Within the hollow of thy hand—­
      This wooded dell half up the height,
      Where streams take breath midway in flight—­
   Here let me stand.

   Here warbles not a lowland bird,
      Here are no babbling tongues of men;
      Thy rivers rustling through the glen
   Alone are heard.

   Above no pinion cleaves its way,
      Save when the eagle’s wing, as now,
      With sweep imperial shades thy brow
   Beetling and grey.

   What thoughts are thine, majestic peak? 
      And moods that were not born to chime
      With poets’ ineffectual rhyme
   And numbers weak?

   The green earth spreads thy gaze before,
      And the unfailing skies are brought
      Within the level of thy thought. 
   There is no more.

   The stars salute thy rugged crown
      With syllables of twinkling fire;
      Like choral burst from distant choir,
   Their psalm rolls down.

   And I within this temple niche,
      Like statue set where prophets talk,
      Catch strains they murmur as they walk,
   And I am rich.

Miss Ella Curtis’s A Game of Chance is certainly the best novel that this clever young writer has as yet produced.  If it has a fault, it is that it is crowded with too much incident, and often surrenders the study of character to the development of plot.  Indeed, it has many plots, each of which, in more economical hands, would have served as the basis of a complete story.  We have as the central incident the career of a clever lady’s-maid who personifies her mistress, and is welcomed by Sir John Erskine, an English country gentleman, as the widow of his dead son.  The real husband of the adventuress tracks his wife to England, and claims her.  She pretends that he is insane, and has him removed.  Then he tries to murder her, and when she recovers, she finds her beauty gone and her secret discovered.  There is quite enough sensation here to interest even the jaded City man, who is said to have grown quite critical of late on the subject of what is really a thrilling plot.  But Miss Curtis is not satisfied.  The lady’s-maid has an extremely handsome brother, who is a wonderful musician, and has a divine tenor voice.  With him the stately Lady Judith falls wildly in love, and this part of the story is treated with a great deal of subtlety and clever analysis.  However, Lady Judith does not marry her rustic Orpheus, so the social convenances are undisturbed.  The romance of the Rector of the Parish, who falls in love with a charming school-teacher, is a good deal overshadowed by Lady Judith’s story, but it is pleasantly told.  A more important episode is the marriage between the daughter of the Tory squire and the Radical candidate for the borough.  They separate on their wedding-day, and are not reconciled till the third volume.  No one could say that Miss Curtis’s book is dull.  In fact, her style is very bright and amusing.  It is impossible, perhaps, not to be a little bewildered by the amount of characters, and by the crowded incidents; but, on the whole, the scheme of the construction is clear, and certainly the decoration is admirable.