ined
breeding may be an amateur harlot. The central male figure of the book
is a howling bounder, who has a grievance against the universe because
he can't entirely understand it. Within the last two or three years it
has occurred to Mr. Mallock to recast the book, and in a preface dated
1893 (I think) he informs the world that on re-reading the story he
personally has found portions of it to be offensive. These portions he
declares himself to have eliminated, and he now thinks--or thought in
1893--that there is nothing on that score to cavil at. All I remembered
of the story was that a certain Colonel Stapleton debauched the mind of
the heroine by lending her obscene books with obscene prints attached.
This episode is retained, in spite of the work of purification which
has been performed; and it may be said that if the original novel were
nastier than this deodorised edition of it, it is very much of a wonder
how the critical stomach kept it down.

It is a refreshment to turn from this particular problem seeker to
the work of a writer like Mrs. Humphry Ward, who, if she invests the
questions she handles with more importance than actually belongs to
them, is as wholesome and sincere as one could ask. She has read both
deeply and widely, she thinks with sanity and clearness, she discerns
character, she can create and tell a story, her style is excellently
succinct and full, and any book from her pen may safely be guaranteed
to fill many charmed and thoughtful hours. She is still a seeker of
problems, and shares the faults of her school, inasmuch as she sets
herself to the solution of themes which all thoughtful people have
solved for themselves at an early age. It would be difficult, perhaps,
to find a better and more salutary stimulant for the mind of a very
young man or woman than 'Robert Elsmere,' to cite but one work of hers,
but to the adult intelligence she seems a day behind the fair. She
expends something very like genius in establishing a truth which is only
doubted by here and there a narrow bigot--that truth being that a man
may find himself forced to abandon the bare dogma of religion, and may
yet conserve his faith in the Unseen and his spiritual brotherhood
with men. 'Robert Elsmere' is a very beautiful piece of work, and it
is impossible not to respect the ardour which inspires it, and the many
literary excellences by which it is distinguished. But, all the same, it
leaves upon the mind a sense of some fu