"Have you not two classes of writers -the author and the bookmaker? And is not the latter more prolific than the former? Is he not, indeed, wonderfully fertile; but does the public, or the publisher even, make much account of his productions? Do not both tire of him in time? "Is it not because authors aim at a style of living better suited to merchants, professed gain-seekers, that they are often compelled to degenerate into mere bookmakers, and to find the great stimulus of their pen in the necessity of earning money? If they were not ashamed to be frugal, might they not be more independent? "I should much-very much-like to take that quiet view of the 'great world' you allude to, but I have as yet won no right to give myself such a treat; it must be for some future day when, I don't know. Ellis, I imagine, would soon turn aside from the spectacle in disgust. I do not think he admits it as his creed that 'the proper study of mankind is man'-at least not the artificial man of cities. In some points I consider Ellis somewhat of a theorist; now and then he broaches ideas which strike my sense as much more daring and original than practical; his reason may be in advance of mine, but certainly it travels a different road. I should say Ellis will not be seen in his full strength till he is seen as an essayist. "I return to you the note inclosed under your cover, it is from the editor of the Berwick Warder; he wants copy of 'Jane Eyre' to review. a Smith in attracting public attention to the volume. As critiques, I should have thought more of them had they fully recognized Ellis Bell's merits; but the lovers of abstract poetry are few in number. "Your last letter was very welcome, it was written with so kind an intention; you made it so interesting in order to divert my mind. I should have thanked you for it before now, only that I kept waiting for a cheerful day and mood in which to address you, and I grieve to say the shadow which has fallen on our quiet home still lingers round it. I am better, but others are ill now. Papa is not well, my sister Emily has something like a slow inflammation of the lungs, and even our old servant, who has lived with us nearly a quarter of a century, is suffering under serious indisposition. "I would fain hope that Emily is a little better this evening, but it is difficult to ascertain this. She is a real stoic in illness; she neither seeks nor will accept sympathy. To put any questions, to offer any aid, is to annoy; she will not yield a step before pain or sickness till forced; not one of her ordinary associations will she voluntarily renounce. You must look on and see her do what she is unfit to do, and not dare to say a word-a painful necessity for those to whom her health and existence are as precious as the life in their veins. When she is ill there seems to be no sunshine in the world for me. The tie of sister is near and dear indeed, and I think a certain harshness in her powerful and peculiar character makes me cling to her more. But this is all family egotism (so to speak); excuse it, an 1, above all, never allude to it, or to the name Emily, when you write to me. I do not always show your letters, but I never withhold them when they are inquired for. "I am sorry I cannot claim for the name Brontë the honor of being connected with the notice in the Bradford Observer. That paper is in the hands of dissenters, and I should think the best articles are usually written by one or two intelligent dissenting ministers in the town. Alexander Harris is fortunate in your encouragement, as Currer Bell once was. He has not forgotten the first letter he received from you, declining indeed his manuscript of "The Professor,' put in terms so different from those in which the rejections of other publishers had been expressed-with so much more sense and kind feeling, it took away the sting of disappointment and kinIdled new hope in his mind. "Currer Bell might expostulate with you again about thinking too well of him, but he refrains; he prefers acknowledging that the expression of a fellow creature's regard-even if more than he deserves-does him good; it gives him a sense of content. Whatever portion of the tribute is unmerited on his part, would, he is aware, if exposed to the test of daily acquaintance, disperse like a broken bubble, but he has confidence that a portion, however minute, of solid friendship would remain behind, and that portion he reckons among his treasures. "I am glad, by-the-bye, to hear that 'Madeline' is come out at last, and was happy to see a favorable notice of that work and of "The Three Paths' in the Morning Herald. I wish Miss Kavanagh all success. "Trusting that Mrs. Williams's health continues strong, and that your own and that of all your children is satisfactory, for without health there is little comfort,-I am, my dear sir, C. Brontë." yours sincerely, The next letter gives, perhaps, the most interesting glimpse of Emily that has been afforded us. To W. S. Williams. "November 22, 1848, "My dear Sir. I put your most friendly letter into Emily's hands as soon as I had myself perused it, taking care, however. not to say a word in favor of homoeopathy-that would not have answered. It is best usually to leave her to form her own judgment, and especially not to advocate the side you wish her to favor; if you do, she is sure to lean in the opposite direction, and ten to one she will argue herself into non-compliance. Hitherto she has refused medicine, rejected medical advice; no reasoning, no entreaty, has availed to induce her to see a physician. After reading your letter she said, 'Mr. Williams's intention was kind and good, but he was under a delusion. Homœopathy was only another form of quackery.' Yet she may reconsider this opinion and come to a different conclusion; her second thoughts are often the best. "The North American Review is worth reading; there is no mincing the matter there. What a bad set the Bells must be! What appalling books they write! To-day, as Emily appeared a little easier, I thought the Review might amuse her, so I read it aloud to her and Anne. As I sat between them at our quiet but now somewhat melancholy fireside, I studied the two ferocious authors. Ellis. the 'man of uncommon talents, but dogged, brutal, and morose,' sat leaning back in his easy-chair drawing his impeded breath as he best could, and looking, alas! piteously pale and wasted; it is not his wont to laugh, but he smiled half-amused and half in scorn as he listened. Acton was serving, no emotion ever stirs him to loquacity, so he only smiled, too, dropping at the same time a single word of calm amazement to hear his character so darkly portrayed. I wonder what the reviewer would have thought of his own sagacity could he have beheld the pair as I did. Vainly, too, might he have looked for the masculine partner in the firm of 'Bell & Co.' How I laugh in my sleeve when I read the solemn assertions tuat 'Jane Eyre' was written in partnership, and that it 'bears the marks of more than one mind and one sex.' "The wise critics would certainly sink a degree in their own estimation if they knew that yours or Mr. Smith's was the first masculine hand that touched the manuscript of 'Jane Eyre,' and that till you or he read it no masculine eye had scanned a line of its contents, no masculine ear heard a phrase from its pages. However, the view they take of the matter rather pleases me than otherwise. If they like, I am not unwilling they should think a dozen ladies and gentlemen aided at the compilation of the book. Strange patchwork it must seem to them-this chapter being penned by Mr. and that by Miss or Mrs. Bell, that character or scene being delineated by the husband, that other by the wife! The gentleman, of course, doing the rough work, the lady getting up the finer parts. I admire the idea vastly. race the southern wool: We warn the crawling cargo-tanks of To each and all our equal lamp at peril of The white wall-sided warships or the whalers of Dundee! "I have read 'Madeline.' It is a fine We greet the clippers wing-and-wing that pearl in simple setting. Julia Kavanagh has my esteem. I would rather know her than many far more brilliant personages. Somehow my heart leans more to her than to Eliza Lynn, for instance. Not that I have read either 'Amymone' or 'Azette,' but I have seen extracts from them which I found it literally impossible to digest. They presented to my imagination Lytton Bulwer in petticoats-an overwhelming vision. By-the-bye, the American critic talks admirable sense about Bulwer-candor obliges me to confess Come up, come in from Eastward, from of the Horn! Swift shuttles of an empire's loom that Go, get you gone up-Channel with the seacrust on your plates; Go, get you into London with the burden of your freights! Haste, for they talk of Empire there, and say, if any seek, The Lights of England sent you and by silence shall ye speak. EXTRACTS FROM "A SONG OF THE THE COASTWISE LIGHTS. Our brows are wreathed with spindrift and the weed is on our knees: Our loins are battered 'neath us by the swinging, smoking seas. From reef and rock and skerry-over headland, ness and voe The Coastwise Lights of England watch the ships of England go! THE SONG OF THE DEAD. Hear now the song of the Dead-in the Where the warrigal whimpers and bays courses. Song of the Dead in the East-in the heat- There's never a flood goes shoreward now rotted jungle hollows, Where the dog-ape barks in the kloof-in the break of the buffalo-wallows. Song of the Dead in the West-in the Barrens, the snow that betrayed them, Where the wolverine tumbles their packs from the camp and the grave-mound they made them: Hear now the Song of the Dead! 1. We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, it the man-stifled town: We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down. Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the Power with the Need. Till the Soul that is not man's soul was lent us to lead. As the deer breaks-as the steer breaksfrom the herd where they graze, In the faith of little children we went on our ways. Then the wood failed-then the food failed -then the last water dried In the faith of little children we lay down and died. On the sand-drift-on the veldt-side-in the fern-scrub we lay, That our sons might follow after by the bones on the way. Follow after-follow after! We have watered the root, But lifts a keel we manned; There's never an ebb goes seaward now But drops our dead on the sandBut slinks our dead on the sands forlore, From the Ducies to the Swin. If blood be the price of admiralty, If blood be the price of admiralty, Lord God, we ha' paid it in! We must feed our sea for a thousand years, For that is our doom and pride, As it was when they sailed with the Golden Hind Or the wreck that struck last tideOr the wreck that lies on the spouting reef Where the ghastly blue-lights flare. If blood be the price of admiralty, If blood be the price of admiralty, If blood be the price of admiralty, Lord God, we ha' bought it fair! From "The Seven Seas." By Rudyard Kipling. D. Appleton & Company, Publishers. A NEAPOLITAN IN LOVE. He might have stood for the portrait of a Saracen warrior of the eleventh century, with his high, dark features and keen eyes, his even lips, square jaw, and smooth, tough throat. He And the bud nas come to blossom that had, too, something of the Arabian ripens for fruit! dignity in his bearing, and he walked Follow after-we are waiting by the trails with long, well-balanced steps, swiftly, We have fed our sea for a thousand years elled, and able to reflect the sun, while And she calls us, still unfed, having a light of its own from the Though there's never a wave of all her ebony blood beneath. That was the waves But marks our English dead: reason why the Neapolitans, who did We have strawed our best to the weed's not chance to have seen Sicilians often, unrest To the shark and the sheering gull. If blood be the price of admiralty, Lord God, we ha' paid in full! took him for a foreigner and got into his way, holding out their hands to beg, and making ape-like grimaces at him behind his back. But those who knew the type of his race and recog. nized it, did nothing of that sort. On the contrary, they were careful not to molest him. The friend whom he sought, high up in the city, in a luxurious, sunlit room, overlooking the harbor and the wide bay, was as unlike him as one man could be unlike another-white, fairhaired, delicate, with soft, blue eyes and silken lashes, and a passive hand that accepted the pressure of Taquisara's rather than returned it-the pale survival of another once conquering race. Gianluca was evidently ill and weak, though few physicians could have defined the cause of his weakness. He moved easily enough when he rose to greet his friend, but there was a mortal languor about him, and an evident reluctance to move again when he had resumed his seat in the sun. He was muffled in a thickly wadded silk coat of a dark color. His fair, straight hair was brushed away from his thin, bluish temples and the golden young beard could not conceal the emaciation of his throat when his head leaned against the back of his easy-chair. Taquisara sat down and looked at him, lighted a black cigar and looked again, got up, stirred the fire and then went to the window. His voice sank low, and his head fell forward a little, so that his chin rested upon his folded hands. Taquisara uttered an exclamation of surprise and bit the end of his cigar. "She? To marry Bosio Macomer? No-no-I do not believe it." "Ask my father," said Gianluca, without raising his eyes. "Bosio was there, in the room, when they told my father the news." "No doubt," said Taquisara, beginning to walk up and down. "No doubt," he repeated. "But- He lit his cigar instead of finishing the sentence, and his eyes were thoughtful. "But-what?" asked his friend, dejectedly. "If it had not been true, they would not have said it. It is all over." "Life, you mean? I doubt that. Nothing is over, for nothing is done. They are not married yet, are they?" "No, of course not!" "Then they may never marry." "Who can prevent it? You? I? My father? It is over, I tell you. There is no hope. I will see her once more and then I shall die. But I must see her once more. You must help me to see her." "Of course," answered Taquisara. "But what strange people you are!" he exclaimed, after a moment's pause. "Who can understand you? You are dying for love of her. That is curious, in the first place. I understand killing for love, but not dying oneself, just by folding hands and looking at the stars and repeating her name. Then, you do nothing. You do not say: She shall not marry Macomer, because I, I who speak, will prevent it, and get her for myself! No. Because some one has said that she will marry him, you feel sure that she will, and that ends the question. For the word of a man or a woman, all is to be finished. You are all contemplation, no action,-all heart, no hands-all love, no anger! You deserve to die for love. I am sorry that I like you." "You always talk in at way!" said Gianluca, with a wearily sad intonation. "I suppose that life is different in Sicily." "Life is life, everywhere," returned the Sicilian. "If I love a woman, it is not for the pleasure of loving her, nor for the glory of having it written on my tombstone that I have died for her. It is better that some one else should die and that I should have what I want. How does that seem to you? Is it not logic? It is true that I have never loved any woman in that way. But then, I am young, though I am older than you are." "What can I do?" The pale young |