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rebelled. Heaven's light, following her exile, pierces its confines and discloses their forlorn remoteness. Vashti was not good, I was told, and I have said she did not look good: though a spirit, she was a spirit out of Tophet. Well, if so much unholy force can arise from below, may not an equal efflux of sacred essence descend one day from above? The strong magnetism of genius drew my heart out of its wonted orbit; the sunflower turned from the south to a fierce light, not solar—a rushing, red, cometary light, hot on vision and to sensation. I had seen acting before, but never anything like this: never anything which astonished Hope and hushed Desire; which outstripped Impulse and paled Conception; which, instead of merely irritating Imagination with the thought of what might be done, at the same time fevering the nerves because it was not done, disclosed power like a deep, swollen winter river, thundering in cataract, and bearing the soul, like a leaf, on the steep and stately sweep of its descent.

 

When it was all over, the prim little body—as instinct, under her plain, colourless exterior, with real passion and genius as the woman on whom she had looked—turned to her companion to seek his opinion. "He judged her as a woman, not an artist. It was a branding judgment."

There are two letters of Rachel (published by M. Heylli), written shortly after this, which, perhaps, had she seen them, might have mitigated the judgment pronounced by the authoress of Jane Eyre against her wayward, passionate sister—for sisters these letters prove them to have been, in the sisterhood of suffering and of love. "My voyage begins auspiciously, that is to say, health and money are forthcoming. The heat is not too oppressive, so that I do not knock up so soon. My success is wonderful; but purchased at what a price? The price, alas! of my health and life. The intoxication of applause passes into my blood and burns it up. Do you think, after it is over, it is pleasant to return home prosaically, take my cup of soup, and go to bed, with despair and misery gnawing at my