ay be judged by the assertion (resting
apparently on adequate authority), that even at this hour that
government are making it a subject for deliberation and doubt--whether
the sepoys have forfeited their pensions! Doubtless, the Delhi and
Cawnpore exploits merit good-service pensions for life!

3. Others by millions, who come to these questions in a far nobler
spirit, fear that at any rate, and with every advantage for a
righteous judgment, too many of the worst sepoys laden with booty may
find means to escape. To these I would suggest that, after all, the
appropriate, worst, and most hellish of punishments for hellish
malefactors, is mortification and utter ruin in every one of their
schemes. What is the thrust of a bayonet or the deepest of sabre-cuts?
These are over in a few moments. And I with others rejoiced therefore
that so many escaped from Delhi for prolonged torment. That torment
will be found in the ever-rankling deadly mortification of knowing
that in all things they and their wicked comrades have failed; and
that in the coming spring, and amongst the resurrections of spring,
when all will be finished, and the mighty storm will have wheeled
away, there remains for the children of hell only this surviving
consciousness--that the total result has been the awakening of our
Indian Government, and the arming it for ever against a hideous peril,
that might else have overwhelmed it unprepared in an hour of
slumbering weakness. Such a game is played but once; and, having
failed, never again can it be repeated.

ON NOVELS.

(_Two pages written in a Lady's Album._[68])

A false ridicule has settled upon Novels, and upon Young Ladies as the
readers of novels. Love, we are told authoritatively, has not that
importance in the actual practice of life--nor that extensive
influence upon human affairs--which novel-writers postulate, and which
the interest of novels presumes. Something to this effect has been
said by an eminent writer; and the law is generally laid down upon
these principles by cynical old men, and envious blue-stockings who
have outlived their personal attractions. The sentiment however is
false even for the present condition of society; and it will become
continually _more_ false as society improves. For what is the great
commanding event, the one sole revolution, in a woman's life?
Marriage. Viewing her course from the cradle to the grave in the light
of a drama, I am entitled to say that her