wounded. It is characteristic of Pater that he dislikes to imagine them ever becoming dirty: "Peril, good luck, promotion, the grotesque hardships which leave them smart as ever (as if, so others observe, dust and mire wouldn't hold on them, so spick and span they were, more especially on days of any exceptional risk or effort)." They remain cheerful in the most depressing surroundings: "Following, leading, resting sometimes perforce, amid gunshots, putrefying wounds, green corpses, they never lacked good spirits, any more than the birds warbling perennially afresh, as they will, over such gangrened places...." At length they go into trenches under the walls of an old frontier town, and it is there that the catastrophe happens.

In several of the essays which make up the volume entitled 'Imaginary Portraits,' Pater seems to have aimed at achieving a grimly ironical effect by overwhelming his principal character in in some unexpected and incongruous tragedy. Sebastian von Storck, the lonely student of abstract philosophy, who becomes more and more detached from actual life, is drowned in a flood; Duke Carl of Rosenmold, a fantastic dilettante, falls victim to an invading army; Denys L'Auxerrois, the reincarnation of Dionysus, is torn to pieces by a mob. In 'Emerald Uthwart' a similar device is employed. Uthwart and Stokes, by some mysterious means, enter the city on their own

account and capture a flag. On their return they are put under arrest for "wantonly deserting their posts while in a position of high trust in time of war." The irony lies in the fact that their one breach of submissiveness resulted in a completely successful and heroic exploit, the result of the latter being that Stokes is shot and Uthwart dismissed from the Army with disgrace.

It is here that the somewhat "phosphorescent" story glows into poignant flame. Pater had a strongly morbid imagination, which he usually kept well under control; it breaks out horribly at the end of 'Denys L'Auxerrois'; it breaks out again in Emerald Uthwart.' The description of the execution (it is supposed to be taken from the diary of an eyewitness) is extraordinarily grim, and not less so is that of Uthwart's degradation. He witnesses the death of his friend; his sword is broken, and his epaulettes are torn off.

"I shall never forget the expression of this man's countenance (says the eye-witness), though I have seen many sad things in the course of my profession. He had the sort of good looks which always rivet attention, and in most minds friendly interest; and now, amid all his pain and bewilderment, bore a look of humility and submission as he underwent those extraordinary details of his punishment."

Uthwart wanders about wretchedly and at last reaches home, where he dies of his old

wound just when his case has been taken up in the newspapers and he has been offered a new commission.

"On that July afternoon, the gardens, the woods, mounted in flawless sweetness all round him as he stood, to meet the circle of a flawless sky. Not a cloud; not a motion on the grass! At the first he had intended to return home no more; and it had been a proof of his great dejection that he sent at last, as best he could, for money. They knew his fate already by report, and were touched naturally when that had followed on the record of his honours. Had it been possible, they would have set forth at any risk to meet, to seek him; were waiting now for the weary one to come to the gate, ready with their oil and wine, to speak metaphorically, and from this time forth underwent his charm to the utmost-the charm of an exquisite character, felt in some way to be inseparable from his person, his characteristic movements, touched also now with seemingly irreparable sorrow. For his part, drinking in here the last sweets of the sensible world, it was as if he, the lover of roses, had never before been aware of them at all."

It is a pity that the story did not end on this note. It is marred by a postscript, supposed to be written by a doctor

who comes after Uthwart's death to extract the bullet from his body, in which Pater's imagination betrays him into an excess of morbid detail. (The doctor performs the operation in the presence of Uthwart's mother.)

"The ball, a small one, much corroded with blood, was at length removed; and I was then directed to wrap it in a partly-printed letter, or other document, and place it in the breast-pocket of a faded and much worn scarlet soldier's coat, put over the shirt which enveloped the the body. The flowers were then hastily replaced, the hands and the peak of the handsome nose remaining visible amongst them; the wind ruffled the fair hair a little; the lips were still red. I shall not forget it. The lid was then placed on the coffin and screwed down in my presence. There was no plate or other inscription

upon it."

Pater's touch was uncertain when he was writing realistically; there is a strong flavour of the grotesque in this description of poor Uthwart's corpse, and it is difficult to understand his wish for this peculiar post-mortem.

A strange and painful story, and, on the whole, a failure artistically! But it is certainly a remarkable contribution to our military literature.

In many parts of the west of Ireland one finds small mountain farms of from five to twenty acres, generally consisting of twenty-five per cent rock, twenty-five per cent heather, and the remainder of indifferent grass-land. On such a farm a peasant will rear a large family, and how it is done is one of the mysteries of Ireland; but done it is, and often.

Patsey Mulligan was one of a family of ten, brought up on one of these farms until he was seventeen, when his father told him that it was time he thought of keeping himself, and, incidentally, of earning some money for his mother. Patsey quite agreed with his father, but soon found that it was much easier to talk of getting work in such a poor district as Cloonalla than to get it.

In the end Patsey made up
VOL. CCIX.-NO. MCCLXVI.

his mind that the only thing to do was to go to England in search of work, and one cold winter's morning he set off from his home, in company with three other lads from the same townland, to walk the fifteen miles across the mountains and bogs to the nearest railway station at Ballybar. Arriving in England, they made their way to a town in Yorkshire, where one of them had a brother working in a coalmine, and within three days of leaving his home in Ireland Patsey found himself a Yorkshire miner.

Hardly had he settled down to his work in the coal-mine when the war broke out, followed by a rush of young miners to enlist, amongst others Patsey Mulligan; and before he realised what he was doing, he was a full private in a famous Yorkshire regiment. Patsey had, however, enlisted in

2 E