find that Edgar Allan Poe has been passed over.
Surely this marvellous lord of rhythmic expression deserves a place? If,
in order to make room for him, it be necessary to elbow out some one
else, I should elbow out Southey, and I think that Baudelaire might be
most advantageously substituted for Keble.

No doubt, both in the _Curse of Kehama_ and in the _Christian Year_ there
are poetic qualities of a certain kind, but absolute catholicity of taste
is not without its dangers. It is only an auctioneer who should admire
all schools of art.

THE LETTERS OF A GREAT WOMAN
(_Pall Mall Gazette_, March 6, 1886.)

Of the many collections of letters that have appeared in this century
few, if any, can rival for fascination of style and variety of incident
the letters of George Sand which have recently been translated into
English by M. Ledos de Beaufort. They extend over a space of more than
sixty years, from 1812 to 1876, in fact, and comprise the first letters
of Aurore Dupin, a child of eight years old, as well as the last letters
of George Sand, a woman of seventy-two. The very early letters, those of
the child and of the young married woman, possess, of course, merely a
psychological interest; but from 1831, the date of Madame Dudevant's
separation from her husband and her first entry into Paris life, the
interest becomes universal, and the literary and political history of
France is mirrored in every page.

For George Sand was an indefatigable correspondent; she longs in one of
her letters, it is true, for 'a planet where reading and writing are
absolutely unknown,' but still she had a real pleasure in letter-writing.
Her greatest delight was the communication of ideas, and she is always in
the heart of the battle. She discusses pauperism with Louis Napoleon in
his prison at Ham, and liberty with Armand Barbes in his dungeon at
Vincennes; she writes to Lamennais on philosophy, to Mazzini on
socialism, to Lamartine on democracy, and to Ledru-Rollin on justice.
Her letters reveal to us not merely the life of a great novelist but the
soul of a great woman, of a woman who was one with all the noblest
movements of her day and whose sympathy with humanity was boundless
absolutely. For the aristocracy of intellect she had always the deepest
veneration, but the democracy of suffering touched her more. She
preached the regeneration of mankind, not with the noisy ardour of the
paid advocate, but with the enthusiasm