"Still, cannot we have the good without the bad? Cannot we match Europe in culture and polish without sacrificing for it our manhood? And if so, what are the influences in this country that are working in that direction? In answering this question, we have to say frankly that we see nothing in democracy alone that promises to produce the result under consideration. In a country where every one is taught to disdain a situation of dependence, where the hostler and the chambermaid see the way open for them to stand even with the best in the land, if they will but exercise their privilege of getting on,' there will be no permanent or perfect service. And so long as every man's possessions are divided and scattered at his death, there will be no class having the secured leisure and the inducement to form galleries of art. Why should John Smith take pains to decorate his house with works of art, when he knows that within a year after his death it will be administered upon by the Probate Court, and sold with its furniture for the benefit of his ten children?" (Well put,-republican sage.)

"In a word, looking at the æsthetic side of things, our American system must be confessed to be not yet quite perfect.' (You don't say so!) "Invaluable as it is for schooling men to independence and aspiration, it requires, to complete its usefulness, another element. The Republic has a sequel. That completing element, that sequel, is Communism. Communism supplies exactly the conditions that are wanting in the social life of America, and which it must have if it would compete with foreign lands in the development of those things which give ease and grace to existence.

"For instance, in respect to service: Communism, by extinguishing caste and honouring labour, makes every man at once a servant and lord. It fills up, by its capacity of minute organization, all the social functions as completely as the European system does; while, unlike that, it provides for each individual sufficient leisure, and frequent and improving changes of occupation. The person who serves in the kitchen this hour may be experimenting with a microscope or giving lessons on the piano the next. Applying its combined ingenuity to social needs, Communism will find means to consign all repulsive and injurious labour to machinery. It is continually interested to promote labour-saving improvements. The service that is performed by brothers and equals from motives of love will be more perfect than that of hired lackeys, while the constantly varying round of occupation granted to all will form the most perfect school for breadth of culture and true politeness. Thus Communism achieves through friendship and freedom that which the Old World secures only through a system little better than slavery.

"In the interest of art and the cultivation of the beautiful, Communism again supplies the place of a hereditary aristocracy and a wealthy church. A Community family, unlike the ephemeral households of ordinary society, is a permanent thing. Its edifice is not liable to be sold at the end of every generation, but like a cathedral descends by unbroken inheritance. Whatever is committed to it remains, and is the care of the society from century to century. With a home thus established, all the members of a community are at once interested to gather about it objects of art. It becomes a picture-gallery and a museum, by the natural accretion of time, and by the zeal of persons who know that every embellishment added to their home will not only

be a pleasure to them personally, but will remain to associate them with the pleasure of future beholders in all time to come.

"Thus in communism we have the conditions that are necessary to carry this country to the summit of artistic and social culture. By this route, we may at one bound outstrip the laboured attainments of the aristocracies of the Old World. The New York Central Park shows what can be achieved by combination on the democratic plan, for a public pleasure-ground. No other park is equal to it. Let this principle of combination be extended to the formation of homes as well as to municipal affairs, and we shall simply dot this country over with establishments (b) as much better than those of the nobles of England as they are better than those of a day-labourer. We say better, for they will make art and luxury minister to universal education, and they will replace menial service with downright brotherhood. Such must be the future of American society."

"To the Editor of the American Socialist.'

"In your first issue you raise the question, 'How large ought a Home to be? This is a question of great interest to all; and I trust the accumulated answers you will receive will aid in its solution.

"I have lived in homes varying in numbers from one (the bachelor's home) to several hundred; and my experience and observation lead me to regard one hundred and twenty-five as about the right number to form a complete home. I would not have less than seventy-five nor more than one hundred and fifty. In my opinion a Home should minister to all the needs of its members, spiritual, intellectual, social, and physical. This ordinary monogamic homes cannot do; hence resort is had to churches, colleges, club-rooms, theatres, etc.; and in sparsely settled regions of country, people are put to great inconvenience and compelled to go great distances to supply cravings as imperative as the hunger for bread. This view alone would not limit the number of persons constituting a Home; but I take the ground that in a perfect Home there will be a perfect blending of all interests and perfect vibration in unison of all hearts; and of course thorough mutual acquaintance. My experience and observation convince me that it is exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to secure these results in a family of over one hundred and fifty members.

"In simply a monetary view it is undoubtedly best to have large Homes of a thousand or more; but money should not have great weight in comparison with a man's spiritual, intellectual and social needs.D. E. S.

b. As a painter, no less than a philanthropist, I am curious to see the effect of scenery, in these polite' terms of description, "dotted over with establishments."

LETTER LXXII.

VENICE, 9th November, 1876, 7 morning.

I HAVE set my writing-table close to the pillars of the great window of the Ca' Ferro, which I drew, in 1841, carefully, with those of the next palace, Ca' Contarini Fasan. Samuel Prout was so pleased with the sketch that he borrowed it, and made the upright drawing from it of the palace with the rich balconies, which now represents his work very widely as a chromolithotint.*

Between the shafts of the pillars, the morning sky is seen pure and pale, relieving the grey dome of the church of the Salute; but beside that vault, and like it, vast thunderclouds heap themselves above the horizon, catching the light of dawn upon them where they rise, far westward, over the dark roof of the ruined Badia ;-but all so massive, that, half an hour ago, in the dawn, I scarcely knew the Salute dome and towers from theirs; while the sea-gulls, rising and falling hither and thither in clusters above the green water beyond my balcony, tell me that the south wind is wild on Adria.

"Dux inquieti turbidus Adriæ."-The Sea has her Lord, and the sea-birds are prescient of the storm; but my own England, ruler of the waves in her own proud thoughts, can she rule the tumult of her people, or, pilotless, even so much as discern the thunderclouds heaped over her Galilean lake of life?

Here is a little grey cockle-shell, lying beside me, which I gathered, the other evening, out of the dust of the Island of St. Helena; and a brightly-spotted snail-shell, from the thistly sands of Lido; and I want to set myself to draw these, and describe them, in peace.

* My original sketch is now in the Schools of Oxford.

'Yes,' all my friends say, 'that is my business; why can't I mind it, and be happy?'

Well, good friends, I would fain please you, and myself with you; and live here in my Venetian palace, luxurious; scrutinant of dome, cloud, and cockle-shell. I could even sell my books for not inconsiderable sums of money if I chose to bribe the reviewers, pay half of all I got to the booksellers, stick bills on the lampposts, and say nothing but what would please the Bishop of Peterborough.

I could say a great deal that would please him, and yet be very good and useful; I should like much again to be on terms with my old publisher, and hear him telling me nice stories over our walnuts, this Christmas, after dividing his year's spoil with me in Christmas charity. And little enough mind have I for any work, in this seventy-seventh year that's coming of our glorious century, wider than I could find in the compass of my cockle-shell.

But alas! my prudent friends, little enough of all that I have a mind to may be permitted me. For this green tide that eddies by my threshold is full of floating corpses, and I must leave my dinner to bury them, since I cannot save; and put my cockle-shell in cap, and take my staff in hand, to seek an unimcumbered shore. This green sea-tide !—yes, and if you knew it, your black aud sulphurous tides alsoYarrow, and Teviot, and Clyde, and the stream, for ever now drumly and dark as it rolls on its way, at the ford of Melrose.

Yes, and the fair lakes and running waters in your English park pleasure-grounds,-nay, also the great and wide sea, that gnaws your cliffs,—yes, and Death, and Hell also, more cruel than cliff or sea; and a more neutral episcopal person than even my Lord of Peterborough * stands, level-barred balance in hand,-waiting (how long?) till the Sea shall give up the dead which are in it, and Death, and Hell, give up the dead which are in them.

Have you ever thought of, or desired to know, the real meaning of that sign, seen with the human eyes of his soul by the disciple whom the Lord loved? Yes, of course you * See terminal Article of Correspondence.

have and what a grand and noble verse you always thought it. "And the Sea" Softly, good friend,-I know you can say it off glibly and pompously enough, as you have heard it read a thousand times; but is it, then, merely a piece of pomp? mere drumming and trumpeting, to tell you-what might have been said in three words-that all the dead rose again, whether they had been bedridden, or drowned, or slain? If it means no more than that, is it not, to speak frankly, bombast, and even bad and half unintelligible bombast ?— for what does 'Death' mean, as distinguished from the Sea, the American lakes? or Hell as distinguished from Death,a family vault instead of a grave?

But suppose it is not bombast, and does mean something that it would be well you should think of,-have you yet understood it,-much less, thought of it? Read the whole passage from the beginning: 'I saw the Dead, small and great, stand before God. And the Books were opened;" and so to the end.

'Stand' in renewed perfectness of body and soul-each redeemed from its own manner of Death.

some

As the seed

For have not they each their own manner? by the drought, or the thorn, -so the soul by the soul's hunger, and the soul's pang ;-athirst in the springless sand; choked in the return-wave of Edom; grasped by the chasm of the earth some, yet "calling out of the depths;" but -“Thou didst blow with Thy wind, and the sea covered them; they sank as lead in the mighty waters." But now the natural grave, in which the gentle saints resigned their perfect body to the dust, and perfect spirit to Him who gave it ; and now the wide sea of the world, that drifted with its weeds so many breasts that heaved but with the heaving deep; and now the Death that overtook the lingering step, and closed the lustful eyes ;-and now the Hell, that hid with its shade and scourged with its agony; the fierce and foul spirits that had forced its gates in flesh;*-all these the Loved Apostle saw compelled to restore their ruin; and all these, their prey, stand once again, renewed, as their Maker *Conf. Inferno, xxiii. 123.