paint the blacks all good, or the whites all bad. He paints them
as slavery made them on both sides, and if in the very end he
gives the moral victory to the blacks--if he suffers the daughter
of the black wife to have pity on her father's daughter by his
white wife, and while her own child lies dead from a shot fired
in the revolt, gives her husband's skill to save the life of her
sister's child--it cannot be said that either his aesthetics or
ethics are false. Those who would question either must allow, at
least, that the negroes have had the greater practice in
forgiveness, and that there are many probabilities to favor his
interpretation of the fact. No one who reads the book can deny
that the case is presented with great power, or fail to recognize
in the writer a portent of the sort of negro equality against
which no series of hangings and burnings will finally avail.


VII.

In Mr. Chesnutt's novel the psychologism is of that universal
implication which will distinguish itself to the observer from
the psychologism of that more personal sort--the words are not as
apt as I should like--evident in some of the interesting books
under notice here. I have tried to say that it is none the less
a work of art for that reason, and I can praise the art of
another novel, in which the same sort of psychologism prevails,
though I must confess it a fiction of the rankest
tendenciousness. "Lay Down Your Arms" is the name of the English
version of the Baroness von Suttner's story, "Die Waffen Nieder,"
which has become a watchword with the peacemakers on the
continent of Europe. Its success there has been very great, and