chasing away depressing thoughts, than the perusal of some of these poems. They lift one above the accidents of time and space, reveal the glory and calm which lie beyond, and bring to the soul something of that divine peace which passes understanding. They touch the chords of immortality, and awaken sweet visions of another and higher sphere of being, in which the God-like in us shall have freer and fuller scope than now. They remind us of the grand fact that we are something more than animate dust. And to do so is the poet's privilege; for, as Longfellow "God sent His singers upon earth With songs of sadness and of mirth, CHAPTER VII. ELSIE VENNER. A MORE touching story than this, perchance, has never been written in modern times. Whilst it is of all-absorbing interest, and is relieved in turns by much that is witty and much that is wise; yet the pity of the reader is enchained throughout for the heroine, and the heart cannot but sorrow for her in her strange and sad affliction. And it is only when the closing scene of her life is told, and the mystic influence which has troubled her up to that time is removed, that the tears of joy prevail over those of sorrow, and we can be glad for her and happy as to her fate. It will be but fair to the author of the story, to let those who read this review of it, know his intentions in writing it. Referring to it, in the preface to his other story ("The Guardian Angel") he says: "It based itself upon an experiment which some thought cruel, even on paper. It imagined an alien E element introduced into the blood of a human being before that being saw the light. It showed a human nature developing itself in conflict with the ophidian characteristics and instincts impressed upon it during the pre-natal period. Whether anything like this ever happened, or was possible, mattered little it enabled me, at any rate, to suggest the limitations of human responsibility in a simple and effective way." He afterwards adds the following: : "Should any professional alarmist choose to confound the doctrine of limited responsibility with that which denies the existence of any self-determining power, he may be presumed to belong to the class of intellectual half-breeds, of which we have many representatives in our new country, wearing the garb of civilisation and even the gown of scholarship. If we cannot follow the automatic machinery of nature into the mental and moral world, where it plays its part as much as in the bodily functions, without being accused of laying 'all that we are evil in to a divine thrusting on,' we had better return at once to our old demonology, and reinstate the Leader of the Lower-House in his time-honored prerogatives." With so much of explanation, we will now proceed to our review. The story supposes a young girl of good family in an American town "of no inconsiderable pretensions" called Rockland-the good family being The one descended from English stock of high rank. town lay at the foot of a mountain, one of the chief and most dreaded features of which was a rattlesnake ledge. The young girl-Elsie Vennergrew up very wayward and apparently malicious. She had no mother, her maternal parent's death following upon her birth. She was therefore left to the charge and keeping-so far as she would submit to them-of her father, Dudley Venner, and Sophy, an old black nurse. The older she grew the more erratic she became, throwing off all restraint and refusing to submit to any authority. She would stay out at night upon the mountain without fear, and as fearlessly approach even the dreaded rattlesnake ledge. Its terrible occupants seemed to have no power to harm her, her eyes being filled with a cold glitter and force of fascination equal to or stronger than theirs. She even showed some sort of resemblance to them. She delighted in coiling and uncoiling her trinkets, and she affected those trinkets most which were of a scaley and snake-like pattern. It was even said by some of her school-fellows that she could coil herself as easily as she could coil her trinkets. This strange young girl developed scarcely any human affection. She called her father "Dudley," and was hardly respectful to him otherwise. She had some sort of attachment to her old nurse, but was controlled by her to only a slight extent. A certain and the two "They loved cousin Dick was with her as a child, children grew up together for awhile. to ramble together, to build huts, to climb trees for nests, to ride the colts, to dance, to race, and to play at boys' rude games as if both were boys." They were "both handsome, wild, impetuous, unmanageable, they played and fought together like two young leopards, beautiful, but dangerous, their lawless instincts showing through all their graceful movements." The boy had been brought up in South America very roughly, he also having lost his mother. But it was found that he must be sent away from Elsie, she having bitten him in one of her quarrels— the bite being of such a nature, too, as to require the application by old Dr. Kittredge of a stick of lunar caustic. We must introduce some of the other characters, before taking up the thread of the story. Dudley Venner, the father, having lost his young bride under exceptionally painful circumstances, and being left with his motherless daughter Elsie, who developed her strange instincts from her birth, was much saddened, and retired into almost strict confinement to his library, leaving much of his noble old mansion-house unoccupied. He did all he could for Elsie indirectly-direct interference could not be attempted with her-but otherwise he was obliged |