the True than the New. No two minds are ever the same; and therefore
any man who will give us fairly and frankly the results of his own
impressions, uninfluenced by the servilities of imitation, will be
original. But it was not from originality, which really made his
predominant merit, that Maltravers derived his reputation, for his
originality was not of that species which generally dazzles the
vulgar--it was not extravagant nor _bizarre_--he affected no system and
no school. Many authors of his day seemed more novel and _unique_ to the
superficial. Profound and durable invention proceeds by subtle and fine
gradations--it has nothing to do with those jerks and starts, those
convulsions and distortions, which belong not to the vigour and health,
but to the epilepsy and disease, of Literature.

CHAPTER VII.

"Being got out of town, the first thing I did was to give my
mule her head."--_Gil Blas_.

ALTHOUGH the character of Maltravers was gradually becoming more hard
and severe,--although as his reason grew more muscular, his imagination
lost something of its early bloom, and he was already very different
from the wild boy who had set the German youths in a blaze, and had
changed into a Castle of Indolence the little cottage tenanted with
Poetry and Alice,--he still preserved many of his old habits; he loved,
at frequent intervals, to disappear from the great world--to get rid of
books and friends, and luxury and wealth, and make solitary excursions,
sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback, through this fair garden of
England.

It was one soft May-day that he found himself on such an expedition,
slowly riding through one of the green lanes of ------shire. His cloak
and his saddle-bags comprised all his baggage, and the world was before
him "where to choose his place of rest." The lane wound at length into
the main road, and just as he came upon it he fell in with a gay party
of equestrians.

Foremost of its cavalcade rode a lady in a dark green habit, mounted
on a thoroughbred English horse, which she managed with so easy a grace
that Maltravers halted in involuntary admiration. He himself was a
consummate horseman, and he had the quick eye of sympathy for those who
shared the accomplishment. He thought, as he gazed, that he had never
seen but one woman whose air and mien on horseback were so full of
that nameless elegance which skill and courage in any art naturally
bestow--that woman was Valerie de Vent