e wisdom has planned.
Let us follow in His steps, and we shall attain to the ideal life;
and, without waiting for our mortal passage, tread the free and
spacious streets of that Jerusalem which is above."

IX

_EDITH SICHEL_

This notice is more suitably headed with a name than with a title.
Edith Sichel was greater than anything she wrote, and the main
interest of the book before us[*] is the character which it reveals.
Among Miss Sichel's many activities was that of reviewing, and Mr.
Bradley tells that "her first object was to let the reader know
what kind of matter he might expect to find in the book, and, if
necessary, from what point of view it is treated there." Following
this excellent example, let us say that in _New and Old_ the reader
will find an appreciative but not quite adequate "Introduction";
some extracts from letters; some "thoughts" or aphorisms; some
poems; and thirty-two miscellaneous pieces of varying interest-and
merit. This is what we "find in the book," and the "point of view"
is developed as we read.

[Footnote *: _New and Old_. By Edith Sichel. With an Introduction
by A. C. Bradley. London: Constable and Co.]

To say that the Introduction is not quite adequate is no aspersion
on Mr. Bradley. He tells us that he only knew Miss Sichel "towards
the close of her life" (she was born in 1862 and died in 1914), and
in her case pre-eminently the child was mother of the woman. Her
blood was purely Jewish, and the Jewish characteristic of precocity
was conspicuous in her from the first. At ten she had the intellectual
alertness of sixteen, and at sixteen she could have held her own
with ordinary people of thirty. To converse with her even casually
always reminded me of Matthew Arnold's exclamation: "What women
these Jewesses are! with a _force_ which seems to triple that of
the women of our Western and Northern races."

From the days of early womanhood to the end, Edith Sichel led a
double life, though in a sense very different from that in which
this ambiguous phrase is generally employed. "She was known to the
reading public as a writer of books and of papers in magazines....
Her principal books were warmly praised by judges competent to estimate
their value as contributions to French biography and history;" and
her various writings, belonging to very different orders and ranging
over a wide variety of topics, were always marked by vigour and
originality. Her versatility was marvellous