the mould of multifold negation; and sensibilities, long distressed by the contemplation of life in aspects it would not wear were this more of a realm of reason, find their only solace in that pessimism which makes charming so much of modern poetry. Doubtless this is the mood most congenial to the agnosticism of the reflective, contemplative mind in the present phase of its philosophy. It has its undoubted fascinations, its uses, and, indeed, its truth, part reaction though it be from the excessive strain of contemporary life in cities, and the dull orthodoxies of the Victorian age. To one, indeed, who, in eight years' participation in municipal politics might in that respect have been compared to that character in one of Anatole France's novels who never opened a door without coming upon some hitherto unsuspected depth of infamy in mankind, it was difficult to avoid that strain. And yet, bad as municipal government has been in this land, it is everywhere better to-day. The level of moral sentiment, like the level of intelligence, mounts slowly, in wide spirals, but it mounts steadily all the time. In not every city has the advance been so marked, for not every city has had such personalities as Johnson and Jones, and without personalities, democracies seem unable to function. The old corruptions, once so flagrant, are growing less and less, and there is left only the residuum of meanness and pettiness and spite, the crimes that require no courage and entail no fear of the law, committed by beings who never could attain the robust stature of the old and brazen and robust offenders. The strain
