little grace in the composition of these dreams. They do not move in silence and calm beauty as do the dreams of th-e spirit. The dust and noise of the world is still upon them; they are grotesque in their appearance and their playing is full of oxtravagance. And those dreams which, are wrought out of actual bedily sensation while in ill" state of sleep arc most extravagant of all.

The moral of all this is that once more I have been pondering the age-long problem of the exact relation between body and spirit; exactly where the realm of the body ends, and the realm of the spirit begins. It is possible—and according to Mr Hine exceedingly probable—that. : the solution of the problem is to be found in a serious study of "Dreams and the Way of Dreams." Indeed, he claims that dreams in their highest expression serve a double purpose, first as the revelation uf many of life's mysteries, and secondly as providing the solution of many problems of practical affairs. When in support ot Mr Hine's interesting theory M. Bergsou is called as witness, the way of dreams becomes all the plainer. I am now entering upon a new and tremendous field, and may only hint at what lies in front of the explorer. One essential point about the Dream World is that all sense of time and space vanishes, and mind and memory take full control. Ibis is in full harmony with the foundations of the Bergsdnian, philosophy. There is a little volume by Professor Lloyd Morgan, of the University of Bristol .entitled " Instinct and Experience," which 1 regard as the best and clearest exposition of the Bergsonian philosophy extant.. It ds written for popular consumption, and is free from that technical terminology which renders so many philosophical treatises caviare to the multitude. With one short but illuminative extract from the chapter on ''The Philosophy of. Instinct,' 1 I must perforce for the present conclude: —

M. Bergson distinguishes and contrasts two orders—that of the vital and the willed in opposition to that of the

inert and the automatic. The brain in

all its parts belongs entirely to the latter order; it is only a cunningly arranged set of neurones, an elaborate and complex switchboard which Life has made for its use, which Life has in large measure allowed to descend to

matcrialifiod automatism, but within which Life has contrived with some'suc-

cess in the higher vertebrates, and with much greater success in man, to leave room for the insertion of its free and creative activity. The measure of success in man is such that his brain has become a perfect "reservoir of indeterminism"—that is to say, a system full of opportunities for the insinuation of choice between alternatives. It is essential to the proper understanding of M. Bergson's philosophical doctrine that we should remember that the function of the brain is to provide a vast number of alternative routes by which different impulses due to stimulation may be conducted to the effector organs board of the nervous system. It is in itself wholly and solely a mechanism of conduction. It is in no sense a storehouse of memories; for memories arc preserved in the realm of spirit which is extra 6patial. From this realm they play down upon the switchboard of the nervous system. In so far therefore as choice is insinuated and an action is free and creative, this is in no sense a function of the brain: its Source is in the unconscious sphere of " pure memory"; which is the sphere of spirit—only at the point of ite Insertion into present actions does it glow with the light of consciousness. We have therefore two, if not three, kinds of unconsciousness—(l) that of the, ■ falling stone, (2) that of automatism (consciousness annulled), and (3) that of pure memory when it is not being insinuated tin tine present moment of action. . . . Pure memory is the

continuous existence of mind or spirit, and this is the vital impetus—the Source of all process. To pure Memory it abides in the still existent past, outside the plane of space within which the materia! body and brain are rendered perceptible to the senses and the intellect. But this mind, this spirit, this pure memory, exist, not as what we are aware of as consciousness, but as mode of the unconscious.

Unless I misunderstand the. teaching of "Matter and Memory," M. Bergson is convinced that a refusal to recognise the fact that the greater part of one's pure memory is an unconscious form of real existence, is tantamount to a refusal to recognise the existence of Life and Spirit as Reality—as active and forceful duration. And that which .according to M. Bergson leads us to deny the existence of unconscious mind, is our persistent neglect of the fact that the ' ron.-ciousness of which we.-lia.ve; intuitive knowledge is always in alliance with some present phase of practical activity. To guide this activity is the business of consciousness in and for the organism; only at its points of insertion in our mundane life of space-cccupair.-y docs mind and memory ..glow with what for us, in whom this inser-. lion takes claoe, is conscious awareness.

In a sense we may say that what wc feel as consciousness is the friction ol unconscious, spirit, us it traverses unconscious brain matter. But the Spirit which exists in time which is duration, and which is only occasionally inserted in the mundane affairs of inert space, though it is itself unconscious, and contains only the potentiality of that consciousness which is actualised 'in the present moment of- choice, is never inactive; nay, rather, it is pure activity, the Source of all change. It is the Source of instinctive behaviour.

iMONG THE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Shortly before lus death Lord Avebury revised his book oil " The Scenery of Switzerland and the Causes to Which* it is Due" for a fifth edition, which Messrs Macmillan will have ready shortly.

The Manchester University Press will publish a new edition of the " Poetical Works of William Drummuud of Hawthornden," edited by Professor Kastner, of the University.

Messrs Constable are about to publish " The Unexpurgated Case against Woman Suffrage," by Sir Almroth Wrialit, written with the object of showing. " that the Woman's Suffrage Movement "has no real intellectual or moral sanction, and that there are very weighty reasons why the suffrage should not " .be conceded to women." The author begins bv analysing the mental attitude of those who range themselves on the side of woman suffrage, and then discusses at length the principal arguments upon which they rel'v. A new story by Miss Dolf Wyllardc, the author of "The.Career of Beauty Darling," is_now in the press. The new book deals with the problem of a wife's duty to her husband when he is serving his country in climates which would be disastrous to her health and to that of her baby. The title of the story, which will be published by Stanley Paul and Co.. is "Youth Will Be Served."

Among the books to come from Mr Werner Laurie during the present Season is a biography of Air George Moore's father, which gives an account of an Irish

gentleman who might well have been the hero of one of Lever's novels. George Henry Moore distinguished himself as traveller, soldier, duellist, racing man, and politician, and the field of his adventures extended to lUissia, the Caucasus, Persia, Egypt, and Palestine,' as well as Ireland and Westminster. The biography—which has been written by his son," Colonel Maurice Moore, and contains an introduc-

tion by Mr George Moore—gives a full account of the Irish famine and ot Irish political history from 1846 to 1870. Moure took a leading part in the opposition to English Ministries, and did a great deal to start the movement of which liutt and Parnell became the leaders. Unnublishod

letters from Duffy, Lucas, Keogh.'Dr MacHale, and others, will be included, and these throw fresh light on the early days of the Jlome Rule agitation. Guide-books to books were never more necersary than they are to-day, and we welcome the enlarged edition of'Dr Ernest Baker's ''Guide to the Best Fiction in English" which Messrs Eoutledge have just published. Its purpose is "to supplv a fairly complete list of the best prose fiction in Knglish, with as much characterisation of the contents, nature, and style of each book as can be put into a few lines of print." Now that fiction has grown out of all knowledge, this is a most useful undertaking, and" Dr Baker has carried it out with remarkable success. Ha. includes over 7000 different works, ranging from the Anglo-Paxon version of Apollonius of Tyre to" the latest novels of

Air _ Wells and Mr Arnold Bennett, and he furnishes each with a short not indicating the theme with which 'it deals.' its date, and other bibliographical information.-

Mr T. 11. Escott's Life of Anthonv Trnllone. which Mr John Lane hopes to publisn at an early date, will include much new. material relating to the novelist's Diibli.c services; .private friends, and literary originals. In addition to his own personal impressions the author has been assisted at many' points by the oldest of Trollope's till recently surviving intimates, the late Lord James'of Hereford, as well as by Mr Henry .Trollope,- the novelist's son. The atroimt '•of-'Trollope's earlier Post Office days owes much to the help of the few now living who had to do with him at St. Martin's-le-Grantl— Mr If. Buxton Forman, Mr Lewin Hill, Colonel J. J. Cardin, and Mr J. 0. Badcock. Mr Escott also acknowledges his indebtedness, among others, to Sir Charles Trevelvan. who _ recalled Trollope's entrance in'the public service, and who. before his death in 1886, talked to the author more than once about " The Three Clerks" and the reputed portrait'in it of hiirWlf.

Messrs Constable will publish the first volume of the " Thre-holds of Science ' Eeries, translated from a- library of elementary text-books which has already achieved a popular . success in France. The'first .voinrue will be "Zoology," by Professor. E. Brucker, whose companion manual on "Botany", is also nearly ready. Three other volumes will follow almost immediately—" Mathematics, by C. A'. Laisant; '' Chemistiy," by Georges Damns; and "-Mechanics," by C. E. Guillaume. ■-Among'other volumes in preparation are "Astronomy,", by Caniilie Flammai-ion; "Physics,"' by Felix Carre; and "Geology" and "Physical Geography," by Charks Vclain. Messrs Watts are issuine a.' series of advanced and scientific works at 9d net. The first was Mr Joseph 'M'C'abe's " Twelve Years in a Monastery," for which there has been, a large- demand. Tliis is being followed by 'Professor Hsckel's " Tim Riddle of the Universe," of which 140,G00 •copies have been sold in the large paper-cover form. Others of the series are books now published for the first tinic, comprising "The Existence of God," by Joseph M'Cabe; " The Belief in Personal. Immortality," by E. S. P. Ilaynes; and "Essays towards Peace," by J. M. Robertson, M.P., Professor Wostermarck. Norman Angell, and Mr S. H. Swinny, M.A. ' An English translation of MrsNystromHamilton's volume on "Ellen Kev—Her Life and Her Work," by Mrs A.' E. B. Fries, will be published by the Putnams. Mr Havelock Ellis, in an introduction to the work, says that wiiat Mrs NystromHamilton writes about the author of "Love and. Marriage," "The Woman Movement," and " 'the Century of the Child '' may be received with confidence "as coming out of the circle in which Ellen Key has spent the greater part of her active life." Mrs Nystrom-Harnilton is the wife of Dr Anton Nystrom, who founded the People's Institute at' Stockholm, before which Ellen Key lectured for 20 years, and has not only known .Ellen Key for years but has been engaged in investigations similar to those which have attracted the latter, and has written several books on the sexual life. " Jocasta " and " The Famished Cat," both translated by Miss Agues Farley, are the two works brought together in the latest volume of the English edition of the writings of M. Anatole Franco, published by 'the John Lane Co, Among forthcoming English novels are the following:—" The Regent," by Arnold Bennett; "The Open Window,''

by E. Temple .Thurelon; "Damaris Verity," by Lucas Malet; "Happy House," by 'Baroness von Huttcn; " Fanny's First Novel,'' by Frankfo't Moore;' " Chance," by Joseph Conrad'; and " Michael Fcrrycs," by Mrs Henry dc la Pasture.