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A subject, one and whole and irreducible a novel cannot begin to take shape till it has this for its support. It seems obvious; yet there is nothing more familiar to a novel-reader of to-day than the difficulty of discovering what the novel in his hand is about. What was the novelist's intention, in a phrase?

It was the last effort of their dying pacifism, or the last awakening of their conscience. Their efforts were broken against the irreducible obstinacy of the Minister of War and the army chiefs, who represented to the Kaiser the disastrous consequences of a delay of twenty-four hours. The Responsibility and the Moral.

He seemed older than he was, and even more ascetic, for he looked as if, like the cardinal in Lothair, he lived on biscuits and soda-water; whereas he had a hearty appetite for his midday meal, and, in his own words, "enjoyed his tea." Still, he carried the irreducible minimum of flesh on his bones, and his hollow cheeks and shrunken jaws threw his massive forehead into striking prominence.

They seem to have feared the possible effect of immediately incorporating in their ranks, while their new organization was still so plastic, the bulk of those conservative classes which were, after all, the backbone of this irreducible Whig minimum. The Republican campaign was conducted with a degree of passion that had scarcely been equaled in America before that day.

Well, he was learning what it meant. In the glaring night-hours, when his brain seemed ablaze, he was visited by a sense of his fixed identity, of his irreducible, inexpugnable SELFNESS, keener, more insidious, more unescapable, than any sensation he had ever known.

Questions of detail arose which, when closely examined, proved to be matters of very essential importance. The Uitlanders and British South Africans, who had experienced in the past how illusory the promises of the President might be, insisted upon guarantees. The seven years offered were two years more than that which Sir Alfred Milner had declared to be an irreducible minimum.

A very little human nature will upset a very great body of statistics. Furthermore, in most human affairs results are produced by a multiplicity of causes; and though statistics may throw light on three quarters of all the causes that are potent in any given case, yet the other quarter which are irreducible to definite statement may wholly alter the result.

That, with about fifty-six exceptions, irreducible as yet, all matter is in a condition of perpetual metamorphosis. Now, it is a law of our reason to suppose in Nature unity of substance as well as unity of force and system; moreover, the series of chemical compounds and simple substances themselves leads us irresistibly to this conclusion.

Indeed it is something infinitely more futile and infinitely more urgent, provided only that the man is imbued with the due modicum of patriotic devotion; as, indeed, men commonly are. It is not faith, hope or charity that abide as the irreducible minimum of virtue in the patriot's scheme of things; particularly not that charity that has once been highly spoken of as being the greatest of these.

Its appearance is irreducible to any law; it results from the often fortuitous convergence of various factors previously studied. Leaving aside the moment of origin, does the inventive power, considered in its individual and specific development, seem to follow any law, or, if this term appear too ambitious, does it present, in the course of its evolution, any perceptible regularity?