CHAPTER XXXI.

"PAPA," exclaimed Polly Grange, pretty loud, and much to Edith's relief, "Mr. Eagle is impatient to hear what you and Sir Angus have to say of fair Enid. He wants to know if history tells that she was really beautiful?"

"Beautiful, my dear? Well, as I am not one of those who believe that

'Beauty stands

In th' admiration only of weak minds
Led captive,'

as Milton's Satan says in reply to Belial, I am glad to assure you that Enid was lovely. Indeed, as a rule,

'The soul that goodness like to hers adorns

Holdeth it not concealed;

But, from her first espousal to the frame,

Shows it, till death, revealed.

Obedient, sweet, and full of seemly shame,

She, in the primal age,

The person decks with beauty; moulding it

Fitly through every part.'

So at least says Dante, and Spenser has a similar

fancy :

'Every spirit, as it is most pure,

And hath in it the more of heavenly light,

So it the fairer body doth procure

To habit.'"

"That's nonsense, you know, papa. You're joking,

aren't you? Some of the nicest people we visit aren't in the least pretty," said Miss Polly frankly.

Perhaps, dear; but do not they improve from year to year? If a heavenly spirit happens to get into an unpleasing home, it not the less shines through the countenance, and in the course of time the features, receiving an abiding impression, actually to some extent acquire nicer forms. The mind moulds the body, as Charles Kingsley says in one of his breezy essays, and the inward beauty seldom fails to express itself in the outward,' just as inward ugliness seldom fails to mark itself on the outer man; the spirit of sloth, selfishness, or brutality branding the person so that we may know at a glance what manner of man we see. As for Enid, all the romancers are agreed about her personal beauty. Villemarqué, on the authority of the old French poet, Christian de Troyes, says that she was 'la plus belle créature' ever seen in the world, and it is certain that she was reckoned one of the three most lovely dames of King Arthur's court. The Welsh legend, which Tennyson seems to have followed in his Idyll, says plainly that Arthur's courtiers deemed that had her array when she came among them been suitable to her beauty, never had they seen a maiden fairer than she.'

"And she, the real Enid, was also actually a nice girl, such as Mr. Tennyson makes her, was she, papa?" persisted the younger Miss Grange-not that she cared, but because she fancied Mr. Eagle interested in the poem.

"Yes, Polly; Tennyson cannot claim the merit of having invented her goodness any more than the beauty he endows her with. In the Welsh story her obedience to her father, her serviceableness, her patience, when

called on to resign a fine dress, her unselfish regret when her husband sacrifices the applause of his warriors to be with her, the devoted affection which makes her brave his wrath rather than allow him to be taken unawares by robber bands through her mistimed obedience, all are brought before us vividly."

"Ha," said Sir Angus, rousing himself, "don't you give us rather too favourable an impression of the 'Mabinogi,' Mr. Grange? I was greatly obliged to you for the loan of it, and I read it with attention. I confess Enid seemed to me little more than a name in it, whereas in the Idyll her individuality is distinct from the first. We almost know her even before she is described, from the words of her song,--

Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown;
With that wild wheel we go not up nor down;
Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.'

Reminding us, by the way, of the Florentine's,

'Pur che mia coscienza non mi garra,

When in the Welsh legend Geraint-of whom, by the bye, your friend Christian de Troyes speaks favourably, saying that he was a person of much amiability,—

'Moult fut plains de grand bonté.’—

When, I say, Geraint proposes, in the legend, to tilt for Enid, Gladly will I permit thee,' says at once the old Earl, and we have none of that sweet scene in which, in the poem, Enid receives the message from her mother with pretty modesty, and stands

'Rapt in the fear and in the wonder of it.'

Then Enid's anxiety, as described by Tennyson, not to

discredit Prince Geraint by her shabby dress, and her simple fancies thereanent are purely original; while the scene where the mother dresses Enid in her recovered splendour is represented in the Welsh only by the earl's answer, They are in yonder chamber arraying themselves.' 'Let not the damsel array herself,' said Geraint, 'except it be in her vest and her veil, until she come to the court of Arthur, to be clad by Gwenhwyvar (the Queen) in such garments as she may choose. So the maiden did not array herself.' That is all. There is nothing about her thoughts on the matter. Thus the fond speeches of the mother which bring out Enid's character, and the exquisite

'For Enid all abashed she knew not why,
Dared not to glance at her good mother's face,'

(when Geraint's order to take off the fine dress reached them) are Tennyson's exclusively. Equally so is Geraint's speech to the mother with the glimpses of Enid in it, and, also, the idea of making Enid keep her old dress for years,

'But Enid ever kept the faded silk,

Remembering how first he came on her

Drest in that dress, and how he loved her in it,
And all her foolish fears about the dress; '

for there is no hint in the Welsh that it was this suit she afterwards wore in the journey or 'quest' with her jealous lord. Up to the date of her departure for the court with Geraint, Enid of the Mabinogi seems to me, I confess, just a mere good-natured nonentity. When she reaches court, her beauty is extolled, and her modest manners are indicated by at most the kindness she meets with, and by the Queen's proposal to bestow on her the head of the white stag, with the explanation, ‘I

do not believe that any will begrudge it her, for between her and every one here there exists nothing but love and friendship.'

"A sufficient proof of her being a nonentity," remarked crusty Mr. Drycale, interrupting the baronet. "Not unless the Queen's 'every one' means merely all the women," said Grange slyly.

"Which, however," he added immediately, "it does not, for-to imitate my friend's mode of treating the subject-it is said, 'the maiden took up her abode in the palace, and she had many companions, both men and women, and there was no maiden more esteemed than she in the Island of Britain.' This popularity, and the grieving of everybody on her leaving court three years later, surely indicate a finely-blended modesty and intelligence equal to those of your poet's heroine, Sir Angus. Her doings and words are much the same during the quest' in the legend and in the Idyll, only as Geraint has to encounter parties of four, three, and five knights in succession in the former, instead of three and three merely, her devotedness in warning him, in spite of his order to be silent, is brought out most strongly in the legend. On disobeying Geraint when the robbers appear, she cries, The vengeance of heaven be upon me if I would not rather receive my death from his hand than from any other; and though he should slay me for it, yet will I speak to him.' Her interview with the dissipated young Earl in the corner of the inn chamber is more detailed than in the Idyll, except in respect to the Earl's speech. Before being frightened into deceit, Enid boldly expresses herself thus,-'Yonder man (that is, Geraint) was the first to whom my faith was ever plighted, and shall I prove inconstant to him?'