Page:Female Portrait Gallery.pdf/41

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ISABEL VERE.
117

a perpetual regret to Isabel Vere that her gratitude could not cheer his gloom, nor her care soothe his declining years. Sheridan Knowles has here the truer and nobler insight into human nature. It makes his "Hunchback" sensitive and suspicious; but even in his case the mental predominates over the physical; the generous loving heart, the high acquirement, the kind and gentle manner, have their rightful ascendancy; he has been happy in the love of his wife, and he is happy in the love of his child, won for him by years of care and affection, ere she knew aught of his parental claim. We follow the recluse to the gloomy cell of La Trappe with not only pity, but resentment against a fate so unjust; but it is a satisfaction to bring before the mind's eye the happy and honoured old age of Master Walter.