and sorrow, and joy. Each of these three things has its baseness and its nobleness. There is base labour, and noble labour. There is base sorrow, and noble sorrow. There is base joy, and noble joy. But you must not think to avoid the corruption of these things by doing without the things themselves. Nor can any life be right that has not all three. Labour without joy is base. Labour without sorrow is base. Sorrow without labour is base. Joy withont labour is base.

I dare say you think I am a long time in coming to the pantomime; I am not ready to come to it yet in due course, for we ought to go and see the Japanese jugglers first, in order to let me fully explain to you what I mean. But I can't write much more to-day; so I shall merely tell you what part of the play set me thinking of all this, and leave you to consider of it yourself, till I can send you another letter. The pantomime was, as I said, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. The forty thieves were girls. The forty thieves had forty companions, who were girls. The forty thieves and their forty companions were in some way mixed up with about four hundred and forty fairies, who were girls. There was an Oxford and Cambridge boat

, in which the Oxford and Cambridge men were girls. There was a transformation scene, with a forest,

in which the flowers were girls, and a chandelier, in which the lamps were girls, and a great rainbow, which was all of girls.

Mingled incongruously with these seraphic, and, as far as my boyish experience extends, novel, elements of pantomime, there were yet some of its old and fastexpiring elements. There were, in speciality, two thoroughly good pantomime actors-Mr. W. H. Payne and Mr. Frederick Payne. All that these two did, was done admirably. There were two subordinate actors, who played subordinately well, the fore and hind legs of a donkey. And there was a little actress, of whom I have chiefly to speak, who played exquisitely the little part she had to play. The scene in which she appeared was the only one in the whole pantomime in which there was any dramatic effort, or, with a few rare exceptions, any dramatic possibility. It was the home scene, in which Ali Baba's wife, on washing day, is called upon by butcher, baker, and milkman, with unpaid bills; and in the extremity of her distress hears her husband's knock at the door, and opens it for him to drive in his donkey, laden with gold. The children, who have been beaten instead of getting breakfast, presently share in the raptures of their

father and mother; and the little

lady I spoke of

eight or nine years old-dances a pas-de-deux with the

donkey.

She did it beautifully and simply, as a child ought to dance. She was not an infant prodigy; there was no evidence, in the finish or strength of her motion, that she had been put to continual torture through half her eight or nine years. She did nothing more than any child, well taught, but painlessly, might easily do. She caricatured no older person,-attempted no curious or fantastic skill. She was dressed decently, — she moved decently, she looked and behaved innocently, --and she danced her joyful dance with perfect grace, spirit, sweetness, and self-forgetfulness. And through

all the vast theatre, full of English fathers and mothers and children, there was not one hand lifted to give her sign of praise but mine.

Presently after this, came on the forty thieves, who, as I told you, were girls; and, there being no thieving to be presently done, and time hanging heavy on their hands, arms, and legs, the forty thief-girls proceeded to light forty cigars. Whereupon the British public gave them a round of applause. Whereupon I fell a-thinking; and sew little more of the piece, except as an ugly and dis turbing dream.

Letter G.

The Corruption of Modern Pleasure.-(The Japaness

Jugglers.)

February 28, 1867.

He is

I HAVE your pleasant letter with references to Frederick. I will look at them carefully.* Mr. Carlyle himself will be pleased to hear this letter when he comes home. I heard from him last week at Mentone. well, and glad of the light and calm of Italy. I must get back to the evil light, and uncalm, of the places I was taking you through.

(Parenthetically, did you see the article in The Times of yesterday on bribery, and the conclusion of the commission-"No one sold any opinions, for no one had any opinions to sell.")

Both on Thursday and Friday last I had been tor mented by many things, and wanted to disturb my course of thought any way I could. I have told you what entertainment I got on Friday, first, for it was then that I

* Appendix 2.

began meditating over these letters; let me tell you now what entertainment I found on Thursday.

You may have heard that a company of Japanese jug. glers has come over to exhibit in London. There has long been an increasing interest in Japanese art, which has been very harmful to many of our own painters, and I greatly desired to see what these people were, and what they did. Well, I have seen Blondin, and various English and French circus work, but never yet anything that surprised me so much as one of these men's exercises on a suspended pole. Its special character was a close approximation to the action and power of the monkey, even to the prehensile power in the foot; so that I asked a sculptor-friend who sat in front of me, whether he thought such a grasp could be acquired by practice, or indicated difference in race. He said he thought it might be got by practice. There was also much inconceivably dexterous work in spinning of tops-making them pass in balanced motion along the edge of a sword, and along a level string, and the like;-the father performing in the presence of his two children, who encouraged him continually with short, sharp cries, like those of animals. Then there was some fairly good sleight-of-hand juggling of little interest; ending with a dance by the juggler, first as an animal, and then as a goblin. Now, there was