" GERARD'S MONUMENT."
(Torus EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:]
SIR,—The exceptional candour with which you are ever ready to rectify misunderstanding induces me to believe that you will permit me to free" Valery," the heroine of " Gerard's Monu- ment," from the charge of having married the goldsmith "moved administration of ontd r relief. Hitherto everyone has consulted by her desire to get for her brother the gold which he needs for his researches."
if any haziness attach to the working out of other parts of the story, I had thought there could be none to obscure the fact that the goldsmith won the love of his future wife in the manner in which the love of maidens has been won from Juliet downwards, the true light of love in his own eyes, and the true ring of love in his own voice and words. That after this (which may be sudden as revelation), she should account him a "king of men," is, as I think, in accord with the inexorable logic which governs the movements of women's hearts, and which their "higher education" will hardly better.
When Valery arouses her dreamy brother with the thrice reiterated,— " Gerard, my brother times now three, The gold for you, a gem for me, — The offer of a heart as great As sunk and poor is our estate,"
she does but put forward a motive which she knows will be powerful in swaying his consent, but which has not swayed her own.
However specious may be the pleas for self-sacrifice, so called, there is but one motive for marriage which is not an offence to womanhood; and if I trouble you on the subject of my poem, it is not as an appeal from your otherwise favourable estimate of its merits, but from a desire that you will render me justice on a point of morality to which I attach even more importance.—I am,
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