light pouring in, making all white and dazzling. The portrait, which had been drawn towards this window to get the evening light, stood there stil!, receiving the white illumination of the moonlight. Edmund walked up holding in his hand a candle, which flamed yellow and earthly in that radiance from heaven-through the whiteness, a sort of milky way, with the annals of the past on every side of him. He came to the picture of his love, and threw himself down beside it on the floor. There she stood before him, shadowed in the moonlight- the same, and yet not the same. Something disappointing, narrower, smaller, was in the pictured countenance. As he gazed at it the confusion grew in his mind; all that was real seemed to die away from him. In the vehemence of this sense of loss, he began to speak to her, tears filling his eyes, and her face shining more and more like life through that tremulous medium. "Maud! Maud! I do not understand you; I do not know you; but I love you," he said in a rapture, not knowing that he said it. Then he came to himself with a gasp. There, close to the frame of the picture, her shoulder touching it, stood the original. He held up his candle, like a yellow flaming torch. For the moment, in the silent moonlight, with all the world asleep around, alone with these twowere they two?-his reason went from him. He raised himself to his knees, and knelt like a devotee before a shrine his arms widely opened, his face raised, wild with worship: were they two, standing side by side, comparing themselves each to each, or were they one? 66 You have come to me at last have come to me Maud!" you She looked at him as before with her soft smile. There was no reply in her to his passion. "I did wrong to speak to you," she said; "you do not understand. I was so pleased that you saw me. No one sees me. I come and go, sometimes out, sometimes in. I go to their rooms and they do not see me. Then when I find one that will speak that will smile, I am glad." There came from her, mingled together, the soft laugh and the sigh that made his heart stand still. "But no more but no more," she said. And there seemed to creep about him a chill. He had never felt it before. When he had seen her first all had been soft as her looks, delightful as the bloom on her face. The bloom was still on her face, but shaded as by a mist. Nor could he see as he did before. The moonlight confused the soft features - or perhaps it was his yellow flaming human candle, not everlasting like the other light, ready to burn out and extinguish itself. His strength and his senses seemed to fail. "I do not understand," he cried; "I do not understand! but whatever it is, I accept-I accept. Dead or living, Maud, Maud, come with me- - let us be together! Come!" he said, stretching his arms wildly. She did not draw back nor move, but neither did he touch her with his longing arms. Did fear seize them half-way extended? He could not tell. They dropped down by his side, and his heart dropped, sinking within him. She stood before him unmoved - always the same calm, the half smile on her lips, her blue eyes pleased and tender. Then she shook her head slowly, gently. "It is not permitted. I told you I had loved the earth and all that was on it; and now I am earthbound. I could not go if I would, and I would not if I could. What we have to do, that is what we love best. But I never thought that you would mistake so much—that you would not understand. Now I know why there are so few that see us. It is to keep them from harm," she said with a soft sigh. "Ah me! when the only thing we long for, it is sometimes to speak - but I will never wish for it more "Maud!" He threw himself at her feet again with a great cry. "Touch me mark me that I may be yours always. If not in life, yet in death. Say we shall meet when I die." Once more she shook her head. "How can I tell? I do not know you in the soul. You will do what is appointed; but do not be sorry, you will like to do it," * she said with her sweet look of tender pleasure. Good-bye, brother - goodbye!" 66 "I will not let you go!" he cried: "I will not let you go!" and seized her in his arms. Then in Edmund's head was a roaring of echoes, a clanging of noises, a blast as of great trumpets and music; and he knew no more. "Edmund is not in his room; his bed has not been slept in," said Lady Beresford, coming hastily up-stairs next morning immediately after she had gone down. Prima vuol ben; ma non lascia il talento Sir Robert had not yet left his dressingroom. She was pale and full of alarm. "His door was open; there is no trace of him. I have sent out over all the park. He must have left the house last night. And Fred tells me the strangest story. What is it, Robert?" Sir Robert was very much disturbed himself, but he would make no certain reply. "I daresay he will be found wandering about somewhere. He has got some nonsense in his head." Then he hurried down to the lime-tree walk, and out to the park, looking under the bushes and trees. If he had found Edmund there lying white and stark, Sir Robert would not have been surprised. They searched for him all the morning, but found no trace anywhere. Later in the day, Sir Robert suddenly bethought himself of another possibility. He hurried up to the old gallery, calling his eldest son to go with him. And there, indeed, they found Edmund -lying on the floor. But not dead, nor raving; pale enough, pale as a ghost, but asleep; his candle long ago burnt out to the socket, and the soft little face he had loved placidly watching over him from the picture, as unmoved, though not so sweet, as the vision he had seen. It cannot be said that Edmund Coventry was well enough to leave Daintrey that day, nor for several days. But he went away as soon as it was possible, going off from the great door, and by the drive, not approaching the lime-tree walk. He had no brain-fever, nor any other kind of fever. Various changes were perceptible, the Beresfords thought, in his life; but other people were unconscious of them. He had always been a gentle soul, friendly, and charitable, and true. More than a year after, when he met his former guardian and family in town, the old intercourse was renewed, and that came to pass which Lady Beresford had always thought would be so very suitable. He married Maud, and made her a very good husband. But he would never go to Daintrey again. And though there have been a great many versions of the story scattered abroad, and the Beresfords, once so silent on the subject, have become in their hearts a little proud of it-though it is supposed against their will that it should be known -no one else, so far as we have ever heard, has been again accosted by the gentle little lady who was earthbound. Perhaps her time of willing punishment is over, and she is earthbound no more. From The Contemporary Review. THE LETTERS OF THE LATE MR. DICKENS.* in his letters than Charles Dickens" "No man ever expressed himself more so the preface to this volume tells us. The book, we are assured, is a "picture of himself by himself." The object of is to give, or at least to suggest, a picture printing "the more private of the letters," of what he was at home, or in his relations to home-that is the view of the lady editors. But a great number of letKate (Mrs. Perugini) are omitted for a ters addressed by Dickens to his daughter good reason they were burnt to ashes at the Pantechnicon. This alone must make a very serious blank in the portrait. The volumes are dedicated to that lady. - There is not the least doubt that if we could have all the private letters of an energetic and emotional man like Dickens, we should indeed have a portrait of himself by himself. Let us assume, what would inevitably be the case, that a certain number of the letters would be omitted, out of tenderness to human infirmity for it is not to be supposed that Dickens was, as Disraeli said of Gladstone, "a character without one redeeming vice, sir" — let us assume this omission to have taken place, and also that, apart from any question of human infirmity, a certain number of letters were left out, as would certainly be the case, for mere triviality, or because they touched upon matters which survivors might not like to see wholly uncovered, we might still have a man's picture of himself by himself. But after all, published collections of private letters are usually disappointing things, and these two large volumes, interesting as they are, constitute no exception to the general rule. We do, indeed, obtain glimpses of physical suffering and ill-health, for which the general public were quite unprepared: but the Dickens of these pages is the Dickens we already knew, and we have not the key to his interior life; while we are helped to discern inconsistencies of opinion and conduct of which there is no accessible explanation. Of these we shall say nothing but that they exist; the mind of Dickens had many a cul-de-sac, as was natural, and he had no speculative capacity, or even consciousness of speculative difficulties. All that M. Taine has said, The Letters of Charles Dickens. Now for the first time published. Edited by his Sister-in-law and Eldest Daughter. 2 vols. Chapman & Hall. You should have seen him Nicholas had his roast lamb, as you said he and some things which even he has not said, of the absolutely Philistine quality was to, but he could not eat it all, and says if of Dickens as a moralist, is true; and it you do not mind his doing so he should like would seem that the front he showed to to have the rest hashed to-morrow with some He said he did not like to have his porter hot, those whose record or whose current be- greens, which he is very fond of, and so am I. havior had a blot in it should in conse- for he thought it spoilt the flavor, so I let him quence be Philistine too; but it was not have it cold. I thought he never would have left so: only, if we feel that there is an in-drink it. consistency here, we also feel, and with off. I also gave him three pounds of money, all in sixpences, to make it seem more, and he said directly that he would give more than And I say he is a good half to his mama and sister, and divide the rest with poor Smike. fellow for saying so, and if anybody says he isn't I am ready to fight him whenever they grateful pleasure, that it is an inspired inconsistency, of much "purer fire " than the inconsistency of those who talk charity and live cruelty. In short, our comment reduces itself to this that we cannot find out the man's philosophy of life. One point, however, is deeply emphasized by much of the matter contained in these letters. We knew it before, but now we know it better. We mean his love of the young, his hearty understanding of them, his fine sense of the humor there is in their way of looking at life, and his passionate desire to see them well-treated, and openly and fully sympathized with. The theme is so delightful in itself, and flings so much fond and rosy light upon the foreground of a story or study which, after all, is a melancholy one, or has at least a surprising amount of sadness in it, that we expect more than pardon for quoting at full length a certain letter to a little boy, which is to us (unlike some other choice passages) entirely new. This young gentleman, Master Hastings Hughes, had written to Dickens before "Nicholas Nickleby" was finished, addressing him as "Respected Sir," and favoring him with his own youthful notions of what the story-teller ought to do in the way of "serving out" Squeers, rewarding Nicholas, and other things desirable in the interest of poetical justice. Dickens's answer is as follows: Doughty Street, London, December 12th, 1838. I have given Squeers RESPECTED SIR, one cut on the neck and two on the head, at which he appeared much surprised and began to cry, which being a cowardly thing, is just what I should have expected from himwouldn't you? I have carefully done what you told me in your letter about the lamb and the two sheeps" for the little boys. They have also had some good ale and porter, and some wine. I am sorry you didn't say what wine you would like them to have. I gave them some sherry, which they liked very much, except one boy, who was a little sick and choked a good deal. He was rather greedy, and that's the truth, and I believe it went the wrong way, which I say served him right, and I hope you vill say so too. like there! upon I Fanny Squeers shall be attended to, depend Your drawing of her is very like, it. except that I don't think the hair is quite curly enough. The nose is particularly like hers, and so are the legs. She is a nasty disagreeable thing; and I know it will make her You will say the same, very cross when she sees it; and what I say is know- at least, I think you will. that I hope it may. I meant to have written you a long letter, but I cannot write very fast when I like the person I am writing to, because that makes me think about them, and I like you, and so I Besides, it is just eight o'clock at tell you. night, and I always go to bed at eight o'clock, except when it is my birthday, and then I sit and that is my love to you and up to supper. So I will not say anything more besides this Neptune; and if you will drink my health every Christmas-day, I will drink yoursI am, respected sir, come! Your affectionate friend, CHARLES DICKENS. P.S.I don't write my name very plain, but you know what it is, you know, so never mind. "I always go to bed at eight o'clock, except when it is my birthday, and then I sit up to supper' -a touch worthy of Charles Lamb. Indeed, the whole letter is somewhat like him; but one might remark, in passing, that even here, when Dickens is at his best, there is a want of softness. The capacity of writing a letter like this furnishes a clue to the best part, and yet not the most intelligible part, of DickIt is quite true that he was shrewd, ens. and held his own in dealing with certain kinds of worldly people, but a great deal of this result was owing to the help and counsel of friends-one or two of them (we suspect) ladies in his own household, or very near to him. But no man of a worldly nature could have written that letter, or so entirely sympathized with the simple, out-spoken ways of a child. Now, ually mimicked it to himself, and then got back from others some echo of his own delight. There is another reason why Dickens appears, especially in his letters, to be more of an egotist than he actually was, taking him simply as a human being. As a writer with an enormous popularity, pressing down upon him as well as lifting him, he had inevitably the habit of working himself up to given effects, or at least of keeping given effects before his eyes. Hence, even in his letters, you too often it is only justice to the man to bear this in mind in reading the other letters. The first impression one receives on turning over the pages is that of an immense egotism. But Dickens was, in respect of tendency to frank outpouring, a really childlike man, and, in addition, the majority of the letters are written to members of the family, or very dear old friends who, he knew and felt at the moment of writing, would listen to his rattle about himself and his successes with something better than indulgence; with, namely, the interest of something like conscious one-hear the cranks and pulleys creaking, and A man is not an egotist when he tells the story of his adventures to his wife or sister. ness. There is another topic to which the letter we have quoted points very clearly. There is all the difference in the world between taking a pride, a selfish pride, in one's pursuits and successes, and taking a childlike pleasure in them. The difference is too often overlooked; but it is real. We may "rattle" about our doings because we wish to impose our own greatness upon others, or out of a simplehearted pleasure in them, which we take for granted others will share. you feel as if he would perhaps write better under the influence of a sedative. He seems, at one time, to have taken henbane, under medical advice, and to have enjoyed it very much-at first it gave him sweet but soothing semi-hallucinations, and then it sent him to sleep. If he had taken a little more of it, instead of stretching out for long walks when he wanted rest, it might have been better for him. But who knows? At all events, some of us would have relished more repose in the picture which the letters help us to make up in our own minds. How refreshingly gentle, for example, is this letter to M. de Cerjat, which we slightly abbreviate: — Of family intelligence I have very little. Charles Collins continuing in a very poor way, and showing no signs of amendment, he and my daughter Katie went to Wiesbaden, and thence to Nice, where they are now. I have strong apprehensions that he will never reAll the rest are as they were. Mary neither cover, and that she will be left a young widow. married nor going to be; Georgiana holding them all together and perpetually correspond ing with the distant ones; occasional rallyings coming off here, in which another generation begins to peep above the table. I once used to think what a horrible thing it was to be a grandfather. Finding that the calamity falls upon me without my perceiving any change in myself, I bear it like a man. The latter is the way of children, and Dickens fell naturally into it. It is, perhaps, not uninteresting to notice that Andersen had, in a very high degree, the vanity now in question, if vanity it must be called. It seems to belong naturally to the child-loving temperament when associated with gifts which collect an audience of almost any kind. There is a striking similarity, in certain particulars, between the genius of Andersen and that of Dickens. Both writers were mimes, both of them almost lived upon sympathy and admiration; both made puppet-shows of the world, and found their highest delight in making-believe with them. In Dickens there were elements of strenuousness and incessant expectancy which were wanting in the Danish puppetmaker: Dickens looked as if he slept with his eyes open, and was always beck oning to the next hour to come on a little quicker, in order that he might have the full impression of it. And as the present was, of course, the only thing he was sure of, he was always stretching forward, with eager pains, to anticipate as much sympathy in to-morrow as he had to-day. He could not bear blank places in his life. In a word, he was a theatrical-natural man. Real he was; but he could not have kept up happily and well his sense Pray give my love to Mrs. Cerjat, and tell of the real in life unless he had perpet-her that I should like to go up the Great St. to which she repairs in the season, for the Mrs. Watson has bought a house in town, bringing out of her daughter. She is now at Rockingham. Her eldest son is said to be as good an eldest son as ever was, and to make her position there a perfectly independent and happy one. I have not seen him for some years; her I often see; but he ought to be a good fellow, and is very popular in his neigh borhood. I have altered this place very much since you were here, and have made a pretty (I think an unusually pretty) drawing-room. you would come back and see it. I wish ago! Oh, that he had more frequently written, both in his books and elsewhere, in this homely, unexaggerated manner! 66 fresh experiments with his own gifts; or rather, when he did happen to make any such experiment, he dropped it upon the first signs of failure; which with him would mean lack of strongly expressed admiration from others, or a falling off in the sale. He once or twice tried a dreamy manner, and dropped it; but it is in the highest degree probable that if he could have waited, and tried again and again, he would have found both the means of discipline and a great source of power in that vein. He shows, to the very last, a hankering after it, and his letters are often those of a great dreamer. Bernard again, and shall be glad to know if | said; and too little is left to those subshe is open to another ascent. Old days in indicative touches which leave the heart Switzerland are ever fresh to me, and some of the reader or the listener the luxury times I walk with you again, after dark, out of a gentle freedom. The master of the side the hotel at Martigny, while Lady Mary tragedy doth protest too much. SomeTaylour (wasn't it?) sang within very prettily thing of the same fault there was in Canon Lord, how the time goes! How many years Kingsley-that is to say, in his prose, but when he wrote verse, he usually got rid of the false gallop - so much may the velvet fetters of the necessity for perfection of form do for a man. ConThe want of repose is, we need not sidering the rhythmic flow of much of say, unfavorable to meditative humor, Dickens's prose, it is a little curious that subtlety, and even tenderness. Of course, he did not write more verse, especially there was tenderness in Dickens, but it considering how well he did it. But the is too often marred by the tendency to fact is that he was his own bond-slave "work up" to a given point. Though and victim in this and in some other he had the industry of the artist, he had matters. The letters are full of the not the gentle, receptive patience. His tokens of eager insistence. He could pathos has not the " dying, dying fall" not wait for the effect he wanted. When which softly breaks the heart-though once he had tasted power in a given people cry over it. There is more heart-way, he was not patient enough to make break in Thackeray's little ballad, "At the Church Gate," than there is in all Dickens. This may appear a hard say ing, and indeed one can overhear the remark that Thackeray never makes you cry. He does not, and Dickens often does. The references in these letters to the cases, at public or private readings, in which men - sometimes it is a stranger, sometimes Macready or Landorare made to cry by the pathos of the writing, are striking, as evidence of the value Dickens set upon his power in this respect. No doubt it was great, even with men of fine temperament; and it was usually exercised for good and use- One thing is exceedingly obvious on ful purposes; but, after all, the capacity the face of these letters, as, indeed, it is to make one cry is a somewhat crude obvious in the books, and was obvious test of pathetic power in a writer. A in the life of Dickens. He had but little better criterion might perhaps be found secretiveness. That is undoubtedly a by seeking answers to such questions as these: Is not that the truest and highest pathos which affects you most when you are alone? which, whether it makes you cry or not, affects you as much or more upon the tenth reading than upon the first? It must be admitted, however, that there is much uncertainty in criticism of this kind. We have grown overfastidious and too self-conscious in these matters. But if we cannot cry over Paul Dombey or Little Nell as Landor and Jeffrey did, we can find plenty of other things in Dickens to stir the fountains of tenderness and pity. Only they are almost obviously instances in which the author did not aim at pathos at all. There was too much insistence in him- there is no broken writing in the more intimate portions of these letters. Too much is disadvantage to a man, when the question is once raised whether he is an egotist or not. This want caused his books to be destitute of whatever charm "the retarding art" can give; and, as a rule, even the best effects of even his most homely writing leap into your eyes, as the French phrase goes, when you would rather they stole upon you. This, however, is not solely the result of lack of secretive power, for we sometimes find "the retarding art" practised by writers who have less of that power than he had. There was something else. The truth must be spoken- Dickens lacked reverence. There is an amusing reply of his to a Mr. David Dickson, who had expostulated with him about some point in the Chadband business, and a very clever reply it is—but totally |