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agent in them of the simple and immediate | mand a respectful and attentive hearing chastisement consisting in the delineation from all honorable and reasonable men.

But, valuable and precious as all such readers will always hold these two books of immediate and implacable history, they will not, I presume, be rated among the more important labors of their author's literary life. No one who would know fully or would estimate aright the greatest genius born into the world in our nineteenth century can afford to pass them by with less than careful and sympathetic study; for without moral sympathy no care will enable a student to form any but a trivial and a frivolous judgment on writings which make their primary appeal to the conscience - to the moral instinct and the moral intelligence of the reader. They may perhaps not improperly be classed, for historic or biographic interest, with the "Littérature et Philosophie mêlées " which had been given to the world in 1834. From the crudest impressions of the boy to the ripest convictions of the man, one common quality informs and harmonizes every stage of thought, every phase of feeling, every change of spiritual outlook, which has left its mark on the writings of which that collection is composed; the quality of a pure, a perfect, an intense and burning sincerity. Apart from this personal interest which informs them all, two at least are indispensable to any serious and thorough study of Hugo's work: the fervent and reiterated intercession on behalf of the worse than neglected treasures of medieval architecture then delivered over for a prey to the claws of the destroyer and the paws of the restorer; the superb essay on Mirabeau, which remains as a landmark or tidemark in the history of his opinions and the development of his powers. But the highest expression of these was not to be given in prose not even in the prose of Victor

of his character and the recapitulation of
his work. There would seem to be among
modern Englishmen an impression
somewhat singular, it appears to me, in a
race which professes to hold in special
reverence a book so dependent for its ar-
guments and its effects on a continuous
appeal to conscience and emotion as the
Bible that the presence of passion, be it
never so righteous, so rational, so inevi-
table by any one not ignoble or insane,
implies the absence of reason; that such
indignation as inflamed the lips of Elijah
with prophecy, and armed the hand of
Jesus with a scourge, is a sign - except of
course in Palestine of old that the per-
son affected by this kind of moral excite-
ment must needs be a lunatic of the senti-
mental if not rather of the criminal type.
The main facts recorded in the pages of
"Napoleon le Petit " and "L'Histoire d'un
Crime" are simple, flagrant, palpable, in-
disputable. The man who takes any other
view of them than is expressed in these
two books must be prepared to impugn
and to confute the principle that perjury,
robbery, and murder are crimes. But, we
are told, the perpetual vehemence of in-
cessant imprecation, the stormy insistence
of unremitting obloquy, which accompa-
nies every chapter, illuminates every page,
underlines every sentence of the narrative,
must needs impair the confidence of an
impartial reader in the trustworthiness of
a chronicle and a commentary written
throughout as in characters of flaming fire.
Englishmen are proud to prefer a more
temperate, a more practical, a more sedate
form of political or controversial elo-
quence. When I remember and consider
certain examples of popular oratory and
controversy now flagrant and flourishing
among us, I am tempted to doubt the ex-
act accuracy of this undoubtedly plausible Hugo.
proposition; but be that as it may, I must
take leave to doubt yet more emphatically
the implied conclusion that the best or the
only good witness procurable on a ques-
tion of right and wrong is one too impar-
tial to feel enthusiasm or indignation;
that indifference alike to good and evil is
the sign of perfect equity and trustworthi
ness in a judge of moral or political ques-
tions; that a man who has witnessed a
deliberate massacre of unarmed men,
women, and children, if he be indiscreet
enough to describe his experience in any
tone but that of scientific or aesthetic
serenity, forfeits the inherent right of a
reasonable and an honorable man to com-

From Chambers' Journal.

A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF.
BY MRS. OLIPHANT.
CHAPTER XXVIII.

A DAY or two after, they all went to the
Priory for Easter.

The Priory was in the Isle of Wight, and it was Markham's house. It was not a very great house, nor was it mediæval and mysterious, as an unsophisticated imagination naturally expected. Its name

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came, it was said (or hoped), from an old ecclesiastical establishment once planted there; but the house itself was a sort of Strawberry Hill Gothic, with a good deal of plaster and imitated ornament of the perpendicular kind; that is to say, the worst of its kind, which is, unfortunately, that which most attracts the imitator. stood on a slope above the beach, where the vegetation was soft and abundant, recalling more or less to the mind of Frances the aspect of the country with which she was best acquainted - the great bosquets of glistering green laurel and laurestina simulating the daphnes and orange-trees, and the gray downs above recalling in some degree the scattered hilltops above the level of the olives; though the great rollers of the Atlantic which thundered in upon the beach were not like that rippling blue which edged the Riviera in so many rims of delicate color. The differences, however, struck Frances less than the resemblance, for which she had scarcely been prepared, and which gave her a great deal of surprised pleasure at the first glance. This put temporarily out of her mind all the new and troublesome thoughts which her conversation with Markham had called forth, and which had renewed her curiosity about her step-brother, whom she had begun to receive into the landscape around her with the calm of habit and without asking any questions. Was he really bad, or rather, not good? which was as far as Frances could go. Had he really been the cause, or partly the cause, of the separation between her father and mother? She was bewildered by these little breaks in the curtain which concealed the past from her so completely, that past which was so well known to the others around, which an invincible delicacy prevented her from speaking of or asking questions about. All went on so calmly around her, as if nothing out of the ordinary routine had ever been; and yet she was aware not only that much had been, but that it remained so distinctly in the minds of those smiling people as to influence their conduct and form their motives still. Though it was Markham's house, it was his mother who was the uncontested sovereign, not less, probably more, than if the real owner had been her husband instead of her son. And even Frances, little as she was acquainted with the world, was aware that this was seldom the case. And why should not Markham at his age, which to her seemed at least ten years more than it was, be married, when it was already thought important

that Constance should marry? These were very bewildering questions, and the moment to resume the subject never seemed to come.

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There was a party in the house, which included Claude Ramsay, and the Sir Thomas, the elder person in whom Lady Markham had thought there could be nothing particularly interesting. He was very frequent member of the family party, all the same; and now that they were living under the same roof, Frances did not find him without interest. There was also a lady with two daughters, whose appearance was very interesting to the girl. They reminded her a little of Constance, and of the difficulty she had found in finding subjects on which to converse with her sister. The Miss Montagues knew a great many people, and talked of them continually; but Frances knew nobody. She listened with interest, but she could add nothing either to their speculations or recollections. She did not know anything about the contrivances which brought about the marriage between Cecil Gray and Emma White. She was utterly incompetent even to hazard an opinion as to what Lady Milbrook would do now; and she did not even understand about the hospitals which they visited and “took an interest" in. She tried very hard to get some little current with which she could make herself acquainted in the river of their talk; but nothing could be more difficult. Even when she brought out her sketch-book and opened ground upon that subject — about which the poor little girl modestly believed she knew by experience a very little - she was silenced in five minutes by their scientific acquaintance with washes, and glazing, and body color, and the laws of composition. Frances did not know how to compose a picture. She said: "O no; I do not make it my head at all; I only do what I see.'

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"You mean you don't formulate rules," said Maud. "Of course you don't mean that you merely imitate, for that is teaboard style; and your drawings are quite pretty. I like that little bit of the coast."

"How well one knows the Riviera," said Ethel; "everybody who goes there has something to show. But I am rather surprised you don't keep to one style. You seem to do a little of everything. Don't you feel that flower-painting rather spoils your hand for the larger effects?"

"It wants such a very different distribution of light and shade," said the other sister. "You have to calculate your tones on such a different scale. If you were

working at South Kensington or any other of the good schools

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"I should not advise her to do that should you, Maud? there is such a long elementary course. But I suppose you did your freehand, and all that, in the schoolroom?'

Frances did not know how to reply. She put away her little sketch with a sense of extreme humiliation. "Oh, I am afraid I am not fit to talk about it at all," she said. "I don't even know what words to use. It has been all imitation, as you say."

"She is a little hypocrite. She knew just as well as either you or I."

Frances, however, did not know; and here was another subject about which she could not ask information. She carried away her sketchbook to her room with a curious feeling of ignorance and foolish. ness. She did not know anything at all; neither about her own surroundings, nor about the little art which she was so fond of, in which she had taken just a little pride, as well as so much pleasure. She put the sketches away with a few hasty tears, feeling troubled and provoked, and The two young ladies smiled upon her, as if she could never look at them with and reassured her. "You must not be any satisfaction, or attempt to touch a discouraged. I am sure you have talent. pencil again. She had never thought It only wants a little hard work to master they were anything great; but to be made the principles; and then you go on so to feel so foolish in her own little way much easier afterwards," they said. It was hard. Nor was this the only trial puzzled Frances much that they did not to which she was exposed. After dinner, produce their own sketches, which she drawing aside, which she did with a sense thought would have been as good as a of irritation which her conscience conlesson to her; and it was not till long demned, from the neighborhood of Ethel after that it dawned upon her that in this and Maud, she fell into the hands of Sir particular Maud and Ethel were defective. Thomas, who also had a way of keepThey knew how to do it, but could not doing very clear of these young ladies. He it; whereas she could do it without knowing how.

"How is it, I wonder," said one of them, changing the subject after a little polite pause, which suggested fatigue, "that Mrs. Winterbourn is not here this year?"

They looked at her for this information, to the consternation of Frances, who did not know how to reply. "You know I have not been long here," she said; she had intended to say at home, but the effort was beyond her, "and I don't even know who Mrs. Winterbourn is."

"Oh!" they both cried; and then for a minute there was nothing more. "You may think it strange of us to speak of it," said Maud at length; only, it always seemed so well understood; and we have always met her here."

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"Oh, she goes everywhere," cried Ethel. "There never was a word breathed against Please don't think that, from anything we have said."

"On the contrary, mamma always says it is so wise of Lady Markham," said Maud; "so much better that he should always meet her here."

Frances retired into herself with a con. fusion which she did not know how to account for. She did not in the least know what they meant, and yet she felt the color rise in her cheek. She blushed for she knew not what; so that Maud and Ethel said to each other, afterwards:

came to where Frances was standing in a corner, almost out of sight. She had drawn aside one edge of the curtain, and was looking out upon the shrubbery and the lawn, which stood out against the clear background of the sea, with a great deal of wistfulness, and perhaps a secret tear or two in her eyes. Here she was startled by a sudden voice in her ear. "You are looking out on the moonlight," Sir Thomas said. It took her a moment before she could swallow the sob in her throat.

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"It is very bright; it is a little like home." This word escaped her in the confusion of her thoughts.

"You mean the Riviera. Did you like it so much? I should have thought But no doubt, whatever the country is which we call home, it seems desirable to us."

"Oh, but you can't know how beautiful it is," cried Frances, roused from her fit of despondency. Perhaps you have never been there?

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"O yes, often. Does your father like it as well as you do, Miss Waring? I should have supposed, for a man

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"Yes," said Frances, "I know what you mean. They say there is nothing to do. But my father is not a man to want to do anything. He is fond of books; he reads all day long, and then comes out into the loggia with his cigarette and talks to me.'

"That sounds very pleasant," said Sir Thomas with a smile, taking no notice of the involuntary quaver that had got into the girl's voice. "But I wonder if perhaps he does not want a little variety, a little excitement? Excuse me for saying so. Men, you know, are not always so easily contented as the better half of creation; and then they are accustomed to larger duties, to more action, to public affairs."

"that he has secured a most loving champion in his child."

This arrested her enthusiasm in a moment. She was too sincere to accept such a solution of her own complicated feelings. Was she the loving champion which she was so suddenly assumed to be? She became vaguely aware that the things which had rushed back upon her mind and filled her with longing were not the excellences of her father, but rather the old peace and ease and ignorance of her youthful life, which nothing could now restore. She could not respond to the con

"I don't think papa takes much interest in all that," said Frances with an air of authority. "He has never cared for what was going on. The newspapers he some-fidence of her father's friend. He had times will not open.' ""

"That is a great change. He used to be a hot politician in the old days."

"Did you know my father?" she cried, turning upon him with a glow of sudden interest.

"I knew him very well better than most people. I was one of those who felt the deepest regret

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She stood gazing at him with her face lifted to him with so profound an interest and desire to know, that he stopped short, startled by the intensity of her look. "Miss Waring," he said, "it is a very delicate subject to talk to their child upon."

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kept her in ignorance; he had deceived her; he had not made any attempt to clear the perplexities of her difficult path, but left her to find out everything, more perhaps than she yet knew. Sir Thomas was a little surprised that she made him no reply; but he set it down to emotion and agitation, which might well take from so young and innocent a girl the possibil ity of reply.

"I don't know whether I am justified in the hope I have been entertaining ever since you came," he said. "It is very hard that your father should be banished from his own country and all his duties by - what was, after all, never a very imporOh, I know it is. I don't like to ask tant cause. There has been no unpardonand yet it seems as if I ought to know." able wrong on either side. He is terribly Frances was seized with one of those sud-sensitive, you know. And Lady Markden impulses of confidence which some- ham - she is a dear friend of mine; I times make the young so indiscreet. If have a great affection for her." she had known Sir Thomas intimately, it would not have occurred to her; but as a stranger, he seemed safe. "No one has ever told me," she added in the heat of this sudden overflow, "neither how it was or why it was; except Markham, who says it was his fault."

"There were faults on all sides, I think," said Sir Thomas. "There always are in such cases. No one person is able to carry out such a prodigious mistake. You must pardon me if I speak plainly. You are the only person whom I can ask about my old friend."

"Oh, I like you to speak plainly," cried Frances. "Talk to me about him; ask me anything you please." The tears came into her voice, and she put her hands together instinctively. She had been feeling very lonely and homesick, and very much out of accord with all her surroundings. To return even in thought to the old life and its associations brought a flood of bitter sweetness to her heart.

"I can see at least," said Sir Thomas,

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"If you please," said Frances quickly, "it is not possible for me to listen to any discussion of mamma."

"My dear Miss Waring," he cried, "this is better and better. You are then a partisan on both sides?"

Poor little Frances felt as if she were at least hemmed in on both sides and with. out any way of escape. She looked up in his face with an appeal which he did not understand, for how was it possible to suppose that she did not know all about a matter which had affected her whole life?

"Don't you think," said Sir Thomas, drawing very close to her, stooping over her, "that if we two were to lay our heads together, we might bring things to a bet ter understanding? Constance, to whom I have often spoken on the subject, knew only one side and that not the difficult side. Markham was mixed up in it all, and could never be impartial. But you know both, and your father best. I am sure you are full of sense, as Waring's daughter ought to be. Don't you think

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He had taken both Frances's hands in so little likely to be persuaded into his enthusiasm, and pressed so closely some one else's mode of thought. upon her that she had to retreat a step, "I think Constance and you were not almost with alarm. And he had his back at all likely to think the same," she said. to the light, shutting her out from all suc Ramsay looked at her with a glance cor, as she thought. It was all the girl which for him was hasty and almost excould do to keep from crying out that cited. " 'No?" he said in an interrogative she knew nothing, that she was more ig- tone. "What makes you think so? Pernorant than any one; and when there sud-haps when one comes to consider, you are denly came from behind Sir Thomas the sound of many voices, without agitation or special meaning, her heart gave a bound of relief, as if she had escaped. He gave her hands a vehement pressure and let them drop; and then Claude Ramsay's voice of gentle pathos came in. "Are you not afraid, Miss Waring, of the draught? There must be some door or window open. It is enough to blow one away."

"You look like a couple of conspirators," said Markham. "Fan, your little eyes are blinking like an owl's. Come back, my dear, into the light."

"No," said Claude; "the light is perfect. I never can understand why people should want so much light only to talk by. Will you sit here, Miss Waring? Here is a corner out of the draught. I want to say something more about Bordighera one other little renseignement, and then I shall not require to trouble you any more."

Frances looked at Markham for help, but he did not interfere. He looked a little grave, she thought; but he took Sir Thomas by the arm, and presently led him away. She was too shy to refuse on her own account Claude's demand, and sat down reluctantly on the sofa, where he placed himself at her side.

"Your sister," he said, "never had much sympathy with me about draughts. She used to think it ridiculous to take so much care. But my doctrine always is, take care beforehand, and then you don't Don't you need to trouble yourself after. think I am right?"

She understood very well how Constance would receive his little speeches. In the agitation in which she was, gleams of perception coming through the chaos, sudden visions of Constance, who had been swept out of her mind by the progress of events, and of her father, whom her late companion had been talking about as if it would be so easy to induce him to change all his ways, and do what other people wished!. came back to her mind. They seemed to stand before her there, both appearing out of the mists, both so completely aware of what they wanted to

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right. She was always so well and strong. You and I, perhaps, do you think, are more alike? "

"No," said Frances, very decidedly. "I am much stronger than Constance. She might have some patience with with - what was fanciful; but I should have none."

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"With what was fanciful? Then you think I am fanciful?" said Claude, raising himself up from his feeble attitude. He laughed a little, quite undisturbed in temper by this reproach. "I wish other peo. ple thought so; I wish they would let me stay comfortably at home, and do what everybody does. But, Miss Waring, you are not so sympathetic as I thought.'

"I am afraid I am not sympathetic," said Frances, feeling much ashamed of herself. “Oh, Mr. Ramsay, forgive me; I did not mean to say anything so disa. greeable."

"Never mind," said Claude. "When people don't know me, they often think so. I am sorry, because I thought perhaps you and I might agree better. But very likely it was a mistake. Are you feeling the draught again? It is astonishing how a draught will creep round, when you think you are quite out of the way of it. If you feel it, you must not run the risk of a cold, out of consideration for me.'

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From The Gentleman's Magazine. LIFE IN PATAGONIA.

DURING a long sojourn on the Rio Negro letters and papers reached me only at rare intervals. On one occasion I passed very nearly two months without seeing a newspaper. I remember, when at the end of that time one was put before me, I snatched it up eagerly and began hastily scanning the columns, or column-headings rather, in search of startling items from abroad, and that after five minutes I laid it down again to listen to some one talking in the room, and that I eventually left the place without reading the paper at all. I suppose I snatched it up at first mechan. ically, just as a cat, even when not hungry,

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