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 36 artistic form. If it must be said, magnis excidit ausis, the descent was less abrupt than would have befallen a less animated poet, and was broken by excursions into the domains of history and allegory, more manageable than the domain of science.

"The Ascent of Man" was hardly completed when the authoress embarked upon another enterprise of quite a different nature, but equally indicative of her determination to aim high. No European book, perhaps, was just then so much talked of as the Memoirs of Marie Bashkirtseff, the ambitious young Russian whose path to fame proved to lie through autobiography. It seems unlikely that she would have attained to distinguished excellence in art or literature, unless possibly as a critic. Fine as is her description of Gambetta's funeral, the faculty of picturesque word-painting is not rare. But her passionate eagerness for fame, and other remarkable mental traits, made her a psychological, and, it must be added, a pathological, study of extreme interest. Mathilde resolved that the most distinguished Continental voice of the hour should be heard in England. Though well aware of the morbid aspects of Marie Bashkirtseffs character, she yet honoured her as an instance of intellectual energy in woman, and resolved to make her most interesting autobiography available to English readers, giving thereby much pleasure and gratification to the mother of Marie Bashkirtseff, who lived only for her daughter's fame. Growing ill-health made the translation laborious, the necessity for completing it by the stipulated period weighed heavily- upon her, and eventually a portion had to be entrusted to an accomplished lady-translator. Nevertheless, by far the larger part of the translation, which proved excellent, and which was warmly commended by Mr. Gladstone,