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CONVERSATION AFTER THE STORY.

HEN the prisoner at the bar looks up at the judge, how strong must be the feeling in the prisoner's mind of the difference of position that exists between them; himself standing with the stern gaoler close to him, and His seated Eminence in ermine, with a pretty woman, for so it generally happens, at his side. There is hardly less difference, in the relative positions, when an author submits his work even to a friendly critic.

The poor author feels the most anxious desire to win a favourable hearing from the man whom he has placed, for the moment, in this immensely superior position to himself. He gives him the best arm-chair; he agrees abjectly with any remarks the critic may be pleased to make before

hand about the weather, or about the article in "The Times" that morning; and, in short, seeks to propitiate him in every way.

It was with somewhat of this feeling that Mr. Milverton and I prepared to hear the comments on our story which would be given by "The Friends" to whom we had submitted it. It really was rather a formal affair, and when they all walked into the study after breakfast, and silently took their seats, I felt (I don't know how Mr. Milverton felt) as if we were about to be tried for some offence. And a bad book is certainly a great offence.

The conversation began thus:

MILVERTON. Well, you have all read "Casimir Maremma:" I hope you have not skipped any of it; and here are Johnson and I prepared to receive all the cold water which you may be inclined to pour upon our devoted heads.

ELLESMERE. I love Maggie; I believe in Maggie. I like Lochawe; I knew him well when I was a young man, and I think you have depicted him fairly. I don't care about the others. Casimir is too virtuous

and altogether too grand for me. My depraved taste can only relish people with many faults-people like myself. I don't object to Glenant.

CRANMER. It is always my fate, I believe, to be opposed to Sir John Ellesmere in everything. I don't like Maggie; I don't believe in all this refinement in a person so brought up; and I do like Casimir, who seems to me a noble fellow, with great purposes.

ELLESMERE. What a prejudiced mortal you are, Cranmer, and how limited in your notions of people. Do you really suppose that we are all so wonderfully changed by education? This is one of the silliest of human dreams. Have you not met some of the most vulgar people in the world in the highest society, and amongst the most educated? and, on the other hand, have you not met with the utmost refinement of mind connected with the most splendid ignorance of grammar? And you call yourself a Liberal! You official men see nothing of life as compared with us lawyers; you think nothing of anybody who cannot write a long memorial, and who is not gifted with the power of expressing himself, or herself, in nicely-balanced sentences, with plenty of parentheses in them: “I have no hesitation in avowing, whatever embarrassment it may hereafter entail upon Her Majesty's Government, that the addition of this halfpenny in the pound will produce consequences-consequences

not lightly to be considered, as they are not likely to be lightly felt,-which," &c. &c. That is the sort of stuff which represents greatness to your mind.

I have examined witnesses who came from the lowest depths of human society; who acted and talked accordingly, and yet who gave me the idea of being essentially great people.

LADY ELLESMERE. Don't you like Ruth, John ? ELLESMERE. No, I don't. She is a prigess. Depend upon it, one would soon get tired of so wise a woman. That kind of fatigue, however, which is occasioned by living with very wise people is one that I have not myself ever suffered much from.

MRS. MILVERTON. Ruth is my favourite.

ELLESMERE. The women are all jealous of Maggie. They do not like to see how soon the varnish of education and of refinement can be put on.

mere.

SIR ARTHUR. I don't believe they feel that, EllesI think it a most beautiful thing to see how soon this varnish, as you call it, can be put on by women. A woman is a much more refinable creature than a man. All that part of the tale which relates to Maggie will be the most questioned, but I believe that it is thoroughly defensible.

ELLESMERE. And what do you think, Mauleverer ? There is a look upon your face of serene and lofty dissatisfaction which much becomes it. When Maul

everer has this severe look I always think of Fadladeen, such as he might have become if he had been a Puritan preacher, and had been named Fadladeen Bide-the-Bent.

MAULEVERER. I do not reply to these injurious personalities. For my part, I must confess that no tale has any great interest for me which treats of antenuptial life. I like a tale which begins by all the people being married, no matter how; and then you know, from the beginning, how miserable they must be, and there is something like real life. If there is anybody in this tale that I like, it is "wise old John.”

CRANMER. I am sorry to play the part of an objector, and to take a leaf out of the book of a friend of mine who sits near me; but I must say, Milverton, that there is one thing

ELLESMERE. Don't be so circumlocutory, Cranmer. It's the fault of all your tribe. I wonder you did not say (you see, this is my favourite model of an official sentence) that you had no hesitation in avowing, whatever embarrassment it might hereafter entail upon Her Majesty's Government, that, upon due deliberation and mature reflection, you had arrived at the conclusion-a conclusion arrived at unwillingly, but still unhesitatingly—that it was unadvisable for you, under existing circumstances, to extract a page from the book of the honourable friend with whom

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