NOTES BY THE WAY.
��313
��proportion of perspective. And this we know to be a common occurrence when people write too frequently or incessantly.
" I still think lovingly and regretfully of that young woman who sacrificed herself. . . .for others. How sweet and pure she was ! How graceful and endearing she was in form and feature and courteous demeanour ! as untiring in her industry as M. E. Braddon, but deficient in that worthy rival's power of skilful concentration and energy. She deserves loving remembrance far above many who have won renown. Her various short stories entitled ' Studies from the Unseen,' that were published in Blackwood's Magazine, usually in the January number of successive years, such as ' The Open Door,' well deserve republication separately, better than collectively huddled into any bulky volume, and need nothing farther of introduction or patronage by an inferior hand.
" She scarcely comprehended vice and shame, and yet perhaps her ' Salem Chapel ' rebukes this judgment, and may be destined to live, I think, when most of her other books, except her ' Edward Irving,' are forgotten. They gripped my memory at first publica- tion. To my general retrospect her ' Rose in June,' Cornhill Maga- zine, 1874, seems sweetest that one and her ' Carita ' in the same serial. Few or none could have written it so tenderly, impressive in its purity and beauty. In fact, the best of English girl portraiture, free from the least taint of American boldness or latter-day vicious- ness that delights the playgoers, is to be found in dear, good, stainless Mrs. Oliphant's works. She is so smooth, so consistently holding her own path unobtrusively, unvauntingly, that perhaps
most people undervalued her But she was one who attested
the truth of the saying in the beatitudes that ' the pure in heart shall see God.'
" We have surely a welcome for such records of a life that was not wholly wasted, as so many of our scribblers in fiction are, the mere ephemera that deserve to be forgotten before they begin to sting, and are incapable of singing songs or threading needles. ' Go spin, ye jades ! go spin.' '
As will have been seen, Ebs worth from his early years began Ebsworthand to use his pen, and in 1851 he was associated with George Gilfillan George as a constant contributor to The Dumfries Herald. For this paper Gilfillan. both worked gratuitously, and Ebsvvorth considered that Gilfillan was " at his best " in the " spontaneous reviews of books and authors whom he had lovingly studied " which appeared in the Herald. To Ebsworth Gilfillan became very dear :
" He was a man to be loved, a sound religious man, a true Christian, and with views advanced beyond his time and class. He had many assailants, but was always ready for a contest, and
��Her
personality.
��' Studies f re m the Unseen.'
��1 Salem Chapel.'
��Contributions
to the Cornhill.
��Her stainless life.
�� �
