arings of the genuine lyric poets, in contrast to the
dramatic. For the true lyric poet is intensely personal, intensely
subjective. It is himself that he expresses, that he represents; and he
almost ceases to be lyrical when he seeks to go out of his own existence
into that of others with whom he has no sympathy, no rapport. This
tale was vivid with genius as yet untutored,--genius in its morning
freshness, full of beauties, full of faults. Isaura distinguished not
the faults from the beauties. She felt only a vague persuasion that
there was a something higher and brighter--a something more true to her
own idiosyncrasy--than could be achieved by the art that "sings other
people's words to other people's music." From the work thus commenced
she had now paused; and it seemed to her fancies that between her inner
self and the scene without, whether in the skies and air and sunset, or
in the abodes of men stretching far and near till lost amid the roofs
and domes of the great city, she had fixed and riveted the link of a
sympathy hitherto fluctuating, unsubstantial, evanescent, undefined.
Absorbed in her revery, she did not notice the deepening of the short
twilight, till the servant entering drew the curtains between her and
the world without, and placed the lamp on the table beside her. Then she
turned away with a restless sigh; her eyes fell on the manuscript, but
the charm of it was gone. A sentiment of distrust in its worth had crept
into her thoughts, unconsciously to herself, and the page open before
her at an uncompleted sentence seemed unwelcome and wearisome as a
copy-book is to a child condemned to relinquish a fairy tale half told,
and apply himself to a task half done. She fell again into a revery,
when, starting as from a dream, she heard herself addressed by name, and
turning round saw Savarin and Gustave Rameau in the room.

"We are come, Signorina," said Savarin, "to announce to you a piece of
news, and to hazard a petition. The news is this: my young friend
here has found a Maecenas who has the good taste so to admire his
lucubrations under the nom de plume of Alphonse de Valcour as to
volunteer the expenses for starting a new journal, of which Gustave
Rameau is to be editor-in-chief; and I have promised to assist him
as contributor for the first two months. I have given him notes of
introduction to certain other feuilletonistes and critics whom he has on
his list. But all put together would not serve to f