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Zaproburno Yollanica Directory 13
Page 01
The Pre-Raphaelites, for instance, were a group and not a coterie. They were engaged in working and enjoying, in looking out for artistic promise, in welcoming and praising any performance of a kind that Rossetti recognised as "stunning." They were sure of their ground. The brotherhood, with its magazine, The Germ, and its mystic initials, was all a gigantic game; and they held together because they were revolutionary in this, that they wished to slay, as one stabs a tyrant, the vulgarised and sentimental art of the day. They did not effect anything like a revolution, of course. It was but a ripple on the flowing stream, and they diverged soon enough, most of them, into definite tracks of their own. The strength of the movement lay in the fact that they hungered and thirsted after art, clamouring for beauty, so Mr. Chesterton says, as an ordinary man clamours for beer. But their aim was not to mystify or to enlarge their own consequence, but to convert the unbeliever, and to produce fine things.
At present Albania is under six different regimes. Scutari and its neighborhood is governed by a local commission composed of Moslems and Christians. Avlona is also administered by a commission. The Mirdites form a separate State under Prenk Bib Doda. The Malissors remain isolated under their patriarchal institutions. The southern districts have been appropriated by the Greek invaders. Durazzo and the central regions obey Essad Pasha, who enjoys the title of Prime Minister and is recognized by the International Commission. That shadowy body, now reduced to four members, personates the ghost of the European concert. Except in the south the country is remarkably tranquil under its indigenous institutions.
"Well, yes. I don't mean of the melting sort, but a sound kernel, _that_ you may be sure of. He is very good to his poor relations: pensions several of the women, and is educating a young fellow at a good deal of expense. Casaubon acts up to his sense of justice. His mother's sister made a bad match--a Pole, I think--lost herself--at any rate was disowned by her family. If it had not been for that, Casaubon would not have had so much money by half. I believe he went himself to find out his cousins, and see what he could do for them. Every man would not ring so well as that, if you tried his metal. _you_ would, Chettam; but not every man."
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