Fielding's crowd of fribbles and sots and oafs they carry that pure
moly of the Lady in "Comus." It is curious, indeed, that men have
drawn women more true and charming than women themselves have
invented, and the heroines of George Eliot, of George Sand (except
Consuelo), and even of Miss Austen, do not subdue us like Di
Vernon, nor win our sympathies like Rebecca of York. They may
please and charm for their hour, but they have not the immortality
of the first heroines of all--of Helen, or of that Alcmena who
makes even comedy grave when she enters, and even Plautus
chivalrous. Poetry, rather than prose fiction, is the proper home
of our spiritual mistresses; they dwell where Rosalind and Imogen
are, with women perhaps as unreal or as ideal as themselves, men's
lost loves and unforgotten, in a Paradise apart.



LETTER: From Mr. Clive Newcome to Mr. Arthur Pendennis.



Mr. Newcome, a married man and an exile at Boulogne, sends Mr.
Arthur Pendennis a poem on his undying affection for his cousin,
Miss Ethel Newcome. He desires that it may be published in a
journal with which Mr. Pendennis is connected. He adds a few
remarks on his pictures for the Academy.

Boulogne, March 28.

Dear Pen,--I have finished Belisarius, and he has gone to face the
Academicians. There is another little thing I sent--"Blondel" I