XCIII.

I have finished Edwardes' 'Punjaub,' and about to begin it again, though it is in two thick volumes. I turn to the history of military adventures and to science with a sense of refreshment and home which intensifies as life goes on. Edwardes was a very fine fellow. He went as political agent with a Sikh army to the valley of Bunnoo, which Runjeet Singh had subdued and made tributary, but the tribute of which had never been collected, except once in three or four years, with great bloodshed and war. In three months Edwardes subdued one of the four tribes which inhabit it by negotiation; forced the others to raze with their own hands four hundred forts which might have stood a year's siege; knowing nothing of engineering, built a fortress for the Sikh army, and compelled the refractory Sikhs, who had never done anything of the kind before, to build it; collected the tribute; shot a fanatic who rushed into his tent, after having slain the sentry, to murder him; disbanded a mutinous regiment; tried hundreds of causes in a country where justice had never been heard of before.

To turn to a different question: Why was John the most beloved?' I suppose we learn from the fact the rightness of personal preferences-certain minds being more akin to other human minds than certain others—but also that in the highest hearts this affinity will be determined by spiritual resemblances, not mere accidental agreeabilities, accomplishments, or politenesses or pleasant manners. Again, I imagine that the union was one which had nothing to do with mental superiority; that might have been more admirable: John was loveable. Not talent, as in St. Paul's case, nor eloquence, nor amiability, drew Christ's spirit to him, but that large heart, which enabled him to believe because he felt, and hence to reveal that 'God is Love.' It is very remarkable, however, that his love was a trained love. Once John was more zealous than affectionate. But he began by loving the human friend, by tending the mother as a son, by attachment to his brother James; and so, through particular

personal attachments, he was trained to take in and comprehend the larger Divine Love. I should say, then, that he was most loveable, because having loved in their various relationships 'men whom he had seen,' he was able to love God whom he had not seen.' He is most dear to the heart of Christ, of course, who loves most, because he has most of God in him; and that love comes through missing none of the preparatory steps of affection, given us here as Primer lessons.

Upon me there is a growing conviction, deepening into a feeling that is at times very solemn and very mournful, that my path lies in a different direction-in humble work done more humbly than I have done it-more in the valley: in simple life, more severe and more solitary. I must mete out what of existence remains to me. Like Hamlet, 'I have had dreams,'1 and therefore, like him, am unable to count myself king of infinite space.'

XCIV.

The only shade of uneasiness that ever crosses my mind, is the perhaps that it will not end so. What I have reason to fear

is imbecility. They all admit that. Last night, till dawn to-day, suffering kept me awake, gnashing the teeth, or rather setting them, like poor Prometheus, in defiance of the vulture's beak. Only my vulture was feeding on my cerebellum, and digging its talons in a most uncivil and ferocious way into the organs of emotionness, philoprogenitiveness, obstinacy, &c. &c., leaving the nobler organs free. Now, what is to be said for phrenology after this? Does it not refute the whole system? Had the said bird been pulling at the organs really in use by me--that is, all that is most sublime in humanity-it had been intelligible. But what business on earth has he to stick his claws into a part of my nature which from the cradle has been protested against, disowned, defied, conquered? Is it revenge being now taken

1 Robertson was aware that the other reading-'bad dreams '—was perhaps the more correct one; but he always preferred the reading in the text of his letter.

for the victory, and am I to be, like the Princess in the 'Arabian Nights,' consumed by the flames of the genie she had reduced to a cinder? Bad image apart, there is something in the whole matter which perplexes me as a philosophical question and a question of justice; for I know, as indeed the organs indicate, that it is not the overstrained intellect that is wearing life out, but the emotional part of nature which all life long has been breathing flames which kindled none and only burned itself.

XCV.

On reaching home yesterday evening I took down Liebig's 'Chemistry,' and found that the ultimate elements of organic bodies are principally four-viz. carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen. That is, the difference between hair, flesh, bone, and between skin, bark, wood, &c., is caused not so much by their being composed of different elements as by the different proportions in which these four chief ones are mixed up.

In the visions of the night a dream presented itself, mingling this information with the subjects of our conversation, and the question whether woman is merely an unemancipated negro, as you say, her powers and qualities in all respects like those of men, only uncultivated, or, as I say, a being spiritually, as well as physically different-having, if you will, all the elements, moral and intellectual, the same in number as man has, only differing in the proportions in which they are mixed up; that difference, however, constituting a difference of nature as real as the difference between leaf and flower, wood and fruit. As you say, Woman is to Man what the gristle of a child is to the hard skull of an adult; as I say, what the brain is to the skull or the flesh to the ribs.

Methought I overheard the muscular fibie, i.e. the flesh, of the human body, enviousiy grumbling against the bones. The flesh averred that it was essentially identical with bone, wanting only a different disposition and a harder education. That great muscle in the centre of the body, the heart, took upon herself the office of champion of the rights of oppressed flesh, and spoke

-'Feeble and degraded muscles! after six thousand years of abject inferiority, I summon you in the sacred name of abstract principles. Are we not identically the same as the bones? What are the bones ?—carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen. What are we?—the same, minus a few pinches of phosphate of lime. The elements of our nature are identically those of bone. And yet for these long centuries we have been treated as if we were of a softer and feebler nature-condescendingly, insultingly protected from outward injury, as if we could not protect ourselves: looked upon as the ornament and living beauty of the bones; treated I blush with shame to say it—as the cushions on which the bones repose, as if we were merely existing for their solace and relaxation. Even I, of bonier texture than you, poor slaves! I am bone-locked and hemmed in on every side, unable to expand, cabined, cribbed, confined, forbidden from the development of my noble nature by the coercion of a horrid jealous rib.

(For it may be remarked that the heart, albeit proud of being less soft and less sensitive than other muscles, was yet unable to restrain the use of certain spasmodic dashed words, like horrid,' which betrayed the existence of more nervous substance and sensibility than she would willingly have admitted. And the occurrence of these, in the midst of slanglike and bonier expressions, produced sometimes an odd confusion.)

Some very tender muscles, situated at the extremity of the fingers, spoke in reply to the swelling heart thus :—

'Wondrous sister! thy words are full of awe; and we have been thrilled with the mighty conception which thou hast suggested to us of being as the bones! But let us take sweet counsel together. Dost not thou sit in the centre of the body, determining the quality of every atom of carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen, before it passes into the bones? Are not we, then, through thee, our great mother, arbiters of the destiny of those bones, whom thou, with divine indignation, callest horrid? We know that thou art less feebly sensitive than many of us, for we recollect how, in the days of Charles II., thou wast handled alive by a surgeon, and didst not flinch any more than if thou hadst been bone. But we pray thee to consider what would be our

fate were we to change our nature. Should we not wear out by our friction, instead of elastically rebounding? Does not our very shrinking save us? Nay, would not the bones be harder still than we, and instead of, as now, loving us and forbearing pressure, come through us, if we did not feel? Besides, some of us have a secret liking for those bones, feel their support, and cling with great affection to our ribs. Thou speakest of great principles, which we do not understand-oxygen and hydrogen. Thou art very wise, and we are very foolish-we only know that flesh is flesh and bone is bone. Thou sayest flesh is bone: but we cannot help thinking that we are as nature made us, and better so. Thou meditatest, mighty philosopheress! on nitrogen and carbon. To us bones are dear. We think that all the discipline which thou recommendest would make us only firmer and healthier flesh, but flesh still, and that only by destruction of our nature could we become bone. We do not wish the bones ever to forget that we are flesh, or to treat us as bone treats bone. We should as soon expect a gentleman in the course of conversation to forget the difference of sex-to consider only mind versus mind, and, smiting the feminine possessor of the mind upon the shoulder, to say, "Come, hold your jaw, old fellow." Most magnanimous heart! we are very tender, and do not like to have it forgotten that we are made of flesh and blood.'

Methought the heart heaved with scorn, and replied :-

'Ye concrete feebleness! I am, then, not as ye are. The abstract principles of my nature are identical with those of the tyrants. I will alter the proportions; I will appropriate a little of the lime which the heartless bones monopolise. I, too, will be a bone.' (Heartless bones.' N.B.-This was the last touching inconsistency of the flesh of which the heart was ever guilty.)

She persisted in her resolve. By degrees her eloquent and throbbing utterances became stilled in silence. She got harder and harder, and knocked against the ribs, blow for blow, giving knocks and receiving them with interest. The last wish she expressed was to be made acquainted with anatomy practically, being certain that she should be as callous to the knife as any bone.