The Idealist school, on the contrary, has an absolute standard of excellence to which it refers; it loves the hero or heroine in fiction, the beautiful in art, and it sets itself to find out the “reality” which underlies appearances. To give a simple example. A “realistic” novel of poor life would depict the bareness and misery of the cottage, the unlovely faces and clothing of its inmates, the toil for daily bread; not one depressing item would be spared, and one would rise from the story feeling as if one had indeed looked for a moment into the poor household and shared in its meagreness. A novel written from the idealist standpoint, while not inventing untrue and therefore inartistic details, would look below the surface and bring out, besides the poverty, the beauty and the pathos that are sure to exist wherever the human affections are found. As an illustration of our meaning we may quote _A Window in Thrums_, by J. M. Barrie, which, while sacrificing no vestige of truth, is the work of an artist who is an idealist. Set in the humble interior of a Scotch cottage, a lame homely mother, a workingman the father, a daughter of whom we are not told she is startlingly lovely, or indeed startlingly anything—this is the simple little company that, for the main part, act out a drama of such pathos, and beauty, and charm, that the heart is full of “thoughts too deep for tears” after reading some of the inimitable chapters. This is Life, and life seen in the true way—the idealist’s way—by the artist who has imagination. For imagination is the faculty, not of inventing falsehoods, but of revealing a deeper truth than that which lies upon the surface of things. Are we straying into reflections that are too obscure? It is better to suggest some means by which really artistic work shall be detected than to string together a list of books which might not appeal to many of our readers at all, and which might prove unsuitable for others. Whatever is lovely, noble, and pure in fiction—whether it be the telling of heroic deeds, or the discerning of significance in the “commonplace,” the homely and trivial—choose and delight in it. Avoid what makes you listless and dissatisfied with your daily life; choose what helps you to live and to work, and to do and be the very best that is in you; not forgetting that what is beautiful and exalted will purify your taste, charm your mind, and remain with you as an abiding power for good. LILY WATSON. SHEILA’S COUSIN EFFIE. A STORY FOR GIRLS. BY EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN, Author of “Greyfriars,” “Half-a-dozen Sisters,” etc. CHAPTER XXIV. AT COSSART PLACE. “Effie, how well you look! You are quite brown. How glad I am to see you again!”