“I was as one that sleeps on the railway; one who, dreaming,
  Hears thro’ his dream the name of his home shouted out,—­hears
    and hears not,
  Faint, and louder again, and less loud, dying in distance,—­
  Dimly conscious, with something of inward debate and choice, and
  Sense of [present] claim and reality present; relapses,
  Nevertheless, and continues the dream and fancy, while forward,
  Swiftly, remorseless, the car presses on, he knows not whither.”
    —­p.38.

Indeed, the general adaptation of the style to the immediate matter, the alternation of the poetic and the familiar, with a certain mixture even of classical phrase and allusion, is highly appropriate, and may almost be termed constant, except in occasional instances where more poetry, and especially more conception and working out of images, is introduced than squares with a strict observance of nature.  Thus the lines quoted where Elspie applies to herself the incident of “the high new bridge” and “the great key-stone in the middle” are succeeded by others (omitted in our extract) where the idea is followed into its details; and there is another passage in which, through no less than seventeen lines, she compares herself to an inland stream disturbed and hurried on by the mingling with it of the sea’s tide.  Thus also one of the most elaborate descriptions in the poem,—­an episode in itself of the extremest beauty and finish, but, as we think, clearly misplaced,—­is a picture of the dawn over a great city, introduced into a letter of Philip’s, and that, too, simply as an image of his own mental condition.  There are but few poets for whom it would be superfluous to reflect whether pieces of such-like mere poetry might not more properly form part of the descriptive groundwork, and be altogether banished from discourse and conversation, where the greater amount of their intrinsic care and excellence becomes, by its position, a proportionally increasing load of disregard for truthfulness.

For a specimen of a peculiarly noble spirit which pervades the whole work, we would refer the reader to the character of Arthur Audley, unnecessary to the story, but most important to the sentiment; for a comprehensive instance of minute feeling for individuality, to the narrative of Lindsay and the corrections of Arthur on returning from their tour.

  “He to the great might have been upsoaring, sublime and ideal;
  He to the merest it was restricting, diminishing, dwarfing;”

For pleasant ingenuity, involving, too, a point of character, to the final letter of Hobbes to Philip, wherein, in a manner made up of playful subtlety and real poetical feeling, he proves how “this Rachel and Leah is marriage.”