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Oh I this was not a literary opportunity, and (though I 
know that years •'cro he served a long spell of journalism 
with unflagging zest) I Imagine that, were the cause less, 
tlie task of daily improvisation must he a little ungrateful 
to so fastidious a pen. These articles are only a small 
part of his active contribution to the effort of his country. 
They were written in the inter\'als of other business i 
visits to hospitals, to his native province and the front, 
the various calls a Paris borough makes upon its 
deputy (this Is his ninth year in Parliament), and the 
service of many subordinate causes — notably the hous- 
ing of refugees and provision for the disabled. But 
with what a modest ease Barres traces the impressions 
of the day upon a background of iiabitual reflections I 
This book is full of wise and vivid counsels, dictated by 
a strong sense of responsibility and the power of 
language for good or ill. How nobly he speaks of the 
dead — of Jaur^s and Charles Peguy, and his colleague, 
Albert de Mun ; how much humour and good humour 
there is in the fragments of talk with all sorts of people ; 
above all what a just comprehension of the cause, the 
mission and the dignity of his nation ! — Reprisals ? 
jWe should do wrong to disown our race and sink to the level 
of our assailant. You and I may say and think some- 
times that we should treat tlieso people as they treat ua. 
But if it comee to the point, and we have in front of us 
a creature helpless to do mischief, we shall feel incapable 
of taking advantage of our power. The chivalrous soul 
of Franco ia stronger everywhere than the spirit of 
retaliation. 
Unfaltering trust in the leaders and the men of the 
French Army, the certitude of recovering the lost 
provinces, inspire every page. There were premature 
hopes, false news, a pressing danger : they are duly 
registered. But the reader who turns to the articles 
written in the dark days of the great retreat will not be 
disillusioned. In particular Barres does justice— no 
more than justice — to the firmness of the common people 
of Paris. 
Two qualities strike one particularly in these pages. 
Ono is their sobriety of tone, the appeal to common 
sense, the absence of idle rhetoric and selfish lyricism. 
If there is an exception, it is a stirring rhythmical 
passage in which Barr^ evokes the future. 
.Writers, tear up the unfinished page, and poets, leave your 
song, though it were in the middle of a strophe and 
however faithfully it portrays your soul. Nay, throw a 
hasty farewell to your heart of yesterday. When you 
return from the Rhine, you will have risen so high on 
wings so strong that you will surpass your dreams, even 
aa the eagle outsoars the nightingale. Fate carries us 
onward. The masters have done with teaching, and 
you with your happy hands shall grasp the miraculous 
fruitj, formed without our knowledge in what we mistook 
for barren years. 
The other note is the note of conciliation. Read what lie 
has to say to Gustave Herv6 ; or read his letter to a 
mayor on a rare occasion when, even in united France, 
a shameful survival of partisanship prompted some petty 
injustice ; and you will acknowledge his tact. 
Under the author's name for the first time, along 
with his Academic title, stands another — " President ot 
the League of Patriots." It was but three weeks before 
the war brolte out that Maurice Harris was chosen to 
succeed Paul D^roul^de at the iiead of this federation 
of Frenchmen which kept alive the flame of hope in the 
depressing years when civil quarrels and humanitarian 
gush had almost persuaded a proud nation to forget its 
mutilated frontiers. Who so well as Barres could fill 
the place of the singer of Tyrt;ean songs, or so well 
translate the certitude of his faitliful League that that 
gallant spirit is somehow still present to sluire the 
sufferings of to-daj' and tlie victory of to-morrow. 
ITALIAN AND GERMAN IDEALS. 
By L. March Phillipps. 
IF we could have stood, fifty or sixty years ago, on 
some Alpine point of vantage betwixt Germany 
and Italy we should have been witnesses of the 
chief spectacle of modern Europe— the simul- 
taneous evolution of two great new nations. 
Swiftly and by the same degrees we should have seen 
them develop, each drawing to itself the loose frag- 
ments around it, each rising in organic unity and definite 
outline, as rival mountain peaks lift tliemselves into the 
sky. 
Huge Criffel's hoary top ascends 
By Skiddaw seen. 
The very details of their growth are extraordinarily 
similar. In either case the end in view — the confedera- 
tion of a number of petty independent principalities 
suffering under various forms of local tyranny into a 
single nation — is identical. In either case a single, 
northermost State is chosen to be the instrument in the 
,work of unification, and the policy of this State is 
wielded by a Minister of exceptional insight and strength 
of character, drawing after him a well-meaning but 
doubtful monarch. Frederick William is Victor 
Emmanuel ; Bismarck is Cavour. Even the obstacles in 
the way are the same. Both countries have first to deal 
with the occupation or opposition of Austria, and by so 
doing accomplish half their task ; and both have next to 
overcome the jealousy of France and so complete it. It 
is not often that such a likeness in human affairs offers 
itself as the shepherding into a single fold of the Ger- 
man and Italian States by Prussia and Piedmont 
Ifespectively. 
Watching the process of growth taking place under 
OUT eyes, the outward resemblances would be the first 
we should notice. But what if we had looked within ? 
iWhat if we had questioned the thoughts and ideals 
whieh these new nations were bringing into the world, 
the spiritual and inward purposes which were drawing 
them together and which, in after years, tlie}- would stand 
for and champion? We should have found, had we 
made that closer investigation, that the inward contrast 
was equal to tiie outward resemblance. To impose her 
own ideals on the Empire of lier construction, to govern 
with tlie sword what slie liad built with the sword was 
Prussia's unshakable determination, and tlie tiiwarting 
and stifling of every liberal instinct which sought a 
union on constitutional lines was the indispensable 
means to its attainment. Union implied, as Prussia 
saw it, the sacrifice of the idea of liberty by each com- 
ponent State. All hope abandon — at least all hope of 
liberty abandon — ye who enter here, might have been 
inscribed over the portals of German unity. 
On the other hand, in Italy the idea of liberty was 
the very motive and inducement relied upon to carry 
the work of unification through. It was the cement 
which held every brick of the structure in its place. 
Piedmont stood for liberty as staunchly as Prussia stood 
for autocracy. Even in the days of reaction following 
the abortive rising of " '48," when Austria was 
re-established and every petty tyrant crept back to 
persecute patriots and quench the last sparks of freedom 
— even in those evil days Piedmont had been true, and 
Victor Emmanuel, staunch when every other Prince 
turned traitor, had ratified the free government whicli 
his father had founded. " Italy must make lierself by 
liberty," Cavour had said, " or we must give up trying 
to make her." 
It would be impossible here to analyse or even to 
name all the consequences whicli iiave flowed from tliis 
inward spiritual difference, but one such consequence 
which has profoundly influenced the feelings of sur- 
rounding nations and the world at large I would specify. 
The reader will observe tliat the Prussian point of view 
a^ 
