others, the fallacy of what was fallacious.

Because he has felt, that the only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this; nor is it in the nature of human intellect to become wise in any other manner. The steady habit of correcting and completing his own opinion by collating it with those of others, so far from causing doubt and hesitation in carrying it into practice, is the only stable foundation for a just reliance on it: for being cognisant of all that can, at least obviously, be said against him, and having taken up his position against all gainsayers knowing that he has sought for objections and difficulties, instead of avoiding them, and has shut out no light which can be thrown upon the subject from any quarter-he has a right to think his judgment better than that of any person, or any multitude, who have not gone through a similar process.

It is not too much to require that what the wisest of mankind, those who are best entitled to trust their own judgment, find necessary to warrant their relying on it, should be submitted to by that miscellaneous collection of a few wise and many foolish individuals, called the public. The most intolerant of churches, the Roman Catholic Church, even at the canonization of a saint, admits and listens patiently to a devil's advocate. The holiest of men, it appears cannot be admitted to posthumous honours, until all that the devil could say against him is known and weighed. If even the Newtonian philosophy were not permitted to be questioned, mankind could not feel as complete assurance of its truth as they do now. The beliefs which we have most warrant for have no safeguard to rest on, but a standing invitation to the whole world to prove them unfounded. If the challenge is not accepted, or is accepted and the attempt fails, we are far enough from certainty still; but we have done the best that the existing state of human reason admits of; we have neglected nothing that could give the truth a chance of reaching us; if the lists are kept open, we may hope that if there be a better truth, it will be found when the human mind is capable of receiving it; and in the meantime we may rely on having attained such approach to truth as is possible in our own day. This is the amount of certainty attainable by a fallible being, and this is the sole way of attaining it.

(From Liberty.)

MRS. GASKELL

[Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson was born in Lindsay Row (now part of Cheyne Walk), Chelsea, 29th September 1810. On 30th August 1832, she married at Huntsford the Rev. William Gaskell, minister of Cross Street Unitarian Chapel, Manchester. During the rest of her life she resided chiefly at Manchester. She died at Holybourne, near Alton in Hampshire, on 12th November 1865.]

THE time may come, peradventure it is even now with us, when the distinction or difference between authors and authoresses will needs be obliterated from any critical survey of the progress of English prose. Whether or not Mrs. Gaskell would have derived any special joy from witnessing the advent of such an epoch, is a more or less idle inquiry; as a matter of fact, although in her way herself a classic writer of English prose, besides being the standard biographer of another, she lived not in a new literary age, but in a period of transition. Beyond a doubt this helps to explain the remarkable contrasts, as well as developments, observable in her style and manner as a writer; although nothing could be more obvious than that it was a conscious restraint of her powers, rather than the granting of a free hand to them, which enabled her genius to concentrate instead of dissipating the efforts of a maturity that knew no decay. In Mary Barton, her first and to this day most famous book, Mrs. Gaskell asserted the right of treating serious social problems sentimentally—a woman's right if ever there was one, although women have not always agreed as to which are really the serious problems of society. She vindicated her claim by means of that kind of pathos which comes straight from the heart and goes straight to it, and which, being in this instance fed by just observation not less than by intense sympathy, was already here and there relieved by touches of the humour so characteristic of her later works. Yet it may, notwithstanding, be said of her that her literary reputation was more than half made before she began fully to form her literary In my judgment, the example of Dickens counted

manner.

for not a little in the process; and to his art her own, without forfeiting at any time its originality, was more signally indebted than was the craft of his hundred imitators to the mannerisms of the master. It has been little noticed, though the phenomenon is full of interest to the students of style, that Mrs. Gaskell had already with conspicuous success essayed what in the absence of dates would inevitably have been set down as her "later" manner, while she was still following to all appearance her earlier lines of composition. The majority of the Cranford papers appeared in Household Words before Ruth was published; and North and South, where no doubt a growth of something beyond form is to be noted, was completed some time later. The charm of Cranford, although perhaps a little fainter than of old, now that associations of time and place have lost much of their force, is still very real, and the little book will always be treasured by those for whom the miniatures of the early part of the century have an irresistible attraction. When, after the strain to which Mrs. Gaskell had been subjected by the publication of her Life of Charlotte Bronté, a masterpiece, in spite of all early cavils and later supplements, she returned to fiction, she proved to have finally formed the style which is inalienably her own. Its exquisite delicacy of texture and tender grace, subduing but not concealing an irony which is the secret of the finest of English humorous prose, characterise each of her last three fictions. Of these, Sylvia's Lovers probably displays the greatest intensity of feeling, together with the most vivid individual colouring, while the (nominally) incomplete Wives and Daughters is enlivened by the most masterly management of the tranquil sidelights of pure and playful humour. But the choicest gem of all is the idyll of Cousin Phillis, simply set in surroundings which seem as if designed to reveal mysteries of poetic feeling destined to remain for ever peculiar to English art, whose inspiration is drawn from the life of English homes.

The biography of Mrs. Gaskell, we know, is likely to remain unwritten; and though literary criticism must chafe against conditions which impair its force, the restriction may in this instance not prove wholly disadvantageous. Something may be learnt by guessing, instead of being taught in detail, how a self-control which matured a literary style as strong as it is tender, and as subtle as it is sweet, reflected the wondrously diversified experiences of a pure and disciplined woman's life. A. W. WARD.

ESTHER'S SEARCH FOR MARY

I MUST go back a little to explain the motives which caused Esther to seek an interview with her niece.

The murder had been committed early on Thursday night, and between then and the dawn of the following day there was ample time for the news to spread far and wide among all those whose duty, or whose want, or whose errors, caused them to be abroad in the streets of Manchester.

Among those who listened to the tale of violence was Esther. A craving desire to know more took possession of her mind. Far away as she was from Turner Street, she immediately set off to the scene of the murder, which was faintly lighted by the gray dawn as she reached the spot. It was so quiet and still that she could hardly believe it to be the place. The only vestige of any scuffle or violence was a trail on the dust, as if somebody had been lying there, and then been raised by extraneous force. The little birds were beginning to hop and twitter in the leafless hedge, making the only sound that was near and distinct. She crossed into the field where she guessed the murderer to have stood; it was easy of access, for the worn, stunted hawthorn-hedge had many gaps in it. The night-smell of bruised grass came up from under her feet, as she went towards the saw-pit and carpenter's shed, which as I have said before, were in a corner of the field near the road, and where one of her informants had told her it was supposed by the police that the murderer had lurked while waiting for his victim. There was no sign, however, that any one had been about the place. If the grass had been bruised or bent where he had trod, it had had enough of the elasticity of life to raise itself under the dewy influences of night. She hushed her breath in involuntary awe, but nothing else told of the violent deed by which a fellow-creature had passed away. She stood still for a minute, imagining to herself the position of the parties,

guided by the only circumstance which afforded any evidence, the trailing mark on the dust in the road.

Suddenly (it was before the sun had risen above the horizon) she became aware of something white in the hedge. All other colours wore the same murky hue, though the forms of objects were perfectly distinct. What was it? It could not be a flower; —that, the time of the year made clear. A frozen lump of snow, lingering late in one of the gnarled tufts of the hedge? She stepped forward to examine. It proved to be a little piece of stiff writing-paper compressed into a round shape. She understood it instantly; it was the paper that had served for wadding for the murderer's gun. Then she had been standing just where the murderer must have been but a few hours before; probably (as the rumour had spread through the town reaching her ears) one of the poor maddened turn-outs, who hung about everywhere, with black, fierce looks, as if contemplating some deed of violence. Her sympathy was all with them, for she had known what they suffered; and besides this, there was her own individual dislike of Mr. Carson, and dread of him for Mary's sake. Yet poor Mary! Death was a terrible, though sure remedy, for the evil Esther had dreaded for her; and how would she stand the shock, loving as her aunt believed her to do. Poor Mary! who would comfort her? Esther's thoughts began to picture her sorrow, her despair, when the news of her lover's death would reach her; and she longed to tell her there might have been a keener grief yet had he lived.

Beautiful, bright came the slanting rays of the morning sun. It was time for such as she to hide themselves, with the other obscene things of night, from the glorious light of day, which was only for the happy. So she turned her steps towards town, still holding the paper. But in getting over the hedge it encumbered her to hold it in her clasped hand, and she threw it down. She passed on a few steps, her thoughts still of Mary, till the idea crossed her mind, could it (blank as it appeared to be) give any clue to the murderer? As I said before, her sympathies were all on that side, so she turned back and picked it up; and then feeling as if in some measure an accessory, she hid it unexamined in her hand, and hastily passed out of the street at the opposite end to that by which she had entered it.

And, what do you think she felt, when having walked some distance from the spot, she dared to open the crushed paper, and