his sublime rôle of self-sacrifice. In his horror of the 'funestes influences des préjuges,' and in Sylvia's isolément de toute considération sociale, we have such deliberate recipes for wrongdoing, such shutting out of honest daylight, such careful exclusion of all ordinary rules of good conduct, such a mixture of clear prevision of mischief and misery, with contempt for every safeguard, such careful separation of love from duty, such reverential respect for the first faint symptom of infidelity, such comical notions of justice, virtue, and honour, as can only be read to be conceived, and which certainly are not worth the reading. But the curious thing is, that with all this contempt for society, the world is the only power recognized, the only influence beyond their fancies and inclinations which weighs a hair in the scale. Jacques, who thinks it his duty not to interfere by even a word with Fernande's growing fancy for Octave, is solicitous that she should not se perdre. What a mysterious power is le monde' with bad people! Men must, after all, have some tribunal to go to, as is shown when persons who hate society, despise it, and disregard it, are in spite of the triple hide of self-appreciation which guards them from all misgiving-blighted by its opinion beyond the conception of minds that acknowledge a higher rule. What does this se perdre' mean? What do these people lose? And yet this series of works is eloquent in the horrible suffering that the world's suspicion or obloquy can give. Nothing irritates the writer so much as the natural effect on men's minds of outrageous conduct; it is one ground for hating life. It is frightfulde se perdre,' not with heaven, not for eternity, but in the opinion of a few commonplace neighbours and acquaintance, or a slightly wider circle that have not the claim to attention, of either one or the other; a society never alluded to but with the bitterest contempt.

It is in connexion with this principle, this uniform resting on the world's judgment, that we can alone understand the high place as virtues that she gives to vanité and orgueil: the first of which she places next to amour, and the last calls the true name for virtue.

When Jacques sees how things are going, he thinks his duty lies in absenting himself and leaving his rival a clear field; having first turned it in his mind whether he should take his wife to Paris to distract her mind from its present occupation: but a course of naïfs reasons satisfies him that things are better as they are. His only concern for Fernande is lest she should become a prey to all the terrors and all the difficulties of the vie sociale. He detects in Octave a fatal indifference on this

point which he proudly contrasts with his own delicate ‘soins.* We cannot follow the ins and outs of the story; but Sylvia's letter recalling her friend to his own home which he had abandoned for ever, we must extract, as illustrating the very peculiar estimate the author entertains of his duty, and of what constitutes real magnanimity:---

Jacques! reviens, Fernande a besoin de toi. . . . . Prends courage, Jacques, et viens souffrir ici. Tu es encore nécessaire; que cette idée te donne de la force! Il y a autour de toi des êtres qui ont besoin de toi. Et puis ta vie n'est pas finie. N'y a-t-il done rien autre chose que l'amour? L'amitié que Fernande a pour toi est plus forte que l'amour que lui inspire Octave. Tous ses soins et tout son dévouement, qui s'est vraiement soutenu au-delà de mon espérance, échouent auprès d'elle quand il s'agit de toi. Peut-il en être autrement? Peut-elle vénérer un autre homme comme toi? Reviens vivre parmi nous. Me comptes-tu pour rien dans ta vie? Ne t'ai-je pas bien aimé ? T'ai-je jamais fait du mal? Ne sais-tu pas que tu es ma première et presque ma seule affection? Surmonte l'horreur que t'inspire Octave, ce sera l'affaire d'un jour.'

Jacques replies that he will come because he feels that 'je ne mourrais pas tranquille si j'avais négligé d'adoucir une des peines de Fernande.' But for the rest he perceives that in order to make her really comfortable-for she has her scruples, having been always a weak character-nothing remains for him but to put himself out of the way. He demands then of Octave if he is willing to devote himself to Fernande, lui consacrer sa vie;" and on receiving a satisfactory reply proceeds to carry out what he distinctly sees to be his duty. Sylvia is his confidante; he knows he can trust her in no way to interfere with his arrangements, a well-placed confidence for 'c'en est donc fait, ton parti est prêt!' is all she says in remonstrance.

6

Qu'elle l'aime donc,' he cries. Un homme moins malheureux que moi eût peut-être trouvé l'occasion de se sacrifier pour l'objet de son amour et d'en être récompensé à sa dernière heure par les bénédictions des heureux qu'il eût faits; mais mon sort est tel qu'il faut que je me cache pour mourir. . . . Car, après tout, Fernande est un ange de bonté, et son cœur, sensible aux moindres atteintes, pourrait se briser sous le poids d'un remords semblable. D'ailleurs le monde la maudirait, et, après m'avoir poursuivi de ses féroces railleries pendant ma vie, il poursuivrait ma veuve de ses aveugles malédictions après ma mort.'

He writes from Switzerland on the moment of hiding himself for ever in some ice crevice, and concludes with the following speculations on life and society, that society of which Fernande and Octave are henceforward to be an ornament:

'Ne maudis pas ces deux amants qui vont profiter de ma mort. Ils ne sont pas coupables, ils s'aiment. Il n'y a pas de crime-là où il y a de l'amour sincère. Ils ont de l'égoïsme, et ils n'en valent peut-être que mieux. Ceux qui n'en ont pas sont inutiles à eux-mêmes et aux autres. Pour quiconque veut n'être pas déplacé dans la société, il faut avoir

l'amour de la vie et la volonté d'être heureux en dépit de tout. Ce qu'on appelle la vertu dans cette société-là, c'est l'art de se satisfaire sans heurter ouvertement les autres, et sans attirer sur soi des inimitiés fâcheuses. Eh bien pourquoi haïr l'humanité parce qu'elle est ainsi? C'est Dieu qui lui a donné cet instinct pour qu'elle travaillât elle-même à sa conservation.'

·

In opposition to this type Jacques paints himself one constructed on a rarer model, incessantly tormented with the desire to advance the public good. Un apôtre, un martyr, as he is called by the one congenial spirit, Sylvia, who can alone appreciate his worth and comprehend the heroism of his self-sacrifice. These pictures of wild self-sacrifice, characteristic of all morbid fiction, if we can speak of them seriously, are of themselves a sign of selfishness, in the designers of them, as showing blindness and indifference to the inborn rights of others. This lady delights in imagining for her women the attendance of some self-immolating spirit, who has no other notion in life than mere indiscriminating devotion. In Indiana' this part is played by an Englishman, called, indifferently, Sir Brown, le. pauvre baronnet, Sir Ralph, or simply M. Brown. He is secretly devoted to his cousin, Indiana, whose heart is bestowed elsewhere we need not say, where it ought not. For the sake of breathing the same air, and watching over her with those heroic and very singular soins of which these pages are so fertile, he conceals every feeling, and turns even his face into a mask. He it is who in the end cheerfully escorts Indiana across the Atlantic, after her lover has disappointed her for the simple purpose of throwing himself over a favourite precipice solely to keep her company, and with such modesty of selfabnegation that only in his farewell speech before taking the fatal leap it is discovered by the lady, that, instead of dying together, they may very well live together, which, on the whole, they think the better plan. That a story with such incidents could raise its author at once into the highest favour, implies, of course, on her part, remarkable felicities of style and expression, and in the public diseased appetite for morbid sentiment and action. A course of such reading, indeed, reduces any mind to a very indiscriminating state. There is a certain congruity and consistency of evil which reduces it to a system; by degrees nothing surprises us, and, if we read long enough, nothing shocks us.

The distinguished part given to Sir Brown, shows that, either from her admiration of Sir Walter Scott as the, then, exponent of the romantic school, or from our different view of marriage, she expected English sympathy for her exposé of the French system. At this time she clearly entertained a more

favourable feeling towards the English than her subsequent works bear out. The horror which her principles excited here must soon have reached her-strange to say she was sensitive of such criticism--and any chance personal contact causing her to realize the sentiment of repugnance she had treated as a woman and an author, would bring about a natural change of feeling towards those who entertained it. In one of the lively passages of her 'Letters d'un Voyageur,' she no doubt revenges herself on les silencieux enfants d'Albion for some slight received. It suited her love of adventure, and her hardy habits, for she boasts of great pedestrian feats to travel in man's attire. Arriving at a hotel in Switzerland, stained with mud and dirt, and with an air of such questionable gentility that the servants took her for a jockey, she encounters some friends as eccentric in the matter of costume as herself. There is an enthusiastic meeting; and the innkeeper's daughter lets fall her candle in astonishment, and spreads through the house that Number 13 is invaded by a troop of mysterious, indescribable people, with hair like savages, and amongst whom it is impossible to distinguish men from women, servants from masters. Very naturally, they are mistaken for actors. We give the We give the passage as a specimen of her amusing style :

"Histrions!" dit gravement le chef de cuisine d'un air de mépris, "et nous violà stigmatisés, montrés au doigt, pris en horreur. Les dames anglaises que nous rencontrons dans les corridors rabattent leurs voiles sur leurs visages pudiques, et leurs majestueux époux se concertent pour nous demander pendant le souper une petite représentation de notre savoir-faire, moyennant une collecte raisonnable. C'est ici le lieu de te communiquer la remarque la plus scientifique que j'aie faite dans ma vie.

"Les insulaires d'Albion apportent avec eux un fluide particulier que j'appellerai le fluide britannique, et au milieu duquel ils voyagent, aussi peu accessibles à l'atmosphère des régions qu'ils traversent que la souris au centre de la machine pneumatique. Ce n'est pas seulement grâce aux mille précautions dont ils s'environnent, qu'ils sont redevables de leur éternelle impassibilité. Ce n'est pas parce qu'ils ont trois paires de breeches, les unes sur les autres, qu'ils arrivent parfaitement secs et propres malgré la pluie et la fange; ce n'est pas non plus parce qu'ils ont des perruques de laine que leur frisure roide et métallique brave l'humidité; ce n'est pas parce qu'ils marchent chargés chacun d'autant de pommades, de brosses et de savon qu'il en faudrait pour adoniser tout un régiment de conscrits bas-bretons, qu'ils ont toujours la barbe fraîche et les ongles irréprochables. C'est parce que l'air extérieur n'a pas de prise sur eux; c'est parce qu'ils marchent, boivent, dorment et mangent dans leur fluide, comme dans une cloche de cristal épaisse de vingt pieds, et au travers de laquelle ils regardent en pitié les cavaliers que le vent défrise et les piétons dont la neige endommage la chaussure. Je me suis demandé, en regardant attentivement le crâne, la physionomie et l'attitude des cinquante Anglais des deux sexes qui chaque soir se renouvelaient autour de chaque table d'hôte de la Suisse, quel pouvait être le but de tant de pélerinages lointains, périlleux et difficiles, et je crois avoir fini par le découvrir, grâce au

major, que j'ai consulté assidûment sur cette matière. Voici: pour une Anglaise le vrai but de la vie est de réussir à traverser les régions les plus élevées et les plus orageuses sans avoir un cheveu dérangé à son chignon. Pour une Anglaise, c'est de rentrer dans sa patrie après avoir fait le tour du monde sans avoir sali ses gants ni troué ses bottes. C'est pour cela qu'en se rencontrant le soir dans les auberges après leurs pénibles excursions, hommes et femmes se mettent sous les armes et se montrent, d'un air noble et satisfait, dans toute l'imperméabilité majestueuse de leur tenue de touriste. Ce n'est pas leur personne, c'est leur garde-robe qui voyage, et l'homme n'est que l'occasion du porte-manteau, le véhicule de l'habillement. Je ne serais pas étonné de voir paraître à Londres des relations de voyage ainsi intitulées: Promenades d'un chapeau dans les marais Pontins.-Souvenirs de l'Helvétie, par un collet d'habit. - Expédition autour du monde, par un manteau de caoutchouc."

6

Three or four years since our authoress endeavoured to show that even on our own ground of decency and refinement she can teach us a lesson. It came into her mind to adapt As You Like It' (Comme il vous plaira'), to the French stage. But this she explains, in her preface, could not be done without much castigation. By a strange, seemingly incomprehensible contrast,' she says, 'Shakspeare has set the divinest grace by the side of the most frightful cynicism' not only did he give the douce Audry to the grivois (licentious) Touchstone, but Celia was mismatched with the detestable Oliver, showing a blindness to the true nature of the marriage tie, which she, Madame Dudevant, feels it incumbent on her to correct. She does it by rescuing Jaques from the celibacy he had marked out for himself, and, after a course of persecutions on her part, uniting him to Celia; with many other emendations necessary to adapt to the propriety and morality of her civilized capital.

But to return to our semi-barbarous poet. No notice of this author can omit the mention of Lélia,' the strangest, maddest, wickedest of her books: and more than a mention is scarcely admissible here. But even of this the most contrary opinions have been given. The Quarterly,' in an article twenty years ago styles it a work altogether such as in any country in the world but France would be burned by the hangman;' while a later friendly critic, in a burst of fond enthusiasm for its style, pronounces it alternately a hymn to the majesty of nature, and an elegy on the nothingness of life.' Madame George Sand has comments to meet both views. Her apology is that she did not write it for publication, a statement too improbable to be believed for as a popular author, wanting money, she was not likely to spend so much time and thought on hidden unprofitable work. In her 'Lettres' her only regret for having written it is that she cannot write it again. She calls it 'l'action la