durch neue elementare Ereignisse herbeigeführt wird; furchtbare Zusammenstösse zwischen den Mohamedanern deren Fanatismus entflammt ist und den Armeniern, die durch Verfolgungen zum äussersten getrieben sind. Und zur Schürung der Anarchie wird noch eines beitragen: die türkische Finanznot, denn eine unbezahlte Polizei und eine unbesoldete Soldateska werden zu Räuberbanden. Die armenischen Massacres sind eben darum auch ein furchtbarer Schlag für die Türkei selbst, weil durch sie die productivste kleinasiatische Menschenrasse an den Bettelstab kam und blühende Provinzen in ihrem Wolstand vernichtet worden sind. Ich lese in einem älteren summarischen Geschichtswerk über den griechischen Freiheitskampf in den zwanziger Jahren: Die europäischen Völker eilten, durch Philhellenenvereine Geldmittel und Streitkräfte zu sammeln, um den Mut der Kämpfer aufrecht zu erhalten. Galt es doch, Kultur und Christentum gegen rohe Barbaren zu schützen! Die abendländischen Völker zeigten durch die Tat, dass die Lehren der Menschenliebe und christlichen Humanität tiefe Wurzeln in ihnen geschlagen und ihre Herzen auch für die Leiden fremder Nationen geöffnet habe. Ein Geschichtsschreiber unserer Tage wird ähnliches trotz eines vorübergehenden Aufschäumens der öffentlichen Meinung nicht sagen können. Es gibt heute keinen Lord Byron und keinen Wilhelm Müller, und in Paris wird niemand mehr dem Czaren unter die Nase rufen: "Vive la Pologne, Monsieur ! " Ein nationaler Egoismus, den man vor 50 und vor 70 Jahren nicht kannte, beherrscht die Nationen, und kein ernsthafter Politiker wäre heute bereit, sein Vaterland um der Armenier willen in politische Abenteuer hineinzuhetzen. Die St. James' Gazette sagte: "Entrüstung ist keine Politik." Dieser Grundsatz hat heute allgemeine Giltigkeit. Das ist freilich ein Unglück für die unglücklichen Armenier. Einen gesunden Fortschritt bedeutet dieser Wandel der Anschauungen von der politischen Sentimentalität zum politischen Realismus gleichwol. In ihm komm zum Ausdruck als welch unschätzbares Gut der Friede heute erscheint, und dass das Glück der Menschheit immer noch relativ am meisten gefördert wird, wenn jede Nation vor Allem für ihre eigene friedliche kulturelle Entwicklung Sorge trägt. Dieser moderne nationale Egoismus gewährt heute Russland und der Türkei eine unerwünschte Freiheit aus zwei Gründen: die Elsass-Lothringische Frage hat Frankreich in die czarische Abhängigkeit gebracht;-das wird noch lange so bleiben-; und die Isolirtheit Englands macht dieses Land selbst ohnmächtig, und relativ ohnmächtig auch die mitteleuropäischen Kontinental-Staaten für viele Fragen. Die englische Politik hat überdies die Türkei in die Arme Russlands getrieben. Muss auch dies alles so bleiben? Berlin, 19./ix./96. IGNOTUS. Herausgeber: F. ORTMANS. Le gérant: F. ORTMANS, An International Review. No. XI.-NOVEMBER, 1896. AN AFTERNOON.* THAT Richard Langton had never fallen in love before was a little remarkable, that he had done so at last he did not realise. He was forty-two, though he did not look a day more than thirty-five, but of the world, in spite of his travels, his scholarship and occasional efforts to be cynical, he was inexperienced. He had known men and manners, had been everywhere and done everything everything that a student does at least; yet he remained a simple-hearted gentleman living in an agreeable dream-world created by his books. He was well-off, and a bachelor. He had once, when he was eight and twenty, seriously considered marriage. There was Agnes Burrowes, the daughter of a well-known judge, a handsome girl of five and twenty. He admired her, and it occurred to him that she found his society pleasant. She had read a good deal and formed opinions of her own. opinions led Miss Burrowes to set up a Cottage Home for sick people who were only eligible on producing a baptismal certificate and proof of their Sunday church-going. Mr. Langton was amused at her limitations, and dropped out of her mother's visiting list. The years went by with pleasant monotony. He was still good-looking, and of a type that women find attractive. He had close-cut hair and a neatly trimmed beard and moustache; his eyes were dark blue, his voice pleasant and refined, his manner if not exactly lively was not sombre his tailor was above reproach. Copyright in the United States of America by Mrs. W. K. Clifford. 1 Her One day he heard of a post vacant in Egypt; it required scholarship, patience and some special knowledge that Langton felt he possessed. He was known to people in high places, so he bethought him of such influence as he could reach, and presently found himself appointed. This was towards the end of July. He was not due in Cairo till October; but before then some diplomatic business required his presence in Vienna, and some exceptionally good opera to be heard at Munich that summer appealed to him. An old friend, whom he had not seen for a long time, was going on to it after Bayreuth. Langton determined to join him, and to leave England about the middle of August. Then, when all this was settled, in sheer dismay he thought of Marie Zellinger. She had come from Vienna; but he had no reason to suppose that she was going back there; it was possible that he might never see her again. The ideal appalled him. He was astounded to find that it did, for he had only seen her half a dozen times and had hardly spoken to her at all. It was improbable that she even remembered his name or would recognise him if they met. She had given some French recitations in drawing-rooms that season, and had been somewhat of a fashion though she had not had many engagements. He had not thought much of her reciting, nor of the subjects she chose: she gave some scraps of Coppée gracefully, but she was a little too fond of De Musset for his taste. He had an almost unreasonable dislike to the expression of sentiment, though not to its possession. But there was a quality in her voice that seemed to him to betray an utter loneliness of soul. He felt it the first time he heard her, it haunted him and, though he did not go out of his way to meet her, he had thought of her till she seemed to be always in the background of his life. It puzzled him that a woman, so young and so charming to look at, should apparently have no belongings, no friends, and should almost invariably refuse to go to people's houses unless her profession took her to them. By an accident he knew what little there was to know about her, that she lived by herself, in rooms in a quiet street off Knightsbridge, that she liked luxury, and that she had not paid her bills. He was even aware of the fact that she was utterly silent about herself, silent and anxious, and that no letters came to her from her own country. The lady in whose house she lived was the widow of an old friend of his, George Cameron, and in somewhat straitened circumstances, so that she was a little distressed at not receiving payments that were overdue from Mademoiselle Zellinger, and a little annoyed at not being taken into her confidence. Langton went to see Mrs. Cameron now and then, out of regard for her husband's memory: she herself had no claims to distinction of any sort. She told him all about Mademoiselle Zellinger one day when she met him by chance at the Academy: he gave her some extremely bad tea in the refreshment room, and much sympathetic attention. The conversation had made a deep impression upon him so many explanations suggested themselves that he felt as if he were looking on at the Austrian's life, though from a distance that obscured some things he unconsciously longed to know. He saw her once or twice in the park that spring, lingering near the Serpentine; but no one had been with her. Later, in May, when the bell heather was out and the hedges were full of flowers, he heard of her driving in Surrey, alone in an open fly, apparently lost in contemplation of the fir trees and the far off blue hills. He saw her one day at the Zoological Gardens talking half tender half merry nonsense to a group in the monkey house, while she supposed herself to be unnoticed; but he had not dared to speak to her: he knew her so slightly, and there was something in her manner, in the expression of her pathetic eyes, in her whole carriage, that made even the ghost of a liberty impossible. But had she nobody belonging to her, this girl of one or two and twenty, who was obviously making a dignified yet not too profitable fight with the world? And why had she come to England, and when would she go, and whither ? All this perplexed hîm. It was no business of his, of course; he was not likely to know her any better; yet he felt as if his nearness were in some way a protection to her, and as if he were not behaving well in going to Egypt; especially in passing through Austria, her own country, while she stayed behind in England. Moreover he was aware, and of this quite suddenly, that he was leaving her with a |