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    come keen . Kaising blind and curtain , I looked out , and saw in the stars the keen sparkle of a sharp frost . " Turning away , the object that met my eyes was Miss Marchmont awake , lifting her head from the pillow , and regarding me with unusual earnestness . " Miss Marclimont is carried back by wandering memory to tlie e , arly days of youth , and speaks of her lover : — " ' He is dead , then ? ' I inquired in a low voice . «« ' My dear girl / she said , ' one happy Christmas Eve I dressed and decorated myself , expecting my lover , very soon to be my husband , would come that night to visit me . I sat down to wait . Once more I see that moment—I see the snowtwilight stealing through the window over which the curtain was not dropped , for I designed to watch him ride up the white walk ; I see and feel the fioft firelight wanning me , playing on my silk dress , and fitfully showing me my own young , figure in a glass . I see the moon of a calm winter night , float full , clear and cold ,

    over the inky mass of shrubbery , and the silvered turf of my grounds . I wait , with some impatience in my pulse , but no doubt in my breast . The flames had died in the fire , but it was a bright mass yet ; the moon was mounting high , but she was still visible from the lattice ; the clock neared ten ; he rarely tarried later than this , but once or twice he had been delayed so long . " * Would he for once fail me ? No—not even for once ; and now he was coming —and coming fast—to atone for lost time . ' Frank ! you furious rider , ' I said inwardly , listening gladly , yet anxiously , to his approaching gallop , * you shall be rebuked for this : I will tell you it is my neck ' you are putting in peril ; for whatever is yours is , in a dearer and tenderer sense , mine / There he was : I saw him ; but I think tears were in my eyes my wight was so confused . I saw the horse ; I heard it stamp—I saw at least a mass ; I heard a clamour . Was it a horse ? or what heavy , dragging thing was it , crossing , strangely dark , the lawn ? How could I name that thing in the moonlight before me ? or how could I utter the feeling which rose in my soul ?

    " ' I could only run out . A great animal—truly , Frank ' s black horse—stood trembling , panting , snorting before the door ; a man held it : Frank , as I thought . " ' What is the matter ? ' I demanded . Thomas , my own servant , answered by saying sharply , ' Go into the house , madam . ' And then calling to another servant , who came hurrying from the kitchen as if summoned by some instinct , ' Ruth , take missis into the house directly / But I was kneeling down in the snow , beside something that lay there—something that I had seen dragged along the groundsomething that sighed , that groaned on my breast , as I lifted and drew it to me .

    He was not dead ; ho was not quite unconscious . I had him carried in ; I refused to be ordered about and thrust from him . I was quite collected enough , not only to be my own mistress , but the mistress of others . They had begun by trying to treat me like a child , as they always do with people struck by God ' s hand ; but I gave place to none except the surgeon ; and when he had done what he could , I took my dying Frank to myself . He had strength to fold me in his arms ; he had power to speak rny name ; he heard ine as I prayed over him very softly ; he felt me as I tenderly and fondly comforted him .

    " Maria , ' he said , ' I am dying in Paradise / He spent his last breath in faithful words for me . When the dawn of Christmas morning broke , my Frank was with God . " What will the reader say to the sarcastic vividness of this description of A CHEF D ' CEUVRE BY KTJBENS . " It represented a woman , considerably larger , I thought , than the life . ^ I calculated that this lady , put into a seule of magnitude suitable for the reception of a commodity of bulk , would infallibly turn from fourteen to sixteen stone . She was , indeed , extremely well fed : very much butcher ' s meat—to say nothing of bread , vegetables , and liquids—must . she have consumed to attain that breadth and height , that wealth of muscle , that allluencc of flesh . She lay half-reclined on u couch :

    why , it would be difficult to say ; broad daylight blazed round her ; she appeared in hearty health , strong enough to do the work of two plain cooks ; she could not plead n , weak spine ; she ought to have been standing , or at least sitting bolt upright . She had no business to lounge away the noon on a sofa . She ought likewise to have worn decent garments ; a gown covering her properly , which was not the case : out of abundance of material—seven-and-twenty yards 1 should say , of drapery—she managed to make inefficient raiment . Then , for the wretched untidiness surrounding her , there could be no excuse . Tots and pans—perhaps I ought to say vases and goblets—were rolled hero and there on tlie foreground ; a perfect rubbish of Howers was mixed amongst them , and an absurd and disorderly mass of curtain upholstery smothered the couch and cumbered the floor . On referring to the catalogue , 1 found that this notable production bore name ' Cleopatra / "

    We must ill ho select some of the passages wherein sho describes , under the name of Vashtl , the great actress , whom all will recognise as

    IIA-CIL - KL . "lhad heard this woman termed ' plain / and I expected bony harshness and grinmess— . something lurge , singular , ks » 11 ow . What 1 huw was the shadow of a roysil Vnshti : a queen , fair am the day once , turned pale now like twilight , und wasted like wax in flume . " For nwhilo -a long while I thought it was only a woman , though mi unique woman , who moved in might and grace boforu this multitude . Jly-aml-l > ye I recognised my mistako . Uehohl ! I found upon her something neither of woman nor of man : in ouch of her eyes wit a devil . Theae evil forces bore her through the tragedy , kopt up her feeble Htren tf th—for she was but si frail creature ; and as the uction rose and the stir deepened , how wildly they shook her with their pus-BioiiH of the pit ! They wrote jiio . l on her utruight , haughty brow . They tuned her . voice to tin ; noto of torment . They writhed her regal fsice to a demoniac mask . Hate ami Murder and Mildness incarnate , hIio stood . "

    " Huilmng hud struck Unit Hfugo oinprcHH ; and who stood before her siudionco neither yielding to , nor enduring , nor in finite measure , resenting it : aim utood looked hi stru ^ le , rigid in re ' si bailee . She stood , not dressed , but draped in pule unljquo foldH , lonjr , ,, l regular like sculpture . A background and entourage and HoorinK of deepest crimson throw her out , white like alubustcr — liko hi Ivor : rather be it Haul , likt > Douth . " When ) wiw th « artist , of the Cleopiilm V Let him come und Hit down nnd Htudy thin different viuiou . Let him aeok hero tho mighty bruwn , the muscle , the

    abounding blood , the full-fed flesh he worshipped : let all materialists draw nigh and look on . ¦ " I have said that she does not resent her grief . ! No ; the weakness of that word would make it a lie . To her , what hurts becomes immediately embodied : she looks on it as a thing that can be attacked , worried down , torn in shreds . Scarcely a substance herself , she grapples to conflict with abstractions . Before calamity she is a tigress ; she rends her woes , shivers them in convulsed

    abhorrence . Pain , for her , has no result in good ; tears water no harvest of wisdom : on sickness , on death itself ; she looks with the eye of a rebel . Wicked , perhaps , she is , but also she is strong ; and her strength has conquered Beauty , has overcome Grace , and bound both at her side , captives peerlessly fair , and docile ds fair- Even in the uttermost frenzy of energy is each msenad movement royally , imperially , incedingly upborne . Her hair , flying loose in revel or war , ia fitill au angel ' s hair , and glorious under a halo . Fallen , insurgent , banished , she remembers the heaven where she rebelled . Heaven ' s light , following her exile , pierces its confines , and

    discloses their forlorn remoteness . " " Vashti was not good , I was told : and I have said she did not look good : though a spirit , she was a spirit out of Tophet . Well , if so much of unholy force can arise from below , may not an equal efflux of sacred essence descend one day from above ?" It is surely unnecessary to say that all the scenes in this book are presented with wonderful distinctness before the reader ' s eye ; and that the characters , though not drawn with equal truth , are all made to live and move across the scene as in few other novels . Not their persons alone , but their souls are revealed to us ; the mental analysis is equal to the pictorial power . We could say something on Madame Beck and John Bretton , but to do so we should be forced to touch upon the Btory , and we prefer silence . Let us continue our extracts : —

    THE HEABT 8 STKUGGLES . " These struggles with the natural character , the strong native bent of the heart , may seem futile and fruitless , but in the end they do good . They tend , however slightly , to give the actions , the conduct , that turn which Reason approves , and which Feeling , perhaps , too often opposes : they certainly make a difference in the general tenor of a life , and enable it to be better regulated , more eqiiable , quieter on the surface ; and it is on the surface only the common gaze will fall . As to what lies below , leave that with God . Man , your equal , weak as you , and not fit to be your judge , may be shut out thence : take it to your Maker—show Him the secret 8 of the spirit he gave—ask Him how you are to bear the pairfe He has appointed—kneel in His presence , and pray with faith for light in darkness , for

    strength in piteous weakness , for patience in extreme need . Certainly , at some hour , though perhaps not your hour , the waiting waters will stir ; in some shape , though perhaps not the shape you dreamed , which your heart loved , and for which it bled , the healing herald will descend . The cripple and the blind , and the dumb , and the possessed , will be led to bathe . Herald , come quickly ! Thousands lie round the pool , weeping and despairing , to see it , through slow years , stagnant . Long are the ' times' of Heaven : the orbits of angel messengers seem wide to mortal vision ; they may eu-ring ages : the cycle of one departure and return may clasp unnumbered generations ; and dust , kindling to brief suffering life , and , through pain , passing back to dust , may meanwhile perish out of memory again , and yet again . To how many maimed and mourning millions is tho first and sole angel visitant , him casteniB call Azrael /'

    PHYSICAL AND MORAL PAIN . " Long may it be generally thought that physical privations alone merit compassion , and that the rest is a figment . When the world was younger and haler than now , moral trials were a deeper mystery still : perhaps in all tho land of Israel there was but one Saul—certainly but one David to soothe or comprehend him . " THE VALUE OF BANK AND STATION . " There are people whom a lowered position degrades morally , to whom loss of

    connexion costs loss of self-respect : are not these justified in placing tho highest value on that station and association which is their safeguard from debasement ? If a man feels that he would become contemptible in his own eyes were it generally known that his ancestry wore simple and not gentle , poor and not rich , workers and not capitalists , would it be right severely to blame him for keeping these fatal facts out of sight—for starting , trembling , quailing at the chance which threatens exposure ? Tho longer we live , the more our experience widens ; the less prono are we to judge our neighbour ' s conduct , to question the world ' s wisdom : wherever an accumulation of small defences is found , whether surrounding the prudo ' s virtue or the man of the world ' s respectability , there , be sure , it Is needed . "

    Tho poetry scattered through these volumes , hidden though it ho in tlie folds of prose , will escape no poetio reader ; sometimes it lies in an epithet , at other times in an image ; lioro—to take one oxamplo—is a description avc bog you to read with proper cadence : — " Her eyes wero tho eyen of one who can remember ; ono whoso childhood does not fade like si dream , nor whoso youth vsmish like a sunbeam . She would not take life , loosely nnd incoherently , in parts , and let one season slip as she entered on another : sho would retain und add ; often roview from tho commencement , and k <> grow in harmony and consistency as sho grow in years /'

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    N KW ~ HOOKS . Wi ! muHfc again deal in brief summary manner with some of the hooka claiming notice amid tho HtresH of tho publishing season . The third nnd supplemental volume to ' Niebuhr ' s JAfv and letters ( Chapman nnd Hall ) may hereafter bo recurred to , for the sake of discussing certain tonics treated of in tho Miscellaneous Wi'iM-m / s , a Holection from winch iiUy accompanies this volume ; meanwhile it is enough for us to indicate tho fact of publication , having reviewed the two former volumoH ut considerable length . This iinal volume consists of a long letter from tho Chevalier iluiiHcn , defending JSiebuhr , especially his view of modern constitutions , and his roliiiquishment of oflice in 1810 . On this letter ¦ we i | iay havo something to way hereafter . . Mxtracts from letters to the Chcvulier follow , also interesting extracts from letters written iu Holland during 1808 and 1800 . Then ( some political Jfraymcnts , of no value whatever , except , indeed , as throwing light upon JNiebulir ' s intellect— not displayed to auy

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    164 THE -LEADER . [ Saturday ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 12, 1853, page 164, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1973/page/20/