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the manner in which the present system | Author of Flemish Interiors,* and will, we pins down to the earth even those who are, in Dante's words,

"Pure and disposed to mount unto the stars."

believe, be that of every one who thinks for half an hour over that remarkable little narrative. It is strange to enter Pompeii, and see the life of two thousand years ago still And, of course, coarser minds get hope- petrified around you; and it must be still lessly damaged. They write articles, more strange to observe the Cambodian poems, plays, &c., as another man makes ruins, to study those endless flying arches matches simply to sell. Instead of being which no man in Asia could reproduce, and inspired, they compose; by-and-by, instead which were piled in almost wanton profuof composing, they manufacture. Hence sion by a race whose very name has been the numerous prætorian bands of the lower obliterated by some unknown calamity; but empire of literature, the mob of gentlemen a visit to Gheel, a place where all are free who write with ease, the sophists of the and half are mad,-where the sane and the nineteenth century, the profane who daily insane are indistinguishable,- where the commit intellectual simony. These come children are bred up at the knees of madof "the more work the more pay;" and if men, and old people do not fear monomaa tree is to be judged by its fruits, do these niacs,— where the strongest tradition is the bushels of crab-apples testify that the tree lore of mental medicine, and the liveliest is radically good? A well-known French commerce the lodging of the insane,novelist has happily illustrated these evil where a mother has been known to place effects. An author has written but does her child in the arms of a furious maniac not publish a novel that is to rival Le Sage's because her duty was to pacify him,— where masterpiece. Why does he withhold it from the inns are hospitals, the farmhouses cells, the public? Why, because publishing it, the tradesmen warders, the workwomen he would have told all his secrets, expended nurses, the government a mad doctor, the all his capital. When we pass from litera- passers-by patients, the history for twelve ture pure to science, we find a still greater hundred years a vast register of mania,— a incompatibility between good work and visit to such a place must be the strangest good pay. If the pay is to be earned by of all. Yet such a place exists, and has the pen, there appears no option except existed from the days of Charlemagne, in starving or becoming one of those wretched one of the best known countries of the men who mutilate science in the name of world; and yet unique as it is, both in hispopular knowledge. Mr. Froude, though tory and in circumstances, it has almost seeing these evils, does not use his knowl-escaped European, and more especially Britedge with perfect wisdom. To those who ish, attention. For more than twelve hunwould take up literature as a profession, he dred years, it is believed, has the little town says, "Reconcile yourselves to poverty." of Gheel, twenty-six miles south-east of But, assuming, the soundness or completeness of his argument, the really wise advice would perhaps be- "Let nobody take up literature as a profession." The temptations in literature as a profession to stoop to inferior or mediocre work are too great for flesh and blood. The problem nevertheless remains, how, otherwise than as work in a profession, even the highest lit-tive with some races, or lunatics could never erary work is to be recompensed.

From The Spectator.
THE CITY OF THE SIMPLE.

IN the whole world there can be nothing quite so bizarre, so eerie, so utterly unlike preconceived ideas, so at variance with everything one ever heard, or read of, or saw, as the town of Gheel. At least, that is our impression while fresh from the vivid account of the place, just published by the

Antwerp, with the villages about it, been a great asylum for lunatics, and its people for forty generations a population of warders, till they have grown to understand mental disease as it were by instinct, and their relation to men so afflicted appears radically to differ from that of the rest of mankind. That fear of lunacy which must be instinc

have been so cruelly treated in the West, while almost reverenced in the East, has been by long and traditional habit totally eradicated, and with it has departed all disposition to oppression, and every vestige of the desire to mock. Lunatics are to the Gheelois simply afflicted persons, whom it is their traditional business to protect and if possible to cure, but who are welcome to the town as tourists to Florence or Lucerne, and excite an interest almost of the same kind, though gentler and nobler in its man

Gheel: the City of the Simple. By the author of "Flemish Interiors." London: Chapman and Hall.

cated of all the phenomena of madness, namely, the permanent motives of the mad, and as to the means of suspending a dangerous fit by turning the mind from its contemplation of the then dominant idea. We quote from a mass of similar instances a story in illustration of each of these points. One of the patients was incessantly threatening suicide, till his nourricier," a cobbler, who had been attentively studying his boarder, at last remarked to him:

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looking steadily at him to see if he could possibly be in earnest, walked to the casement and closed it, observing, To dinner, you said? Well, I don't mind if I dine too; I can do this afterwards.' ''

ifestations. There, and there alone in the world, they are made part of the population. There," where they come and go as they please, they feel themselves as much at liberty as the other inhabitants of the place, and recognize no inequality in their condition, and there we find they act as they see others act, and it never occurs to them to complain of their position. What should they seek to escape from? the whole place is theirs; if they leave the house, no one asks them whither they are going, or how "I'll tell you what it is, Yvon, you've talked long they will be absent; and if, through of this so often that I am quite tired of the subinadvertence, they wander along the road ject, and I am persuaded you are right, and which takes them out of the village, it is that the best thing you can do is to try the winnever with a view to withdraw themselves, dow, since you are not satisfied with going out and they are only too thankful to be brought at the door.' But I shall be killed!' replied back." If they are actively dangerous they the lunatic, completely taken aback by the coolare placed in the farm-houses scattered over ness of his host. Oh, that is your look-out; the vast heath or " Campine" (campagna) see here, I'll help you as far as opening the which surrounds Gheel, or, if a little less window goes, but the rest you must do for yourdangerous, in an intermediate circle; but self.' And he rose and deliberately opened the the great majority, including men whom we lattice, which was only one story from the should deem dangerous monomaniacs, are ground, and below it was a dungheap, reaching billeted in Gheel itself; every inhabitant of fully half the distance. Now," he continued, 'I am going down to dinner, so I'll say goodthe 600 house-holders, though he pursues bye,' for I suppose you don't want me.'-If the some ordinary trade or handicraft, being cobbler felt any alarm for the result of his exalso a professional "nourricier." Once re-periment, he was soon reassured, for the lunatic, ceived, and he is always welcomed to his home by a little family festival,- the patient is left to himself, not watched, not restrained, unless his fits render a padded ankle-chain a necessity; not forced or even requested to work, but allowed to join in it or in household occupations if he will,-left, in fact, as free as he would be in any city in which his passport must be viséd before leaving. The lunatics assemble even in the inn at will, and our traveller, as he arrived, was informed that of the group of twelve seated in the inn "The woman, who, doubtless from her long parlour chatting, laughing, smoking, and familiarity with the various forms of this frightdrinking beer, one-half were lunatics, and ful malady, had preserved all her presence of in a few moments obtained full confirmation between herself and the weapon, placed herself mind, rose from her seat, and holding her child of the statement. The worthy Gheelois do in front of him, gradually making him back till not mind, have no more feeling about the he reached a low chair at the farther end of the presence of such patients than Englishmen room, into which he dropped. No sooner was would have about the presence of a few he seated than she threw the child into his lap, guests with gout, and treat their strange and taking advantage of the state of surprise fellow-townsmen as skilfully as if they were into which he was struck, she nimbly gained the all mad doctors. This is the most remark-door, rushed from the room, and turned the key able, because no trace of special capacity or feeling is to be found in the surrounding province or the neighbouring towns, where, on the contrary, the dread and dislike of lunacy are manifested with unusual strength. The quality, fostered of late, no doubt, by self-interest, has been a specialty of the Gheelois for centuries, and is due, like the success of many beast-tamers, in the first place, to a total absence of fear. There is more in it, however, than this, a sort of intuitive shrewdness as to the most compli

Another patient, who was considered doubtful, furious at the incessant though guarded watch kept over him, seized a huge pair of tailor's shears, and declared that he would murder his "nourricière:"

upon this singular group. The babe, naturally
alarmed at the suddenness of the transaction,
began to scream violently, to the great conster-
nation of the maniac, whose thoughts were thus
drawn from himself; and, strange as it may
seem, the voice of the lunatic was heard through
the door soothing and pacifying the child."
The mother fainted outside, but the child
was unharmed, and when the door was
opened the attack had entirely passed away.
Such scenes are, however, rare, for the
patients, unharassed by confinement, never

does not, why do hereditary priesthoods always tend to intellectual stereotype?

From The Spectator.

CHILD-WORLD.*

compelled to compulsory idleness, learn to control themselves, go out into the fields when afflicted with the desire to rave, tear up worthless articles when the destructive fit is on them, and acquire the most touching attachment for those with whom they reside, an attachment constantly reciprocated, and extending even to the children, who," reared from their earliest years with, and often by, these unhappy creatures, acquire a tender veneration for their infirmity, and the affectionate sympathy reciprocally entertained between them and the children is almost incredible to a stranger." A child is as safe with them as if they were sane, though, as we have said, the lunatics move about at will, pursue all trades, wander on all roads, and even frequent the inn-where, however, excess in drinking is prohibited by heavy penalties on the land-piece called on the same general level of excellence, ford, only sixty-eight out of some eight and contains several poems at once brilliant hundred being under the smallest physical and playful, as full of glee and motion as restraint. The cures under this treatment those immortal wild daffodils on the shore are numerous, though the statistics are not of Wordsworth's lake, whereof he affirmgiven, but the main result is the compara-ed

tive happiness experienced by human beings who must otherwise be wretched.

We know no writers, except the author of Lilliput Levée, who mingle poetry and sparkling childish gaiety with such exquisite ease and in such finely adjusted proportions as the authors of Poems Written for a Child and Child-World. The new volume, if it does not contain any poem quite up to the level of one or two in the first volume, The Fisherman's Boy,' for example, and 'Wooden Legs,' and the delicious little In the Fields," is yet quite

6

46

No one can

"The waves beside them danced, but they Outdid the sparkling waves in glee; A poet could not but be gay In such a jocund company;" and that too is the feeling excited by these radiant and laughing poems. read such poems as the Fairies' Nest," perhaps the most brilliant and fascinating of all, though it is, we are sorry to say, too long for our columns, or "A Boy's Aspirations," or "My Pony," or "Grandmamma and the Fairies," or Mother Tabbyskins,” or" Freddy's Kiss," or "What may happen to a Thimble," or many others, without a not merely real addition of happiness, of enjoyment; so full of sunshine and sparkling air, of real imaginative gaiety and inventive humour, are each and all of them. Not that these are the only qualities. The Fairies' Nest," "A New Fern,' and "What may Happen to a Thimble," and "Grandmamma and the Fairies," at least, there are, besides the lightness of heart and humour, many lyrical touches which transmute the spiritual gaiety into

To us the most curious fact in all this strange history is not the conduct of the lunatics, who, though free, are really under the most steadfast of all supervisions, that of an entire population, but that of the In themselves they Gheelois townsmen. are rough peasants or workmen very like ordinary Flemings, with no special education or peculiarities, yet it is certain that they have acquired a special temper of mind towards the insane, a fearlessness, a gentleness, and, as it were, a reverence which are exhibited by all classes alike, by women as well as men, which extend even to the children, and are deemed by great physicians absolutely peculiar to themselves. Much, no doubt, is due to the life-long character of their occupation, much to the skilful training of a succession of superintendents, invested apparently with considerable legal powers, and much to the relation between their pursuit and their incomes; but after all these allowances, something still remains not easily to be accounted for, - an intuitive relation so to speak, between themselves and the insane which can only be true poetry. In not a few of these little traced to the effect of a habitude continued poems the lyrical feeling entirely overduring centuries, an explanation which sug-powers the humour; and in one or two at least, the child-world is forgotten, except gests problems almost stranger than the one it solves. Clearly, such an occupation is in in that sense in which almost every lyrical this one department equivalent to cultiva-poet's heart must be child-like, as every Christian's heart must be child-like, the tion, but then does hereditary cultivation increase the inborn faculty for receiving sense, we mean, in which the estimates of culture? If it does, the human race has a * Child-World. By the Authors of Poems Written future to which its past is nothing; but if it for a Child. London: Strahan and Co.

66

312

CHILD-WORLD.

River," "Butter

the World are reversed, and the humblest things become of the first importance. The beautiful pieces called "Flax," " "The Two Swans," "Sunshine," cup versus Glowworm," "The Butterfly's Song," ‚” “Once,”. our list is by no means exhaustive, - are children's poems only in their simplicity; and into some of them we doubt whether children would enter at all. But, on the whole, the pieces in which glee of heart seems just to pass into a mood of meditative wonder, of which "The Fairies' Nest" is so fine a specimen, are to us the most delightful and original in the book. There is something in them which at once delights and lifts the mind like sunshiny mountain air. The exaltation is heightened by the disguise of fresh unassuming gaiety under which it steals upon us. Without any of the moral strain on us which most poetry demands, we have the stimulus of it planted in our spirits, and that subtle enjoyment which results from sheathing a higher and more refined delight within a slighter and commoner one. The Fairies

Nest" is the best example of this perfect blending of humour with lyrical poetry, the shading off of joyousness into something like meditative rapture; but, as we could hardly extract so long a piece, we will take instead "What may Happen to a Thimble," where the playfulness passes to and fro between a real poetic feeling for nature and a child's gay fancy, in a most eharming kind of intellectual work:trellis

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"Have beetles crept with it

Where oak roots hide;
There have they settled it
Down on its side?
Neat little kennel,
So cosy and dark,
Has one crept into it,
Trying to bark?

"Have the ants cover'd it
With straw and sand?
Roomy bell-tent for them,
So tall and grand;
Where the red soldier-ants
Lie, loll, and lean-
While the blacks steadily
Build for their queen.
"Has a huge dragon-fly

Borne it (how cool!)
To his snug dressing-room,
By the clear pool?
There will he try it on
For a new hat-
Nobody watching

But one water-rat?

"Did the flowers fight for it, While, undescried, One selfish daisy Slipp'd it aside; Now has she plunged it in Close to her feetNice private water-tank For summer heat?

"Did spiders snatch at it,
Wanting to look
At the bright pebbles

Which lie in the brook?
Now are they using it
(Nobody knows!),
Safe little diving-bell,
Shutting so close?

"Did a rash squirrel there,
Wanting to dine,

Think it some foreign nut,
Dainty and fine?

Can he have swallowed it,
Up in that oak?
We, if we listen,

Shall soon hear him choke.

"Has it been buried by

Cross imps and hags,
Wanting to see us

Like beggars in rags?
Or have fays hidden it,
Lest we should be
Tortured with needlework
After our tea?

"Hunt for it, hope for it, All through the moss; Dip for it, grope for it "Tis such a loss!

Jane finds a drop of dew,

Fan finds a stone;
I find the thimble,

Which is Mother's own!

"Run with it, fly with it—
Don't let it fall;

All did their best for it

Mother thanks all.
Just as we give it her,
Think what a shame! -
Ned says he's sure

That it isn't the same!"

That profound young sceptic "Ned," who
suggests at the outset that no thimble has
been lost at all, and at the close that the
one which is found is not identical with that
which was lost, if indeed any were lost,
gives a thoroughly modern setting to all the
nimble and fertile fancy of the poem. There
you see the true new generation which raises
the most fundamental doubts, both throwing
water on adventurous zeal before it is kin-
dled and analyzing away its achievements
afterwards. There is something very happy
in the contrast between the number of wild
and fanciful suggestions offered as to the
true fate of the thimble, and the contemptu-
ous suggestion of the young cynic in limine
that there was no problem to be solved, and
in conclusion that none had been solved.
Nor are the more nonsensical pieces of this
little volume much, if at all, inferior in
their kind, though it is of course a lower
kind, to those of poetical playfulness.
"Mother Tabbyskins" and "A Boy's As-
pirations" are perfect models of their kind.
The boy of four years old who manfully re-
solves that" when I'm old "

"I'll never go to bed till twelve o'clock,
I'll make a mud pie in a clean frock;
I'll whip the naughty boys with a new birch,
I'll take my guinea-pig always to church,"

- with many other resolves quite as bril-
liant and energetic, is a child whose charac-

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That must have been written in a differter every one must honour, and whose ac-ent world, from the England we have been quaintance we should very much like to foolishly inhabiting for seven months back make, though we hardly covet the respon- at least, perhaps during that shining sumsibilities of his parents and guardians. Equally good is the picture of old Tabbyskins, a genuine study of feline character, dashed on to the canvas with all the power of a literary Rembrandt.

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mer of last year which we have been expiating during all these melancholy months, and in which the spirit has been slowly ebbing away from the heart of the nation. One of the great merits of this bright little volume is that it seems to have bottled the sunshine for us, and recalls the impression of the sun, physical and moral, in a wintry world which has almost forgotten its light and heat.

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