of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the trusted foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of the nation can make them. Just because we fight without rancor and without selfish objects, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for. I have said nothing of the Governments allied with the Imperial Government of Germany because they have not made war upon us or challenged us to defend our right and our honor. The Austro-Hungarian Government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified indorsement and acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare adopted now without disguise by the Imperial German Government, and it has therefore not been possible for this Government to receive Count Tarnowski, the Ambassador recently accredited to this Government by the Imperial and Royal Government of Austria-Hungary; but that Government has not actually engaged in warfare against citizens of the United States on the seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of postponing a discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna. We enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there are no other means of defending our rights. It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not in enmity toward a people or with the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible Government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of right and is running amuck. We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people, and shall desire nothing so much as the early reëstablishment of intimate relations of mutual advantage between us-however hard it may be for them, for the time being, to believe that this is spoken from our hearts. We have borne with their present Government through all these bitter months because of that friendship-exercising a patience and forbearance which would otherwise have been impossible. We shall, happily, still have an opportunity to prove that friendship in our daily attitude and actions toward the millions of men and women of German birth and native sympathy who live amongst us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it toward all who are in fact loyal to their neighbors and to the Government in the hour of test. They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and purpose. If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; but if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only here and there and without countenance except from a lawless and malignant few. It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts-for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other. I' III. NARRATION T IS generally acknowledged that the impulse to recount human experiences, actual or devised, is as old as the race. The reason that Narration preceded Exposition and Argumentation as a literary form is not far to seek. Narration is the result of direct observation of incident, and follows a definite time order. In its pure form it entails no interpretation and makes no judgment. The reader is left to draw his own conclusions. It is true, however, that the modern narrative is borrowing more and more the expository method. Thus we find history growing critical, and the novel and short story becoming analytic. Narration divides itself naturally into two large classes: (1) that which adheres strictly to events that have actually occurred, or Narration of Fact; and (2) that which purports to tell what might conceivably have happened, or Narration. of Fiction. It is difficult, however, to set limits to the latter form, for the true artist can invoke in his readers a state of mind that for the time being will make plausible what an unbiased judgment would reject. Witness all stories of the supernatural or the fabulous. One pronouncement may, however, be ventured: namely, that when a writer deviates so far from the accustomed mode of popular thinking as to insult the intelligence, the exercise of his art will be futile. Hobgoblins and fairies one may accept with good grace-for after all they concern a shadowy realm of which we know little; but who can feel convinced of the reality of a hero who single-handed subdues a host? The falsity of such an incredible feat is demonstrated daily by our human experience. It may be added that Description, seldom employed by itself, finds its chief function in supplementing Narration. Its pictorial nature is of infinite value in securing vividness, atmosphere, local color, and sheer beauty. A. NARRATION OF FACT IN "Truth of Intercourse" Stevenson | scores the popular fallacy that "it is easy to tell the truth and hard to tell a lie." The idea we intend to convey rarely if ever exactly coincides with the impression we actually give. Thus Narration of Fact is not necessarily narration of truth, for truth is no mere matter of dates and facts. It can never be achieved by reference to accepted authorities alone. One may be able to recite the dates of every battle of the American Revolution, name every Colonial statesman and general, and trace Washington from Cambridge to Yorktown without having the slightest understanding of the 215 spirit of the period. Narrative of Fact at its best demands imaginative power of the autobiographer in his task of selfrevelation; of the biographer who seeks to re-create a personality; and of the historian who treats of significant events in large segments of society. These three fields-autobiography, biography, and history-comprehend the full scope of Narrative of Fact, for diaries and journals are autobiographical in nature; books of adventure and voyaging are either autobiographical or biographical; and newspaper accounts of current events are vignettes of contemporary history. To write an autobiography is at once the easiest and most difficult of literary performances: easiest because the nature of autobiography permits the writer to indulge in a looseness of structure, a reminiscent rambling, a witty garrulousness which is denied the more stereotyped forms; and most difficult because absolute detachment in self-criticism is wellnigh impossible. It is almost inevitable. that one err in judging the value of his own deeds. He cannot fit himself into the scheme of things with the surety that is possible to an observer. Seen through his own eyes, this achievement becomes inordinately important, that casual act loses its true significance. The writer tends to vacillate between the opposite poles of unjustified self-importance and undue self-abasement. At its worst the attempt laboriously to elucidate one's own philosophy of life or to discover one's own place in his generation becomes premeditated posturing. If, on the other hand, the author of an autobiography can avoid the worst pitfalls that beset his art, he has it in his power to enrich the thought of his contemporaries, and to preserve for succeeding generations invaluable impressions of the time in which he lives. He may run the whole gamut of thought, emotion, and circumstance. Conversations, interviews, soliloquies hot debate and cold reasoning great catastrophes, little tragedies, common joys the latest Washington despatches and this morning's breakfast-room wit. world events and opinion on world events . . . ambitions and dreams, victories and defeats: in short, life, public, domestic, individual-this is the stuff of which autobiographies are made. Samuel Pepys, with a greater regard for a pretty woman than for good grammar, has left us in his diary unforgettable pictures of the scandalous reign of the Merry Monarch. Benjamin Franklin, patriot at home, ambassador abroad, moralist at large, delights as well as informs us in his unfinished Autobiography of the days preceding the American Revolution. It is not difficult for us to evaluate these personal records of the past; but how can we justly gauge the importance of such modern works as Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams, The Americanization of Edward Bok, E. F. Benson's Our Family Affairs, and Ludwig Lewisohn's Up Stream: An American Chronicle? They do more than assure posterity a better understanding of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century; they are living testimony that human interest is not primarily in theories of government, codes of morality, or institutions of society, but first and always in individuals themselves. THE LONDON FIRE SAMUEL PEPYS Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) was a minor statesman of the reign of Charles II, but on the strength of a naïve diary he ranks among the important figures of literature. However, he was no conscious literary artist: he was merely confiding in his diary, in a cipher which he thought perfectly safe, the things that one does not relate publicly. The diary, which was not deciphered until early in the nineteenth century (1822), furnishes an accurate picture of the manners and conditions of the Restoration. SEPT. 2d, 1666 (Lord's day.) Some of our maids sitting up late last night to get things ready against our feast to-day, Jane called us up about three in the morning, to tell us of a great fire they saw in the City. So I rose and slipped on my night-gown, and went to her window; and thought it to be on the backside of Marke-lane at the farthest; but, being unused to such fires as followed, I thought it far enough off; and so went to bed again, and to sleep. About seven rose again to dress myself, and there looked out at the window, and saw the fire not so much as it was, and further off. So to my closet to set things to rights, after yesterday's cleaning. By and by Jane comes and tells me that she hears that about 300 houses have been burned down to-night by the fire we saw, and that it is now burning down all Fish Street, by London Bridge. So I made myself ready presently, and walked to the Tower; and there got up upon one of the high places, Sir J. Robinson's little son going up with me; and there I did see the houses at that end of the bridge all on fire, and an infinite great fire on this and the other side the end of the bridge; which, among other people, did trouble me for poor little Michell and our Sarah on the bridge. So down with my heart full of trouble, to the Lieutenant of the Tower, who tells me that it begun this morning in the King's baker's house in Pudding-lane, and that it hath burned down St. Magnus's Church and most part of Fish Street already. So I down to the water-side. and there got a boat, and through bridge, and there saw a lamentable fire. Poor Mich ell's house, as far as the Old Swan, already burned that way, and the fire running further, that, in a very little time, it got as far as the Steele-yard, while I was there. Everybody endeavouring to remove their goods, and flinging into the river, or bringing them into lighters that lay off; poor people staying in their houses as long as till the very fire touched them, and then, running into boats, or clambering from one pair of stairs, by the waterside, to another. And, among other things, the poor pigeons, I perceive, were loth to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconys, till they burned their wings and fell down. Having staid, and in an hour's time seen the fire rage every way; and nobody, to my sight, endeavouring to quench it, but to remove their goods, and leave all to the fire; and having seen it get as far as the Steele-yard, and the wind mighty high, and driving it into the City: and everything, after so long a drought, proving combustible, even the very stones of churches; and, among other things, the poor steeple by which pretty Mrs. lives, and whereof my old schoolfellow Elborough is parson, taken fire in the very top, and there burned till it fell down; I to White Hall, with a gentleman with me, who desired to go off from the Tower, to see the fire, in my boat; and there up to the King's closet in the Chapel, where people come about me, and I did give them an account dismayed them all, and word was carried into the King. So I was called for, and did tell the King and Duke of York what I saw; and, that unless his Majesty did command houses to be pulled down, nothing |