a sound like a strong tide, a
great flow, deepening as I proceeded. Light broke, movement gathered,
chimes pealed--to what was I coming? Entering on the level of a Grande
Place, I found myself, with the suddenness of magic, plunged amidst a
gay, living, joyous crowd.

"Villette is one blaze, one broad illumination; the whole world seems
abroad; moonlight and heaven are banished: the town by her own
flambeaux, beholds her own splendour--gay dresses, grand equipage, fine
horses and gallant riders, throng the bright streets. I see even scores
of masks. It is a strange scene, stranger than dreams."

This is only beaten by that lyric passage that ends _Villette_; that
sonorous dirge that rings high above all pathos, which is somehow a song
of triumph, inspired by the whole power and splendour and magnificence
of storm and death.

"The sun passes the equinox; the days shorten, the leaves grow sere;
but--he is coming.

"Frosts appear at night; November has sent his fogs in advance; the wind
takes its autumn moan; but--he is coming.

"The skies hang full and dark--a rack sails from the west; the clouds
cast themselves into strange forms--arches and broad radiations; there
rise resplendent mornings--glorious, royal, purple, as monarch in his
state; the heavens are one flame; so wild are they, they rival battle at
its thickest--so bloody, they shame Victory in her pride. I know some
signs of the sky, I have noted them ever since childhood. God, watch
that sail! Oh, guard it!

"The wind shifts to the west. Peace, peace, Banshee--'keening' at every
window! It will rise--it will swell--it shrieks out long: wander as I
may through the house this night, I cannot lull the blast. The advancing
hours make it strong; by midnight all sleepless watchers hear and fear a
wild south-west storm.

"That storm roared frenzied for seven days. It did not cease till the
Atlantic was strewn with wrecks: it did not lull till the deeps had
gorged their fill of substance. Not till the destroying angel of tempest
had achieved his perfect work, would he fold the wings whose waft was
thunder--the tremor of whose plumes was storm."

* * * * *

After _Villette_, the _Last Sketch_, the _Fragment of Emma_; that
fragment which Charlotte Bronte read to her husband not long before her
death. All he said was, "The critics will accuse you of repetition."

The critics have fulfilled his cautious prophecy. The _Fragment_ pas