INFL UENCES IN LITER A TURE. 1 1 5 



ically from centre to circumference — from the 

 heart of an oak to the outermost garment of 

 a "dude." 



Mr. Hardy's novel, But yet a Woman, and 

 Mr. Crawford's Mr. Isaacs, leaped at once into 

 popular favor on account of die 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 of its 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 the library 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- 

 lure. He had a charming knowledge of 

 marine effects, and it seems to me that his 

 verse 



" Infinis bercements du loisir enbaumd " 



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 



