aft, while she was fixed on the shore, and the waves shook and twisted and ground her rib from rib. Had she not swung inland, head foremost, with an impetus that launched her far inshore, and had the tide not been low, she would have been under water long before a man could come out of Crail to her aid. As it was, the tide was rising, and her danger was every moment on the increase. At the mention of foreigners, there had been a significant glance and pause, and the fatal word Armada trembled on several tongues. But Captain Robert summoned the best men to follow him, and his appeal stirred other feelings in them. No boat could live down there; for the great sea billows, broken by the cruel rock, where the spray fell again like a linn, did not so much advance rank by rank, as they bubbled and raged and lashed each other like demons. But there was a hope of shooting a rope through the surf, and by that narrow causeway landing the drowning crew. For this purpose picked men advanced as far as possible into the water, and endeavored to cast the line where it could be caught by those on board the vessel. This is not so dangerous a service as the attempt to rescue by a boat, but it is sufficiently hazardous, and very striking in its features to the anxious eyes of the spectators. Five or six men formed a chain, and waded hand in hand into the turmoil. Their progress was sickeningly slow; and they stood and yielded at intervals, while wind and water, as if infuriated by their courage and coolness, whirled and spouted against them with fresh violence. Homely, curt, careless fellows, they think nothing of their deed, even when they feel their feet slipping from beneath them; and they have seen, ere now, some of their number hurried off as in a chariot. One man breaks the slender chain, and advances alone. He is chief in muscle and nerve, or he has the responsibility of command. If that swaying line, which shows like a thread against the roused elements, is fixed, what will hinder it even then from snapping, exposed to so fearful a strain? And if it snaps, away go the men who are paying it out and those who are clinging to it as to salvation. Captain Robert was the man who cast the rope to the ship on the shore at Crail, and well for him that his stature was full, his sturdy vigor established, and his presence of mind and authority acquired. He stood singly in advance; he made the throws, under which even his balance wavered, and he caught again the rope when it fell wide of the mark. The spray went over and over him, and round and round him, and whether it blinded him or no, it blinded the spectators. Once it dragged him down, and he swam for a minute and a half till he regained his depth. No Hercules could have struck out five minutes in that whirlpool. Once again he was dragged down, and an eager shout arose, "Come back, Captain Robert, you're ower venturesome; you'll be swamped as sure as you're alive." The whole crowd held their breath for him, counted his feats, and blessed his gallantry. Mistress Peggy did not turn away; she gazed steadfastly, and murmured through her shrivelled lips, "Robin, Robin Scrymgeour, you're playing the man this day." She envied him. When he succeeded in his aim, and a great shout on shore joined the faint cheer of the seamen on board, Mr. John Melville, the minister of Crail, who was holding converse with the infirmity and timorousness of age, bared his white head to the blast, and uttered aloud a thanksgiving and a petition for further protection, and the people joined silently in his prayer with a hush of reverent faith, and glistening, grateful eyes. Poor young Eppie's feelings were roused to the utmost pitch. At first she had plucked her aunt energetically by the gown, and sobbed out, white and scared, "Let me gang hame, auntie, I canna stand to see it." Stay where you are, bairn," Mistress Peggy answered, emphatically," and learn the vanity of life." "But, auntie," groaned Eppie again in a few moments, forced by the torture she was undergoing to be explicit, "I cannot bide it, since since Captain Robert is the foremost man. You ken, you ken, I've no right to watch him, clasp my hands and set my teeth till he come back, though I never meant to abuse him, and it was not my wyte, you ken, auntie; I dare not witness his danger, or his destruction." "I command you not to lift a foot, Eppie Melville; if you stir from my side, I'll send some of the menfolk after you. It serves you weel, you vain lass, and you shall see what stuff gude Robin Scrymgeour's made of before he is done with you, as he ought to have been lang syne.” So Eppie had no resource left her but to stand and look. Soon eager curiosity and tremulous interest robbed her of the cowardly impulse to escape the contemplation of his triumph; for now Captain Robert triumphed over every detractor. Who could call to mind his roughness and loudness, and heavy set manhood, while he stood there with his life in his hand for the sake of his neighbor? Who could waste a thought on the absence of lightness and elegance, in the immediate presence of the stern realities of life and death? But Eppie remembered distinctly her own objections to Captain Robert on these counts, her own flouts at his awkwardness and unwieldiness. She remembered how she had clouded his clear eyes with reproach by running away from his company to the psalm-singing, and had dulled his best narrative by her indifference when he spun his yarns to Aunt Peggy and Mr. John Melville over the lamp, by the hearth, or at supper. And he had never blamed her; but had labored to make himself less loud and gruff, if not less big and brown. He had attended to her whims, and courted her with every conceivable gift from his stores. But she scorned to be propitiated by them, and would even have returned them if she could have dared. He was her kinsman, however, and Mistress Peggy was in the way, and she had no choice but to receive, and then disparage and neglect them. He had forgotten her now, as he stood there swinging and rocking as he had never swung and rocked in his hammock; he had, for the moment, forgotten his mistress, and the pain she had cost him, and would have been impatient to be reminded of her, as men turn from women in their peculiar combats. Yes, he loved her, he knew that too well; but he was a man, and must do his duty; she should not come between him and it. It would be hard, if, after embittering all else, she should thwart him here. But there was no cause why Eppie should forget; and she remembered all, and with notable results. First, she prayed with all her heart to the merciful God not to punish her lightness and foolishness, by slaying her cousin, Captain Robert, in his nobleness, before her eyes. Then she said to herself, that she had not known Captain Robert in his bravery and gallantry, and she had not dreamt how proud she should be of his deeds. She would listen to no other 16 Every Saturday, PEGGY MELVILLE'S TRIUMPH. suitor, wed no likelier man. How could she give the preference to a glib tongue, a smooth courtesy, a red and white cheek like her own, when she had seen Captain Robert thus faithfully risk his life for strangers? The heroic vision would rise and humOh! she ble her in all ordinary circumstances. wished Captain Robert could receive her resolutions and hear her vow. Thirdly, and this was when Captain Robert swam that minute and a half, buffeting those water mountains, - Eppie suddenly In her struck her colors and laid down her arms. desperation she cried, unheard by any mortal, it is true, but registered in her own soul and conscience: "I will wed you, Captain Robert; I'll never say you nay again, man; I'll go before the minister toif 'll but come back to dry land." morrow, you The moment young Eppie took that magnanimous resolution, her cheeks began to burn less painfully, and her heart to throb less overpoweringly. She could exert her eyes and ears again; indeed, her sight and hearing seemed to have been magically touched by some precious ointment, as when Cinderella underwent the touch of the fairy's kind wand. Captain Robert, among the waves, looked grand and goodly, a man for a silly woman to be proud of and to cherish upon her knees. His face, when he turned it for a second, was as dauntless and as true a face as could give comfort and protection to a weak woman; and his voice, when he shouted his orders, was as sweet in its persistence as it was manly in its power. But the chance of withdrawing her protest, and allowing her consent, was not swift to come. There was Captain Robert still straining every nerve, and perilling his valuable life to relieve his fellow-creatures, in perfect ignorance of her intention. She felt it would be so hard if he should never learn it, so dreadful if, his delusion unbroken, he should fall a sacrifice. And she felt that now she was bound to interfere, when for the third or fourth time he traversed the rope with his passengers. They were so slow, those stupid, staggered, slight-built strangers. With dilating, beseeching eyes, she appealed for the last time to her aunt. "Must he continue to go? Is he to be worn out? Will no person take Captain Robert's place, or is he to get his death of cold, if he be not clutched by some drowning man, or swallowed up by the hindmost wave?" - -burnt at the stake like savage Red Indians. But Captain Robert interfered, and allayed the sudden panic. He could hardly be said to reason; but then he hectored like a brave man who had played his part, and like an unsophisticated man who never doubted his right to dictate terms. The stiff, pugnacious townsmen looked glum, and muttered a little, but they bent to the claims of gentle birth, the influence of the Melvilles, and the deeds of Captain Robert. The waifs he had rescued were stowed away safely enough, both as regarded themselves and the townspeople, for they were locked into the empty church, which the zealous mob had stripped, and in which they were yet to sign the Covenant amidst tears and prayers, and the most solemn oaths ever nation swore. III. CAPTAIN ROBERT in his beaver, and with dry hose and doublet, prepared to start for Anstruther. " Tush! it's a daft emergence," he protested, not caring to be praised, and certainly a little spent with his efforts, though he would hardly own it. He was perfectly unconscious of the change of fortune that was awaiting him. This was no time to approach him with overtures, and Eppie grew frightened and anxious. It was a comfort that they were to travel in company, for no fatigue or stress of weather would induce Mistress Peggy to fail in her appointment, when Captain Joshua was expected in port. Even on that howling, tempestuous day, roads were open, and sure-footed East Neuk beasts paced them, and hardy East Neuk folks journeyed to their destination. It was a simple cavalcade. Mistress Peggy, in her hat and mantle, sat on a pillion behind one of her old, stolid, sure Carnbee men, on a work-day horse. She travelled so seldom now-a-days that she indulged in no palfrey. Eppie rode on her own brisk pony, which she managed perfectly; and Captain Robert, who, being a cadet of family, rode indifferently well for a sailor, was mounted on a high horse, hired from the Arskine Arms, of size to suit his own proportions. He towered above his companions, and though he was in such good company, seemed, shame upon him! eager for the road, Eppie did and perplexed and abstracted, rather than attentive and painstaking, as had been his wont. Mistress Peggy shook her off afresh, though this not know what to make of him, and it appeared to time more gently: "Whisht! ye silly bairn, Captain grow more and more difficult to proffer to him a hint of her soft relenting. She was nervous, she Robert is the captain, and that tow is his vessel, a captain never quits the ship till every living soul was not herself; yet she was more fascinating in her is delivered. I, mysel, would not suner leave my soul-breathing heats and tremors than in the unhouse in the circumstances." Young Eppie could dimmed, unmoved lustre of her fairness and stateBut that horrid, brown sea-captain, only have stamped with impatience, and then cried with liness. contrition and fear. But at length the weary task made to strive for drowning men, or stamp up and was ended, and Captain Robert escorted his last down on deck, or blurt out his truthfulness, and half-helpless charge over the gangway, and stag-blush, got no benefit from this "lovely woman's agigered on shore himself. The Crail men raised some tation.' plaudits for their captain, since the step between them and eternity had again widened out to a lifetime. But then came old glances and rising mur--a swarm of darkmurs against the rescued crew, haired, sallow-faced men, with oddly-cut jerkins, Out of the jaws of the high hats, and long beards. great deep, they were hovering on the brink of another danger. What business had such as they near the coast, when men were looking for the Armada? the word was a test; stop them! The Armada ! pinion them! gag them! apply to them their own Think of the cursed Inquisition, and the peaceful British subjects—the faithful Protestants tortures. In his old white Manse, in the Tolbooth Wynd of Anstruther, James Melville, through the sough and shriek of the wind and the dash of the waves, dreamt of his captive kirk, the lady of his vision, and slept away the fatigues of his daily duties. He was rather rudely roused from his slumbers by the startling announcement that the Baillies of Anster waited to have speech of him anent a matter of mighty importance to the burgh. This matter of mighty importance was the disposal of a ship-load of distressed men whose vessel had foundered off the Orkneys, and who now, with. their captain, Don Jan Gomez, were waiting in sor ry plight the decision of the magnates. The first outburst of indignation at the thought of the Armada was soon lost in the contemplation of the helplessness of the strangers; and they were very soon as well bestowed as circumstances would allow, Mr. James Melville having showed such tenderness as to make him say to himself, as Captain Robert knocked with his riding-whip at the Tolbooth door, and Mistress Peggy's riding-skirt was seen fluttering down the street, "I must be able to repress my relentings at my ain hearth, else Mistress Peggy will play my Lady Makgill of Rankeillour, and I will be forced to banish her belyve out of my hearing." But Captain Robert also told his tale, and to his great relief Mr. James wrung his hand in token of the utmost sympathy. "You have done well, sir; you have excelled. I envy you that you were sent to deliver them. I have no fear of my kinswoman since she has cast een on their grievous plight, and trembled for their near destruction. Aha! Mistress Peggy, their is no word of the blunderbuss now, but of roaring fires and warm duds and cordial drinks to heap on the head of the foe." Mistress Peggy was ready at his call. "Mr. James, I would scorn to strike a fallen man. Poor lads, poor lads! they are far frae their mothers and sisters; drowning the ae moment, in durance the next, and it's a lang word to hame. Eppie, bestir yoursel, ye selfish lass; what can we do to comfort these forlorn and desolate men?" Mr. James chose for that evening's homily-not the blessed text, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him," for that would have seemed to savor of the self-commendation which "in privity" his soul abhorred but the conscience-stricken address of David to Abigail: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me. And blessed be thou which hast kept me from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand." Ere evening there was a grand gathering in Anstruther. The arrivals were such as caused Mistress Peggy and her niece, and even shy Mrs. Melville, to put themselves in proper apparel, shake out their wimples and their standing collars, fasten the jewelled drops to the band above the brow, and the ouches on their girdle. Yet, it is true, young Eppie's gaze was wondrously distraught and dim from a window in the principal street, where they could enjoy the rare sight of so many old friends, and the general show of horse and rider, groom and hound, as they defiled to the grim Tolbooth door. Mistress Peggy looked, admired, and nodded her head, with its ponderous pile, which rose like a beehive in the centre, with fans at each side. "A pretty sight! It minds me of what my mother was wont to tell of the grand gala day when Queen Mary, our luckless Mary's mother, landed at Balcomie Point, and every laird and lady of the East Neuk rode in her train to St. Andrews to meet my lord the king." But the autumn afternoon was drawing to an end. The gentlemen about Anstruther, having dined at noon and finished their sitting, were thinking of riding cannily home again, or dropping aside into little convivial parties, to eat their supper, and, it is to be feared, depart from the straight road of sobriety, by entering upon those orgies which King Jamie himself, highly decorous in other respects, always countenanced, and which neither Knox nor Melville, for all their wise kindly moderation in meat and drink, could quell. 'These Fife gentlemen were nevertheless brave men and honorable, and could not disgrace themselves by a dastardly revenge. They rather experienced a merciful or a supercilious satisfaction in extending charity to this strange and stray debarkation of the Armada. So my lord of Anstru ther carried off Don Jan Gomez de Medina to taste his high hospitality, and half a dozen more gregarious lairds trotted home in the gale, to consult their puzzled dames, and make arrangements for similar receptions. But the main body were stowed in the Tolbooth, which had just been used as a council-chamber, and somewhat like wild beasts did the dark-eyed, long-haired, southern-tongued strangers appear, peeped at as they were, half curiously, half in scorn, by the townsfolk. Eppie Melville, amongst the rest, would see the strangers. So Captain Robert escorted the girl a little discontentedly, for he said to himself with ir ritable jealousy: "Now, I would not wonder though my lass were taken with a craze for these wrecked prisoners. Women aye side with the weak and vanquished, and the more wizened and ill-conditioned they are, perhaps the women are all the readier to be smitten. But she maun have her way." Eppie walked round the dismal guard-room, and glanced shyly at the olive-skins, the lustrous eyes, the slender limbs, and the emphatic gestures, and picked out the chief men, as much by their proud look and endurance and composure as by their scarfs and rings. And the gallant Spaniards gazed in their turn, and were charmed by the tall fair beauty, so statue-like, but rose-tinged as if the setting sun had shot its last rays on the snow of her cheek, perhaps fancying at the same time with what a noble motion she would tread in their dances, how her long firm fingers would swing and crack the castanets. 66 They are comely youths, though they be black and slim, Captain Robert," whispered Eppie. Captain Robert groaned and shouldered his bulk. "They are new-fangled, Eppie," he muttered scornfully. "I'm wae for them, Captain Robert.” "Lass," said the captain, "you need not tell me that." "And I would like to solace them." "Eppie, you had better try it. I have borne many a thing, but this I will not bear. I was willing to ware my life for the like of them, papists and heathens as they are, not six hours syne; but I fear they had better have gone to the bottom after all!" To Captain Robert's utter amazement and discomfiture, Eppie now began to cry. She had expected this turn, and led the way to it. "I wonder at you, Captain Robert. You saved such poor souls, and you are a grand man, and they but beardless boys; but you should not grudge them a woman's pity." 66 Now, now, forgive me, Eppie, I would not hurt you; but ah! woman, you flung away on these strangers what you have never yielded either to my service or to my prayers." "It is not true," sobbed she, passionately; "though I laughed, I was vexed at your courtship. I tried to stop it to save you pain, and every now and then I was blaming myself hardly that I should cause you to suffer, until only — until this morning." "God forgive you, Eppie; what was there in a Every Saturday, PEGGY MELVILLE'S TRIUMPH. simple act of duty that could rob me of your scant | eager hearts awaiting him. Magnanimous Captain esteem?" "O, Captain Robert, dinna you see that from the moment I saw you performing your duty, you had no need of my pity?" He did not see it; he had some thought that she was mocking him. "Would you prefer my pity to my admiration?" Eppie demanded with great stateliness. But he had brought her to the verge of another word, and, having submitted herself to be humbled so far, she cried behind her kerchief more vehemently than ever. Captain Robert was now indeed blessed; his honest eyes were opened to the simple fact, and he accepted it with the most profound gratitude. Ay, of course, he preferred the warm love pressed close to his bosom, to the pity which, like charity, is pale and cold, and hovers at a distance. It was sweet to the sailor that these familiar, rude waves had so unexpectedly struck the first peal of his wedding bells. What remains to be told? Mistress Peggy was an authoritative mother to those silly, trauchled, hungry men, and though they could not interchange a word, they impressed her with their dignity, for she described Don Jan as "a buirdly man of a sedate walk and conversation." Mr. James Melville, in spite of his downright declaration that "there could be little friendship between them," had frequent friendly intercourse with the commander, gifting him with the few bottles of rich wine, presented to him by his kinsman, Henry Scrymgeour. In due time the party were honorably embarked and despatched to their master, who had made himself the laughing-stock of bluff Drake and Hawkins, with Europe at their back. Captain Joshua in the "Lord Henry " had come into port the day after the landing of the Spaniards, and had immediately sailed again, along Beacon," to hang with Captain Robert in the " as privateers on the skirts of the yet unmet Armada. Naturally enough, Captain Robert completed his work smartly, and glided into Anstruther harbor with the boom of the last Antwerp gun, to claim his bride before the winter storms should strew the coast But Captain Joshua tarried in the with wrecks. chase of the defeated enemy, and Mistress Peggy was resolved that the wedding which would make two pier-heads gay should not be concluded without his august countenance. Robert grew urgent in his suit. No, Mistress Peggy iards in vain. "Mistress Peggy," urged Captain Robert, "I maun sail with the spring winds, and I would fain wed my Eppie. You would not send a man abroad in his honeymoon. If we be parted as we stand, I halt, and likelier lads may woo my lass when my I'll not be less stout, but I'll maybe grow gray ere back is turned." "Awa' with you, man; gin ye cannot depend upon Mistress Peggy was white and restless as she over- But where had the loiterers lingered? They had Mistress Peggy was a happy woman in her triThen, indeed, Mistress This Captain Joshua, on whom the old lady laid umph, and proud beyond easy bearing, till Captain such stress, was not so indispensable a personage to Joshua was sly enough to whisper a private message others. He was a little man, Mistress Peggy's junior from her strange friend. in everything; quiet and subdued on shore, though Peggy started up, her stately face in a flame, and "The presumptuous peat! the light-headed auld a trusty guide on the inconstant element, on which working with half angry, half confused laughter. he had sailed so long that it was almost as native to him as to the swift careering curlew or courtesying fule! to mint sic madness. An East Neuk woman little wild duck. But he was the head of Mistress of douce years to be Donna to a philandering, doited A hantle more fitting he were ordering his Peggy's family, the sole remnant of her generation, Don; he had better speer my hand in the dance and for full fifty years she had insisted on paying next. him deference. There was something touching in burial, like his King Charles. And though he had Mistress Peggy's fidelity, and in the eagerness with been in his prime, like Captain Robert, and I had which the independent old lady bent the head and been in his prime, and I had been youthfu' and It is an idle jest, wore the coif to unexacting Captain Joshua, cling-glaiket, like that weathercock Eppie, would a woman ing to the vestige of her womanly allegiance, al- of the Covenant have cast an ee on a besotted Captain Joshua, and it sets you no that weel to though so cased in the armor of self-reliance, stub- son of the Pope of Rome? bornness, and sarcasm. repeat it." Captain Joshua did not return, though there were -- splendid and affecting picture, and gave it that air of presenting life and reality as a whole, which was its most conspicuous mark. But it was felt that the sensibilities of the poet had been engaged all on one side, and that they were so strong as to sweep away all considerations of the function which society exinstruments which are the only ones to her hand. Moreover, whenever anybody speaks of the irresistible weight of social laws, we feel that they are only irresistible in a sense; and, still more important, we feel that they are capable of such an amelioration by slow steps as shall leave none but bad men burdened by their prescriptions. But the Fatality of Nature is different from the so-called Fatality of Society. The forces of the merciless ocean and the winds, the inhospitable solitudes of the sea-rocks, the fierce cruelty of the sea-monsters, are what they are. By no taking thought can man mollify the tempest or mitigate, the fury of the storm. He adds to the number of his devices for escaping from the ferocity of nature, but the winds rage and the waters are tossed, and the monsters seek their victims just the same. The terrors of the waves may well be called inexorable, and in them, therefore, the poet finds a more appropriate theme than was afforded by the evils of society, which for their cure or right understanding demand, not the poetic, but the scientific mind. We may discern the greater fitness of the present subject for Victor Hugo's genius in the more perfect truthfulness of the man who contends with the Fatality of Nature. Jean Valjean, who had to contend with the Fatality of Laws, was thoroughly artificial. His virtue and perseverance and patience were in a manner overdone. His character was created for a purpose, and the presence of his purpose could not be concealed. THE TOILERS OF THE SEA.* "RELIGION, Society, Nature, such are the three struggles which man has to carry on..... The mysterious difficulty of life springs from all the three. Man meets with hindrance in his life in the shape of superstition, in the shape of preju-ists to discharge, and of the kind and quantity of dice, and in the shape of element. A triple fatality (ananke) oppresses us, the fatality of dogmas, of laws, of things..... With these three which thus enfold man there mingles that inner fatality, the supreme Ananké, the human heart." As in Notre Dame de Paris we saw the working of the first of these contests, and in Les Misérables the resistless pressure of the second, in Les Travailleurs de la Mer we are asked to watch man contending with external nature, and then crushed by the supreme fatality of all, the irresistible Ananké in the heart of man. The story which illustrates this tremendous strife has that simplicity and that perfect finish which only the powerful hand of a master can compass. A fisherman encounters all the fury and caprice and treachery of outer nature, in order to win a woman whom, on his return, he finds to have, unconsciously but irrecoverably, lost her heart to another. But this plainest of stories is worked into genuine tragedy by an exercise of poetic power which, in some portions at least of its display, has very rarely been surpassed in literature. We may notice here, in passing, that the English translation is a singularly indifferent performance, which gives the reader very little notion of the force of the original. The translator is constantly making downright blunders, and, when he does not blunder, is exceedingly weak. It seems the fate of illustrious Frenchmen, Emperors and Republicans alike, to meet incompetent translators in this country. It may be admitted that in the present instance the difficulties in the way of a good translation are sufficiently numerous. The book is not wholly free from what the world has agreed to consider the characteristic defects of its writer. His fondness for the display of minute knowledge of names and dates and events inflicts on the reader tedious catalogues, which are not valuable in themselves, and which interfere with the artistic effect besides. Accuracy of local coloring, too, scarcely demands those long lists of rocks and creeks in the Channel Islands, which are forgotten as soon as read. And an English reader wonders how the author came to write, as he does repeatedly, le Bug-Pipe, when he means the Bagpipes; or, still more amazing and impossible, le premier de la quatrième as French for the Firth of Forth, which is almost as incredible as the old story of poitrine de caleçons for "chest of drawers." Those, again, who cannot forgive Victor Hugo for his staccato style of writing, which makes each sentence come on us like a pellet shot from a gun, will find at least as much cause of offence as ever. But if there are these and other old flaws and imperfections, there is also a power, a depth, a sublimity which the author has scarcely reached before, either in his prose or his verse. The subject is the most suitable for his own genius that he has ever chosen. When he illustrated the bitter destiny which overwhelms the social outcast, he wrote with the air of the philosopher who views life through the understanding, but he was in truth writing in the spirit of the poet who sees things through his emotions. This made Les Misérables a Toilers of the Sea. English Translation by W. MOY THOMAS. The good Bishop was just as artificial. Gilliatt, on the contrary, is very carefully and elaborately drawn, but all his traits are simple and natural. He is surrounded with no unreal halo, though he is remote enough from commonplace. "He was only a poor man, who knew how to read and write; most likely he stood on the limit which divides the dreamer from the thinker. The thinker wills, the dreamer is passive. .. . . The obscurity in which his mind was wrapped consisted in pretty nearly equal parts of two elements, both dimly visible, but very unlike; in his own breast ignorance, infirmity; outside himself mystery, immenGilliatt presented himself under both aspects. Somesity." "Solitude makes either a genius or an idiot. times he had that astonished air I have mentioned, and you might have taken him for a brute; at other moments he had in his eye a glance of indescribable profundity." A very superficial critic might say that Gilliatt is only Jean Valjean in another dress. In reality, there is only the resemblance between them that is inevitable between two characters each of whom is more or less shunned by his fellows, and each of whom is engaged in deadly struggle with one of the three forms of what the author calls Ananké. At bottom, however, they are two quite distinct conceptions. Gilliatt is the more satisfac tory of the two, because to draw a man with great muscular strength, and great ingenuity and great patience of the mechanical order, is easier, and less likely to tempt the artist into what is fantastic and artificial, than the conception of a victim of a supposed social injustice which is no injustice at all. This advantage of having a simpler plot, a more natural set of circumstances, and, above all, of hav |