outhpieces, and has given us
instead two warm and palpitating human beings, who live and act in
accordance with their opinions, and whose innermost souls are laid bare
to us by their own deeds, their own actions. Franco and Luisa do not
discuss and argue, they simply _feel_, feel intensely, and by a few
burning words here, a few delicate touches there, our author leads us to
feel with them, to understand and sympathise with their impulses, their
passions, and their weaknesses.

We may not agree with Fogazzaro's conclusions, but we cannot but admire
the masterly delineation of character, the unstudied and thoroughly
artistic arrangement of the work, and the skilful handling of so many
different elements.

The very simplicity and directness of his language give to his style a
grandeur all its own, and lend a peculiar charm to his descriptions of
nature, which form some of the most fascinating pages of _The Patriot_.
With a few broad strokes, he spreads before us a landscape of ineffable
beauty, or shows us the fury of the maddened elements. How marvellous in
its solemn grandeur is the picture of the struggle between the sun and
the fog, which Uncle Piero witnesses from the terrace at Oria! How
wonderful in its awe-inspiring realism is the story of Franco's journey
across the mountains, in the darkness of a moonless night! And that
glorious picture of the sunrise, when Franco's crushed and tortured soul
soars upwards again with the growing light, and, inspired and comforted,
he once more squares his shoulders, and takes up his heavy burden of
care!

Infinite sweetness breathes from the pages which deal with the short and
sunny life of dear little Maria, and there are passages full of humour
and whimsical reflections that must remind the English reader of
Dickens.

Perhaps when Fogazzaro wrote _The Patriot_, he had already planned the
trilogy of which it forms the first volume, but certainly the trilogy
was rather evolved than planned, evolved from the union of two such
characters as Franco and Luisa; and probably, while writing the first,
the author was, to a certain extent, ignorant of what the second and
third volumes would contain; for Luisa and Franco, Jeanne and Piero are
not puppets which have been fitted into a story, but the story is in
every particular the outcome of their personalities.

Certain it is that when we read the promise contained in the closing
lines of _The Patriot_, we look forward eagerly to t