Kitabı oku: «Belford's Magazine, Vol II, No. 10, March 1889», sayfa 2

"Poor little man!" she murmured, softly. She thought no one heard. Suddenly, behind her, there was a little snap.

"Hear that?" said the doctor, cheerfully. "That's all right."

She looked around and saw he was holding his thumb over the little cut he had made, and looking across at her with an encouraging smile.

"You're first-rate," he said, heartily. "I wish that screaming idiot could see how a brave woman behaves."

"Ah, but she is its mother!" said Kate, in a tender voice, "and it's such a little dear. I don't wonder she loves it!"

Was this really Kate Severn? He didn't have time to think whether it was or not, for the blood had stopped, and he now took up the other foot. At the same time the baby moved again and gave a little whimper. Kate promptly doused the towel and put it over the child's face, who, at its next breath, relapsed into unconsciousness.

"First-rate!" said the doctor again. "That will do for this time," and then proceeded with the other foot. Again Kate heard the little snapping sound, as the tendon was cut, though her eyes were fixed upon the placid face of the child.

"Now look, if you want to see a pair of straight little feet," said the doctor. And she turned around and saw, as he had said, instead of that curled deformity, two natural childish feet.

"Wonderful!" said the girl. "Oh, how thankful you must be that you are capable of such a thing as this!"

The doctor laughed his cheery, pleasant laugh.

"Why next to nobody could do that," he said. But it was plain that her commendation pleased him.

He then rapidly explained to her how into the vessel of warm water standing by she was to dip the little rolls of plaster spread between long strips of gauze, and rolled up like bolts of ribbon, and squeeze them out and hand them to him very promptly as he needed them.

"Never mind watching the baby," he said. "If it cries you must clap the towel over its face. You've got enough to do to watch me, and hand me the plaster as I need it."

Kate obeyed implicitly, and in a little while both feet had been deftly and neatly bandaged, from the toes to the knees, with the plaster bandages, and the little creature, appearing suddenly unnaturally long from this transformation, was pronounced intact.

"That's all," said the doctor. "As soon as I wash my hands I'll lay it on the bed."

"Let me," said Kate, hastily drying her own hands. And while he pretended to be engrossed in his ablutions he watched her curiously, as she lifted the baby tenderly and laid it on the bed. As she put it down she bent over and kissed it, murmuring sweet words, as a mother might have done.

"You must have the legs very straight," he said, coming over and standing at the bed's foot that he might the more accurately see them. "In an hour the plaster will be perfectly hard, and then they can move it anywhere. That's a good job, if we did do it ourselves," he said, with a bright smile.

"Oh, may I go and tell the mother?" said Kate, eagerly. "How happy she'll be to see those straight little legs!"

She went out and called the mother in. The woman's excitement had changed into stolidness, and she showed far less feeling in the matter than Kate had done. She looked at the child, without speaking, and then said she guessed she'd better clean up all this muss, and proceeded to set things to rights. Kate was indignant, and showed it in the look she cast at Dr. Brett, who smiled indulgently in reply, and said in a low tone, coming near her, "That manner is half embarrassment. I'm sure she really cares."

While he was wiping and putting up his instruments, Kate went back to the bed, a little whimper having warned her that baby was coming to.

"Don't let him move if you can help it," said the doctor, and she dropped on her knees by the bed, and began to talk to the child in the prettiest way, taking out her watch and showing it to him, holding it to his ear that he might hear it tick, and occupying his attention so successfully that he lay quite still, gazing up at her with great earnest brown eyes, and giving a simultaneous little grin and grunt now and then. Dr. Brett came up and stood behind her for a few moments unnoticed, observing her with a strange scrutiny. "Who would have expected a thing like this from this queer girl?" he said to himself. Then, aloud, he informed Miss Severn that the baby might safely be left to its mother now; and she got up at once, and, seeing he was ready to go, followed him out of the house.

He unfastened her horse and brought the cart to the gate, and, as she mounted to her seat and took the reins, she looked down at him and said impulsively:

"I'm so glad you let me help you. Is this your life – going about all the time doing good and curing evil? I never thought how beautiful it was. If I can ever give you help again, let me do it; won't you?"

"That you shall," he said, and seemed about to add more, but something stopped the words in his throat, and she drove off, wondering what they would have been. The mingled surprise and delight in his eyes made her long to know them. As she turned a bend in the road, she looked back and saw Dr. Brett standing in the door among the children, with a hand on the head of one of the untidy little boys, looking down at him kindly. His figure was certainly both handsome and impressive, and his head and profile fine. She wondered she had never noticed this before – but then she had never before been really interested in him. She wondered suddenly how old he was.

All the way home she was thinking about him, and how good, and cheerful, and strong, and clever he was; how everyone loved him, and what a power he had of making people feel better and brighter as soon as he came into the room. She began to recall accounts she had heard, with rather a listless interest, of difficult and successful surgical operations he had performed, and inducements offered him to go to big cities and make money, of which he had refused to avail himself simply because he loved his own people and had his hands full of work where he was. This was a fine and uncommon feeling, the girl reflected. Why had she never appreciated Dr. Brett before? By the time she reached home she had worked herself into quite a fever of appreciation, and she had a glowing account of the operation to give to her mother, who listened with great interest.

"How old is he, mamma?" she said, as she concluded.

"I really don't know. I never thought," said her mother. "He can't be much over thirty."

"Do ask him his age – I'd really like to know. It's wonderful for such a young man to be so much as he is. I never thought of his being young before – but thirty is young, of course."

After that morning's experience Kate and Dr. Brett became fast friends – on a very different footing from the old one. He told her about his patients, and took her with him sometimes to see them, tempering the wind to her with tender thoughtfulness, and refraining her eyes from seeing some of the forms of want and wretchedness that were common things to him; but in what she did see there was opportunity for much loving ministration; and her visits to those poor dwellings with him were in most cases followed by visits alone, when she would carry little gifts for the children and delicacies for the sick, along with the sweeter benefit of a sympathetic presence that knew, by a singular tact, how to be helpful without obtrusiveness.

In the midst of all these new interests it was not remarkable that the Ideal fell into the background. Sometimes for days he would be forgotten. He didn't harmonize with these practical pursuits; and, even when old habit sometimes conjured up his image in Kate's mind, it always made a sort of discord, and, what was worse, made her feel foolish in a way that she hated. She hadn't been to the garret for a long time. There was something that gave her a painful sense of absurdity in the mere thought of the blue velvet coat, and the cocked hat and sword. What could a man do with those things in this day and generation? She thought of Dr. Brett's brown hands encumbered with lace ruffles in the sort of work he had to do, and in her heart of hearts she knew that she preferred the work to the ruffles.

But the more the exterior belongings of her Ideal grated on her now, the more she hugged to her heart his soul and spirit, as expressed in the old blue manuscript. She read it more eagerly and more persistently than ever, and, every time, its lovely words and loving thoughts sank deeper in her heart, carrying a strange unrest there that was yet sweeter than anything had ever been to her before. All those longings for a beautiful and perfect love seemed now to come from herself – from the sacredest depth of her soul – rather than to be addressed to her.

One afternoon (it was rainy, and she could not go to drive as usual, and she no longer cared for her garret séances, which would once have seemed so appropriate to a day like this) she was sitting at the piano, playing to her mother, when Dr. Brett came in. He had not been to see them for many days – a most unusual thing – and she had felt neglected and hurt by it. Perhaps it was this feeling that made her very quiet in her greeting of him, or perhaps it was the melancholy, wilful strain of music into which she had wandered – plaintive minor things that seemed made to touch the founts of tears. At all events she did not feel like talking, and she drew away, after a few formal words, and left him to talk to her mother. He explained at once, however, that he had not come to stay, but to ask Mrs. Severn's permission to go up into the garret and look for something in an old box which she had permitted him to store there before he had built the house he was now occupying. Mrs. Severn remembered the fact that he had once sent a box there, and of course gave him the permission he desired.

"Kate will go with you," she said; "the garret is a favorite resort of hers, and she can help you to find your box."

So bidden, Kate was compelled to go; but she felt a strange reluctance possessing her as she mounted the stairs ahead of Dr. Brett. When they were in the great, wide-reaching, low-ceilinged room so familiar to her, she thought of the paraphernalia of her Ideal, and felt more foolish than she had ever felt yet. What an idiot Dr. Brett would think her if he knew of the impalpable object on which she had lavished so much feeling! She thought of the Ideal that had once been so much to her, and then looked at Dr. Brett. How real he was! how strong, capable, living! What a powerful, warm-impulsed actuality, compared to that unresponsive void! She surprised the good doctor by turning to him a face suffused by a vivid blush. He looked at her intently for a second, as if he would give a great deal to find out the meaning of that blush, but he recollected himself, and said suddenly:

"There is the old box. It had no lock on it, but that precaution was not necessary, for no one would ever care to possess themselves of that old plunder. It was mostly papers, and servants are not apt to tamper with them."

He walked over and opened the box, without looking at Kate, who had turned pale as a ghost and was standing like one transfixed, with her eyes riveted to him. He knelt down and began to turn over, one by one, the parcels of papers, which were labelled on the outside and were principally old deeds and account-books. When he had gone to the bottom of the trunk, he said, without turning:

"I cannot find what I want, and yet I know it was in this box. It was a – a – certain paper of mine, that I put in here years ago. I should know it in an instant, because it was written on some old blue paper, bleached white at the edges with age, that I happened to have at hand, and used for the purpose. I thought I should never want it again, but now I am anxious to reclaim it. It's too bad," he went on, putting the parcels back in the box; "every piece of this old trumpery seems to be here but that."

He got up and closed the lid, and, taking out his handkerchief, wiped his hands, and then began to flick the dust from the knees of his trousers. Kate still stood motionless, and, when at last he looked at her, his countenance showed him so startled by her expression that she was obliged to speak.

"I know where it is," she said; "I've got it. I didn't know it was yours. Oh, how could it be yours? I thought it was – "

"You've got it?" he said; "and you've read it?" And now it was his turn to blush. "Have you really read it?"

"Oh, yes," she said. "I've read it – and over, and over, and over. How could I know? I thought it belonged to us. I thought all these old boxes were ours, and I thought of course that old faded paper was written by some one years and years ago – some one long dead and buried."

"And so it was," he said – "at least, it was written some years ago indeed, and by a rash fellow, full of the impulsiveness and fire of youth, whom I thought dead and buried too, until these last few weeks have brought him to life again. He's come back – for what, I don't know; but I could get no rest until I tried to find that old, romantic outpouring of my passionate, hungry thoughts, written one night in red-hot haste and excitement, and addressed to a shadowy ideal of my own fancying, and proved to myself how absolutely they were realized at last – " he paused an instant, and then went on impulsively " – by you, Kate! – by you, in all your loveliness and goodness. If you have read those pages, you know how big my expectations were, how tremendous my desires. Then, let me tell you that you realize them all beyond my fondest dreams. I know you don't love me, Kate," he said, coming near and taking both her hands. "I know a rough old fellow like me could never win your love. I didn't mean to tell you about it. I never would have, but for this. I know that you don't love me; but I love you, all the same."

Kate would not give him her eyes to read, but he felt her hands shake in his, and he could see that her lips were trembling. What did it mean? Perhaps, after all – He was on fire with a sudden hope.

"Kate," he whispered, drawing her toward him by the two hands he still held fast, "perhaps you do – it seems too wonderful – but perhaps you do a little – just a little bit – enough to make me hope the rest might come. Oh, if you do, my Kate, my beautiful, my darling, tell me!"

She drew her hands away from him and buried her face.

"Oh, I don't love you a little at all," she said, half-chokingly. "I love you a great, great deal. I know the truth now."

Then he took her in his arms and drew her tight against his heart. When her lips were close to his ear, she spoke again:

"I knew it the moment you said you had written that paper. I loved whoever wrote that, already – but it wasn't that. I knew I loved you because it made me so unhappy, so wretched, for that minute when I thought maybe you had written those words to some one else you loved – and then you couldn't love me."

"Let me tell you," he whispered back: "'Some one else' never existed. There never was anyone that could command the first emotion of love from me until you came. But, like many a foolish creature, I have loved an ideal, tenderly, faithfully, abidingly, and to her these passionate words were written. Now do you think me irretrievably silly? Can you ever respect me again?"

For answer, she told him her own little story, and even got out the cocked hat and sword and blue velvet coat, and showed them to him, in a happy glee. He made an effort to take them from her and put them on; but she prevented him, indignantly.

"You shall not!" she exclaimed; "I should be ashamed of you! A fine time you'd have wrapping plaster bandages, with those ridiculous lace ruffles! Oh, I like you a thousand times better as you are."

He caught her in his arms and kissed her – a fervent, passionate, happy kiss.

"Go and get the paper," he said, as he released her, "and let us read it together, or, rather, let me read it to you – to whom it was written in the beginning. My ideal is realized."

"And so is mine," she said. "How silly we are!"

"But aren't we happy?" he answered. And then they both laughed like children.

She broke away from him and ran noiselessly down stairs, and get the dear blue paper and brought it to him, and then, seated beside him on a rickety bench, with his arm around her waist, she listened while he read. There were many interruptions; many loving looks and tender pressures; many fervent, happy kisses. As he read the last words the paper fell from his hands, and they looked at each other, with smiling lips and brimming eyes. For one brief instant they rested so, and then both pairs of arms reached out and they were locked in a close embrace. No words were spoken – that silence was too sweet.

And this was their betrothal.

Julia Magruder.

THISTLE-DOWN

 
All silver-shod within a weed's
Dark heart, a thousand tiny steeds
Were tethered in one stall. Each wee heart
Panted for flight, and longed to start
Upon the race-course just beyond their walls;
And, while they waited, down the silent stalls
The wind swept softly, and, with fingers light,
Bridled the thistle horses for their flight.
 

Annie Bronson King.

NOVELISTS ON NOVELS

It has sometimes been a matter of pious speculation with literary and dramatic circles what Shakespeare's personal views on art and literature would have been had the enterprise and liberality of "Great Eliza's Golden Days" induced him to formulate them. A simple and credulous few have been disposed to regret the absence of any authentic enunciation beyond the curt maxims and, as it were, fractions of canons scattered throughout his dramas.

These ardent hero-worshippers dream fondly of the light the master might have cast on many important points, which can now only be dimly descried in twilight or guessed at by mere inference, and sigh at the thought of what the world has lost. Others, rationally and soberly agnostic, have been saved the heartache and intranquillity of their brethren, by the very natural and not too profound reflection that it is entirely problematic whether the actor-lessee of the Blackfriar's playhouse could have expressed an opinion worth a pinch of salt on any vital æsthetic question, even supposing him as eager to give as we to receive. Assumption is dangerous; and the possession of the creative faculty by no means implies the possession of the critical.

True, for —

 
"No two virtues, whatever relation they claim,
Nor even two different shades of the same,
Though like as was ever twin brother to brother,
Possessing the one shall imply you've the other."
 

Nevertheless, in certain circumstances, "the high priori road is permissible to the adventurous traveller." With those happily constituted persons who can imagine Shakespeare writing anything quite worthless even in the abstruse and difficult domain of scientific criticism – where so many high qualities are required which are not held to be essential to the mere creative – I disclaim the remotest desire to provoke a quarrel. Rather let me frankly congratulate them on their force of imagination. But those of a simpler faith and a scantier imaginative endowment will probably incline to the belief that the brain which fashioned "Lear" and "Othello" could, under the golden stimulus so potent to-day, have given us pertinent, perhaps even canotic comments on – say, "Every Man in his Humor," or "A Mad World my Masters," or "The White Devil." Would it be heretical to suppose the author of "Macbeth" capable of dissecting an ancient play in as keen and true a scientific spirit as that in which the Saturday Review dissects a modern novel? The encumbrance of a conscience might, indeed, be a serious detriment, inasmuch as it would impair the pungency of his remarks. His fantastic notions of the quality of mercy might lead him to exaggerate merits, his lack of a sustaining sense of self-omniscience to a fatal diffidence in pronouncing on defects; so that his judgments would lack that fine Jeffreys-like flavor of judicial rigor which makes Saturday Review a synonym for sterling Jedburgh justice wherever the beloved and venerable name is known. He might prove a honey-bee without a sting; a grave defect at a time when the sting is esteemed more than the honey-bag. Yet, it is not improbable that, with a little judicious training and proper enlightenment on the foolishness of sentiment, he would have made a tolerable critic, for, as has been discriminatingly observed of Sophocles, the man is not without indications of genius. At any rate, in later and better appointed times, we have seen the German Shakespeare, and others of the lawless tribe of creators, enter the field of criticism and win approbation. It is true that Scott and Byron, if not exactly categorically related to Mr. Thomas Rymer, were still but indifferent critics; but we could readily tilt the scale by throwing Pope, Wordsworth, and Shelley into the other, and yet have Mr. Arnold, Mr. Swinburne, Mr. Lowell, and Mr. Lang in reserve.

And, in truth, as there are obvious reasons why lawyers make the best judges, ci devant thieves the best detectives, reformed drunkards the best temperance advocates, and the scared sinners (like John Bunyan) the best preachers, so there are obvious reasons why an artist's opinions of the productions of creative art, especially of the productions of that branch of it wherein he labors himself, should have peculiar value. His intimate acquaintance with the principles of art should not be detrimental to his perspicacity as a critic. Fielding's success with Parson Adams would not, I conceive, be any hindrance to his success in a criticism of the character of Lieutenant Lismahago, nor would the packed essences of "Esmond" prove Thackeray incapable of passing a competent judgment on "David Copperfield."

The fact is, practice has its advantages over theory. To the intelligent, experience is something more than mere empiricism, and some value must be conceded to personal experience. Theory is a wench of great personal attractions, with the coquette's knack of making the most of them; but she bears the same relation to her plainer, plodding elder sister Practice that Mark Twain bore to the invaluable Dan, when that doughty henchman was deputed to take exercise for the languid humorist. Mark might have the liveliest idea of the rugged grandeur of the Alps, but Dan knew the toils of the ascent and the glories of the higher prospects; and though Mark was an invincible theoretical mountain-climber, Dan would be apt to prove the more trustworthy guide.

It was with the view of securing the directions of practical guides for the reader, in another field of exploration, that the present paper was written. I may say at once that my object in seeking the notes – so kindly and courteously placed at my disposition – was not to gratify idle curiosity with any pungent mess of personal gossip. That dignified office I gladly leave to the accomplished purveyors of the Society papers. But I conceived that the curtest expression of the genuine artist concerning the productions of his own art could not fail to be valuable as well as interesting. The critics, like our creditors, we have always with us, to remind us we are still far from Zion, and the former are just as indispensable to us, in the present state of the world, as the latter. Unfortunately, neither enjoy immunity from the universal law of human imperfection. Creditors are not always generous nor critics always just. One grave difficulty with the latter is the insidiousness of personal predilection, which cannot be wholly excluded from the catholic judgment. Different judges have different tastes. One may have a preference for Burgandy and the other for champagne, while a third may prefer old port to either. The moral is obvious, and points to the prudence of occasionally bringing producers and consumers face to face; having done which I will withdraw for the present.

From Mr. Robert Buchanan

Dear Sir: It is difficult to say off-hand what novel I consider my prime favorite. So much depends upon the mood of the moment and point of view. I should say, generally, that the "Vicar of Wakefield" surpassed all English tales, if I did not remember that Fielding had created Parson Adams; but again, I have got more pleasure out of Dickens' masterpiece, "David Copperfield," than all the others put together. Yes, I fix on "David Copperfield" – from which, you will gather that I do not solicit in fiction the kind of romance I have myself tried to weave.

Again, in all the region of foreign fiction, I see no such figure as Balzac, and no such pathetic creation as "Cousin Pons." That to me is a divine story, far deeper and truer, of course, than anything in Dickens, but alas! so sad. While I tremble at Balzac's insight, I have the childish faith of Dickens; he at least made the world brighter than he found it, and after all, there are worse things than his gospel of plum-pudding. When I am well and strong and full of life, I can bear the great tragedians, like the Elizabethan group, like Balzac; but when I am ill and wearied out with the world, I turn again to our great humorist to gain happiness and help.

Robert Buchanan.

From Mr. Hall Caine

My Dear Sir: I am not a great reader of novels. My favorite reading is dramatic poetry and old ballads. Few novelists can have read fewer novels. During the last five years I have certainly not read a score of new ones. But I am constantly reading in the old ones. Portions of chapters that live vividly in my memory, scenes, passages of dialogue, scraps of description – these I read and re-read. I could give you a list of fifty favorite passages, but I would find it hard to say which is my favorite novel. The mood of the moment would have much to do with any judgment made on that head. When I am out of heart Scott suits me well, for his sky is always serene. When I am in high spirits I enjoy Thackeray, for it is only then that I find any humor in the odd and the ugly. Dickens suits me in many moods; there was not a touch of uncharity in that true soul. There are moments when the tenderness of Richardson is not maudlin, and when his morality is more wholesome than that of Goldsmith. Sometimes I find the humor of Sterne the most delicious thing out of Cervantes, and sometimes I am readier to cry than to laugh over "The Life and Deeds of Don Quixote." So that if I were to tell you that in my judgment this last book is on the whole the most moving piece of imaginative writing known to me, – strongest in epic spirit, fullest of inner meaning, the book that touches whatever is deepest and highest in me, – I should merely be saying that it is the last romance in which I have been reading with all the faculties of mind and heart.

I like, at all times and in all moods, the kind of fiction that gets closest to human life, and I value it in proportion as I think it is likely to do the world some good. Thus (to cite examples without method) I care very little for a book like "Vathek," and I loathe a book like "Madame Bovary," because the one is false to the real and the other is false to the ideal. I see little imagination and much inexperience in "Wuthering Heights," and great scenic genius and profound ignorance of human character in "Notre Dame." In Gogol's little story of the overcoat, and in Turgeneff's little story of the dumb porter I find tenderness, humor, and true humanity. I miss essential atmosphere in Godwin's masterpiece, and the best kind of artistic conviction almost throughout Charles Reade. It makes some deduction from my pleasure in Hawthorne that his best characters stand too obviously not for human beings only, but also for abstract ideas. I like George Eliot best in the first part of "Silas Marner," and least in the last part of "The Mill on the Floss." Perhaps I set the highest value on my friend Blackmore among English novelists now living. I find Tolstoï a great novelist in the sense in which his fellow-countryman, Verestchagin, is a great painter – a great delineator of various life, not a great creator. Björnson, the Norwegian novelist, in his "Arne" seems to me a more imaginative artist than Doré in his "Vale of Tears." I do not worship "Manon Lescaut," and I would rather read "Les Miserables" than "Germinal." In short, to sum it up in a word, I suppose I am an English idealist in the sense in which (if I may say so without presumption) George Sand was a French idealist. I think it is the best part of the business of art to lighten the load of life. To do this by writing mere "light literature," the companion of an idle hour, a panacea for toothache, a possible soporific, would seem to me so poor an aim that, if it were the only thing before me I think I would even yet look about for another profession. Fiction may lighten life by sterner means – by showing the baffled man the meanness of much success, and the unsuccessful man the truer triumphs of failure. To break down the superstitions that separate class from class, to show that the rule of the world is right, and that though evil chance plays a part in life, yet that life is worth living – these are among the functions of the novelist. In reaching such ends there are few or no materials that I would deny to him. He should be as free as the Elizabethan dramatists were, or even the writers of our early ballads. His work would be various in kind, and not all suited to all readers; but he would touch no filth for the distinction of being defiled. It would not trouble him a brass farthing whether his subject led him to a "good" or a "bad" ending, for he would have a better ambition than to earn the poor wages of a literary jester, and his endings would always be good in the best sense where his direction was good.

And so in some indirect way I have answered your question; and I would like to add that I foresee that the dominion of the novel must be extended. Fiction is now followed by appalling numbers with amazing fecundity and marvellous skill, which, though mainly imitative, is occasionally original; but its channels are few and very narrow. Already the world seems to be growing weary of feeble copies of feeble men and feeble manners. It wants more grit, more aim, more thought, and more imagination. But this is thin ice to tread, and I would not disparage by a word or a wink the few novelists now living who will assuredly rank with the best in literature. Dugald Stewart said that human invention, like the barrel organ, was limited to a specific number of tunes. The present hurdy-gurdy business has been going on a longish time. We are threatened with the Minerva press over again, and the class of readers who see no difference between Walter Scott and John Galt. But, free of the prudery of the tabernacle and the prurience of the boulevard, surely the novel has a great future before it. Its possibilities seem to me nearly illimitable. Though the best of the novel is nowhere a match for the best of the drama, yet I verily believe that if all English fiction, from Defoe downwards, including names conspicuous and inconspicuous, remembered and forgotten, were matched against all English poetry of whatever kind, from Pope to our own day, it would be found that the English novelist is far ahead of the English poet in every great quality – imagination, pathos, humor, largeness of conception, and general intellect. And I will not hesitate to go further and say that, the art of the novel is immeasurably greater than the art of the drama itself – more natural as a vehicle and less limited in its uses, more various in subject and less trammelled in its mechanism, capable of everything that the drama (short of the stage) can do, and of infinitely more resource.

Hall Caine.

From Mr. Wilkie Collins

After pleading illness and arrears of literary work and correspondence in excuse of the brevity of his note, Mr. Collins says: