A PROFOUND THINKER.

29

truthful simplicity and earnestness of feeling make her a beautiful painter of domestic life. Do read the 'Home;' you will be quite enchanted with it.

"And your remarks on Miss Edgeworth, too, which three or four years ago I should fiercely have disputed, I now cordially assent to. She gives us fine deeds and fine talk, but never a human being. She sees only the outside of life, appearances instead of realities, and is evidently one who observed acutely but neither thought nor felt deeply.

“You ask me what I have been reading lately. To confess the truth, I am in a state of mental starvation. I am afraid all my cares have been devoted to the body, that is to say, to preparing our new home. When we are in it I mean to do great things, but you know I am one who always 'means to do.' If I ought to judge of the future by the past, it won't end in much.

"Meanwhile, what little reading time I have, has been spent on the writings of the Transcendentalists, such as Emerson, as a sort of balance to my usual studies in Comte.

"Comte and Emerson are the two opposite poles of the present intellectual world. Comte is, I think, essentially a materialist. Emerson's writings are treated with a good deal of contempt and ridicule now, but I think the next generation will call him a great man. If people would have patience to study him, in spite of his apparent affectation and mysticism, they would, perhaps, find him a profound thinker.

"However, after all, eclecticism is a fine thing. Truth is to be found complete in no man's system, but

1

a portion of it in all systems. It is for the reader to collect it, and reconcile apparent contradictions.

"Just eleven o'clock! and I must rise with the lark to-morrow, and be as industrious as the bee. So goodnight and good-bye, dear friend."

The announcement of Anne Burrows's engagement to Alexander Gilchrist, is made so prettily by the former, in a letter written in 1848 to Julia Newton, that we are tempted to give the epistle-though in doing so we shall have sold cheap what is most dear':—

"I am driven up to the last corner of my note-paper, simply because I could not make up my mind to begin.

"Do you remember Mr. Gilchrist, and a long conversation we once had about him? Perhaps this question will make you guess the rest-guess that your friend is very happy, for she loves and is beloved by one who can fulfil her aspirations, realize her ideal of a true marriage, one who is her friend and helper, as well as her lover. But when I speak of marriage, do not think, dear, that that will come to pass next week, or next month, or within the next four or five years. In the first place, he is at present only a student for the Bar, and cannot afford to have a wife. And in the next place, I should not like to run away from mamma so soon-indeed I do not think I could ever make up my mind to do so-should not bear it unless she promised to live either with me, or next door to me. But this is looking a long way into the future.

"I know not how to describe him to you, dear Julia, except by telling you that he is altogether, both in intellect and heart, great, noble and beautiful.

"I am still engaged upon my old studies, which, together with general reading, very fully occupy the time that is at my own disposal.

By the bye, have you read yet Modern Painters' by a Graduate of Oxford? If not, pray do so forthwith, and I feel sure you will thank me for the suggestion."

Three years later, Annie writes from Earls Colne, 5th Jan., 1851

"Dear Julia little dreamed what sorrow had befallen her friend when her affectionate Christmas greeting reached Colne. The same post brought tidings that Alex. was taken suddenly and dangerously ill, and another hour saw me on the road to London. I found him past the worst. the worst. My Christmas was spent in nurs

ing him.

"Dear Julia will understand me, I think, when I tell her it was the sweetest Christmas I have yet passed. I left him on the Saturday after, all fear of relapse being then over, and he rapidly regaining his strength, which the severity of the attack had entirely prostrated. And so I left him, with a heart full of gratitude to God, and renewed happiness. And though, of course, his visit to Colne was entirely relinquished, he would not exchange those few days for months of our usual happy, serene Colne meetings."

One month after this, Anne Burrows and Alexander Gilchrist were married quietly at Colne Church-on Tuesday morning, February 4th, 1851.