Is she more inspired when she causes a cloud of vapor to rise from her mouth about her hair?  Did Lelia escape from the head of her mother through a burning mist, as Sin, according to Milton, proceeded from the head of the glorious and guilty archangel amid a whirlpool of smoke?  I know not what passes in the sacred courts; but here below Neamede, Phila, Lais, Gnathene, the witty Phryne, the despair of the pencil of Apelles, and the chisel of Praxiteles, Leena, beloved of Harmodias, the two sisters named Aphyes, because they were small and had large eyes, Dorica, the fillet of whose locks and embalmed robe were consecrated in the temple of Venus,—­all these enchantresses knew only the perfumes of Arabia.  It is true that Madame Sand has on her side the authority of the Odalisques and the young Mexicans who dance with cigars between their lips.

What effect has Madame Sand had upon me, after the few gifted women, and many charming women whom I have known—­after those daughters of the earth, who like Madame Sand said with Sappho:  “Come, Mother of Love, to our delicious banquets, fill our cups with the nectar of roses?” As I have placed myself now in fiction and now in reality, the author of Valentine has made on me two very different impressions.

As for fiction, I do not speak of it, for I ought no longer to understand its language; as for reality, a man of grave age, cherishing the notions of propriety, attaching as a Christian the highest value to the timid virtue of woman.  I know not how to express my unhappiness at such a mass of rich endowments bestowed on the prodigal and faithless hours which are spent and vanish.

* * * * *

Maria Brooks and Southey.

It is well known that our countrywoman Maria Del OCCIDENTE was on terms of familiar intimacy with the poet-laureate, whose admiration of her genius is illustrated in several allusions to her in his works, and particularly in that passage of “The Doctor” in which she is described as “the most impassioned and imaginative of all poetesses.”  Southey superintended the publication of “Zophiel,” in London, and afterward was a frequent correspondent of Mrs. Brooks, during her residence in New York and in Cuba.  Among the souvenirs of Mrs. Brooke’s grateful recollection of his kindness, are two or three short poems commemorating her visits to Keswick, and the following song, put into a lyrical form by her, from the blank verse of “Madoc.”

Prince HOEL’S lay of love.

  I’ve harnessed thee, my faithful steed—­
  Now, by the ocean, prove thy speed,
  While, as we pass, th’ advancing spray
  Shall kiss thy side of glossy gray;—­
  Oh! fairer than the ocean foam
  Is that cold maid for whom we roam! 
    Her cheek is like the apple flower
  Or summer heavens, at evening hour,
  While, in her tender bashfulness,