Mrs. MOORE does
what she can for him by blaming our Victorian ancestors and their habits of
mind; but I think it is only fair to add that, delightful as _Jane_ is, she
was not made for happiness any more than the people who enjoy poor health
have it in them to be robust, and that, true as much of the author's
criticism is, she has not been able to give _The Blind Marksman_, for his
future improvement, any very helpful ideas as to how he is to shoot.
* * * * *
The Devil, in so far as I have met him in fiction, has usually been a
highly successful intriguer on behalf of anyone prepared to make the
necessary bargain. Sir RONALD ROSS, however, to judge from the rather
confused mediaeval happenings in the Alps which are faithfully described in
_The Revels of Orsera_ (MURRAY), has rather a low opinion of the
intelligence of Mephistopheles. Anyhow, a certain _Zozimo_, deformed in
body but of great romantic sensibility, appears to have exchanged his
outward presence for that of a rich and handsome young Count, and in this
guise wooed the _Lady Lelita,_ for whose sake her father had devised a
magnificent contest of suitors at Andermatt in the year 1495. After a great
deal of preliminary bungling the supposititious Count, with the Devil in
_Zozimo's_ shape as his body-servant, was just about to secure the object
of his affections when _Zozimo_ was stabbed by his mother, with the result
that the double identity was fused and the _Lady Lelita_ was left with a
dying dwarf as her knight.
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