"Ah, one does come to hear things sometimes, in the strangest, roundabout way, or in an equally extraordinary direct line. The world is full of electricity-mentally no less than physically. We are one moment working some new engines in England, and the next draining a marsh in India; we are walking up a dark lampless street in Portsmouth, and presently we are wandering round a dazzling obelisk in Egypt, with upturned eyes, and sun-scathed fingers, as we copy the hieroglyphics upon our parching paper;perhaps we are asking dark questions of some unmoved queenly mystic of a sphynx, or perhaps speculating in front of an enormous god, who sits-a bulk of stone, with thoughtful lips, sealed up, yet half-smiling, and eyes turned inward on eternity. The familiar and the sublime alternate in us, with easy transitions. Now, we look at a beautiful young girl's face, seen by gas-light through a shop-window in Paris; we turn down a dark, narrow, vicebewildered passage,-monsters, or their victims, jostle us,—and the next moment we shoot up, and find ourselves close beside the brightest star of night, and struggling with its rays, which alone prevent our entrance.

Archer shifted himself on his seat with a look of rapture, and took a long satisfactory breath. He felt carried out of himself, and all the petty interests and cares of life, even as he had been in former days when listening to the magnificent abstractions and outpourings of Michael Salter.

"By similar electricity of thought," continued Salter, "our friends' secrets are sometimes brought to our tingling, but not impertinent ears; for even sympathy, when undesired, may be best displayed by shunning knowledge.

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Sympathy like yours," said Archer, "so perfectly generous, so devoid of the least tinge of egotism, selfishness, or mere curiosity, could not be felt otherwise than gladly and gratefully. I wish you would let me tell you my whole story-my inward history, and as much of external events as may be needful to illustration-since last we met."

"Tell me the inward, I shall guess most of the correlative outward things. But is there any good in telling me this-will my hearing it be of any use to you?

"Of the greatest use," exclaimed Archer; "I shall thereby obtain a relief to my feelings, which I cannot otherwise find, and shall be enabled to see my best course in that future, which at present fills my mental vision with little else but pain, and doubt, and

perplexity, and an oppressive sense of the futility of all exertions. Can one, so full of all manner of energies as you are, listen with any degree of patience to this?"

Certainly; first, because I would show myself a friend, and also because I shall hope to communicate a Promethean spark, to re-illume your sphere of man. Besides, these sorts of intellectual confidences and autobiographies are always a compliment to any one who is chosen as their depository. So, proceed at once. Begin in the middle-I can dart back upon the threads, from time to time, as we go on.'

Archer began with his engagement to Mary in Canada, and then by degrees he told Michael Salter all his history-all his troubles. He hesitated a little when he arrived at his last interview with Mary, and with Harding. Men who watch the operations of their own minds, are, nevertheless, open to selfsophistication, almost equally with the ordinary run of mankind, when their own personal feelings are concerned. Archer, however, was not unconscious that in his final behaviour to Mary and to Harding, he did not make a very magnanimous figure; but he tried to "account "for it all by the pardonable mistake under which he had acted. He therefore hammered his way through this part of his story as well as he could, though Michael Salter remained provokingly silent during every pause. Archer also passed rather too slightly over Ellen Lloyd, except that he spoke rapturously of her with reference to music and poetry. He briefly stated the straitness and precariousness of his worldly circumstances, at which his listener smiled with an amused expression. Lastly, he came to literature. Here he was diffuse on every point here he unbosomed his struggles and griefs, and aspirations, and despondencies, without reserve.

During all this time, Michael Salter had sat reclining back, with his heels upon the upper rail of his chair, his arms folded, and his chin upon his breast. He now slowly unsettled himself, and drew his chair near to Archer.

"Give me leave to speak first," said Michael Salter in a lowtoned voice, "of that part of your narrative which relates to Miss Walton, and to Harding.'

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By all means," said Archer, with a sigh.

"It has, no doubt, been," pursued Michael Salter, "a very painful business. As to your final conduct in the matter, you seem to have behaved just as badly as men always do in such

affairs. I know there is this excuse, that you were acting under erroneous impressions; nevertheless,-from you, a trained intellect, one familiar with subtle speculations-a poet, and a man of letters,— pardon me, if I say one might have expected better things. You have written to Miss Walton, of course?"

"Yes," said Archer, rather hesitatingly; "yes-but I have

"Oh, fie! her conduct has really been noble and straightforward, and in all respects without reproach. If her love for you had ceased, do not forget that yours had ceased first. That seems clear—and it is equally clear to me that you never had any passion for each other. You were thrown together in a foreign country, and had an accidental moment of mutual tenderness. It was a great mistake to treat this as a serious affair for life. But after all that subsequently occurred-and at last-not to write ! Oh, send her the letter."

"I will-I will," said Archer; "I have not treated her well in this delay; but you can apprehend how very painful—”

"Yes-we are constantly called upon to sacrifice our own feelings-and very often we cannot do it. And Harding?"

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"I am unable to write to him at present, as I do not know where he is gone."

"See now what you have done to that man! How will you repay the injury? You lifted his mind high above his condition -placed him upon a level with yourself, and assured him that it was his rightful place-which, in my judgment, it was not-for he is evidently a man who ought to lead the nobler energies of the hand-working class, and not to sit with idealist workers. Now, what is he to think ?—what reaction may not his mind sink into? He will consider himself as one who has been deceived and led astray all his implicit faith and reliance, all his best aspirations, will be destroyed-and disbelief in the moral value of superior intellect will be established, and with it, perhaps, a dogged resolve to abjure every species of refined knowledge, every poetical, elevating, and spiritualising influence. In addition to this, he goes away with a broken heart."

"But what can I do?"

"Write to him, and address the letter to the care of some friend of his, to be forwarded. Sooner or later it will find him.

Your letter found me by that means, after we had lost sight of each other for years.

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Perhaps he may write to Mr. Bainton." "That will do, I dare say.

But while you have explained so clearly all the points of deficiency in sympathy between yourself and Miss Walton, I am surprised that you should have omitted to touch upon the various sympathies which manifestly do exist between yourself and her golden-haired friend."

"Abstract sympathies," said Archer, "similarity of tastes— I see whom you allude to."

"Such abstractions, for instance," continued Michael Salter, as a devoted love for all poetical things—a fine sense of Art, in its widest and noblest sense-an imagination harmoniously blending with, and enhancing the understanding-a graceful, sylphide form-eyes, equally dovelike and ethereal."

"How can you possibly collect all these abstractions,' as you call them, from anything that has fallen from me?" exclaimed Archer, with evident emotion.

"A most fascinating naïveté," pursued Salter, with humorous gravity" a voice of that sweetness which sinks into the hearer's breast. As to the devoted feeling she entertains towards you—”

"You surely," interrupted Archer, turning pale, "you surely do not say all this merely from what I have told you? You have known Ellen Lloyd!"

Michael Salter smiled. 66 "A pupil !

"Yes, she was once a pupil of mine."

"I got involved in difficulties from the total neglect of my worldly affairs, and as it was requisite to do something, I went to Belgium, and was organist in one of the cathedrals there for some years. The Miss Lloyds passed a summer in Brussels, during which time I gave lessons to Ellen Lloyd, then a girl of sixteen."

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"You astonish and delight me," said Archer. This accounts for her style. She plays the piano-forte with a sostenuto effect that has always reminded me of an organ; and she continually introduces cathedral chords, in preludes to herself, as if her thoughts were soaring harmoniously round the vault of heaven." I know," said Michael Salter. "But to return to the matter of literature. I feel with how pure a devotion you have pursued your studies. You are the model of what a literary man should be -a devout reader, an earnest thinker, a careful student,-possessing a philosophical, and, in its highest sense, a practical mind,

grafted by patient toil upon a poetical one; you have invention, structure, and draw character with a subtle hand; you are an honest politician, with a good smack of the violence of the times; and you have a strong and polished pen, with a clear and pungent style. But all this, and more of the kind, will not make you a popular author. You want force of character in yourself; a stronger individuality. Excuse my saying this, for I do it in all true regard. You want will and active passion; something of that reckless energy which forces a way through all obstacles and minor considerations, and which, besides making its identity felt in the literary world, makes also a personal impression upon contemporaries. You stand aloof; you write notes; you never go near any of them; they take no personal interest in you, and therefore give you no help by their public criticism and notice. If you were, by fortune, or by personal character, independent of all assistance, this isolation were very well, if you liked it best; but as matters stand with you, it may be ruinous.'

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But my circumstances," interposed Archer, "do not now enable me to frequent the society even of literary men, whose habits are generally inexpensive. Besides an indisposition to much society, a variety of adverse circumstances environ me.

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That," said Salter, is just what I meant to exclaim against. You allow circumstances to command you-not your soul, but your external man-for more than need be. You want more confidence -a more powerful conviction of your own truth. Those who have this, walk in and out where and when they please. Self-confidence, undisguised, and rejoicing in its own strength, disturbs and humiliates others who are weak and small of soul, and makes them tingle all over with spite and resentment, as one often sees; while to the truly powerful spirits nothing is more delightful. It illustrates what they feel. They recognise in it a man full of something great, who has an implicit belief in that greatness, and in himself. These are the men to seek. And circumstances are in favour, and not against one like you, in doing so."

"I cannot do so," said Archer; "I have lived a solitary life too long, so that any such efforts, if not out of my power, are extremely distasteful to me."

"Then don't do it," said Michael Salter, proudly.

"I cannot abandon literature," added Archer, with a depressed air; "neither does it appear that I am very fit to succeed in it. But what else am I fit for ?