It is a story of the darkest and most terrible interest, affecting the reader with a sort of grave and mystic awe, like that arising from the perusal of a supernatural story; yet there is nothing supernatural or mystical in the narrative, nothing in short beyond the conflicts of human passions, carried to excess, and unregulated either by human principle or Christian religion, against humility, benevolence, and the charity that thinks no harm. The tale, as regards the fortunes of the two principal actors, the hapless Aletheia and the noble-minded Richard Sydney, is almost too painfully interesting to be pleasurable reading. The circumstances out of which this powerful romance is formed, probably never did exist, and therefore some readers might consider them unnatural. I am not, however, prepared so to regard them, since such circumstances might readily arise from the natural causes to which they are assigned, and, if arising, might and indeed probably would produce consequences not unlike those deduced by the genius of the author. The terribly fierce passions of Sir Michael and the Lady Randolph are less easily reconciled, not to Nature--for Nature has exhibited far stronger and more terrible displays of fierce and morbid love distorted into fiercer and more monstrous hatred--but to the routine of daily probabilities, and to the tenor of social life in these days, when the formalities and decencies of society render the display of such feelings, in their extremity, wholly impossible. Still, so skilfully are the sterner and darker portions of the tale contrasted and relieved by the soft graces and pure gentleness of other characters, such as the sweet Lilias and the high-minded Walter, that there is nothing morbid or repulsive in the pervading gloom which is the general characteristic of the novel, and that the impression left upon the mind at the conclusion is agreeable, rather than the reverse; while the reader feels, on reaching the last page, that he has not been merely entertained, but in some degree edified, by the perusal of a work, affecting nothing less than to preach, and pretending neither to the inculcation of a set moral, nor to the propagation of a creed. The following passage, one of the finest descriptive passages in the book, will give you an admirable specimen of the forcible style, and thrilling interest, which is conspicuous in every line, and engrafted in every chapter of this singular work.