evil she fled from increased fourfold.  One historian of philosophy (who was a great favorite of her guardian), having lost all confidence in the subjects he treated, set himself to work to show the fallacy of all systems, from Anaximander to Cousin.  She found the historians of philosophy as much at variance as the philosophers themselves, and looked with dismay into the dim land of vagaries into which metaphysics had drawn the brightest minds of the past.  Then her guardian’s favorite quotation recurred to her with painful significance:  “There is no criterion of truth; all is merely subjective truth.”  It was the old skeptical palladium, ancient as metaphysics.  She began to despair of the truth in this direction; but it certainly existed somewhere.  She commenced the study of Cousin with trembling eagerness; if at all, she would surely find in a harmonious “Eclecticism” the absolute truth she has chased through so many metaphysical doublings.  “Eclecticism” would cull for her the results of all search and reasoning.  For a time she believed she had indeed found a resting-place; his “true” satisfied her; his “beautiful” fascinated her; but when she came to examine his “Theodieea,” and trace its results, she shrank back appalled.  She was not yet prepared to embrace his subtle pantheism.  Thus far had her sincere inquiries and efforts brought her.  It was no wonder her hopeful nature grew bitter and cynical; no wonder her brow was bent with puzzled thought and her pale face haggard and joyless.  Sick of systems, she began to search her own soul; did the very thing of all others best calculated to harass her mind and fill it with inexplicable mysteries.  She constituted her own reason the sole judge; and then, dubious of the verdict, arraigned reason itself before itself.  Now began the desperate struggle.  Alone and unaided, she wrestled with some of the grimmest doubts that can assail a human soul.  The very prevalence of her own doubts augmented the difficulty.  On every side she saw the footprints of skepticism; in history, essays, novels, poems, and reviews.  Still her indomitable will maintained the conflict.  Her hopes, aims, energies, all centered in this momentous struggle.  She studied over these world-problems until her eyes grew dim and the veins on her brow swelled like cords.  Often gray dawn looked in upon her, still sitting before her desk, with a sickly, waning lamplight gleaming over her pallid face.  And to-day, as she looked out on the flying clouds, and listened to the mournful wail of the rushing gale, she seemed to stand upon the verge of a yawning chaos.  What did she believe?  She knew not.  Old faiths had crumbled away; she stood in a dreary waste, strewn with the wreck of creeds and systems; a silent desolation!  And with Richter’s Christ she exclaimed:  “Oh! how is each so solitary in this wide grave of the All?  I am alone with myself.  Oh, Father! oh, Father, where is thy infinite bosom, that I might rest on it?” A belief in something she must have; it was an absolute