who have been separated from the parent stock for thirteen hundred years. During that time, though our intercourse with the old land has never wholly stopped, we have had, on the whole, more to do, both in war and in peace, with other nations than we have had to do with our nearest continental kinsfolk. They have, during all these ages, been exposed to one set of influences; we have been exposed to another. They have remained on the continent, forming part of the general system of continental Europe, forming especially part of the same great Teutonic Kingdom as their kinsfolk of the High-Dutch stock. We have settled on an island an island which was long looked on as another world- an island which has had its own history, its own revolutions, its own continental friends and enemies, but which has always refused every sign of subjection or homage to the Kings and Cæsars of the mainland. The mere fact of living on an island — on an island, that is, large enough to move in a sphere of its own, and not to be a mere appendage to any neighbouring part of the mainland was of itself enough to stamp us with a special insular character, to make us for some purposes stand by ourselves in opposition even to the most closely allied of continental nations. Our history too has been widely different from that of our kinsfolk. The rudest shock which our nationality ever underwent took the form of open attack, of momentary conquest, at the hands of men of wholly alien speech, though not of wholly alien blood. Through such a process our nationality came out in the end only strengthened by the struggle. Some thing nearly akin to this has been the case among one branch of our continental brethren, and among one branch only. Holland and her sister provinces won their freedom in the long struggle with their Spanish oppressors, and they remain to this day the one continental branch of the Low-Dutch race which has preserved its nationality in the face of Europe, and which has not lost the acknowledged right of speaking its native tongue. Our brethren elsewhere have had to withstand, not the open attacks of strangers, but the subtler proselytism of a nearly allied speech which has won for itself a higher place in the world's esteem. For fourteen hundred years, almost every circumstance of our position and history has been different from the position and history of the great mass of our kinsfolk on the mainland. What wonder then if there be differences between us and them? What wonder if in some points each of the severed families has drawn nearer to some foreign race than it has to its own distant brethren ? The true wonder is that so much of likeness in speech and in feeling still remains - that our continental kinsfolk have not wholly forgotten us that they are still so ready as they are to acknowledge the ancient kindred. There is still no land in the whole range of continental Europe where an Englishman finds himself so truly at home as he does in the old land of his fathers. Let him only behave himself as a friend and a brother, and he will still be welcomed wherever the old tongue of his fathers is spoken as a friend and a brother ought to be. - POST MORTEM NOTES OF SOME OF MISS AUSTEN'S CHARACTERS. Her favourite among her own dramatis persone was Emma. "She would, if asked, tell us many little particulars about the subsequent career of her people. In this traditionary way we learned that Miss Steele never succeeded in catching the doctor; that Kitty Bennet was satisfactorily married to a clergyman near Pemberley, while Mary obtained nothing higher than one of her Uncle Philip's clerks, and was content to be considered a star in local society; that the considerable sum " given by Mrs. Norris to William Price was one pound; and that the letters placed by Frank Churchill before Jane Fairfax, which she swept away unread, contained the word "Pardon.'' To how many of our present readers will these communications have any significance? "A few years ago, a gentleman visiting Winchester Cathedral, desired to be shewn Miss Austen's grave. The verger, as he pointed it out, asked: 66 Pray, sir, can you tell me whether there was anything remarkable about that lady; so many people want to know where she was buried ?? During her life, the ignorance of the verger was shared by most people, Few knew that there was anything remarkable about that lady." She had no wish that it should be otherwise; no craving for applause; no desire for fame. When the end at last came, and she was asked by her attendants if there was anything she wanted, her reply was: "Nothing but Death." Chambers' Journal. CHAPTER X. Ir must not be supposed, however, in spite of what has been said, that the comings in and goings out of so important a person as Hugh Lester were not closely observed by those to whom they were of no consequence at all. Nor must it be supposed that even so unapproachable a person as Madam Clare was by her greatness protected altogether from the insults of her but duty had to come before pleasure, and, as she liked to have her evenings free, for her husband's sake, she had always plenty to do in the day. On this occasion, whatever she might be doing, she was certainly not in the room, which was occupied by Hugh and Angelique only. The latter was sitting at the harpsichord, but was not playing, unless playing can be held to consist in striking an occasional chord, or playing scraps of imaginary tunes with one hand. Hugh sat close by her side. Now it is very difficult, in speaking of the outward actions of men and women, to be altogether serious. But in all seriousness of speech, and with no underlying thought of ridicule, let it not be imagined that the conduct of Hugh Lester in this matter is in the least degree to be regarded as absurd. It was only far too natural. To go back for an instant to the occasion of his first meeting with Angéliqueto the date of the beginning of the danger. Now, generally speaking, a first interview is seldom really dangerous. If the woman is not beautiful, the reason is obvious enough; and if she is, the man will be disappointed, as in the case of a really beautiful work of art, by finding that she is not like or equal to what he expected to see; and he will most probably light upon her first in the midst of appropriate and harmonions surroundings that temper anything like the violence of effect that lies in contrast. But, in this case, Hugh, young, impulsive, and heart-free, had come, as upon an unexpected discovery of his own, without warning-in the midst of poor and utterly unharmonious surroundings, and in the company of other women who might have been selected for the very purpose of acting as foils to her upon the most beautiful woman that, as it seemed to his eyes, he had ever seen; and so the surprise, the admiration, and the pride of discovery, all blended with the charm of a subtle sort of romance which, to him at least, seemed to hang over the situation, and, brought about by the absolute power of beauty, were quite enough to render unnecessary any far-fetched theory about the nature of what people call love at first sight. What he felt then was not love; but it was what must always grow into love of some kind or other, unless absence or a miracle intervene. Marie was generally in the room when Hugh called, but not always. She was not an idle person: she was her father's zealous and willing housekeeper, and the chil- But no miracle happened, nor did Hugh dren's nurse and governess besides. If her keep away from the flame which Angélique, cousin, who was at home for a holiday, had for her part, did not hide under a bushel. time and leisure to entertain visitors, she Her coquetry was not of that sort that has had not. She liked to see Hugh, with no purpose in it; and though in the comwhom she had become very good friends; edy of human life the coquette, pure and VOL. XVII. 736 LIVING AGE. sion simple, is about the most charming of wise. Any man of experience, any man characters, yet, when she is capable of who knew the world, would have known in purpose, she is apt to turn comedy into a moment which of the two to choose. tragedy. The ornaments of fetes and balls, Yes; but, after all, who really wishes to whose coquetry belongs rather to the pleas- find too much knowledge of the world at ant. farce of human life than even to its twenty-one? There is something not ludicomedy, are harmless enough; they, with crous, but almost pathetic, in the apparent their little artifices that need deceive no- necessity that first love should always take body, are no more really dangerous than an unconventional form, in its almost invabirds and flowers; but Angélique seemed riably being in the nature of a protest likely to take far higher rank in the profes- against the gross and unromantic reason of to prove herself one with whom a the world-in the way in which it almost Hugh Lester was no more in a position to always fixes itself upon an object which cope than a fish surrounded by the net is either ought not to be desired or is impossiable to struggle against the hands that ble to obtain, or which is, at the least, draw it shoreward. The small fry, small in strange and unreasonable. All the world purse or in rank, may slip through the over, the page loves the queen, the king the meshes, or some gigantic sea monster may beggar-maid, the sinner the saint, and, too by sheer size and strength succeed in leap- often, the saint the sinner. When a couple ing over or breaking through them: but the is well matched, one may very safely good, honest, eatable fish is just the crea- wager that both husband and wife have ture for whom the net is made; and for him memories with which each other has nothing there is no return to the sea. But still, to do. Happily, as a rule, no man marries the vain security of a stupid fish as the net her whom first he loves; and when he does, surrounds it is not a pleasant sight in itself; there is considerable fear that his first love and, in the same way, the sight of a human will not prove to be his last. fish caught in a net from which there is no escaping is not in itself comic, though it is often grotesque enough. After all, whether it was love at first sight or no, it was first love that Hugh Lester was now experiencing; and first love is never absurd to those who will know it no more, even though, like all feelings that are pure and honest, the thought of it may justly enough bring a smile to the heart as well as to the lips. At all events he was sitting now in the garden of his Armida, while the crusade was carrying itself on without the sword of him who should have been the foremost of .all. His attitude was expressive, for he was leaning downwards and forwards towards the enchantress, his eyes trying vainly to read hers, which were fixed modestly upon the keys. They had kept silence for a minute or more -he from the fulness of his heart, and she because she chose. People are certainly provokingly perverse. It would have been so easy and natural, one would have thought, for Miss Clare's nephew - it saves trouble to give him that title at once, without perpetual explanation of the real relationship between them to have fallen in love, if he must fall in love, with Alice Raymond, who was pretty enough, good enough, amiable enough, well-born enough, and the rest of it, to satisfy even his aunt's fastidiousness, and whose tastes agreed so well with his Nor is there any reason to think that Miss Raymond would have proved unconquerably cruel had he thus proved himself .own. 66 Angélique," said Hugh, at last — his pronunciation of her name, by the way, was not exactly Parisian will you not give me just a word - just to let me 66 "But do you know what you have done?" she said, gravely, raising her eyes for a moment "that you have asked me 66 To be my wife. What else should I ask you, when that is all I want in the world?" "Are you in earnest ? " "What can I say or do to make you believe it? "For whom, then ? Can you mean that | Prescot and Warden would have gained but you fear for me?" His head approached few laurels. hers more closely still. She allowed him to draw his own conclusion. "But your career?" she went on. "What career? " "Are you not going into Parliament? Are you not "Parliament! " "Oh, I suppose "Suppose only that I love you suppose only that my career will be to make you happy! I will do what you please; your career shall be mine "And Miss Clare!" "But Miss Clare will not object," he went on, after a short pause. 66 I must know her better than you can. She will love you, when she knows you, nearly as much as I do. She would not be able to help it, Angélique. But do not let us talk of that I know I am not worthy to look at one like you; but I do love you more than anybody else ever can, and I will try all I can to make you happy-to make you like me. And don't think of me as if the world mattered a straw to me. I hate it all. I only wish I were as poor as a Hugh was silent for a moment. Then he rat." said, "Miss Clare has been more than a mother to me. She, I know, only desires my happiness, and she will welcome my wife as her daughter." But he did not speak quite so confidently as before. "I am afraid of Miss Clare - Hugh." The little hesitating pause before his own Christian name gave point to her first utterance of it. "And if she did object, which is impossible, I am my own master, I suppose ? "But you are not master of Earl's Dene." “Angélique!" His tone put her in mind of Marie, and she smiled to herself. "Do not mistake me," she replied; "I am not thinking of Earl's Dene. I could be happy in a cottage. I have been brought up to earn my own bread, and am willing to earn it. No-do not ask me to give up the life of toil to which I have always looked forward; I shall contrive not to be unhappy, never fear! But I will not stand in your way. You shall not run the risk of losing a single acre of Earl's Dene for me." Angélique! When I would lose a hundred Earl's Denes for a word from you! Is that all? If Miss Clare shows that all her affection for me has been so hollow, the tie between her and me must be broken. There are bounds to the duty of a real son to a real mother. I will not lose you, Angélique, if I lose everything for you. Ought not a man to leave both father and mother for his wife? And what would everything in the world be to me without you? And you should not suffer. I would toil for you -I am strong enough; and let Earl's Dene go to the devil." This was not in itself particularly eloquent; but if he could only have managed to speak in the same manner and with the same energy to the electors of Denethorp, "But, indeed indeed I ought not." "Qught not to like me? 66 No, indeed; how can one help what one feels? But 66 Then you can, you do, love me, Angéli que ?" "Oh, I ought not, indeed - but what can I say?" And so, instead of saying anything, she allowed her lover to place his arm round her, and once more to draw his own conclusion. This was one great_point gained: but it was not everything. In spite of his boasted knowledge of his aunt's character, she had, or thought she had, a much better comprehension of it, even although his was derived from long intimacy, and hers from hearsay and guesswork. She also thought it just as likely as not that Hugh, in his joy and confidence, and as a matter of duty, would go straight to his aunt at once, and let her know of the important step he had just taken; and this would not suit her at all. She did not wish even her uncle or her cousin to know anything of the matter except at her own time and in her own way. Beginning with the less important point of the two, 66 Dear Hugh," she said, "I am so confused with all this that I do not know what I am doing or what I am saying. Marie will be coming in soon don't let her know anything; I will tell her myself when I am more quiet. So you really think that Miss Clare will not mind? I should be so unhappy if I thought she would. I could not bear to think that I was the cause of your quarrelling with your best friend." "Why, dearest," Hugh was beginning when Marie came in, carrying a note in her hand. Angélique was vexed and looked it, but recovered herself quickly, after a warning look at Hugh. "Ah, Miss Marie," said the latter, who was not able to compose himself quite so suddenly, "I was afraid I should not have seen you this morning. And, as it is, I shall have to make the same speech serve for good-morning and good-bye." He looked at his watch. "By Jove! I really must be off. I ought to have met White an hour ago. I suppose it's too late now, though, but I must try." 66 If it is really too late you had better stay," said Marie. "But perhaps you will learn from this," and she gave him the note. "It has just come from Mr. White's for you. I suppose they knew you were here." “DEAR LESTER," he reads,-"Come over to White's office at once, if you can. We have been waiting for you an hour, and I have just heard where you are; and-you will, I am sure, excuse advice given in your interest-I think you had better not make quite so many visits at the Leforts just at present. You know how absurdly people here will talk. I write this in case you cannot come over now, for I have to leave the town for a day or two. Yours most truly, M. W. Here was an opportunity for him to begin flying in the face of the world! But the childish thought was but momentary, and he took his leave at once, to Angélique's extreme annoyance. She had but half done her work after all. She dreaded a premature explosion of her mine, for she had the very smallest opinion of her lover's discretion. By the time that the latter reached the office of White & Son, Warden had left it: and as the lawyer was for the moment engaged, Mr. Brown, as a polite attention, placed in his hands a bundle of the last election squibs, printed on orange-coloured paper, to amuse him while he waited. Most of them were silly enough; but there was one that was by no means silly, whatever else it was. It was a copy of verses directed against Mark Warden, and about the grossest thing of the kind that Hugh had ever seen; indeed it was wonderful how the satirist had been so ingenious as to find so many holes in the coat of one whose life had apparently been so immaculate, and to discover so many foibles in a character that was so unusually exempt from them. But his very strength and consistency were so treated as to appear in the guise of weaknesses; his very youth was turned into a stumblingblock, and his talent into an offence. He was made to look like a selfish hypocrite, cold-hearted and cold-minded, seeking only his own ends, and without any better end than the most sordid sort of success. But this is to say little, for in satire form and manner are everything. The whole thing was done with the hand of a master, and was crowded with cruel wit and savage humour. The blows were dealt unsparingly, and every point was made to tell. It was evident that the enemy, if they had been rivalled in eloquence, had determined not to be outdone with the pen, and that they had got hold of a man of nothing short of genius to write their lampoons. Moreover, the wit and the humour were by no means too subtle to be appreciated by the coarsest and most stupid of readers. It was as though the ghost of Swift himself had suddenly taken an interest in the Denethorp election, and had changed its politics. But the strangest thing about it was, that it was evidently written by some one who had a more intimate knowledge of Warden than any one at Denethorp-by one to whom his college career was as familiar as his part in the election. The allusions to it were horribly distorted, but they were perfectly open to the eyes of any one who had been contemporary with him at Cambridge. Its abominable coarseness is a bar to the appearance of even an extract from it here. Indeed coarseness is a very mild term to apply to either its matter or its style. 66 What in the name of everything detestable is this?" asked Hugh, as Mr. White entered. |