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learned amid the sophistries of the world, or than is required for success in the gay lists of mere fashionable literature.
In reading over these comments on the creations of another, one must be struck with the pervading influence of a predominant characteristic of L. E. L.'s mind,—an extensive knowledge of human nature, with a keen perception of individual character. Here, also, is strongly evinced her peculiar facility of originating the ideal even from the actual, of fusing and blending the fine gold of thought and sentiment with the coarser metal of circumstance and fortune.
Thus the clandestine attachment in the history of Julia Mannering, which quickly yields to her inherent good feeling and sense of propriety, gives rise to the important sentiment: "Deception is always an evil, but in youth—youth whose very faults should be open-hearted and impetuous—it lays the foundation of the worst possible faults of character." We hail with grateful sympathy the gentle apology that is made for the occasional caprice of Monkbarns, whose disappointment and regret have closed all the avenues of warmer affections,—who has suffered too much to risk such suffering again,—yet whose kindness peeps out in spite of indulged humorous oddities and a system of callousness. This we are reminded is a true picture: “How often, among our acquaintance, have we met some individual whose crabbed temper has provoked our irritability, or whose peculiarities have awakened our mirth! Could we look into the early history of that individual, and trace the causes that have led sorrow to mask itself with eccentricity, we should feel only wonder and pity: but the waters of life are for ever flowing onwards, and little trace do they bear of what clouds have darkened or reddened the
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