youthfulness was (as it often, if not always,
is in the chosen of the earth) one of his most amiable features, seems
to have conceived a new _engouement_ for this new and quaintly
flavoured Russian literature. Had he lived longer, he probably would
have sung us something in a cautionary strain; just as it can never be
sufficiently regretted that he did not live long enough to handle
Ibsenism. And it would have been very particularly pleasant to hear
him on those _Memoirs of a Mongol Minx_ (as they have been
profanely called), which are assigned to the great Marie Bashkirtseff;
or on those others of the learned She-Mathematician, who waited with a
friend on a gentleman and suggested that he should marry _one_ of
them, no matter which, and lead both about. But the mixture of
freshness, of passion, and of regard for conduct in Count Tolstoi
could not but appeal to him; and he has given us a very charming
_causerie_ on _Anna Karenina_, notable--like O'Rourke's
noble feast--to

"Those who were there
And those who were not,"--

to those who have read the book itself, and to those who have not yet
found time to read it.

I cannot plead much greater affection for the lucubrations of Amiel
than for Count Tolstoi's dealings with that odd compound of crudity
and rottenness, the Russian nature; but Mr Arnold's "Amiel" is
admirable. Never was there a more "gentlemanly correction," a more
delicate and good-humoured setting to rights, than that which he
administers to Amiel's two great panegyrists (who happened to be Mr
Arnold's own niece and Mr Arnold's own friend). On subjects like Maya
and the "great wheel" it would almost be impossible to conceive, and
certainly impossible to find, a happier commentator than Mr Arnold,
though perhaps in the regions of theology he had a private Maya, a
very Great Wheel, of his own. The firmness with which he rebukes the
maunderings of the Genevese hypochondriac--of whom some one once
unkindly remarked that he was not so much intoxicated with Idealism as
suffering from the subsequent headache--is equalled by the kindness of
the dealing; and the quiet decision with which he puts his fine
writing in its proper place is better still. Nobody could call Mr
Arnold a Philistine or one insensible to _finesse_, grace,
_sehnsucht_, the impalpable and intangible charm of melancholy
and of thought. And his comments on Amiel's loaded pathos and his
muddled meditation are therefore invaluable. Nor is he