for to read Stead was to know him, and to know showed itself singularly hard upon its former him was to admire and love him. Confidences favorite, "the voice of one just man was heard came to him from all parts. He became a sort of spiritual father for troubled consciences and for those obsessed with an ideal.

One of the most interesting portions of M. Finot's article is his reference to the relations of Stead with Cecil Rhodes. He tells us that

a sort of mystic adoration for Stead prompted Rhodes one day to write him long letters from the Transvaal. Stead had already at a distance conjectured that energy and will power were among the characteristics of him whom he surnamed the "Napoleon of the Cape.' One day Rhodes, like a thunder-clap, presented himself in Stead's study, Their conversation was short and significant. Said Rhodes to Stead: "You have many good and noble ideas, and I have many millions to aid you in realizing them.' The two energies joined forces, and a hearty handshake sealed the union.

For some years Stead had been accustomed to make unannounced visits to his friend Finot at the latter's retreat far from the busy

life of Paris.

One morning Stead burst in on Finot and, with that infantile gaiety, unstudied and full of charm, and peculiarly his own, asked brusquely, "Will you go with me to hell?" This hell, in the Biblical language with which Stead embellished his secular conversations, was nothing else than a world-wide journal or perhaps two journals, two gigantic and profoundly human enterprises.

Cecil Rhodes had asked him a few days previously: "What would you do, Stead, if you suddenly found yourself in possession of a million pounds ($5,000,000)?" Stead did not hesitate an instant. In his talks with his intimates, he had often urged the necessity of founding an international journal, independent of advertisements, subscribers, finance, governments, and "of the devil himself." His reply was ready: "I would found an English journal such as England has never yet seen, and another for the Continent such as Europe has perhaps never had." And Rhodes, with his characteristic simplicity of gesture and sobriety of speech, answered him: Establish your two journals: I hold at your disposal the million pounds you will require.'

above the concert of scandal. Stead did not hesitate to proclaim publicly the merits and the virtues of the man who had once called him friend and had cast him off."

As to Mr. Stead's attitude toward Germany, M. Finot says:

He wanted to bring all the professionals of England and Germany in contact, in order that, knowing each other better, and thus being able to appreciate each other, they might the better love one another. But his successive journeys to Germany opened his eyes. He began to understand the fatal force which was pushing the German Empire toward the domination of the world. And then, braving ridicule, he declared himself the advocate of two keels to one.

As instancing Stead's remarkable independence of character, M. Finot relates the efforts of the present Sultan of Turkey to induce Stead to accept some compensation for the expense he had been put to in connection with his visit to Constantinople last year. The Sultan offered him a check. Stead desired the sovereign to send it to the Peace Society at Berne. The Sultan then begged his acceptance of a personal souvenir, and handed him a gold cigarette case set with diamonds. Stead realized he could not well offend his Majesty, but was determined to maintain his independence. So he compromised by asking the Sultan if he would condescend to accept a small object from him, and solemnly handed his Majesty a goldmounted Waterman fountain-pen. The Sultan was delighted. Said he: "I have often dreamed of possessing one, but this is the first I have ever received in my life."

M. Finot devotes some pages to Stead's associations with spiritualism, remarking in one passage: "With that unshaken conviction which characterized his faith, he assured me that the thing [communication between the living and the dead] was possible, and that The two journals were never founded. he knew that he could prove it to me." He The friendship of Stead and his Mæcenas closes his sympathetic and interesting article was destined to a severe strain during the by comparing Stead to Marcus Aurelius, the Boer War. M. Finot gives an interesting desolate Stoic and also one of the most active summary of the incidents which led up to emperors that Rome ever had. In Stead's the estrangement. Convinced that the war case his activity in spiritualism never caused was an unjust one, Stead even went so far as him to deviate a hair's breadth from his set to say that England, if disloyal to the cause course in regard to his social and political of justice, deserved to be wiped from the propaganda. "Before the sovereign Death face of the earth. Stead's letters on the subject of this war are, says M. Finot, among the finest and noblest in the latter's possession. It was characteristic of Stead that when

all the detractors of Stead join with his admirers in saluting him as one of the most worthy and most representative sons of their noble country. . . And Stead dead is more

THE REAL PERSONAL CHARACTER OF THE

THE

POETESS SAPPHO

On the other hand he admits quite freely that

HE recent announcement of the dis- and which cannot love indifferently, like the concovery, by Dr. Hunt at Oxyrrhynchus, centrated sun-fire in the foreshortened diamond. of a papyrus containing still another frag- the natural and bold turn of thought, the grace of There is exquisite choice of words, the style, ment of a hitherto unknown poem of Sappho, imagery, the magic flexibility of rhythm. the famous Greek poetess, has impelled Dr. Theodore Reinach, the French literary critic, to a careful analysis of all the evidence which goes to establish the popular idea that the poetess of Mitylene was of the hétaira or antiquity, concerning the social position and the grave differences of opinion have existed, since courtesan class among Grecian women. He moral worth of this woman. Was she a courtesan has offset against this evidence two other or a grande dame? May we see in her the lofty fragments of Sapphic poetry, discovered a and pure figure of the impassioned muse, whom year or two before at the same place and Plutarch compared to Pythia on her tripod, or a vulgar paramour and unspeakable follower of vice? deciphered and published by Dr. Hunt in a recent issue of the publications of the Egypt Concisely put, this is the question, the Exploration Fund. Unfortunately for his solution of which Dr. Reinach seeks in the purpose the most recent "find" has not yet somewhat elaborate discussions which he sets been published and hence is not available. The argument and conclusions of Dr. Reinach are in the form of a communication to the French Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, and have been made public in a recent issue of the Temps.

Dr. Reinach tells us that "the sands of Egypt have lately restored to us the precious remains of three or four little manuscript poems by Sappho, interesting by reason of their novel metre, in strophes of three verses, which were to be published shortly in Berlin. He deplores the fact that so little of the work of Sappho has been restored to us, especially in view of the recent discovery of a long lost poem of the, Boeotian poetess Corima. Hers he characterizes as a "sweet and pretty talent," but one in which "we search in vain for that something, of flame, of color, of passion and above all of personality, which the word lyrism would suggest to the mind of the modern reader."

In glowing language, Dr. Reinach now heaps encomiums upon the writings of Sappho.

There is not a line, however brief, that does not reveal, by its brilliant scintillations, a nat

forth.

The modern idea of the frailty of the character of Sappho dates back about sixty years, when a man wide attention, assigned to Sappho a panel of of broad intelligence, in a study which attracted honor, if I may so express it,-in the gallery of Greek courtesans.

THE GREEK POETESS SAPPHO

for to read Stead was to know him, and to know showed itself singularly hard upon its former him was to admire and love him. Confidences favorite, "the voice of one just man was heard came to him from all parts. He became a sort of spiritual father for troubled consciences and for

One morning Stead burst in on Finot and, with that infantile gaiety, unstudied and full of desired the sovereign to send it to the Peace charm, and peculiarly his own, asked brusquely, Society at Berne. The Sultan then begged "Will you go with me to hell?" This hell, in the his acceptance of a personal souvenir, and Biblical language with which Stead embellished his secular conversations, was nothing else than handed him a gold cigarette case set with world-wide journal-or perhaps two jour- diamonds. Stead realized he could not well nals, two gigantic and profoundly human enter- offend his Majesty, but was determined to prises. maintain his independence. So he comproCecil Rhodes had asked him a few days pre-mised by asking the Sultan if he would con

THE REAL PERSONAL CHARACTER OF THE

THE

POETESS SAPPHO

On the other hand he admits quite freely that

grave differences of opinion have existed, since antiquity, concerning the social position and the moral worth of this woman. Was she a courtesan or a grande dame? May we see in her the lofty and pure figure of the impassioned muse, whom. Plutarch compared to Pythia on her tripod, or a vulgar paramour and unspeakable follower of vice?

HE recent announcement of the dis- and which cannot love indifferently, like the concovery, by Dr. Hunt at Oxyrrhynchus, centrated sun-fire in the foreshortened diamond. of a papyrus containing still another frag- the natural and bold turn of thought, the grace of There is exquisite choice of words, the style, ment of a hitherto unknown poem of Sappho, imagery, the magic flexibility of rhythm. the famous Greek poetess, has impelled Dr. Theodore Reinach, the French literary critic, to a careful analysis of all the evidence which goes to establish the popular idea that the poetess of Mitylene was of the hétaira or courtesan class among Grecian women. He has offset against this evidence two other fragments of Sapphic poetry, discovered a year or two before at the same place and deciphered and published by Dr. Hunt in a recent issue of the publications of the Egypt Exploration Fund. Unfortunately for his purpose the most recent "find" has not yet been published and hence is not available. The argument and conclusions of Dr. Reinach are in the form of a communication to the French Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, and have been made public in recent issue of the Temps.

a

Dr. Reinach tells us that "the sands of Egypt have lately restored to us the precious remains of three or four little manuscript poems by Sappho, interesting by reason of their novel metre, in strophes of three verses, which were to be published shortly in Berlin. He deplores the fact that so little of the work of Sappho has been restored to us, especially in view of the recent discovery of a long lost poem of the Boeotian poetess Corima. Hers he characterizes as a "sweet and pretty talent," but one in which "we search in vain for that something, of flame, of color, of passion and above all of personality, which the word lyrism would suggest to the mind. of the modern reader."

In glowing language, Dr. Reinach now heaps encomiums upon the writings of Sappho.

There is not a line, however brief, that does not reveal, by its brilliant scintillations, a nat

Concisely put, this is the question, the solution of which Dr. Reinach seeks in the somewhat elaborate discussions which he sets forth.

The modern idea of the frailty of the character of Sappho dates back about sixty years, when a man wide attention, assigned to Sappho a panel of of broad intelligence, in a study which attracted honor, if I may so express it,-in the gallery of Greek courtesans.

THE GREEK POETESS SAPPHO

Dr. Reinach traces this, which he regards of the attachment of a brother of Sappho, as a misconception of the true character of the poetess, to the writers of the Middle Comedy [404-340 B.C.] who,

in search of characteristic types, met with the far-off, enigmatical figure of Sappho, head of a school of music and poetry, with such joy of life, such liberty of thought and speech, such baffling frankness in the expression of those most intimate sentiments, that they found no parallel for such a prodigy in the middle class of Athens. They did, however, find some in the world, or the half-world of venal coquetry, with its uncertain boundaries, -the pleasing but irregular party wavered between the Aspasias and the Phrynes.

In short, Dr. Reinach finds that the times had changed and that what was permissible in woman, in Sappho's time, two centuries before their day, was not permissible then; and hence the comic writers, "with that absence of historic sense which characterized their age and their kind, did not hesitate to make of Sappho a courtesan, the chief even of courtesans."

Charoxos by name, to an Egyptian hétaira,
Rhodopis by name, whom he purchased and
freed and upon whom he lavished the greater
part of his fortune. The proof that the
reproaches of his sister, with which she met
the knowledge of his prodigality, were called
forth by the personal disgrace which he had
brought upon himself and his family, and not
by the loss of the property, Dr. Reinach finds
in this fragment, which has been deciphered
by Dr. Hunt and thus translated:

Sweet Nereides, grant to me
And every end, for which his soul may yearn
That home unscathed my brother may return,
Accomplished see!

And thou, immortal Queen,
Joy; shame his foes-nay, rather let no foe
Blot out the past, that thus his friends may know
By us be seen!

To me, his sister, some regard to show,
To assuage the pain he brought, whose cruel blow
My soul did kill.

Yea, mine! for that ill name
Compelling ceased' awhile; yet back ere long
Whose biting edge, to shun the festal throng
To goad us came.

Thus characterized by the fancy of the comic dramatists and this characterization accepted without question by those artificial writers, who called themselves Hermecèeuax and Chameleon, and later by the fathers of the Church, the figure of Sappho the courtesan has become so incorporated into literary In this poem Dr. Reinach finds "a touchhistory that the learned Alexandrians did ing fraternal sentiment, simple yet sweetly not dare wholly to reject it. However, as affectionate even in the reproach it implies, between the shameless bacchante and the and also a sure and certain proof that here is noble poetess whom, Aristotle says, the a Sappho who is 'cut to the heart by the Mityleans honored, the contrast is impres

sive.

Modern scholarship, Dr. Reinach finds, has inherited these contradictory traditions and perplexities; but he feels sure that were we to possess a complete collection of the poems of Sappho, internal evidence would suggest sufficient proof of the untruth of the scandalous idea of her character.

argues:

He urges

If If we can discover in the poems of Sappho a certain proof that there existed in her, not alone an exalted sense of personal dignity, but a very lively concern for the speech of people, and for points of honor in herself and in hers, do we not discover that which brings about the destruction, to all human sense, of the absurd tradition of the moral obliquity of Sappho?

little innuendoes which tarnish the good name of whomsoever they touch,'-a Sappho who could not possibly be of the character ascribed to her by the Athenian comedians."

Dr. Reinach pursues his subject further also by examining the Berlin Sapphic fragments which serve to bring into relief one known phase of the life of Sappho,-that of a leader of a coterie in Greece devoted to the

that in classical Greece, women of lofty study of music and literature, the proprietor, station and noble family, such as was Sap- in effect, of a boarding school, or conservapho's, were invariably of good character. He tory where these things were taught. The Berlin fragments are ascriptions to the virtues and character of one of the young girls, who has for a time been one of her pupils, but who has been summoned to return home. After studying these freshly discovered words of Sappho, Dr. Reinach feels positive that we are able to affirm with a little more assurance than before that, if she was neither a saint, nor above all a prude, at least when she endeavored to instruct her young companions, to bring them nearer to her heart, to mold them after her own image, it was certainly not the courtesan, endeavoring to form other courtesans, but true women in all respects like herself, enjoying like her all

Following this line of argument, Dr. Reinach brings forward what he regards as a clinching argument, the fragment discovered a few years ago by Grenfell and Hunt at