she
rebelled. Heaven's light, following her exile, pierces its confines,
and discloses their forlorn remoteness.

Place now the Cleopatra, or any other slug, before her as an obstacle,
and see her cut through the pulpy mass as the scimitar of Saladin clove
the down cushion. Let Paul Peter Rubens wake from the dead, let him
rise out of his cerements, and bring into this presence all the army of
his fat women; the magian power or prophet-virtue gifting that slight
rod of Moses, could, at one waft, release and re-mingle a sea
spell-parted, whelming the heavy host with the down-rush of overthrown
sea-ramparts.

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 of
unholy force can arise from below, may not an equal efflux of sacred
essence descend one day from above?

What thought Dr. Graham of this being?

For long intervals I forgot to look how he demeaned himself, or to
question what he thought. 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 steelly sweep of its
descent.

Miss Fanshawe, with her usual ripeness of judgment, pronounced Dr.
Bretton a serious, impassioned man, too grave and too impressible. Not
in such light did I ever see him: no such faults could I lay to his
charge. His natural attitude was not the meditative, nor his natural
mood the sentimental; _impressionable_ he was as dimpling water, but,
almost as water, _unimpressible:_ the breeze, the sun, moved him--metal
could not grave, nor fire brand.

Dr. John _could_ think and think well, but he was rather a man of
action than of thought; he _could_ feel, and feel vividly in his way,
but his heart had no chord for enthusiasm: to bright, soft, sweet
influences his eyes and lips gave bright, soft, sweet welcome,
beautiful to see as dyes of rose and silver, pearl and purple, imbuing