the Sunday-school work, the greater will be your dividends of salvation." Not without reason has the Standard Oil Trust been described as "evangelical at one end, explosive at the other."

"Yes, such are the ethics of business and of politics in America," is the complacent comment of the British reader. He had, however, best reserve his judgment until he has read the concluding chapter, which seeks to probe the mystery of the "low-flash point" still retained for standard oil sold in this country. A Select Committee, which sat upon this question twelve years ago, taking the evidence of such scientific authorities as Lord Kelvin, Sir H. Roscoe, and Professor Ramsay, reported in favor of raising the flashpoint, in view of the great growth of accidents. But when the Flash-point Bill came up for second reading in 1899, it was rejected "on the pledge of Mr. Collings, then representing the Home Office, that the Government would deal with the whole subject of the storage of petroleum and of lamp accidents." But nothing has ever yet been done, and as Professor Silvanus P. Thompson has recently remarked, "The scandal of the free sale of dangerous low-flash oil continues." One way or another, the Standard Oil Company seems to get its way here as in America, and careful students of such evidence as is available will probably conclude that it does so by employing the same methods. Indeed, as we follow the tortuous career of this protean monster in India, Germany, France or Sweden, we find it appearing in diverse shapes, with various protective titles, but always operating with the same audacity and cunning upon the same

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weakness of business men and politicians. Take Sweden, for example. "In the beginning of September, 1909, Mr. Stendahl's report was issued, which proves by an abundance of sensational and, at times, amusing evidence that the so-called Swedish Vacuum Oil Company is identical with that of Rochester, U.S.A.. that it has evaded Swedish taxation, fraudulently rebranded cheaper as dearer oils, and, by a very curiously concealed system of bribery, induced engineers of the Royal Navy to diminish the effectiveness of their service."

In

Will the Trust establish a worldmonopoly? This issue remains to be fought out. With the rapidly expanding uses of oil, new profitable sources of supply in several countries have been opened up. It is no longer a question of dividing the market with the produce of the Baku wells. Galicia, Roumania, and elsewhere, vast new sources have been tapped, and a stout resistance has been offered to the American invader. Two powerful combinations have been formed, the European and the Asiatic Petroleum Unions, possessing capital of a magnitude fitted for the world-combat which is even now in course of being fought out. What will be the issue of the conflict between these commercial monsters struggling for the mastery of continents remains to be seen. It is difficult to see what protection the oil-using public can procure against a peace which shall either apportion the oil empire between two or three gigantic companies, working by agreement, or shall enable the great boa-constrictor of America to effect unity by swallowing its rival monsters.

The

Logically speaking, of course, you cannot put yourself in the right by acknowledging that you are in the wrong. Practically, however, it is always being done, and those who make the acknowledgment with a good grace disarm their accusers: graciousness is a gift for which the possessor gets full credit from the time that he can speak till the last man who remembers him is dead. We might almost divide the world into those who acknowledge and confess their transgressions and those who seem constitutionally unable to do so; but this would not be to separate between the sheep and the goats. world forgives the man who openly repents (unless he has done something very unusually bad); he also forgives himself, crosses off the debt, and starts fresh; but there are secret penitents who never speak and who cannot forgive themselves. It would be sentimental, perhaps, to think too much about the mental pains of these dumb sinners. They suppress a good impulse of. nature, and are a cause of unkindness and injustice in their fellow creatures. The natural and right thing is to "own up." Still, we ought not to be too hard on the man who cannot apologize. He is not likely to be very happy, though he may gradually become a saint; for he will disappoint his friends. After all, goodness, pure and simple, is not what we ask of our intimate acquaintance. We demand it in the abstract of peers and poor people, and all those whom we lump together in classes but do not know much about singly. What we ask of our friends is that they should be lovable.

Whatever one may think of the uses to which the impulse to confess has been put by theologians, or of the doctrines which they have evolved from

it, it remains a good impulse, and the peace of mind which confession brings remains a mystery, however eloquently we may argue against the possibility of earthly absolution. One proof of the goodness of the impulse is that when yielded to it produces goodness in others. Every decent man loses his sense of rancour in the face of an apology. It dwindles in exact proportion as he believes the apology to be sincere. A complete and gracious expression of regret is of course more easily accepted than an awkward one, but that is only because the latter is less immediately understood and more easily misjudged. We are inclined to think the awkward offender is not so sorry as the man who is not shy. As a rule we are mistaken. It is a cruel man—and an utterly worthless woman -in whom an expression of regret creates not commiseration but contempt. We should say they are more exceptional than the people at the other end of the moral scale who feel no movement of revenge under any circumstances. The Christian religion makes a large demand when it ordains that a repentant neighbor is to be forgiven ten times a day, but the demand is simply made upon our patience; the sentiment appealed to can hardly be considered less natural than the sentiment which prompts to retaliation.

Admission, however, is not quite the same thing as apology. There are certain faults which people never repent-perhaps they do not know they possess them-which are rendered completely innocuous by admission. There is a childish vanity, for instance, a childish, if disproportionate, appreciation of their own value, for which it would be churlish indeed to dislike many men and women. Half the delight of a present to a child is in the

showing of it, and more than half the pleasure which some grown up people derive from an expression of appreciation is in the repeating of it. They lack the quick sense of the ridiculous which stands many of us in stead of humility, and they are none the worse for being without it. Often we like them for the unconscious trust they reveal in the amiability of their fellowcreatures. Some women-some of the very best-have a tendency to plot for other people's benefit. The deceit they believe themselves to practise and continually allow themselves to reveal is as innocent as a child's romance.

Indeed, the ostentatiously frank type of woman is not a very agreeable one. Goaded by an antiquated accusation of slyness, she blusters about her bad qualities. "I am a good hater," she admits, or "a violent partisan," (why are women so proud of partisanship?), or "a careless speaker." Having said this, she considers that she has "advertised herself out of the law," and is free to do someone a bad turn, act wrongly in a good cause, or repeat gossip with conscious inaccuracy.

Very often her world forgives her because she has warned them of her peculiarities and they are deceived by what they foolishly think her ingenuousness. Pope knew her very well, and said of her in his catalogue of female failings:

And she who owns her fault but never mends,

Because she's honest and the best of friends.

There is a still more contemptible method of cheating conscience which deceives many. The device is very simple. It consists in openly proclaiming one's faults under the bare misnomer of some distantly allied virtue. "I do like justice," says someone, "and I cannot bear to be done out of my rights." Then they tell a long

story about the trouble they have given over a sixpence. A true comment upon their action would run thus: "I am so abominably mean that I would make any fuss and risk any amount of pain to my neighbors before I would forego the veriest trifle." Again, they will say: "I do think that everyone should do their duty, and I was determined, though I hated to do it, that I would make So-and-so do his." If they want to describe their action at all they ought to say, "I am by nature a tyrant, and I am willing to wear myself out if only I can wring a few paltry acts of submission from any one." Both men and women often say "I speak my mind," or "I feel I must speak the truth," when they ought to say, "I never make the slightest effort to control my natural tendency to verbal cruelty."

The people who discuss their own virtues in the abstract are not, we think, greater bores than those who discuss their own faults. The former are, however, as a rule the better people, for they make some effort for very shame's sake to live up to their boast, while the others have effectually prepared themselves and their friends to expect the worst. Such frankness is prompted by subtlety. It is no plea for forgiveness, but merely a method of saying "Merci d'avance" for future indulgence practised by those who have grasped the great fact that the vast majority of men are very simple, and a large proportion when not angry are very kind. "Thou shalt not hide" is a commandment more generally recognized by the commonplace moralist than "Thou shalt not be found out." It is curious to reflect that a public opinion which is so kind to a man or woman who "owns up" about the things which may be said to concern his or her soul is so harsh to the convert where intellectual matters are concerned. If a man has begun life

with a false conclusion, and comes in later years to repudiate it, he gets little indulgence from any one, and often appears to be ashamed of himself. His former co-believers usually regard him as a turncoat. We all believe ourselves to be followers of Truth, but it would never occur to us to forgive a stumbling fellow-disciple ten times a day! Indeed we most of us feel inThe Spectator.

wardly that a man should stick to his errors rather than keep changing his opinions. As a matter of fact we are all very doubtful outside the region of morals where truth lies, and we think stability of more importance than conclusion. Morality is in theory the one subject upon which nothing can be said absolutely. In practice it is the only thing about which we are all agreed.

Fiction is to-day mainly written by women; and it is already possible to compile an anthology of words and phrases used and understood by women alone.

"Man-like" is a woman's word; so is "friendly-wise," and "alright." No male author would make the heroine say "I am a very woman!" It is the women authors, too, who ruin the hero every week by "a paper found in the left-hand drawer of an old bureau."

Heroines lead an anxious and harassed life. Young persons "sweep up" when out for the evening; ladies when exceptionally tender "flute"; and girls, on the slightest provocation, "pant." "I shall have the world at my feet one day,' Rachel panted, 'clapping and applauding me to the echo . . . the world!' Heroines do things in brackets. They speak (gloomily) and (grudgingly) and (archly). Grand-uncles are addressed (yearningly). Heroines do not reply; they "flash." The best heroines "ripple." 'How manlike!' Aminta rippled."

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Heroines and ladies going into the magazines to say that their heart will find "its king" are "not exactly beautiful." Though there is ever something about them which lures the careless passer-by to look again, their face is "not quite flawless," and the best heroines suffer from a nose which is "not

quite a perfect one." Secure in the possession of "a woman's true heart," they discover "a Foul Wrong," defeat Scotland Yard, and engage in detecting crime in Ross-shire. They cast a glamour over legal gentlemen and a respectable family solicitor, a dry man, a bachelor given to charging six-andeightpence, departed so far from professional practice as to say that it was not for him to read the secrets of a woman's heart-subsequently forgetting to charge Miss Myrtle thirteenand-fourpence "to advising you to take your own way."

"Dainty" is a woman's word. It is used equally of an authentic collection of Goss China, the property of one Geneviève, and of a practical tablecloth, belonging to "a poor dressmaker with a dear, old face." Some girls are possessed of "a dainty figure"; and, in shaking hands, heroines give melancholy young gentlemen a "dainty hand in friendly-wise." They live with the tea-cup permanently in their womanly fingers; tepid tea and insubstantial bread are technically referred to as "a dainty meal."

Faces are "proud"; and ladies with an imperfect nose have "a pure, proud, lovely woman's face, with glorious soul-lit eyes." Heroines are "slight." Chairs, on the other hand, are "deep"; and after the accident of a sprained

ankle you "almost carry Elsie's slight figure to a deep chair."

In the important matter of costume, emotional dresses are worn and virginal thoughts go with white frocks. "Clinging white draperies" are essential to the heroine, and "colors" are not worn.

Eyes are extremely significant. The heroines have "glorious, dark-blue, soul-lit, womanly eyes." Ladies of a villainous type, on the other hand, are recognizable by their "green eyes." On encountering at a country house eyes "scintillating like emeralds." a bachelor should despatch a telegram summoning himself to the death-bed of "his grand aunt, Barbara Batley." In Chapter Thirty-Four Green Eyes are "unmasked." Heroines with "pansy eyes," ladies with orbs "misty with unshed tears," are dedicate and unlike anything on earth. Though they have shortened their hair and lengthened their skirts, "as yet no thought of love has entered their bright young lives," and "all that seemed too far away from their young glorious thoughts."

Gentlemen with "the most expressive dark eyes" lead a harassed life.

The hero is a clod, a thing stuffed out with straw. It is the business and profession of a hero to come into accidents; his occupation is to tumble off his horse; he needs "womanly care and compassion." He goes over cliffs; he is sand-bagged; he runs a hook into his "poor hand" while fraudulently pretending to fish, and he "almost faints." Awakened out of a "swoon" by the application of cold water, he sees a face whose "beauty is graven for ever on the tablets of his memory." He says "For pity's sake let me in' . A face was pressed against the window-pane ghastly, pallid, with white lips and eyes that gazed in unseeing fashion." In fact, there had been a fall of snow. She chafes The Saturday Review.

his "half-frozen fingers. He was helpless as a babe." The general helplessness of heroes is their prevailing note. Barristers are briefless. Man is good in so far as he approaches a distinctly feminine type, and the ideal is to be "a very woman." The best men, persons with well-kept hands, are distinguished by "a touch as tender as a woman's." Colonels and Majors who delimitate frontiers and hunt "big game" have "a mouth as sweet as a girl's." The eyes of Colonel Melcombe are "luminous with sympathy"; the war-worn veteran weeps "like a babe."

Then there is the Wretch and the Brute. His wife is a "deeply wronged woman." The Brute has "a retreating chin." But . . . "there is no hint of weakness about his sister, albeit she was altogether sweet and womanly." Often they are men with green eyes, with "dark olive faces," and a cigar. The Brute "grinds his teeth." "His evil passions were thoroughly roused; they swept his soul like a blasting flame." The Wretch is greedy, and when you write of him, the feminine language runs naturally into terms of eating and metaphors of gross gluttony. "He kept his eyes on the halldoor like a chained wolf on meat beyond his reach."

Burglary is venial, and so is bloodletting. There are viler things against the Brute, and dark matters which cannot be expiated by retiring to South America or taking "a solemn oath." "Against my guardian's wish almost in defiance of her authority . . I married the man I loved. He proved to be a gambler and worse!" This degraded person, in fact, had sworn at his wife; and was generally "a most determined, unscrupulous man." He dies in Chap