and nature. Of course, only scientific musicians, and perhaps also musicians wedded to the music of the future, can fully appreciate his theories; but all who care for music at all, and understand what it means in the faintest degree, will read with delight such passages as these:

How significant and full of meaning is the language of music! Take the Da Capo, for instance, which would be intolerable in literary and other compositions, yet here is judicious and welcome, since in order to grasp the melody we must hear it twice. The unspeakable fervour or inwardness (innige) of all music by virtue of which it brings before us so near and yet so remote a paradise, arises from the quickening of our innermost nature that it produces, always without its reality or tumult.

Music, indeed, is bound up with Schopenhauer's metaphysical theories; and rather than miss one of the most exquisite passages on this subject in his opus magnum, we for once graze lightly on metaphysical ground. The following requires to be carefully thought over:

The nature of man is so constituted that his will is perpetually striving and perpetually being satisfied-striving anew, and so on, ad inf., his only happiness consisting in the transition from wish to fulfilment and from fulfilment to wish: all else is mere ennui.

Corresponding to this is the nature of melody, which is a constant swerving and wandering from the key-note, not only by means of perfect harmonies, such as the third and dominant, but in a thousand ways and by every possible combination, always perforce returning to the key-note at last. Herein, melody expresses the multiform striving of the will, its fulfilment by various harmonies, and finally, its perfect satisfaction in the key-note. The invention of melody-in other words, the unveiling thereby of the deepest secrets of human will and emotion-is the achievement of genius farthest removed from all reflective and conscious design. I will carry my analogy further. As the rapid transition of wish to fulfilment and from fulfilment to wish is happiness and contentment, so quick melodies without great deviations from the key-note are joyous, whilst slow melodies, only reaching the key-note after plainful dissonances and frequent changes of time, are sad. The rapid, lightlygrasped phrases of dance-music seem to speak of easily reached, everyday happiness: the allegro maestoso, on the contrary, with its slow periods, long movements and wide deviations, bespeaks a noble, magnanimous striving after a far-off goal, the fulfilment of which is eternal. The adagio proclaims the suffering of lofty endeavours. holding petty or common joys in contempt. How wonderful is the effect of minor and major! how astounding that the alteration of a semitone and the exchange from a major to a minor third should immediately and invariably awaken a pensive, wistful mood from which the major at once releases us! The adagio in a minor key expresses the deepest sadness, losing itself in a pathetic lament.

1 Such brief citations suffice to show us in what light Schopenhauer regarded music, but all who wish to master his theories on the subject must turn to his works themselves, wherein they will find, as our French neighbors say, à quoi boire et à quoi manger: in other words, intellectual sustenance, equally light, palatable, and nourishing, to be returned to again and again with unflagging appetite. The world of art, like the world of thought and philosophy, was more real and vital to him than that of daily life and common circumstances; and how he regarded a musical composition, a picture, a book, or any true work of art, the following happy similes will testify:

The creations of poets, sculptors, and artists generally contain treasures of deepest recognisable wisdom, since in these is proclaimed the innermost nature of things,

1

whose interpreters and illustrators they are. Every one who reads a poem or looks at a work of art must seek for such wisdom, and each naturally grasps it in proportion to his intelligence and culture, as a skipper drops his plummet line just as far as the length of his rope allows. We should stand before a picture as before a sovereign, waiting to see if it has something to tell us and what it may be, and no more speak to the one than to the other-else we only express ourselves.

This last sentence shows Schopenhauer's intensity of artistic feeling, nor must it be for a moment supposed that he was insensible to nature. In his last lonely years at Frankfurt, and indeed throughout his life, long country rambles were his daily recreations, the wholesome rule of two hours' brisk movement in the open air,' which he laid down for his country people, not being neglected by himself. Many of us know Frankfurt pretty well, and can picture to ourselves exactly the kind of suburban spot which might have suggested this thought to the great pessimist:

How æsthetic is Nature! Every corner of the world, no matter how insignificant, adorns itself in the tastefullest manner when left alone, proclaiming by natural grace and harmonious grouping of leaves, flowers and garlands that Nature, and not the great egotist man, has here had her way. Neglected spots straightway become beautiful.

And then he goes on to compare the English and French garden, with a compliment to the former, which unfortunately it has ceased to deserve. The straggling old-fashioned English garden Schopenhauer admired so much is now a rarity-the formal parterres, geometrical flower beds, and close-cropped alleys he equally detested, having superseded the easy natural graces of former days. He adored animals no less than nature, and amid the intricate problems of his great work and the weighty questions therein evolved concerning the nature and destiny of human will and intellect, he makes occasion to put in a plea for the dumb things so dear to him. His pet dog, Atma, meaning, in Sanscrit, the Soul of the Universe, was the constant companion of his walks, and when he died, his master was inconsolable. The cynic, the misanthrope, the woman-hater, was all tenderness here.

Was Schopenhauer happy or not? Who can answer that question for another? He was alone in the world, having never made for himself a home or domestic ties; he hated society-except, as we have seen, that infinitesimal portion of it suited to his intellectual aspirations, his favourite recreations being long country walks and the drama. It also amused him to dine at a table d'hôte, which he did constantly in the latter part of his lifetime. But that he understood what inner happiness was we have seen, and the secret of it he had discovered also. If joy of the intenser kind is born of thought and spiritual or intellectual beauty, no less true it is, that everyday enjoyment depends on cheerfulness, and with the following golden maxims, suited alike for the Normal Mensch and the Genialer, commonplace humanity and the choicer intellects among whom Schopenhauer found his kindred, may aptly close this little paper:

What most directly and above everything else makes us happy, is cheerfulness of mind. for this excellent gift is its own reward. He who is naturally joyous, has every reason to be so, for the simple reason that he is as he is. Nothing can compen.

sate like cheerfulness for the lack of other possessions, whilst in itself it makes up for all others. A man may be young, well-favoured, rich, honoured, happy, but if we would ascertain whether or no he be happy, we must first put the question-is he cheerful? If he is cheerful, then it matters not whether he be young or old. straight er crooked, rich or poor: he is happy. Let us throw open wide the doors to Cheerfulness whenever she makes her appearance, for it can never be unpropitious instead of which, we too often bar ber way, asking ourselves-Have we indeed. or have we not, good reasons for being content? Cheerfulness is the current coin of happiness, and not like other possession, merely its letter of credit.

We will close this paper with a few quotations culled here and there from the four volumes before us. It is alternately the sage, the artist, the satirist who is speaking to us.

Poverty is the scourge of the people, ennui of the better ranks. The boredom of Sabbatarianism is to the middle classes what weekday penury is to the needy.

:

Thinkers, and especially men of true genius, without any exception, find noise insupportable. This is no question of habit. The truly stoical indifference of ordinary minds to noise is extraordinary it creates no disturbance in their thoughts, either when occupied in reading or writing, whereas, on the contrary, the intellectually endowed are thereby rendered incapable of doing anything. I have ever been of opinion that the amount of noise a man can support with equanimity is in inverse proportion to his mental powers, and may be taken therefore as a measure of intellect generally. If I hear a dog barking for hours on the threshold of a house, I know well enough what kind of brains I may expect from its inhabitants. He who habitually slams the door instead of closing it is not only an ill-bred, but a coarse-grained, feebly-endowed

creature.

It is truly incredible how negative and insignificant, seen from without, and how dull and meaningless, regarded from within, is the life of by far the greater bulk of human beings!

The life of every individual, when regarded in detail, wears a comic, when re, garded as a whole, a tragic aspect. For the misadventures of the hour, the toiling and moiling of the day, the fretting of the week, are turned by freak of destiny into comedy. But the never-fulfilled desires, the vain strivings, the hopes so pitilessly shattered, the unspeakable blunders of life as a whole, with its final suffering and death, ever make up a tragedy.

Mere clever men always appear exactly at the right time: they are called forth by the spirit of their age, to full its needs, being capable of nothing else. They influence the progressive culture of their fellows and demands of special enlightenment: thereby their praise and its reward. Genius flashes like a comet amid the orbits of the age, its erratic course being a mystery to the steadfastly moving planets around. Genius produces no works of practical value. Music is composed, poetry conceived, pictures painted-but a work of genius is never a thing to use. Uselessness indeed is its title of honour. All other human achievements contribute towards the support or alleviation of our existence; works of genius alone exist for their own sake, or may be considered as the very flower and bloom of destiny. This is why the enjoyment of art so uplifts our hearts. In the natural world also we rarely see beauty allied to usefulness. Lofty trees of magnificent aspect bear no fruit, productive trees for the most part being ugly little cripples.. So also, the most beautiful buildings are not useful. A temple is never a dwelling-place. A man of rare mental endowments, compelled by circumstances to follow a humdrum career fitted for the most common. place, is like a costly vase, covered with exquisite designs, used as cooking utensil To compare useful people with geniuses is to compare building stones with diamonds. Could we prevent all villains from becoming fathers of families, shut up the dunderheads in monasteries, permit a harem to the nobly-gifted, and provide every girl of spirit and intellect with a husband worthy of her, we might look for an age surpassing that of Pericles.

Virtue, no more than genius, is to be taught. We might just as well eet our systems of morals and ethics generally to produce virtuous, noble-minded and saintly individuals, as æsthetics to create poets, sculptors, and musicians. M. B.-E., in Fraser's Magazine.

A VISIT TO THE NEW ZEALAND GEYSERS.

The Geyser district of New Zealand is, at some future day, to be the great sanatorium of the Southern world; meanwhile, it is so little known that some account of a visit lately made to it may not be uninteresting.

While 'globe-trotting' with a friend, we found ourselves in April last year at Auckland, New Zealand, and were kindly invited by the Governor to join him in a visit he was going to make with the Commodore and a large party, to the geysers.

The party assembled at Tauranga, a port about 140 miles south-east of Auckland, and the most convenient starting-point for Ohinemutu, the head-quarters of the hot lake country. The little town was gay with flags and triumphal arches, and crowded with Maories looking forward to a big drink in return for the dance with which they received the Governor. I was disappointed to find the natives were broadnosed, thick-lipped, tattooed savages, or at least so they appeared at first sight. The men are decidedly superior in appearance to the women, and among the young people tattooing is becoming unfashionable.

From Tauranga to Ohinemutu is about forty miles over a good road, except through what is called the 'eighteen-mile bush,' where the road possesses all the ills to which a bush road is heir. About three miles from Tauranga the road passes through the celebrated Gate Pah, where English soldiers in a panic ran away from the Maories, and left their officers to be killed. The pah is well placed on the top of a ridge looking out over Tauranga and the sea. Almost all traces of the earthworks have now disappeared, and the cluster of gravestones in the neglected little cemetery at Tauranga will soon be the only remaining evidence of that disastrous day. About eight miles beyond the Pah we had our first experience of a New Zealand bush. It was magnifi*cent. I cannot say the same of the road. A great part of it is what is called 'corduroy road,' that is, trunks of trees, about 8 or 9 inches in diameter, were laid close together across the track, forming a kind of loose bridge over the soft places. Some of the trees, especially the rimu, a species of yew, here called a pine, were of immense size and age, in places tangled masses of red flowering creepers completely hid the trees. The tree ferns were the perfection of lightness and beauty, the dark-leaved shrubs setting them off to great advantage.

At Ohinemutu we found two small hotels; the charges are very moderate, and the attention paid to visitors is all that can be desired. The land here still belongs to the Maories, who refuse either to sell it or let it; and the hotel-keepers, who are only tenants-at-will, are naturally unwilling to spend much money in building with such an inse

cure tenure. One creek of Lake Rotorua, on the banks of which Ohinemutu stands, is filled with boiling springs, which heat the waters of the lake for a considerable distance. This creek is a favourite bathing-place, but, as it is dangerous in the dark, my friend and I tried a natural bath, which has been inclosed by the hotel-keepers to keep out the natives. It was as hot as we could bear it, very soft, buoyant, and bubbling, and after our long, bumpy drive, perfectly delicious. When we had got thoroughly warmed through, I thought lying in the soft bubbling water the most perfect sensuous pleasure I ever experienced.

The next morning we visited the many boiling water and mud springs in the immediate neighbourhood of the village. On a small peninsula, between our hotel and the lake, there are a great many native dwellings, called whares (pronounced warries). A whole tribe formerly lived there, but one night the end of the peninsula suddenly collapsed and disappeared in the lake, destroying, of course, all its inhabitants. There is, in the midst of the village, a large native building called the 'Carved House;' its sides are covered, inside and out, with intricate carving, chiefly of grotesque human figures. By Maori law, the carved figures may only have three fingers on each hand, lest any evil-disposed persons should mistake them for caricatures of their ancestors. This native settlement owes its existence to the many hot springs with which the peninsula abounds, the boiling water standing to the natives in the place of fire, and saving them an infinity of trouble with their cooking and washing arrangements. One desirable result of the abundance of warm baths is the undoubted cleanliness of the people.

About a mile farther along the banks of the lake, we came to what is called the Sulphur Point. It certainly deserved its name. The surface of the ground is literally honeycombed with pools of boiling water and mud holes, impregnated with sulphur or alum. The smell was perfectly fearful. One mud bath that we ventured into certainly did not look tempting; great waves of thick brown mud bubbled up in the middle of the pool, and rolled lazily towards the sides. It was just a pleasant temperature, very smooth and oily, and, notwithstanding its appearance, decidedly a success. We next tried a pool of thinner mud, and ended with a swim in the cold waters of the lake, feeling all the better for our strange experience. All the pools have been given stupid English names by the hotel-keeper; the one we first bathed in is known as 'Painkiller,' and enjoys a high reputation for curing rheumatism. It was here that a young Englishman lately nearly lost his life. A large bubble burst near his face, the poisonous gases from which rendered him insensible; and had it not been for a Maori, who happened to be standing near, he must infallibly have been drowned. The whole neighbourhood is a dangerous one; the crust of the earth is in many places so thin that one may at any moment find one's-self standing in boiling water. The guides take so much pleasure in recounting all the accidents that have happened,