INFLUENCES [IN LITERATURE. 115 
ically from centre to circumference—from the 
heart of an oak to the outermost garment of 
a aude.” 
Mr. Hardy’s novel, But yet a Woman, and 
Mr. Crawford’s Mfr. Zsaacs, leaped at once into 
popular favor on account of the freshness that 
was in them. In both stories a knowledge of 
out-door life is blended with a keen insight 
into the most interesting mysteries of the 
human heart. Mr. Isaacs was not only a 
master polo-player and a crack shot; he was 
also a philosopher and a lover of no common 
sort. In But yet a Woman the descriptive 
passages and the epigrammatic paragraphs 
serve as a fixitive for the story, setting it per- 
manently, and giving it an air ofits own. The 
physical atmosphere is as wholesome and 
sweet as the moral spirit is sane and pure. 
One would suspect that the story had been 
written in the open air, or, at least, in the 
country, with thé brary windows wide open. 
Indeed, sunshine and air are as antiseptic and 
deodorizing in literature as in the field of phys- 
ical operations. Even Baudelaire occasion- 
ally, under the influence of a sea-breeze, wrote 
such a poem as Parfum Exotique, or La Cheve- 
dure. Ue had a charming knowledge of 
marine effects,and it seems to me that his 
verse 
“Tnfinis bercements du loisir enbaumé ’? 
is enough of itself to immortalize him. It is 
a whole poem. One sees the warm, creamy 
tropical water, feels the long, lazy swell, the in- 
finite idle rocking, the balmy leisure, and 
takes in, as by a breath, the illusive charm of 
the ever-mysterious sea. Buchanan Read’s 
