GAN They represented many and even conflicting avocans in life; nevertheless one bond of consanguinity und them all. They were all malcontents, all proters in greater or less degree against the accepted ler of things. No two, perhaps, wanted the same ng, but they all wanted something (many for the life them could not have told what) that they had not. ny others sighed and murmured in flowery phrase It they longed to be free; free to pursue their ideal ; ee to worship and to love the good, the beautiful, the true wherever they found it." "The good, the utiful, and the true' was their best-beloved and nest-murmured phrase; a pretty phrase, but what ally meant to them many would have been puzzled ell. "Freedom" was what their souls demanded ree thought, free action, free love! That this dom led legitimately into the land of license no one itted to himself. Why should he? All that he ght he wanted was "his ideal,”—his ideal in life, ve, in action. What right had "society," "custom," thinking public opinion," to trammel him in his purof the "good, the beautiful, the true!" "None tever." It his was the private individual opinion of each ber of the Affinity Club; an opinion very likely ned to its native breast everywhere save in the e of Circe Sutherland. There it was free to fly disport itself as the canaries in her conservatory. that it flew far, or sang loudly, even here. d, perhaps; it sang sweetly and softly; it wore the age of art, of music, of literature, of philosophy, e thought, and was soothing and seductive in all. hat it could never be in Circe Sutherland's house o be common or vulgar. How could it be, comled of such elements as met and mingled here! was a young poet whose life-long misfortune it was that he seized fame at a single leap, but the sun not yet ripened and revealed the rottenness of his ature fruit; here was a great preacher on whose ke genius the recording angel had not yet traced effaceable record of his spiritual fall; here was hty editor, simple and single-minded as a child, virgin soul was destined to hold him safe amid garies, to the end; here were journalists, restless, and brilliant; artists, self-conscious, self-satisfied, ich in power; actors, famous, tempted, sinned t, forgiving much; philosophers, some whose were as seedy as their coats, some who had :started "the perpetual motion," and many who issed the philosopher's stone. Here were men lisappointed in marriage, delighted to say to the auditor that "marriage as a legal bond would e outgrown" by the world, that the millennium e soul-marriage" was close at hand. Here were ental women, who, "soul-weary" of their plodand expectorating lords, whispered in the ears ir bosom friend, a woman, that they dared not P, as they walked, lest they should behold their -only to rush madly on to ruin, or to sink to eternal misery at having missed him. But beside these specially gifted and dangerous people, here were the delicious singer; the graceful dancer; the pretty, lisping talker of small talk; the "perfect beauty" who had no need to think or to do — her contribution to the world's joy was simply to be; the pleasant procession of people all curves, gliding in and out among the people of angles, without once jarring, but because of these very curves so merged into each other that they left but faint individual trace behind them. These were not conscious members of the Affinity Club. They were simply the pretty moths of society who naturally flew into the soft light of Circe Sutherland's house. They did it with perfect impunity. Its rays were not of the scorching quality that would singe their wings. Its subdued lights, its subtle fragrance, distilled danger only for dissatisfied souls. (To be continued.) FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. CHAPTER XXV. THE NEW ACCQUAINTANCE DESCRIBED. IDIOSYNCRASY and vicissitude had combined to stamp Sergeant Troy as an exceptional being. He was a man to whom memories were an encumbrance, and anticipations a superfluity. Simply feeling, considering, and caring for what was before his eyes, he was vulnerable only in the present. His outlook upon time was as a transient flash of the eye now and then that projection of consciousness into days gone by and to come, which makes the past a synonym for the pathetic and the future a word for circumspection, was foreign to Troy. With him the past was yesterday; the future, to-morrow; never, the day after. On this account he might, in certain lights, have been regarded as one of the most fortunate of his order. For it may be argued with great plausibility that reminiscence is less an endowment than a disease, and that expectation in its only comfortable form — that of absolute faith — is practically an impossibility; whilst in the form of hope and the secondary compounds, patience, impatience, resolve, curiosity, it is a constant fluctuation between pleasure and pain. - Sergeant Troy, being entirely innocent of the practice of expectation, was never disappointed. To set against this negative gain there may have been some positive losses from a certain narrowing of the higher tastes and sensations which it entailed. But limitation of the capacity is never recognized as a loss by the loser therefrom: in this attribute moral or æsthetic poverty contrasts plausibly with material, since those who suffer do not see it, whilst those who see it do not suffer. It is not a denial of anything to have been always without it, and what Troy had never enjoyed he did not miss; but being fully conscious that what sober people missed he enjoyed, his capacity, though really less, seemed greater than theirs. He was perfectly truthful towards men, but to women lied like a Cretan - -a system of ethics, above all others, calculated to win popularity at the first flush of admission into lively society; and the possibility of the favor gained being but transient had reference only to the future. He never passed the line which divides the spruce vices from the ugly; and hence, though his morals had never been applauded, disapproval of them had frequently been tempered with a smile. This treatment had led to his becoming a sort of forestaller of other men's experiences of the glorious class, to his own aggrandizement as a Corinthian, rather than to the moral profit of his hearers. His reason and his propensities had seldom any reciprocating influence, having separated by mutual consent long ago: thence it sometimes happened that, while his intentions were as honorable as could be wished, any particular deed formed a dark background which threw them into fine relief. The sergeant's vicious phases being the offspring of impulse, and his virtuous phases of cool meditation, the latter had a modest tendency to be oftener heard of than seen. Troy was full of activity, but his activities were less of a locomotive than a vegetative nature; and, never being based upon any original choice of foundation or direction, they were exercised on whatever object chance might place in their way. Hence, whilst he sometimes reached the brilliant in speech, because that was spontaneous, he fell below the commonplace in action, from inability to guide incipient effort. He had a quick comprehension and considerable force of character; but, being without the power to combine them, the comprehension became engaged with trivialities whilst waiting for the will to direct it, and the force wasted itself in useless grooves through unheeding the comprehension. He was a fairly well-educated man for one of middle class - exceptionally well educated for a common soldier. He spoke fluently and unceasingly. He could in this way be one thing and seem another: for instance, he could speak of love and think of dinner: call on the husband to look at the wife be eager to pay and intend to owe. The wondrous power of flattery in passados at woman is a perception so universal as to be remarked upon by many people almost as automatically as they repeat a proverb, or say that they are Christians and the like, without thinking much of the enormous corollaries which spring from the proposition. Still less is it acted upon for the good of the complemental being alluded to. With the majority such an opinion is shelved with all those trite aphorisms which require some catastrophe to bring their tremendous meanings thoroughly home. When expressed with some amount of reflectiveness it seems coördinate with a belief that this flattery must be reasonable to be effective. It is to the credit of men that few attempt to settle the question by experiment, and it is for their happiness, perhaps, that accident has never settled it for them. Nevertheless, that the power of a male dissembler, who by the simple process of deluging her with untenable fictions charms the female wisely, becomes limitless and absolute to the extremity of perdition, is a truth taught to many by unsought and wringing occurrences. And some-frequently those who are definable as middle-aged youths, though not alwaysprofess to have attained the same knowledge by other and converse experiences, and jauntily continue their indulgence in such experiences with terrible effect. Sergeant Troy was one. He had been known to observe casually that in dealing with womankind the only alternative to flattery was cursing and swearing. There was no third method. "Treat them fairly, and you are a lost man," he would say. This person's public appearance in Weatherbury promptly followed his arrival there. A week or two after the shearing, Bathsheba, feeling a nameless relief of spirits on account of Boldwood's absence, approached her hayfields and looked over the hedge towards the haymakers. They consisted in about equal proportions of gnarled and flexuous forms, the former being the men, the latter the women, who wore tilt bonnets covered with nankeen, which hung in a curtain upon their shoulders. Coggan and Mark Clark were mowing in a less forward meadow, Clark humming a tune to the strokes of his scythe, to which Jan made no attempt to keep time with his. In the first mead they were already loading hay, the women raking it into cocks and windrows, and the men tossing it upon the wagon. From behind the wagon a bright scarlet spot emerged, and went on loading unconcernedly with the rest. It was the gallant sergeant, who had come haymaking for pleasure; and nobody could deny that he was doing the mistress of the farm real knight-service by this voluntary contribution of his labor at a busy time. As soon as she had entered the field Troy saw her, and sticking his pitchfork into the ground and picking up his walking-cane, he came forward. Bathsheba blushed with half-angry embarrassment, and adjusted her eyes as well as her feet to the direct line of her path. CHAPTER XXVI. SCENE ON THE VERGE OF THE L MEAD. "AH, Miss Everdene!" said the sergeant, li diminutive cap. "Little did I think it was you speaking to the other night. And yet, if I had the Queen of the Corn-market' (truth is truth a hour of the day or night, and I heard you so na Casterbridge yesterday), the Queen of the Corn-ma I say, could be no other woman. I step across now your forgiveness a thousand times for having been? my feelings to express myself too strongly for a szv To be sure I am no stranger to the place-I am Se Troy, as I told you, and I have assisted your a these fields no end of times when I was a lad. Ihare doing the same for you to-day." "I suppose I must thank you for that, Sergeant !! said the "Queen of the Corn-market," in an indi grateful tone. The sergeant looked hurt and sad. "Indeed yo not, Miss Everdene," he said. "Why could you such a thing necessary?" "I am glad it is not." 66 Why? if I may ask without offence." "Because I don't much want to thank you for any "I am afraid I have made a hole with my tong my heart will never mend. Oh these intolerable that ill-luck should follow a man for honestly te woman she is beautiful! "Twas the most I said own that; and the least I could say — that I ow self." "There is some talk I could do without more ea money." "Indeed. That remark seems somewhat digressive "It means that I would rather have your room the company." “And I would rather have curses from you tha from any other woman; so I'll stay here." Bathsheba was absolutely speechless. And could not help giving an interested side-thought to the geant's ingenuity. "Well," continued Troy, "I suppose there is a which is rudeness, and that may be mine. At the time there is a treatment which is injustice, and thr be yours. Because a plain blunt man, who has neve taught concealment, speaks out his mind withor intending it, he's to be snapped off like a son of a si "Indeed there's no such case between us," she sai ing away. "I don't allow strangers to be bold at pudent — even in praise of me." "Ah-it is not the fact but the method which di you," he said, sorrowfully. "But I have the sad s tion of knowing that my words, whether pleasing a =| sive, are unmistakably true. Would you have h look at you, and tell my acquaintance that you arê commonplace woman, to save you the embarrassme:: ing stared at if they come near you? Not I. Ie tell any such ridiculous lie about a beauty to erec single woman in England in too excessive a modesty It is all pretence what you are saying!" ex Bathsheba, laughing in spite of herself at the serp palpable method. You have a rare invention, S Troy. Why couldn't you have passed by me tha and said nothing? that was all I meant to reproa for." Oh fie fie! Am I any worse for breaking the third that Terrible Ten than you for breaking the ninth?" "Well, it doesn't seem quite true to me that I am fasciting," she replied evasively. Not so to you: then I say with all respect that, if so, is owing to your modesty, Miss Everdene. But surely u must have been told by everybody of what everybody tices? and you should take their words for it." "They don't say so, exactly." “Oh yes, they must!' "Well, I mean to my face, as you do," she went on, owing herself to be further lured into a conversation at intention had rigorously forbidden. "But you know they think so?" "No that is I certainly have heard Liddy say they , but". . . She paused. Capitulation that was the purport of the simple reply arded as it was - capitulation, unknown to herself. ever did a fragile, tailless sentence convey a more perfect eaning. The careless sergeant smiled within himself, d probably the devil smiled too from a loop-hole in Toet, for the moment was the turning-point of a career. er tone and mien signified beyond mistake that the seed ich was to lift the foundation had taken root in the ink the remainder was a mere question of time and tural seriate changes. : "There the truth comes out!" said the soldier, in rey. "Never tell me that a young lady can live in a buzz admiration without knowing something about it. Ah, ell, Miss Everdene, you are - pardon my blunt wayu are rather an injury to our race than otherwise." "How indeed?" she said, opening her eyes. 66 Oh, it is true enough. I may as well be hung for a eep as a lamb (an old country saying, not of much acunt, but it will do for a rough soldier), and so I will eak my mind, regardless of your pleasure, and without ping or intending to get your pardon. Why, Miss verdene, it is in this manner that your good looks may more harm than good in the world." The sergeant oked down the mead in pained abstraction. "Probably me one man on an average falls in love with each ordiry woman. She can marry him he is content, and ids a useful life. Such women as you a hundred men ways covet-your eyes will bewitch scores on scores into unavailing fancy for you you can only marry one of at many. Out of these say twenty will endeavor to own the bitterness of despised love in drink: twenty ore will mope away their lives without a wish or attempt make a mark in the world, because they have no ambion apart from their attachment to you: twenty morewill e susceptible person myself possibly among them always draggling after you, getting where they may just e you, doing desperate things. Men are such constant - The handsome sergeant's features were during this speech as rigid and stern as John Knox's in addressing his gay young queen. Seeing she made no reply, he said, "Do you read French?" "No: I began, but when I got to the verbs, father died,' she said, simply. 66 "I do- when I have an opportunity, which latterly has not been often (my mother was a Parisian) and there's a proverb they have, Qui aime bien, châtie bien - he chastens who loves well. Do you understand me?" "Ah!" she replied, and there was even a little tremulousness in the usually cool girl's voice; "if you can only fight half as winningly as you can talk, you are able to make a pleasure of a bayonet wound!" And then poor Bathsheba instantly perceived her slip in making this admission in hastily trying to retrieve it, she went from bad to worse. "Don't, however, suppose that I derive any pleasure from what you tell me." "I know you do not-I know it perfectly," said Troy, with much hearty conviction on the exterior of his face: and altering the expression to moodiness," when a dozen men are ready to speak tenderly to you, and give the admiration you deserve without adding the warning you need, it stands to reason that my poor rough-and-ready mixture of praise and blame cannot convey much pleasure. Fool as I may be, I am not so conceited as to suppose that." "I think you - are conceited, nevertheless," said Bathsheba, hesitatingly, and looking askance at a reed she was fitfully pulling with one hand, having lately grown feverish under the soldier's system of procedure-not because the nature of his cajolery was entirely unperceived, but because its vigor was overwhelming. "I would not own it to anybody else nor do I exactly to you. Still, there might have been some self-conceit in my foolish supposition the other night. I knew that what I said in admiration might be an opinion too often forced upon you to give any pleasure, but I certainly did think that the kindness of your nature might prevent you judging an uncontrolled tongue harshly-which you have done and thinking badly of me, and wounding me this morning, when I am working hard to save your hay." “Well, you need not think more of that perhaps you did not mean to be rude to me by speaking out your mind: indeed, I believe you did not," said the shrewd woman, in painfully innocent earnest. "And I thank you for giving help here. But but mind you don't speak to me again in that way, or in any other, unless I speak to you." "Oh, Miss Bathsheba! That is too hard! "No, it isn't. Why is it?" 66 You will never speak to me; for I shall not be here long. I am soon going back again to the miserable monotony of drill. and perhaps our regiment will be ordered out soon. And yet you take away the one little ewe-lamb of pleasure that I have in this dull life of mine. Well, perhaps generosity is not a woman's most marked characteristic." "When are you going from here?" she asked, with some interest. "In a month." "But how can it give you pleasure to speak to me?" "Can you ask, Miss Everdene - knowing as you do what my offence is based on?" If you do care so much for a silly trifle of that kind, then, I don't mind doing it," she uncertainly and doubtingly answered. 'But you can't really care for a word from me? you only say so I think you only say so." That's unjust but I won't repeat the remark. I am too gratified to get such a mark of your friendship at any price to cavil at the tone. I do, Miss Everdene, care for it. 66 "Then you know nothing of what such an experience is like and Heaven forbid that you ever should." "Nonsense, flatterer! What is it like? I am interested in knowing." "Put shortly, it is not being able to think, hear, or look in any direction except one without wretchedness, nor there without torture." "Ah, sergeant, it won't do-you are pretending," she said, shaking her head dubiously. "Your words are too dashing to be true." "I am not, upon the honor of a soldier." "But why is it so? Of course, I ask for mere pastime." "Because you are so distracting and I am tracted." "You look like it." "I am indeed." 66 so dis Why, you only saw me the other night, you stupid man." "That makes no difference. The lightning works instantaneously. I loved you then, at once- as I do now." Bath-heba surveyed him curiously, from the feet upward, as high as she liked to venture her glance, which was not quite so high as his eyes. "You cannot and you don't," she said, demurely. "There is no such sudden feeling in people. I won't listen to you any longer. Dear me, I wish I knew what o'clock it isI am going I have wasted too much time here already." The sergeant looked at his watch and told her. "What, haven't you a watch, miss?" he inquired. "I have not just at present one." I am about to get a new "A coronet with five points, and beneath, Cedit amor rebus Love yields to circumstance.' It's the motto of the Earls of Severn. That watch belonged to the last lord, and was given to my mother's husband, a medical man, for his use till I came of age, when it was to be given to me. It was all the fortune that ever I inherited. That watch has regulated imperial interests in its.time - the stately ceremonial, the courtly assignation, pompous travels, and lordly sleeps. Now it is yours." 66 But, Sergeant Troy, I cannot take this-I cannot!" she exclaimed, with round-eyed wonder. "A gold watch! What are you doing? Don't be such a dissembler!" The sergeant retreated to avoid receiving back his gift, which she held out persistently towards him. Bathsheba followed as he retired. 66 Keep it do Miss Everdene-keep it!" said the erratic child of impulse. "The fact of your possessing it makes it worth ten times as much to me. A more plebeian one will answer my purpose just as well, and the pleasure of knowing whose heart my old one beats against - well, I won't speak of that. It is in far worthier hands than ever it has been in before." "But indeed I can't have it!" she said, in a perfect simmer of distress. "Oh, how can you do such a thing; that is, if you really mean it! Give me your dead father's watch, and such a valuable one! You should not be so reckless, indeed, Sergeant Troy." "I loved my father: good; but better, I love you more. That's how I can do it," said the sergeant, with an intonation of such exquisite fidelity to nature that it was evidently not all acted now. Her beauty, which, whilst it had been quiescent, he had praised in jest, had in its animated phe moved him to earnest; and though his seriousness was than she imagined, it was probably more than he im himself. Bathsheba was brimming with agitated bewildern and she said, in half-suspicious accents of feeling, “(a be! Oh, how can it be, that you care for me, and 30 r. denly! You have seen so little of me: I may not be w so-so nice-looking as I seem to you. Please, do it oh, do! I cannot and will not have it. Believes your generosity is too great. I have never done single kindness, and why should you be so kind to m A factitious reply had been again upon his lips, b was again suspended, and he looked at her with ma rested eye. The truth was, that as she now stood ex wild, and honest as the day, her alluring beauty bore so fully the epithets he had bestowed upon it that be quite startled at his temerity in advancing them as 2He said mechanically, "Ah, why?" and continued to at her. "And my workfolk see me following you about the and are wondering. Oh, this is dreadful!" she went unconscious of the transmutation she was effecting, “I did not quite mean you to accept it at first, for my one poor patent of nobility," he broke out, b'm "but, upon my soul, I wish you would now. Without shamming, come! Don't deny me the happiness of ma ing it for my sake? But you are too lovely even to to be kind as others are.' 66 No, no; don't say so. I have reasons for reserve xi.. I cannot explain." "Let it be, then, let it be," he said, receiving back watch at last; "I must be leaving you now. And w speak to me for these few weeks of my stay?" "Indeed I will. Yet, I don't know if I will! Obr did you come and disturb me so!" Perhaps in setting a gin, I have caught myself. things have happened. Well, will you let me work in fields?" he coaxed. 66 Yes, I suppose so; if it is any pleasure to you." "Miss Everdene, I thank you." "No, no." 66 Good-by!" The sergeant lifted his cap from the slope of his be bowed, replaced it, and returned to the distant gre haymakers. Bathsheba could not face the haymakers now. heart erratically flitting hither and thither from per excitement, hot, and almost tearful, she retreated wards, murmuring, "Oh, what have I done! what de mean! I wish I knew how much of it was true!" (To be continued.) OCTAVE FEUILLET. To hear any one continually called the Virtuous not only bore the public, it may end by becoming tire to the object of the monotonous praise. He fancies L called upon to prove that, if he is correct, it is not for of passions or of opportunities to be wicked; and be it to be due to himself to plunge into excesses for perhaps he has very little taste. The literary career ( Feuillet is a remarkable example of the dangers of pr ing too good a character. It is probable that peo have been disappointed in "Le Sphinx," and whe find "M. de Camors" peculiarly edifying reading. » wondered how M. Feuillet acquired his reputanix harmlessness. He used to be called "Le Musset milles," and the qualification seems to promise an ima gayety and respectable passions, which are not pro in "Julia de Trécœur " and " Le Sphinx." The fact i some years have passed since M. Feuillet deserte pious early manner which made his books so admit suited to adorn the drawing-room table. Yet even latest works we may note remains, and what are called survivals, of an early condition of stagy innocence and didactic utterances. It may be worth while to trace the steps of a progress in which art has perhaps improved at the expense of morality. The earlier successes of M. Feuillet were the deserved result of a keen eye for opportunities, and a readiness in seizing them. The Parisian public, naturally fickle, and corrupted perhaps by the constitutional monarchy of the period, was beginning to weary of the passions in tatters of the Romantic school. A play even of M. Hugo's-"Les Burgraves" had only a moderate success. The master sent a message requesting a friend to introduce some young enthusiasts to act as an amateur claque. The friend was M. Célestin Nanteuil, a leader of the Romantic movement of 1830. He used to paint melancholy damsels in the stiffneck and gold-leaf style, and his admiring comrades have recorded that he had l'air moyen-âge, and that his locks were like a nimbus. But M. Nanteuil had to answer despairingly, "Il n'y a pas de jeunes gens." There were no more sweet enthusiasts; the year of grace 1830 had long gone by. People had ceased to be shocked at the license of the stage, but they had also ceased to care for the fevers and passions of De Musset, and had begun to suspect that something might be said on the side of common morality. This was the moment which M. Feuillet adroitly seized. He saw that he might be "all for virtue, and that sort of thing," like De Quincey's homicidal amateur, and yet be sentimental and suggestive. A wife might reclaim an erring husband, or a husband win back a wife on the point of error, by artifices which the audience appreciated, and which had the new merit of being on the side of honesty and of the family. Vice was made to hoist, in the usually quoted way," with its own petard." Such pieces as "La Clé d'Or," "La Crise," " Le Cheveu Blanc," were the successful working out of this idea. They contained all the coquetry and all the ardor of De Musset; and, after all, no one was hurt, husband and wife were made happy, and the children were embraced on every side, as in the play of the "Rovers." But there was another trait or trick of De Musset's which M. Feuillet also adapted to family use. This was the introduction of interesting sceptics, who were only too anx. ious to be able to believe. De Musset used to leave them in their sins; but M. Feuillet did better he reclaimed them. To be sure, their conversion was usually the result of some happy accident which did not appear very germane to the matter of their theological difficulties. Thus the heroine of "Redemption" is an actress whose life is passed in dishevelled orgies - always good scenes on the stage and in argument with a pious abbé. But she is brought back to the fold, not by the abbé, but by falling in love. Still, in one way or other religion and morality were reconstructed, and this was pleasing to the best sort of society. M. Feuillet did not confine his method and his theology to the stage. Besides writing comedies and proverbes, he became known as the author of safe novels. Society pronounced that, unlike the tales of Feydeau and Houssaye, M. Feuillet's were romances which you could read, which you could put into the hands of young people. This was the happy result of his good sense in always making his heroes Bretons of high birth and Catholics, or with the makings of good Catholics. He chose his scenes from the life of country houses, and of excellent families who shunned the dangerous air of Paris. Persons of no birth were only introduced to be sneered at, and infidel men of science encountered painful shapes of social nemesis. Thus M. Feuillet won a large and aristocratic public, and smoothed his way to a chair among the Forty. His style was always impeccable and lively, the action of his pieces animated, his situations ingenious, his sentiments correct. he won the sweet voices of all the better sort of literary ladies. To be sure, some people may have thought him almost too didactic in those early days. The history of" Sybille," for instance, begins very much in the manner of Miss Edgeworth. Sybille is an orphan, living with her grandparents, members as usual of one of the first families And so in Normandy. Even in her cradle Sybille is all soul. She cries for a star, and refuses to be comforted when she is prevented from riding round the lake on the back of a swan. But these early faults of character are corrected, and Sybille grows up one of those angel-children, with a passion for doing good to their elders, who are frequent in fiction, and not unknown in real life. She does good to the abbé, to the village idiot, to her grandmother in Paris; she converts her governess, and wherever she goes, moral resolutions blossom in the dust of weary hearts, as they do when "Pippa passes." Even Sybille, however, had once her religious doubts, and was the female Musset of the nursery. But she is reconciled to the faith by observing the courage of the abbé in a shipwreck, and after her return she becomes a little intolerant. She refuses to marry her lover because he is an unbeliever, though an unbroken series of successes might have shown her that she could convert any one. This lover, by the way, has all the women in the book sighing for him and is obliged to make a tour to Persia to cure his cousin of her hopeless affection. On his return he finds that the cousin still loves him, and as a man cannot always be in Persia, the position is becoming dangerous, when Sybille as usual rescues and reclaims the lady. But she can think of no way to bring conviction to her lover, except to die, which she does at the age of nineteen. With all her virtue there is an air of Blanche Amory and a certain staginess about Sybille; but it was a very popular staginess. Women, as SainteBeuve said, felt that there was a Sybille in their characters, and that in the proper circumstances they could have been all that she was. So the book was a success, though strictly speaking it was more a fantasy than a novel, and it increased M. Feuillet's deserved reputation for pleasant writing and correct opinions. An even less equivocal success was "Le Jeune Homme Pauvre." This was the most popular novel of its year, and the shop of the bookseller who published it was besieged by carriages. The jeune homme of the tale finds himself ruined at the death of his father, and he has the fortitude to refuse his name to a promoter of companies, and his hand to a rich young lady whom he does not love. The faithful solicitor of his house gets him a situation as steward to a wealthy family in Brittany, and he solaces himself by keeping a voluminous journal of his experiences. If we can imagine one of Scott's most respectable young men born in the middle of our century, and relating how he was a good rider, a skilled artist, modest, brave, honest, how he leaped down from a lofty window out of regard for a lady's character, and how he was rewarded by marrying her, we have a fair idea of this novel. The Breton scenery is prettily described, and the romantic leap from the tower of Elven made the fortune of the play founded on the story. Soon after the publication of "Le Jeune Homme," M. Feuillet woke one morning to find himself prematurely famous. M. Sainte-Beuve had consecrated to him one of the "Causeries de Lundi." The great critic advised his young friend to desert his religious little girls and meritorious young men, and "to plunge into the vast ocean of human nature." Now M. Feuillet had already shown, in the play called "Dalila," that he could deal with fiery passions if he liked. There is a fisherman in one of his novels who, when he is prevented from risking his life at a shipwreck, complains that people will hold him no higher than an Englishman. M. Feuillet was perhaps afraid that he also would become like one of those English novelists whom M. Taine sneers at (rather groundlessly) for their unceasing decency. So he took his critic's advice, plunged into the hidden depths of human nature, and brought up that very curious pearl, "M. de Camors." Now "Camors is a novel which we cannot imagine an English author writing. M. Feuillet is forever free from that reproach, and, like Richardson after Lovelace, no one can doubt that he can describe a consummate scoundrel. There is no modern romance which drags so wicked a hero through scenes so terrible and harrowing. Louis de Camors was a young man of good family and of good impulses. He |