r
constancy; and in six months, when they were again incited to the
poll, they shook their heads and abstained. The disillusionment
of the labourers gave the victory of 1886 to the Tories, and kept
the Liberals out of power for twenty years.

II

_MIST_

"Mistiness is the Mother of Wisdom." If this sarcastic dogma be
true, we are living in a generation pre-eminently wise. A "season
of mists" it unquestionably is; whether it is equally marked by
"mellow fruitfulness" is perhaps more disputable.

My path in life is metaphorically very much what Wordsworth's was
literally. "I wander, lonely as a cloud that floats on high, o'er
vales and hills." I find hills and vales alike shrouded in mist.
Everyone is befogged, and the guesses as to where exactly we are
and whither we are tending are various and perplexing. While all
are, in truth, equally bewildered, people take their bewilderment
in different ways. Some honestly confess that they cannot see a
yard in front of them; others profess a more penetrating vision,
and affect to be quite sure of what lies ahead. It is a matter
of temperament; but the professors of clear sight are certainly
less numerous than they were three years ago.

We are like men standing on a mountain when the mist rolls up from
the valley. At first we all are very cheerful, and assure one another
that it will pass away in half an hour, leaving our path quite
clear. Then by degrees we begin to say that it promises to be a
more tedious business than we expected, and we must just wait in
patience till the clouds roll by. At length we frankly confess to
one another that we have completely lost our bearings, and that
we dare not move a foot for fear we should tumble into the abyss.
In this awkward plight our "strength is to sit still"; but, even
while we so sit, we try to keep ourselves warm by remembering that
the most persistent mists do not last for ever.

In one section of society I hear voices of melancholy vaticination.
"I don't believe," said one lady in my hearing--"I don't believe
that we shall ever again see six-feet footmen with powdered hair,"
and a silent gloom settled on the company, only deepened by another
lady, also attached to the old order, who murmured: "Ah! and powdered
footmen are not the only things that we shall never see again."
Within twenty-four hours of this depressing dialogue I encounter
my democratic friend, the Editor of the _Red Flag_. He glories in
the fact tha