ld bear witness; but the other reminds one, as nearly as a
modern book may do so, of no less a model than the redoubtable "Thaddeus
of Warsaw!" But Miss Sheppard had already written all that at present
there was to say; rest was imperative till the intermittent springs
again overflowed. "Rumour," which approached the old excellence, was no
result of a soul's ardor,--merely very choice work. Notwithstanding,
everything is precious that filters through such a medium, and in
these three publications she found opportunity for expressing many a
conviction and for weaving many a fancy; moreover, she was afraid of
no one, and never minced matters, therefore they are interspersed
with criticisms: she praised Charlotte Bronte, condemned George Sand,
ridiculed Chopin, reproved Elizabeth Browning, and satirized "Punch." In
her last book there was a great, but scarcely a good change of style,
she having been obliged by its thinness to pepper the page with Italics;
still these are only marks of a period of transition, and in spite of
them the book is priceless. Judging from internal evidence, she here
appears to have frequented more society, and the contact of this
carelessly marrying world with her own pure perception of right struck
the spark which kindled into "Almost a Heroine." Here awakens again that
graceful humor which is the infallible sign of health, and which was so
lightly inwrought through the earlier volumes. Reading it over, one is
struck with its earnestness, its truth and noble courage,--one feels
that lofty social novels, which might have infused life and principle
and beauty into the mass of custom, were promised in this, and are now
no longer a possibility. And herein are the readers of this magazine
especially affected; since there is no reason to suppose that the work
promised and begun by her for these pages would not have been the peer
of her best production, some bold and beautiful elucidation of one of
the many mysteries in life; for the lack of appreciation in England was
no longer to concern her, and, unshackled and unrestrained, she could
feel herself surrounded by the genial atmosphere of loving listeners.
But perhaps it was not lawful that she should further impart these great
secrets which she had learned. "I sometimes think," she murmurs, "when
women try to rise too high either in their deeds or their desires, that
the spirit which bade them so rise sinks back beneath the weakness of
their earthly cons