truth in his innermost self; and in proportion as it does so, how his
absorption in the work increases, till it becomes part and parcel of his
own mind and heart. The presence of a hidden sorrow may change the fate
of the beings he has created, and guide to the grave those whom, in a
happier vein, he would have united at the altar. It is not till a later
stage of experience and art that the writer escapes from the influence
of his individual personality, and lives in existences that take no
colourings from his own. Genius usually must pass through the subjective
process before it gains the objective. Even a Shakspeare represents
himself in the Sonnets before no trace of himself is visible in a
Falstaff or a Lear.

No news of the Englishman,--not a word. Isaura could not but feel that
in his words, his looks, that day in her own garden, and those yet
happier days at Enghien, there had been more than friendship; there
had been love,--love enough to justify her own pride in whispering to
herself, "And I love too." But then that last parting! how changed he
was! how cold! She conjectured that jealousy of Rameau might, in some
degree, account for the coldness when he first entered the room, but
surely not when he left; surely not when she had overpassed the reserve
of her sex, and implied by signs rarely misconstrued by those who love
that he had no cause for jealousy of another. Yet he had gone,--parted
with her pointedly as a friend, a mere friend. How foolish she had been
to think this rich ambitious foreigner could ever have meant to be more!
In the occupation of her work she thought to banish his image; but in
that work the image was never absent; there were passages in which
she pleadingly addressed it, and then would cease abruptly, stifled by
passionate tears. Still she fancied that the work would reunite them;
that in its pages he would hear her voice and comprehend her heart. And
thus all praise of the work became very, very dear to her.

At last, after many weeks, Savarin heard from Graham. The letter was
dated Aix-la-Chapelle, at which the Englishman said he might yet be some
time detained. In the letter Graham spoke chiefly of the new journal:
in polite compliment of Savarin's own effusions; in mixed praise
and condemnation of the political and social articles signed Pierre
Firmin,--praise of their intellectual power, condemnation of their moral
cynicism.

"The writer," he said, "reminds me of a passage in