Low voices with the ministering hand

Hung round the sick. The maidens came, they talk'd,
They sang, they read: till she not fair began
To gather light, and she that was became
Her former beauty treble; and to and fro
With books, with flowers, with angel offices,
Like creatures native unto gracious act,

And in their own clear element, they moved.

It is evident that the diction here is provided with that incidental transfigurement which we have recognized as ensured by interpretative modes of utterance. The high seriousness and beauty of the passage make themselves felt. Every paragraph like this is a shining mosaic of spiritual instances, set in substitution for just so much of the trite and moiling groundwork of the world's facts. Sanctuary is surely not a good name for a women's college, such as now in question, so far as its architecture, and magnificence, and indeed its purposes, are concerned; but the author, making shift to indicate all these by the word, compels with it an interpretative recognition of the sacred and extreme exclusiveness which the Princess has ordained and thought to compass here. Thus we feel that "sanctuary" is spiritually precise, and is the best Truth-name of the genus to which the college actually belongs. Violate is a word of very different suggestiveness, and throws the darkest and most brutal of masculine shadows upon the idea preceding. It is plainly said antitypally as a sympathetic" or "beauty" word of degree, to interpret, from the Princess's point of view, what has really happened to her ideals and plan. Fair, with like sympathetic purport and purpose, invests this college of violet and daffodil hoods and gowns with such

charm as woman's taste must always give to all things hers. Turned to hospital is, of course, not literally true. at all; only for the nonce shall wounded knights be nursed and surgeoned here. Yet spiritually is the change as real as if nothing were to be done forever in those rooms and halls but merciful tending upon the hurt and sick. With all confusion is an exaggerated "feeling" or sympathetic expression, interpretative of degree; appealing to us imaginatively in the guise of withdrawing all the confusion from the rest of the world, and massing it in this place. Sweet order lived again is a Beauty allegory; the muse or genius of Order is conceived to take up her abode here, for there is no outward show of magistracy or authority any more. With other laws, namely, than those Draconian ones till now depended on to ensure security. Laws is the spiritual Truth-name for the forces that now control. "Laws" they are not, for there is no power in exercise to declare them, and none to execute. The presence of suffering, with the pity and the willingness to help,—such are the things that have in this home now more than the force of law. A kindlier influence reigned; not allegory, but a metaphoric interpretation of the Truth kind. Influence is a good Truth name of that which now keeps the school-maids tame and respectful and demure. Instead of the truculent, unsexed will of the PrincessHead, who has ruled by threats, and by her oppressive, brow-beating presence, the air is full of a kindlier spirit that subdues and softens. Reigned is likewise a good Truth name, and puts this government into its right genus. Here is indeed a reign, though there is no ruler. Low voices (ie., of nurses tending, speaking to surgeons)

with the ministering hand hung round the sick gives us an impressionistic glimpse, in the sympathetic or Beauty way, of what is being done. The voices do not rise in the room, but seem to hover about the couches; those hands that are always near, smoothing coverlets and adjusting pillows,-they also seem to hover. The maidens came, they talked, they sang, they read, -things done put for the motive of the doing, as marks or measures of degree, to make us feel their feelings. There seem none hoydenish or frowzy or froward among the group; all are alike maidenly and idealized by the place, and the presence, and the sentiments they show. Till she not fair began to gather light,—to respond, that is, to the nobler sympathies and impulses within, to be transfigured with the marks of an enlarging soul. Here is an appeal to a spiritual Truth-law, put interpretatively for a fact happening in accordance with it. And she that was became her former beauty treble. Here is an interpretative attempt, of the third kind, to measure the increase of beauty wrought in gentle, generous souls by generous, gentle deeds. We often say, crudely, and inexactly, "ten times rather," "a hundred times more lovely," or "fortunate,

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clever," or that we are not half so sorry for this person as for this other, or that we have not the tenth part of the interest in some certain matter as in some other one. There is no way of measuring a feeling, or the cause of a feeling, quantitatively, but we borrow the suggestion of multiples and ratios, in lieu of better means. Hence, treble, which should be a Truth-term, is here used as an interpretative expedient of the sympathetic or Beauty kind. And to and fro with books, with flowers, with angel offices :

first, as befits young ladies of refined intelligence, they read to the prostrate sufferers; next, they set flowers so as to be in sight always of the patients,—thus measuring to us the degree of their inspired thoughtfulness; and with a hundred indeterminate little kindnesses, like a mother's to a suffering child, offices such as the presence of angels might procure, not in smoothing pillows, or administering drinks or viands, but inspiring calm and strength and cheer; like creatures native unto gracious act, servitors whose birth endows them to ceaseless acts of graciousness; and in their own clear element they moved,-like angels in their purer world, where there is no merchandizing, or bickering, or drudging. The whole palace seemed a world of gentleness and beauty, an ethereal sphere. Only here, and thus, Tennyson would hold, does earth touch the confines of heaven. Woman should never hedge herself from man, or enter into competition with him, but allied with him without fear or presumption, inspire his work and complete his mission, so enlarging her life and ennobling his. This echo of the author's final meaning sounds everywhere in this closing canto of the poem. The whole, to prepared and discerning souls, is an evangel and a prophecy,-by no means obsolete, as some would hold, of rarest delicacy and power. As a piece of interpretative writing, it is, without gainsaying, unsurpassed in universal literature.

VII.

Interpretation may consist not only in identifying and bringing to consciousness ultimate qualities of the Beautiful and the True, but likewise in evaluating or realizing imaginatively their degree.

One of the chief means of interpretative expression is Figures. In order to understand what figures do, it will be necessary to inquire into the essential elements which make up each as an idea. Let us take examples from the third paragraph of "The Prologue" in this volume:

'that was old Sir Ralph's at Ascalon :

A good knight he! We keep a chronicle
With all about him,'-which he brought, and I
Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights,
Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kings
Who laid about them at their wills and died;
And mix'd with these a lady, one that arm'd
Her own fair head, and sallying thro' the gate
Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls.

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There are three strongly interpretative figures in this passage, 'dived," "hoard," and "mixed." To dive means to cut one's self off from one environment, and adapt one's self immediately to the exigencies of another. It serves as the name of at least three combined efforts and experiences,—of throwing the body violently and blindly forward, of plunging head foremost, with the arms stretched and hands clasped above, into deep water, and of holding one's breath, of establishing one's balance, and otherwise behaving fish-like, under the water. All who have ever risked the feat recognize emotionally these three