nds were declaimed or the holy music
of the Grail was sung. In fiction of the earnest sort, and poetry,
Pinckney's critical pen showed a marvelous magic, striking the scant
springs of the author's inspiration through the most rocky ground of
incident or style. He had a curious sympathy with youthful tenderness.
But, after all, as every young compatriot who went to Baden said, what
the deuce and all did he live in Baden for? Miles Breeze had said it in
'Fifty, when he made the grand tour with his young wife, and dined with
him in Baden-Baden; that is, when Breeze dined with him, for his young
wife was indisposed and could not go. Miles Breeze, junior, had said
it, as late as 'Seventy-six, when he went abroad, ostensibly for
instruction, after leaving college. He had letters to Mr. Pinckney, who
was very kind to the young Baltimorean, and greatly troubled the Grand
Duke his Serenity by presenting him as a relative of the Bonapartes.
Many another American had said it, and even some leading politicians:
he might have held office at home: but Pinckney continued to live in
Carlsruhe.

His critical faculties seemed sharpened after his wife's death, as his
hair grew whiter; and if you remember how he looked before you must
have noticed that the greatest change was in the expression of his
face. There was one faint downward line at either side of his mouth,
and the counterpart at the eyes; n doubtful line which, faint as it was
graven, gave a strange amount of shading to the face. And in speaking
of him still earlier, you must remember to take your india-rubber and
rub out this line from his face. This done, the face is still serious;
but it has a certain light, a certain air of confidence, of
determination, regretful though it be, which makes it loved by women.
Women can love a desperate, but never begin to love a beaten, cause.
Women fell in love with Pinckney, for the lightning does strike twice
in the same place; but his race was rather that of Lohengrin than of
the Asra, and he saw it, or seemed to see it, not. Still, in these
times those downward lines had not come, and there was a certain sober
light in his face as of a sorrowful triumph. This was in the epoch of
his greatest interestingness to women.

When he first came to Carlsruhe, he was simply the new consul, nothing
more; a handsome young man, almost in his honeymoon, with a young and
pretty wife. He had less presence in those days, and seemed absorbed in
his new