been in thrall to "Kenelm Chillingly" or thrilled to that
masterly horror story, "The House and the Brain." There is
pinchbeck with the gold, but the shining true metal is there.

III

To pass to Kingsley, is like turning from the world to the
kingdom of God: all is religious fervor, humanitarian purpose.
Here again the activity is multiple but the dominant spirit is
that of militant Christianity. Outside of the Novel, Kingsley
has left in "Water Babies" a book deserving the name of modern
classic, unless the phrase be a contradiction in terms. "Alton
Locke," read to-day, is felt to be too much the tract to bear
favorable comparison with Eliot's "Felix Holt"; but it has
literary power and noble sincerity. Kingsley is one of the first
to feel the ground-swell of social democracy which was to sweep
later fiction on its mighty tide. "Westward Ho!" is a sterling
historical romance, one of the more successful books in a select
list which embraces "The Cloister and the Hearth," "Lorna
Doone," and "John Inglesant." "Hypatia," examined
dispassionately, may be described as an historical romance with
elements of greatness rather than a great historical romance.
But it shed its glamour over our youth and there is affectionate
dread in the thought of a more critical re-reading.

In truth, Kingsley, viewed in all his literary work, stands out
as an athlete of the intellect and the emotions, doing much and
doing it remarkably well--a power for righteousness in his day
and generation, but for this very reason less a professional
novelist of assured standing. His gifted, erratic brother Henry,
in the striking series of stories dealing prevailingly with the
Australian life he so well knew, makes a stronger impression of
singleness of power and may last longer, one suspects, than the
better-known, more successful Charles, whose significance for
the later generation is, as we have hinted, in his sensitiveness
to the new spirit of social revolt,--an isolated voice where
there is now full chorus.

IV

An even more virile figure and one to whom the attribution of
genius need not be grudged, is the strong, pugnacious, eminently
picturesque Charles Reade. It is a temptation to say that but
for his use of a method and a technique hopelessly old-fashioned,
he might claim close fellowship for gift and influence with
Dickens. But he lacked art as it is now understood: balance,
restraint, the impersonal view were not his. He is a glor