the name "Mr. Turveydrop,"
as it appeared polished on the door-plate of the dancing master, was the
name of the pretentious father and not of the industrious son--albeit,
needless to say, one name was common to them. With equal severity I aver
that when Madame Roland wrote to her husband in the second person
singular she was using the _tu_ of Rome and not the _tu_ of Paris. French
was indeed the language; but had it been French in spirit she would (in
spite of the growing Republican fashion) have said _vous_ to this "homme
eclaire, de moeurs pures, a qui l'on ne peut reprocher que sa grande
admiration pour les anciens aux depens des modernes qu'il meprise, et le
faible de trop aimer a parler de lui." There was no French _tu_ in her
relations with this husband, gravely esteemed and appraised, discreetly
rebuked, the best passages of whose Ministerial reports she wrote, and
whom she observed as he slowly began to think he himself had composed
them. She loved him with a loyal, obedient, and discriminating
affection, and when she had been put to death, he, still at liberty, fell
upon his sword.

This last letter was written at a moment when, in order to prevent the
exposure of a public death, Madame Roland had intended to take opium in
the end of her cruel imprisonment. A little later she chose that those
who oppressed her country should have their way with her to the last.
But, while still intending self-destruction, she had written to her
husband: "Forgive me, respectable man, for disposing of a life that I had
consecrated to thee." In quoting this I mean to make no too-easy effect
with the word "respectable," grown grotesque by the tedious gibe of our
own present fashion of speech.

Madame Roland, I have said, was twice inarticulate; she had two spaces of
silence, one when she, pure and selfless patriot, had heard her
condemnation to death. Passing out of the court she beckoned to her
friends, and signified to them her sentence "by a gesture." And again
there was a pause, in the course of her last days, during which her
speeches had not been few, and had been spoken with her beautiful voice
unmarred; "she leant," says Riouffe, "alone against her window, and wept
there three hours."

FELLOW TRAVELLERS WITH A BIRD

To attend to a living child is to be baffled in your humour, disappointed
of your pathos, and set freshly free from all the preoccupations. You
cannot anticipate him. Blackbirds, overheard