Review of Reviews, S013J06. 



Leading Articles, 



301 



Deer Versus Men in the Highlands. 



Mr. H. r. Mackenzie, in the Iiidcpoidcnt Rcvicu.', 

 writes on deer forests in the Highlands. He records 

 the fact that at the opening of the nineteenth cen- 

 tun' there were very few deer forests in the High- 

 lands, the ii'jniber not exceeding twenty. Now the 

 figures are : — 



lu 1872 the iiumher uf deer forests was (about) . . 70 

 In 1883 the uumher of deer forests was (about . . 109 

 In 1891 the number of deer forests was (about) . . 130 

 Acreage 1883. Arrrage 1898. Acreage 1904. 



1,709,892 2,510,625 2,920,097 



Year bv vear the area under deer grows more extensive; 

 and, unless a halt is called, the Highlands are in danger 

 of becoming, in course of time, a vast playground for 

 wealthy idlers, instead of a home for the industrious poor. 

 And that is a prospect which cannot be contemplated with- 

 out dismay. 



Against the belief that the land afforested could 

 not be used for other purposes, Mr. Mackenzie 

 quotes the deer forest condition, which schedules 

 as suitable either for profitable cultivation or ad- 

 vantageous occupation no less than 1,782,785 acres. 

 " The opinion was strongly held that the scheduled 

 land, if converted into crofts and small farms and 

 let to trustworthy tenants, would support the latter 

 in comfort without any loss, of revenue to the pro- 

 prietors." The loss of martial ardour in the High- 

 lands is traced to the economic hardship and lack 

 of sympathy between the people and the natural 

 leaders. Mr. Mackenzie reminds the proprietors 

 that deer-stalking may go out of fashion, and their 

 lands be left on their hands when repopulation 

 would be far more difficult than now. 



trivacances and are very little more ridiculous than the 

 Itxremes of a much later date. The -'»ole. ^«h.«nable 

 world still sways before a new craze as a field ot corn 

 sways to a wind. People are still very senouB over their 

 amusemeras. and very amusing over the.r duty and their 

 career. They still discuss with an amazing freedom the 

 diseases of the body and the most sacred ffejings «? the 

 soul, and if reverence had noplace m the eighteenth cen- 

 tury neither is it a characteristic of the twentieth. Tlien 

 it was the fashion to talk of the simpler life in rooms re- 

 plete with every extravagant refinement of luxury— and to 

 ind in talk. .\iid this happens even to-day. Then it was 

 de riaueur to have no religion, and now to have a new 

 special pet one every two or three years— with results not 

 dissimilar. It was then the fashion to hide from the 

 thought of death, and to look at life as a series of amus- 

 ing hours, and as a great whole— never. Is it sometimes 

 so still? One wonders. 



SOCIETY IN VOLTAIRE'S TIME AND NOW. 



Mr. S. T. Tallentyre writes one of his fascinat- 

 ing and factful papers in Cortihill on " Society in 

 the Time of Voltaire." At the close he compares 

 the character of Society then and now. He says : — 



In what respect the present world of fashion is better 

 than that queer old world is easy to see. In its awakened 

 sense of duty to its children, its servants, and the poor, 

 in its realisation that each man was created not to Be but 

 to Do, it is immeasurably superior to that gorgeous class, 

 inimitably selfish and indifferent, who lounged and laughed 

 in old Versailles. Though present-day manners have much 

 less frill, that present-day morals are infinitely cleaner the 

 most indignant moralist in a halfpenny paper could not 

 deny. In this age the fashionable woman of tarnished re- 

 putation is at least an exception. The literature which 

 fashion now admires is as much better in point of decency 

 as it is much worse in point of art than the literature 

 Madame read at her toilet. The whole modern trend of 

 thought is wholesomer and brisker; and if modern conver- 

 sation is infinitely less clever, polished, and witty, its frank 

 vulgarity is at least preferable to the double ententes of 

 Madame and her abbe. 



But whether Society to-day can lay the flattering unction 

 to its soTil that it is in all imjiortant particulars materially 

 better than that Society which brought the French Revo- 

 lution and the downfall of monarchy, is doubtfi;! indeed. 



It was not only in old France that the great country 

 estates, and the villages which owe their prosperity to the 

 ■well-being of such estjitea, lay neglected and untenanted 

 while the landowners " kept up their position " in town. In 

 its mania for pleasure, in its ever-varying expedients for 

 killing time, in its love of gambling, and that old, com- 

 fortable code of honour which makes it shameful to steal 

 a loaf of bread when you are starving, but not to ruin a 

 tradesman when vou have ten thousand a year. Society 

 now and then are not unlike. The extravagances of fashion 

 which makes women adopt coiffures " a little lower than the 

 Monument ' only seem absurd because they are bygone ex- 



The Riddle of Music. 



Many readers of Vernon Lee's highly suggestive 

 and thoughtful paper on this subject in the Quar- 

 terly Review will realise that never in all their lives 

 have they listened to music as it should be listened 

 to. Vernon Lee insists on the two powers of music 

 — that of exciting emotions, good and bad, in which 

 Wagner is supreme ; and that of appealing to the 

 sense of beauty and perfection of form. With the 

 unmusical person the first power is uppermost ; with 

 the musician the second. A barrel-organ, cr a 

 cheap military march, may awaken deep emotions, 

 kindle reminiscences, stir affections; and the half- 

 attentive and self-engrossed listener will be more 

 effected emotionally than the real musician. Hut 

 the complex, co-ordinated beauty of a great com- 

 position will engross the musician, and leave the 

 non-musical person untouched or almost so. In 

 following the master-composition, the musician will 

 forget himself and his own emotions. Absorption m 

 musical form, in the composers thought, remt-ves 

 the attention from our own past and pre.sent experi- 

 ence, but " a state of emotional day-dreaming '' is 

 fostered by imperfect listening to music. The musi- 

 cian will earn,' away mth him the exact facsimile 

 of a song or '.symphony; the non-musician, or, as 

 Vernon Lee more kindly puts it, " the less musi- 

 cally gifted or trained person," Avill remember no- 

 thing but the feelings and thoughts aroused in him 

 by the music. To listen to music as music should 

 be listened to, as a true musician would listen to 

 it — 



demands a braced heightening of nervous tone, a resistance 

 to random stimulation, a spontaneity and steadinesa of at- 

 tention, a forgetfulness of self and interest m the not-self, 

 in fact, a vigour and organisation of soul approaching to 

 the magnificent we.alth and unwavering self-forgetfulness 

 of all spiritual creation. 



The Quiver contains an illustrated article on New 

 Zealand's natural scenery, which is better than most 

 similar papers that have appeared, though vath too 

 many misspellings of proper names. .Another paper 

 deals with the Rev. Campbell Morgan and his plans 

 for a Summer School or Holidav Conference this 

 year at Mundesley, not far from Cromer. The id<a 

 seems to have come from America. The whole 

 number is over the average in general interest. 



