olute reality which carries the reader away and
for the moment absorbs him into the mind of the writer. Some
metempsychosis takes place. It is no longer a man or a woman turning the
pages of a book, it is a human being suddenly absorbed by the book
itself, living the very life which it records, breathing the spirit and
soul of the writer. Such books are events, not books to us, new
conditions of existence, new selves suddenly revealed through the
experience of other more vivid personalities than our own. The actual
experience of other lives is not for us, but this link of simple reality
of feeling is one all independent of events; it is like the miracle of
the loaves and fishes repeated and multiplied--one man comes with his
fishes and lo! the multitude is filled.

Footnote 4: And yet as I write I remember one indeed who is among us,
whose portrait a Reynolds or an Opie might have been glad to paint for
the generations who will love her works.

But this simple discovery, that of reality, that of speaking from the
heart, was one of the last to be made by women. In France Madame de
Sevigne and Madame de La Fayette were not afraid to be themselves, but
in England the majority of authoresses kept their readers carefully at
pen's length, and seemed for the most part to be so conscious of their
surprising achievements in the way of literature as never to forget for
a single instant that they were in print. With the exception of Jane
Austen and Maria Edgeworth, the women writers of the early part of this
century were, as I have just said, rather literary women than actual
creators of literature. It is still a mystery how they attained to their
great successes. Frances Burney charms great Burke and mighty Johnson
and wise Macaulay in later times. Mrs. Opie draws compliments from
Mackintosh, and compliments from the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg, and Sydney
Smith, and above all tears from Walter Scott.

Perhaps many of the flattering things addressed to Mrs. Opie may have
said not less for her own charm and sweetness of nature than for the
merit of her unassuming productions; she must have been a bright, merry,
and fascinating person, and compliments were certainly more in her line
than the tributes of tears which she records.

The authoresses of heroines are often more interesting than the heroines
themselves, and Amelia Opie was certainly no exception to this somewhat
general statement. A pleasant, sprightly authoress, beaming