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bless. Her views and estimate of life, with its affections and pursuits, are correct, inasmuch as she represents life unsanctified by religion,—affections whose element is earthliness, and pursuits unredeemed by the hope and prospect of eternity. And we know that a far higher Authority than any human voice has warned us, that temporal happiness consists only of evanescent pleasures and flattering anticipations, which, if not absolutely delusive, if occasionally partially realized, are yet not connected vitally and permanently with our inmost being. We are taught, ay, and often made to feel, by bitter experience, that all which claims the name of enjoyment is only a glittering tracery on the sands of our present position, which the next wave of time may sweep for ever from our sight. Desirous as we may be to shrink from hearing these truths, they may not the less be verified in our own life's history.
L. E. L. has chiefly shown us what the world is at its best estate, without Christian principle; how could she then faithfully represent it otherwise than as melancholy, destitute of the joy-giving, healing and perpetuating influences of the leaves of the Tree of Life, without which, the very next moment may turn each source of pleasure into a cause of misery. How beautifully and instructively might she have given in contrast what life becomes when it is guided and governed, elevated and blessed, by true religion! Of this we have a few glimpses in one or two of her characters,—in the hallowed influence which is represented as comforting and strengthening Beatrice under all her dangers and duties, as supporting Francesca in all her varied trials, and as enabling Constance Courtenaye calmly to die in peace and hope through that divine belief whose trust is immortal, and to which the Bible had been her guide.
