hness, and who recognised as he stands over
Cara's dead body that

women are not chattels,
To deal with as one's generosity
May prompt or straiten, . . .

and that

we must learn
To drink life's pleasures if we would be pure,

he is one of the most romantic figures in all modern dramatic work.
Looked at from a purely technical point of view, Michael Field's verse is
sometimes lacking in music, and has no sustained grandeur of movement;
but it is extremely dramatic, and its method is admirably suited to
express those swift touches of nature and sudden flashes of thought which
are Michael Field's distinguishing qualities. As for the moral contained
in these plays, work that has the rich vitality of life has always
something of life's mystery also; it cannot be narrowed down to a formal
creed, nor summed up in a platitude; it has many answers, and more than
one secret.

* * * * *

Miss Frances Martin's Life of Elizabeth Gilbert is an extremely
interesting book. Elizabeth Gilbert was born at a time when, as her
biographer reminds us, kindly and intelligent men and women could gravely
implore the Almighty to 'take away' a child merely because it was blind;
when they could argue that to teach the blind to read, or to attempt to
teach them to work, was to fly in the face of Providence; and her whole
life was given to the endeavour to overcome this prejudice and
superstition; to show that blindness, though a great privation, is not
necessarily a disqualification; and that blind men and women can learn,
labour, and fulfil all the duties of life. Before her day all that the
blind were taught was to commit texts from the Bible to memory. She saw
that they could learn handicrafts, and be made industrious and
self-supporting. She began with a small cellar in Holborn, at the rent
of eighteenpence a week, but before her death she could point to large
and well-appointed workshops in almost every city of England where blind
men and women are employed, where tools have been invented by or modified
for them, and where agencies have been established for the sale of their
work. The whole story of her life is full of pathos and of beauty. She
was not born blind, but lost her sight through an attack of scarlet fever
when she was three years old. For a long time she could not realise her
position, and we hear of the little child making earnest appeals to be
taken 'out of the dark room,' or to have a candle