"
She felt sure it must be hers, and she was not mistaken.
Breathlessly she ran over that first estimate of her work.
It was with no little elation that she laid down the number.
Not that the critique was by any means at all favorable. How could
Herminia expect it in such a quarter? But the "Spectator" is at
least conspicuously fair, though it remains in other ways an
interesting and ivy-clad mediaeval relic. "Let us begin by
admitting," said the Spectatorial scribe, "that Miss Montague's
book" (she had published it under a pseudonym) "is a work of
genius. Much as we dislike its whole tone, and still more its
conclusions, the gleam of pure genius shines forth undeniable on
every page of it. Whoever takes it up must read on against his
will till he has finished the last line of this terrible tragedy; a
hateful fascination seems to hold and compel him. Its very purity
makes it dangerous. The book is mistaken; the book is poisonous;
the book is morbid; the book is calculated to do irremediable
mischief; but in spite of all that, the book is a book of
undeniable and sadly misplaced genius.
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