This may sound worldly. The people of the United States used to consider it worldly to admire pictures or to listen to beautiful music. Some think so still. Many a citizen of what was lately the prairie sits down to his dinner in his shirt-sleeves to-day and pretends to be thankful that he is neither an aristocrat nor a gold-bug. The

"Satisfied to flirt."

next week, perhaps, this same citizen will vote against a national bankrupt law because he does not wish to pay his debts, or vote for a bill which will enable him to pay them in depreciated currency. Many a clergyman who knows better gives his flock consolingly to understand that to be absorbed in the best human interests of life is unworthy of the Christian, and that to be ordinary and unattractive is a legitimate condition of mind and body. Surely the best Americanism is the Americanism of the man or woman who makes the most of what this life affords, and throws himself or herself keenly into the thick of it. The art of living is the science of living nobly and well, and how can one live either nobly or well by regarding life on the earth as a mere log-cabin existence? If we in this country who seek to live wisely are in danger from the extravagant

vanities of the very rich, we are scarcely less menaced by that narrow spirit of ethical teaching which tries to inculcate that it does not much matter what our material surroundings are, and that any progress made by society, except in the direction of sheer morality, is a delusion and a snare. Character is the basis and the indispensable requisite

of the finest humanity; without it refinement, appreciation, manнers, fancy, and power of expression are like so many boughs on a tree which is dead. But, on the other hand, what is more uninspiring than an unadorned soul? That kind of virtue and morality which finds no interest in the affairs of this life is but a fresh contribution to the sum of human incompetence, and but serves to retard the progress of civilization. The true and the chief reason why there is less misery in the world than formerly is that men understand better how to live. That straight-laced type of American, who is content to be moral in his own narrow way, and to exclude from his scheme of life all those interests which serve to refine and to inspire, bears the same relation to the ideal man or woman that a chromo bears to a masterpiece of painting.

We have no standards in this country. The individual is free to express himself here within the law in any way he sees fit, and the conduct of life comes always at last to an equation of the individual. Each one of us when we awake in the morning finds the problem of existence staring him anew in the face, and cannot always spare the time to remember that he is an American. And yet Americanism is the sum total of what all of us are. It will be very easy for us simply to imitate the civilizations of the past, but if our civilization is to stand for anything

"When he delivered his farewell address."

vital, and to be a step forward in the progress of humanity, we must do more than use the old combinations and devices of society in a new kaleidoscopic form. Our heritage as Americans is independence, originality, self-reliance, and sympathetic energy animated by a strong ethical instinct, and these are forces which can produce a higher and a broader civilization than the world has yet seen if we choose to have it so. But it is no longer a matter of cutting down forests and opening mines, of boasting beside the plough and building cities in a single year, of fabulous fortunes won in a trice, and of favorite sons in black broadcloth all the year round. It is a matter of a vast, populous country and a powerful, seething civilization where the same problems confront us which have taxed the minds and souls of the Old World for generations of men. It is for our originality to throw new light upon them, and it is for our independence to face them in the spirit of a deeper sympathy with humanity, and free from the canker of that utter selfishness which has made the prosperity and glory of other great nations culminate so often in a decadence of degrading luxury and fruitless culture.

No civilization which regards the blessings and comforts of refined living as unworthy to be striven for and appropriated can hope to promote the

cause of humanity. On the other hand, we Americans must remember that purely selfish appropriation and appreciation of these blessings and comforts has worked the ruin of the most famous civilizations of the past. Marie Antoinette was more elegant than the most fashionable woman in New York, and yet that did not save her from the tumbrel and the axe. The best Americanism of to-day and for the future is that which shall seek to use the fruits of the earth and the fulness thereof, and to develop all the manifestations of art and gentle living in the interest of humanity as a whole. But even heart

D

O the classic virtues grace an age of common-place?

The cynics of our time will tell you No. That the cynics are wrong, however, was impressively shown by Stanley's deed in Darkest Africa, touched in the last chapter of this history. Another exploit, more thrilling still, illustrated President Arthur's years in office. Lieutenant Weyprecht, of Austria-Hungary, had, in 1875, proposed a series of co-operating stations for magnetic and meteorological observations near the North Pole. Lieutenant Howgate, of our Signal Service, had long advocated polar colonization in the interest of geographical science. Several nations, the United States among them, were moved to attempt polar discov

ery.

In 1881 we established two stations, one of them on Lady Franklin Bay, to be manned by Lieutenant A. W. Greely, Fifth United States Cavalry, with a party of twenty-two officers and soldiers, and two Eskimos. The Proteus bore Greely and his men from St.John's, Newfoundland, on July 7, 1881. Beyond the northernmost Greenland settlement, through the treacherous archipelago, between the "land ice" and the "middle pack" of Melville Bay, amid the iceberg squadrons of Smith Sound and Kane Sea, the stanch little sealer

VOL. XVIII.-63

BLAINE AND LOGAN
THE MUGWUMP BOLT
CLEVELAND NOMINATED
A PERSONAL CAMPAIGN
DEMOCRATIC VICTORY

kept her course. Eight miles from her destination she was for the first time blocked. A solid semicircle of ice confronted her, reaching clear across from Greenland to Grinnell Land. Large floes broke off and passed her, only to re-form and cut off her retreat, while the northern pack, advancing, threatened to crush her. Upon new caprice, however, the upper ice retired toward the polar ocean, and on the 11th the little army disembarked, one thousand miles north of the Arctic Circle. A fortnight later the Proteus whistled farewell and began her return trip, which, like the out-passage, was "without parallel or precedent" for freedom. from the difficulties and dangers unanimously reported as existing in that region.

It was proposed in 1882 to visit the Greely coleny with supplies and reinforcements, and in 1883 to effect their return. Setting out a year and a day after the Proteus, the Neptune achieved a hard but steady advance to Kane Sea, but this she found choked with ice. For forty days she vainly assaulted her godfather's polar phalanx. When, with the close of August, whitening cliffs and withering vegetation portended winter, Beebe, the commander, hastening to place a small cache on either side of Smith Sound, returned,

as ordered, with all the rest of his abounding supplies, which were stored in Newfoundland, to be taken north again by the Proteus in 1883.

The 1883 undertaking was doubly momentous from the past year's failure. The Proteus, Lieutenant Ernest A. Garlington commanding, was attended by the Yantic, under Commander Frank Wildes, United States Navy. This enterprise, again, was marked by mismanagement, misunderstanding, and misfortune. Lethargy of delay was followed by fever of precipitation. Orders were irregularly issued and countermanded; supplies went aboard in an unclassified mass; the foreign crew were inefficient and careless; the " cooperation" of army and navy divided responsibility and hampered both arms. The arctic armada was again encountered where Beebe found it. Garlington, too, completely engrossed with the injunction to reach Lady Franklin Bay at all hazards, though stopping at Cape Sabine a few hours, hurried north without replacing the damaged supplies there or leaving any of his own. Twice in her struggle the Proteus was within four hundred yards of open water; twice she failed to reach it. The second time, owing to clumsy seamanship,

the inexorable jaws of the ice-pack crushed in her sides, giving only time to tumble a part of the cargo overboard. The crew lent no aid, but, after securing their own luggage, began looting the property of the expedition. As they retreated in boats, about five hundred rations, twenty days' supply, was left for Greely at Cape Sabine, by Lieutenant J. C. Colwell, at a spot known as "Wreck-Camp Cache." After unwittingly passing the Yantic twice, and journeying in open boats for eight hundred miles in a sea stormy and full of bergs, the rescuers were rescued by the Yantic.

Incredulity, dismay, and indignation quickly succeeded each other in the public mind. The first expedition had been a failure, the second was a disaster, a breach of faith. Fearful, indeed, were its consequences. The devoted Greely and his band, in nowise responsible for it, were at that time painfully working southward from their well-stored outpost, relying upon meeting succor or finding a refuge prepared for them. The bleak desolation of Cape Sabine, with but forty days' rations, awaited them. Enough food to last them over five years had been car ried to, or beyond, Littleton Island by

New efforts in 1883 were deemed too hazardous to be undertaken. The Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy now took the matter up. A purely naval expedition was decided upon, consisting of two Dundee whalers and two reserve ships. Secretary Chandler deserves great credit for his tireless energy and care in making the preparations. Precautions were multiplied, no delay and no oversight occurred. Congress made generous appropriation, though not without ridiculous debate and higgling. A $25,000 bounty was proclaimed for rescue or tidings of the party. Mr. Chandler had purchased the Thetis and the Bear for the perilous cruise. The British Government presented us with the capable arctic veteran, the Alert, in addition to which

Commander Winfield S. Schley, heading the expedition, was as efficient as his chief. Though most of his subordinates were inexperienced in arctic work, and though he had to fight for every inch of progress, he carried the stars and stripes to Cape York ahead of several whalers who sought to outdo him. Much game and many walruses were seen on the east side of Smith Sound, but no signs of the Exploring Party. It was inferred that they must have remained at their post. in the north, but Schley decided to stop near Cape Sabine and make a cache before pushing thither.

Smith Sound, about twenty-three miles wide, was traversed in a roaring tempest. Parties were landed to examine old caches, when almost simultaneously two of them reported "news