d in question.

"Nothing in my old beliefs," she writes, "was sufficiently formulated in
me, from a social point of view, to help me to struggle against this
cataclysm; and in the religious and socialistic theories of the moment I
did not find light enough to contend with the darkness." The poet's
creed, with which her mind had hitherto rested satisfied, was shaken,
and appeared to prove a false one. She was staggered by the infinity of
evil, misery, and injustice, which dwellers in great cities are not
allowed to forget, the problem of humanity, the eternal mystery of
suffering and wrong predominant in a world on the beneficence of whose
Supreme Power all her faiths were founded.

Her mental revolt and suffering found vent in _Lelia_, which it was an
immense relief to her to write. Characteristic as an exhibition of
feeling and of mastery of language, it is not in the least typical of
her fiction. Yet, but for _Lelia_, and its successor _Jacques_, it is
impossible to point to a work of hers that would ever have lastingly
stamped her, in the public mind, as an expounder of dangerous theories.
In _Lelia_, however, which is strongly imbued with Byronic coloring, she
had chosen to pose somewhat as the proud angel in rebellion; and the
immediate effect of hostile criticism was to confirm her in the position
taken up. Neither _Lelia_ nor _Jacques_ combined the elements of lasting
popularity with those of instant success; but they roused a stir and
strife which created an impression of her as a writer systematically
inimical to religion and marriage--an impression almost ludicrously at
variance with facts, taking her fiction as a whole, but which has only
recently begun to give way, in this country, to a juster estimate of its
tendencies.

The morality of _Lelia_, which it is rather difficult to discuss
seriously in the present day, both the personages and their environment
being too preternatural for any direct application to be drawn from
them, as reflecting modern society, found indiscreet champions as
determined as its aggressors. Violently denounced by M. Capo de
Feuillide, of the _Europe litteraire_, it was warmly defended by M.
Gustave Planche, in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. The war of words grew
so hot between them that a challenge and encounter were the
result--surely unique in the annals of duelling. The swords of the
critics fortunately proved more harmless than their words.

From the morbid depression that ha