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"something you have worn; I shall like that better than a legacy, because I shall have it from your own two living hands."

peered into the room in which Aunt Anne | said
lay the one to the front that looked down
on the long white road stretching from the
city to the sea. "Oh, if the Hibberts
would come," Mrs. North said a dozen
times. "I want her to die with her own
people. I love her, but I am a stranger."
So the night passed.

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'My dear," Aunt Anne asked, opening her eyes, "is it morning yet?"

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"Yes," Mrs. North answered tenderly, "and a lovely morning. The sun shining, and a thrush is singing on the tree outside. We will open the window presently and let the summer in." An hour passed, and the postman came, but he brought no news of those who were expected. Later on the doctor looked in, and said her pulse was weaker.

"She must live a little longer," Mrs. North said, in despair; "she must, indeed."

"I have parted with all my possessions, but Florence and Walter shall be commissioned to get you something."

"The thing I should have liked," Mrs. North answered, “was a little brooch you used to wear. It had hair in the middle, and a crinkly gold setting around it."

“My dear,” said Aunt Anne dreamily, "it is in a little box in my left-hand drawer; but it needs renovating - the pin is broken, and the glass and the hair have come out. It belonged to my mother."

"Give it to me," Mrs. North said eagerly. "I will have it done up, and wear it till you are better, and then you shall have it back ; let me get it at once -and in her eager manner she went to the drawer. "Here it is," she said. "It will make a little gold buckle. I have a canary-colored ribbon in the next room; I will put it through, and wear it round my neck. Aunt Anne, you have made me a present."

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"I will come again this afternoon," he said; "perhaps she may have a little rally." While Aunt Anne dozed and the maid watched, Mrs. North, unable to sit quietly any longer, wandered up and down the house, and round the little drawing- "I am delighted that it meets with your room, bending her face over the pot-approval, my dear' - and there was a long pourri on the corner cupboard, opening silence. The morning dragged on -a the piano and looking at the yellow keys happy spring morning, on which, as Mrs. she did not venture to touch. And then, North said to herself, you could almost restlessly, she went into the garden, and hear the summer walking to you over the gathered some oak and beech boughs, with little flowers. Presently Aunt Anne called the fresh young leaves upon them, and put her. them in pots, as Aunt Anne had once done for the home-coming of Florence.

"I cannot feel as if she is going to die," she thought, "but rather as if she were going to meet the people she knew long ago; it will be a festival for them." She looked down the road, and strained her ears, but there was no sound of a carriage, no sign of Walter and Florence. Then, for a moment, she remembered her letter, but she was afraid to let herself linger over it while Aunt Anne up-stairs lay dying. "It is all such a tangle," she said to herself "life and death, and joy and sorrow, and which is best it is difficult to say." Aunt Anne's little breakfast was ready, and she carried it up herself, and lovingly watched the old lady trying to swallow a spoonful.

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"You look a little better again, Aunt | Anne."

"I was thinking," she said, "of a canary-colored dress I had when I was a girl. I wore it at my first ball it was a military ball, my dear, and the officers were all in uniform. As soon as I entered the room Captain Maxwell asked me to dance; but I felt quite afraid, and said, 'You must take off your sword, if you please, and put it on one side.' Think of my audacity in asking him to do such a thing; but he did it. Your ribbon made me remember it" and again she dropped off to sleep.

Mrs. North went to the window, and looked out once more. "I feel like sister Anne on the watch-tower," she said to herself. "If they would only come." Suddenly a dread overcame her. Florence and Walter knew nothing of Alfred Wimple's conduct. They might arrive, and, before she had time to tell them, by some chance word cause Aunt Anne infinite pain. The shame and humiliation seemed to have gone out of the old lady's life during the last day or two. It would be a cruel thing to remind her of it. She had me something," Mrs. North | made herself ready to meet death. It was

"Yes, love; and I shall be much better when I have seen those dear children. I am not quite happy about that will. wanted you to have some remembrance of me."

"Give

I

coming to her gently and surely, with they are hurrying to you, do you hear thoughts of those she loved, and a remem- me?

brance of the days that had been before "Yes, my love," the old lady said, rethe maddening shame of the past year. covering a little, and recognizing her. Mrs. North went down-stairs. Jane Mitch-"You said it was morning time, and a ell was in the kitchen. thrush was singing on the tree outside. I think I hear it."

"Is there any way of sending a note to the station?" she asked.

"Why, yes, ma'am; Lucas would take it with the pony-cart."

"Go to him, ask him to get ready at once, and come for the letter." As shortly as possible she wrote an account of all that had taken place at the cottage, and explained her own presence there.

"Take this at once to the station-master, and ask him to give it to Mr. and Mrs. Hibbert the moment they arrive, and to see that they come here by the fastest fly that is there." And once more she went up to the front bedroom. Aunt Anne was sleeping peacefully; a little smile was on her lips. Mrs. North went to the window, and looked up and down the long straight road, and over at the fir-trees. Presently Lucas came by with the pony-cart; he touched his hat, pulled the note out of his pocket to show that he had it safely, and drove on in the sunshine. The birds were twittering everywhere. A clump of broom was nearly topped with yellow; some spots of gold were on the gorse. Half an hour Aunt Anne still slept. Mrs. North put her arms on the window-sill, and rested her head down on them with her face turned to the road that led to the station. "If only the Hibberts would come!" she said. "Oh, if they would come ! "

"You do; listen, dear, listen!" and Mrs. North turned her face towards the window, as though she were listening, and looked at Aunt Anne's face, as if to put life into her. And as she did so there came upon her ears a joyful sound, the one she most longed to hear in the world - the sound of carriage wheels.

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They have come," she said; "thank God! they have come."

Aunt Anne seemed to understand; an expression of restfulness came over her face; she closed her eyes, as if satisfied. Mrs. North was in despair; it seemed as if they would be a moment too late.

"Dearest old lady, they have come! they are in the garden! Wake up! wake up, to see them. Stay, let me prop you up a little bit more." She could scarcely say the words, her heart was so full. "There, now you can see the firtrees and the sunshine. Kiss me once, dear Aunt Anne, I am going to fetch your children "— and she gently drew her arms away. The Hibberts were in the house

they were on the stairs already. Mrs. North met them. "You are just in time," she whispered to Florence-"she has waited."

Mrs. Hibbert could not speak, but she stopped one moment to put her arms round Mrs. North's neck, and then went on.

"Come with us," Walter said.

The long morning went into afternoon. A change came over Aunt Anne. It was plain enough this time. She spoke once, very gently and so indistinctly that Mrs. "No," Mrs. North answered chokingly, North could hardly make out the words, while the tears ran down her face. "She though she bent over her, trying to un-is waiting for you. Go in to her. I have derstand.

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no business there."

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went a little nearer to each other, and stood watching.

The scent of the fresh spring air filled the room. The sunshine was passing over | the house. There was the clear note of a bird, but not another sound. The bird ceased, and all was still so still that Florence looked up, with a questioning look of fear upon her face. Walter bent over the bed for a moment, then gently put his arm round his wife's shoulder. Aunt Anne had journeyed on.

From The National Review.
A CRITICAL TABOO.
BY ANDREW LANG.

more potently among ancient Persians and modern English, less potently among ancient Greeks and modern Frenchmen. On the whole, in England at least, we do not wish or expect novelists to dilate on experiences from which we instinctively turn away our eyes and avert our thoughts, just as the very Hottentots do; so they told Kolbe. Yet even this is, no doubt, a geographical morality; and that is permitted, or encouraged, on one side of the Channel which is forbidden, or at least disliked, on the other.

However, we have to do here with other proposed limitations, or taboos, such as the assumed rule that religious and moral discussion and criticism is not fair matter for the art of fiction. Here Mrs. Ward does seem to establish her case. Moral REPLIES to critics are not usually judi- and religious discussion influences and cious. A critic dispraises a book, as a interests many lives. The novelist, thererule, because he dislikes it, because therefore, has a right to work in these elements is a pre-established want of harmony and of interest. He has also, if he chooses to correspondence between his mind and the exercise it, a right to try to reform soauthor's, because the contact of their in-ciety; there is no law of the land, or of telligences is not agreeable, but clashing literature, against the endeavor. We can and discordant. He then seeks for the only collect the law from the ruling pracreasons of his antipathy, and states them tice, as the laws of epic poetry were colin the form of general law, or taboos; but, lected by the Greek critics out of the at bottom, he is in the position of the practice of Homer. That practice was poet who did not care for Dr. Fell. Thus, adopted as the canon by Aristotle, though there is no possibility of converting the he hints an opinion that all epics need not critic by a reply. You cannot persuade be quite so very long as the great origihim that you have humor if you do not nals. If, then, we seek to gather the law, make him smile, nor that you excel in in the case of fiction and of literary art pathos if at your pathos he only grunts generally, out of the classics of fiction, we indignantly. So far, then, replies to re- certainly find that the best and most viewers are destined to be failures; but famous writers allowed themselves, in they may instruct the public, and illustrate some degree, the license pleaded for by the principles of criticism, and of literary Mrs. Ward. But it is emphatically to be art, these evanescent, these intangible noted that the question is one of degree. principles. Thus, in a recent " Reply," the The most eminent authors of the past accomplished author of "David Grieve" never pretended to make art the only obdefends most successfully the novelist's ject of art; they were always asserting right to use all the materials that make up their privilege to be didactic if they life, among them, moral, and theological, choose. Take the example of Molière. and social discussion. It is not possible, He wrote "Tartuffe" as a criticism of in common fairness, to deny her thesis, religious hypocrisy; really to avenge that speculation about religion and morals himself on hypocrites, no doubt; but he does make a great part of some lives, and also persuaded himself that he was and consequently, just as much as love, or war, ought to be didactic. Then, as he says or business, is the legitimate material of in his preface to the play, "these gentle. the novelist. Indeed, one cannot properly men try to insinuate that the theatre has restrict an art which is also, and inevita- no business to meddle with such matters." bly, a "criticism of life" to any set of But this, he remarks, is an arbitrary taboo topics which are elements of life, except of their own, which they never succeed in by generally regarding some themes as proving. He points to the religious origin barred by the universal rules of human of the drama, and insists that the stage modesty. Even on this matter there may is a corrective of human errors. So far, be argument; and we might discuss, at then, Molière set himself about "reform. great length, the sources of the sense of ing the world," though, on the whole, he shame, which everywhere exists, though was fortunately much more addicted to

amusing it. Still, he claims his right; | cussing Religion under well-known limita. and every author has always claimed it, tions? "When I mention religion, I and exerted it as he thought desirable. mean the Christian Religion, and not only Fiction, in our age, holds much the same the Christian Religion, but the Protestant place as the drama held in the reign of Religion, and not only the Protestant Reli Louis XIV.; it is the most popular and gion, but the Church of England." And accessible form of literary art, and assur- so Fielding goes on always; he sets apart edly it may be as didactic as it likes, tak-chapters for disquisition in general, and ing the risks upon its own head.

his whole heart is bent on "reforming the Though the opposite opinion—namely, world," and, especially, on reforming the that art exists for art's sake alone is condition of the poor. The author rarely now so popular with critics, and really has forgets that he is also the just and humane so much, of a kind, to say for itself, it has magistrate. "Be a good man, my dear," never been accepted by the public, nor by were the last words of Walter Scott; it is artists in literature. They have always, the first and last word of Fielding, though in practice and theory, asserted their hu- he is more than need be lenient to the man privilege of discussion-of preach-adventurousness of youth. Thus, his charing, if you please. The greatest novelists acter is not high with those who restrict of the last century, Fielding and Richard- the term "morality" to one point of conson, are deliberate and incorrigible preach- duct. Yet, as he understood morality, he ers. Richardson started on his voluminous is an unceasing moralist, a preacher up career- not as an artist, but - as one who hill and down dale. But then he is a wished, as Mr. Leslie Stephen says, "to preacher with the saving gifts of humor suggest proper sentiments to handsome and knowledge of human nature. Thus, servant-girls." As for Fielding, he de- his preaching does not bore and fatigue, it clares," The provision which we have here comes in its place; it holds its due promade is no other than HUMAN NATURE," portion in that great happy current of his wherein "is such prodigious Variety, that tales. a cook will have sooner gone through all the several Species of animal and vegetable Food in the World, than an Author will be able to exhaust so extensive a Subject." He most emphatically does not deny himself any side of human nature, nor stint himself in social and moral discussion. For example, take the discourses on charity, in "Tom Jones" (vol. I, p. III, ed. 1749). Here Captain Blifil and Mr. Allworthy argue about charity, as inculcated by Christianity, and are in the very thick of matter which some modern reviewers would taboo against the modern novelist. Captain Blifil suggests that one should not give alms, for one may be imposed on by the undeserving. Mr. Allworthy, on the other side, maintains that Charity consists in Action, and that "giv-tue with temporal prosperity. Such is ing Alms constituted at least one Branch of that Virtue." Mr. Allworthy held that charity was a duty, and asserted for it no merit, except, perhaps, when in a spirit of Christian love "we bestow on another what we really want ourselves," when we give "what even our own necessities cannot very well spare." On the other hand, to give only at the expense of our coffers, to save a family from misery rather than hang up an extraordinary picture in our houses, "this seems to be only being Christians, nay, indeed, only being human Creatures." With hardly an interval, do we not find the Philosopher Square dis

Of all novelists Scott gave himself most frankly to the task of entertaining. Yet even his novels are unmistakably didactic. A man cannot but bring his own reasoned theory of human life into his work in fiction; and what is this but teaching? What is this but criticising? Sometimes he admits his set purpose. For example, he was blamed for making Rebecca the victim of an unhappy love; and we have all regretted it; we all are on Rebecca's side, not Rowena's, we all know which of them Ivanhoe loved in his heart. But Sir Walter says, in his preface: "The author may, in passing, observe that he thinks character of a highly virtuous and lofty stamp is degraded rather than exalted by an attempt to reward vir

not the recompense which Providence has deemed worthy of suffering merit, and it is a dangerous and fatal doctrine to teach young persons, the most common readers of romance, that rectitude of principle and of conduct are either naturally allied with, or adequately rewarded by, the gratification of our passions, or the attainment of our wishes." Here be morals, indeed; and here, in a regular boy's book like "Ivanhoe," we find Sir Walter practically in accord with modern doctrines about the "happy ending"-about the satisfactory dénoûment. The ending of "Ivanhoe was not happy and satisfactory enough

has their sun gone down behind the western wave, as Miss Squeers observed in a moment of lyrical effusion. It is not the thing done, but the manner of the doing it, that seems to count in this art.

for Thackeray, who converted Rebecca, as we know, from the Hebrew error. Scott might have killed Rowena, or married her to Athelstane; he might have converted Rebecca; or he might have made her leap into the Templar's saddle If we turn to the modern French, do we from the stake, flee to some hold with him, not see M. Zola writing his temperance and set forth to find and found a new tale, and generally reforming society, alkingdom in the mysterious East, as the beit with a muck-rake? Does not every Templar gallantly proposed. But Scott novelist inevitably criticise life, and had his moral in his eye; he denied him- preach his peculiar moral with more or self and his readers. So, in "The Heart less explicitness and insistence? Is not of Midlothian," he makes goodness, in a M. Guy de Maupassant practically saying simple mind, in a body not more than or- always that life is a gloomy Sahara, with dinarily comely, far more attractive than oases of pleasure and of grimy humor? the beauty and passion of Effie Deans. Does not M. Pierre Loti find life a weari So he constantly inculcates his own loyal ness, tempered by scenery and the emotheory of life. He makes Frank Osbaldi- tions? Is not M. Bourget's "Le Disciple" stone swallow down his excessive passion; a long didactic tract on Determinism, if at that last meeting with Di Vernon on that be the right name of modern psychothe moonlit moor he makes him conquer logical fatalism? Then, as Mrs. Ward his extreme emotion and take heart of says, did not Rousseau, in "La Nouvelle manhood. Again, as Mr. Ruskin has Héloïse," and Goethe, in "Wilhelm Meisnoted, Scott makes, invariably, the most ter," take all discussion for their province ? searching analysis of the effects of various They did it, and they overdid it. They degrees and forms of religion, in the char- made their effort, made their mark, their acters of those who hold them; on fanat-impression, and their success. But the ics, on half hypocrites, on men of the "Nouvelle Héloïse" had become rococo, world, or on saints like Bessie Maclure in "Old Mortality." To this extent, and this effect, or, again, when he illustrates the temper begotten of black poverty in the hags of the "Bride of Lammermoor," he is always a teacher, and one who denies himself no element in human nature, though he prefers the large and ringing fields of life and war.

It is needless to illustrate the same distinctive tendency in Thackeray. He is pre-occupied with the anomalies and absurdities of society; he is always insisting on the excellence of goodness, of a pure and kind heart. Mr. Howells says that he lounges about the stage among his characters, talking, with his hands in his pockets. I, for one, am glad to meet him on that stage, in these moods, in that familiar attitude. M. Taine also has reproached Thackeray with his preaching; his modern versions of "the weary King Ecclesiast." In places, when he is tired and already old, the manner becomes a mannerism. But we take him as we find him, and are thankful for him. Dickens, of course, wrote plenty of his novels "with a purpose to expose Yorkshire schools, or the Court of Chancery, or the Circumlocution Office. Now it is ill done, and a weariness; now it is as admirably and humorously done as in the pictures of the immortal Squeerses, whose coat of arms is never really "tore," nor VOL. LXXIX. 4098

LIVING AGE.

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as Lady Louisa Stuart found, when Scott was in his prime; and who reads it now as a novel? "Wilhelm " is partly saved by Philina the delightful, and by Mignon; but it is sad aesthetic reading, taken as a whole.

This brings us to the gist of the matter. A book cast in the outward form of a novel may be a successful pamphlet, and may reach and influence persons who can read nothing which does not bear that outward form. But its permanent value, and all its value as art, must be due to something else than preaching, howsoever earnest, eloquent, and learned. It is the human nature, the humor, the pathos, the action of Richardson, Fielding, Sir Walter, Thackeray, that keep them alive, howsoever assiduously American literary sextons and parish clerks may dig their graves, and toll their knells. They survive by their power of entertaining, not by their didactic element, howsoever good, howsoever enduring it may be, as "criticism of life." Art, and not morality, is the salt of such literature; if it is to live, the preaching must not be to the amusement as Falstaff's bread to his monstrous deal of sack. Naturally, this is especially obvious when the preaching is "topical," and is meant to hit a moment in human thought and belief. A novel, in brief, is not better, but worse, in the ratio in which it approximates to a tract, or pamphlet,

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