And yet in the midst of all these marks of haste and negligence, here and there the philosophical student of history betrays himself, the ideal of noble achievement glows in an eloquent paragraph, or is embodied in a loving portrait like that of the professor and historian Harlem.  The novel, taken in connection with the subsequent developments of the writer’s mind, is a study of singular interest.  It is a chaos before the creative epoch; the light has not been divided from the darkness; the firmament has not yet divided the waters from the waters.  The forces at work in a human intelligence to bring harmony out of its discordant movements are as mysterious, as miraculous, we might truly say, as those which give shape and order to the confused materials out of which habitable worlds are evolved.  It is too late now to be sensitive over this unsuccessful attempt as a story and unconscious success as a self-portraiture.  The first sketches of Paul Veronese, the first patterns of the Gobelin tapestry, are not to be criticised for the sake of pointing out their inevitable and too manifest imperfections.  They are to be carefully studied as the earliest efforts of the hand which painted the Marriage at Cana, of the art which taught the rude fabrics made to be trodden under foot to rival the glowing canvas of the great painters.  None of Motley’s subsequent writings give such an insight into his character and mental history.  It took many years to train the as yet undisciplined powers into orderly obedience, and to bring the unarranged materials into the organic connection which was needed in the construction of a work that should endure.  There was a long interval between his early manhood and the middle term of life, during which the slow process of evolution was going on.  There are plants which open their flowers with the first rays of the sun; there are others that wait until evening to spread their petals.  It was already the high noon of life with him before his genius had truly shown itself; if he had not lived beyond this period, he would have left nothing to give him a lasting name.

V.

1841-1842.  AEt. 27-28.

First diplomatic appointment, secretary of legation to the Russian mission.—­Brief residence at st. Petersburg.—­Letter to his mother.  —­Return.

In the autumn of 1841, Mr. Motley received the appointment of Secretary of Legation to the Russian Mission, Mr. Todd being then the Minister.  Arriving at St. Petersburg just at the beginning of winter, he found the climate acting very unfavorably upon his spirits if not upon his health, and was unwilling that his wife and his two young children should be exposed to its rigors.  The expense of living, also, was out of proportion to his income, and his letters show