scenes on which the curtain must remain unlifted? Possibly. Is Alcman the
helot who revealed, to the Ephors, the gigantic plots of his master just
when those plots were on the eve of execution? There is much in the
relations between Pausanias and the Mothon, as they are described in the
opening chapters of the romance, which favours, and indeed renders almost
irresistible, such a supposition. But then, on the other hand, what genius
on the part of the author could reconcile us to the perpetration by his
hero of a crime so mean, so cowardly, as that personal perfidy to which
history ascribes the revelation of the Regent's far more excusable
treasons, and their terrible punishment?

These questions must remain unanswered. The magician can wave his wand
no more. The circle is broken, the spells are scattered, the secret
lost. The images which he evoked, and which he alone could animate,
remain before us incomplete, semi-articulate, unable to satisfy the
curiosity they inspire. A group of fragments, in many places broken,
you have helped me to restore. With what reverent and kindly care,
with what disciplined judgment and felicitous suggestion, you have
accomplished the difficult task so generously undertaken, let me here
most gratefully attest. Beneath the sculptor's name, allow me to
inscribe upon the pedestal your own; and accept this sincere assurance
of the inherited esteem and personal regard with which I am,

My dear Dr. Kennedy,

Your obliged and faithful

LYTTON.

GINTRA, _5 July, 1875_.