ore, it has to be remembered
that this application of ornate style to prose fiction is undoubtedly to
some extent an extraneous thing in the consideration of the novel
itself. It is "a grand set off" (in the old phrase) to tale-telling; but
it is not precisely of its essence. It deserves to be _constate_,
recorded and set to the credit of those who practise it, and especially
of those who first introduced it. But it is a question whether, in the
necessarily limited space of a book like this, the consideration of it
ought to occupy a large room.

Still, though the warning, "Be not too bold," should never be forgotten,
it should be remembered that it was given only once and its contrary
reiterated: so here goes for one of the most perilous of all possible
adventures--a translation of Chateaubriand's own boldest undertaking,
the description of the City of God, in which he was following not only
the greatest of the Hebrew prophets, but the Vision of Patmos itself.

(_"Les Martyrs," Book III., opening. The Prayer of Cyril,
Bishop of Lacedaemon, has come before the Throne._)

[Sidenote: Illustrated.]

At the centre of all created worlds, in the midst of
innumerable stars which serve as its bastions as well as
avenues and roads to it, there floats the limitless City of
God, the marvels whereof no mortal tongue can tell. The
Eternal Himself laid its twelve foundations, and surrounded
it with the wall of jasper that the beloved disciple saw
measured by an angel with a rod of gold. Clothed with the
glory of the Most High, the unseen Jerusalem is decked as a
bride for her bridegroom. O monumental structures of earth!
ye come not near these of the Holy City. There the richness
of the matter rivals the perfection of the form. There hang,
royally suspended, the galleries of diamond and sapphire
feebly imitated by human skill in the gardens of Babylon.
There rise triumphal arches, fashioned of brightest stars.
There are linked together porticoes of suns extended across
the spaces of the firmament, like the columns of Palmyra
over the sands of the desert. This architecture is alive.
The City of God has a soul of its own. There is no mere
matter in the abiding places of the Spirit; no death in the
locality of eternal existence. The grosser words which our
muse is forced to employ deceive us, for they invest with