Pages from a Journal with Other Papers eBook

trial, and is condemned without plea or excuse on his own behalf, and with no cross-examination of the evidence.  No witnesses have been called to his character.  What would his friends at Kerioth have said for him?  What would Jesus have said?  If He had met Judas with the halter in his hand would He not have stopped him?  Ah!  I can see the Divine touch on the shoulder, the passionate prostration of the repentant in the dust, the hands gently lifting him, the forgiveness because he knew not what he did, and the seal of a kiss indeed from the sacred lips.

SIR WALTER SCOTT’S USE OF THE SUPERNATURAL IN THE “BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR”

The supernatural machinery in Sir Walter Scott’s Monastery is generally and, no doubt, correctly, set down as a mistake.  Sir Walter fails, not because the White Lady of Avenel is a miracle, but because being miraculous, she is made to do what sometimes is not worthy of her.  This, however, is not always true, for nothing can be finer than the change in Halbert Glendinning after he has seen the spirit, and the great master himself has never drawn a nobler stroke than that in which he describes the effect which intercourse with her has had upon Mary.  Halbert, on the morning of the duel between himself and Sir Piercie Shafton, is trying to persuade her that he intends no harm, and that he and Sir Piercie are going on a hunting expedition.  “Say not thus,” said the maiden, interrupting him, “say not thus to me.  Others thou may’st deceive, but me thou can’st not.  There has been that in me from the earliest youth which fraud flies from, and which imposture cannot deceive.”  The transforming influence of the Lady is here just what it should be, and the consequence is that she becomes a reality.

But it is in the Bride of Lammermoor more particularly that the use of the supernatural is not only blameless but indispensable.  We begin to rise to it in that scene in which the Master of Ravenswood meets Alice.  “Begone from among them,” she says, “and if God has destined vengeance on the oppressor’s house, do not you be the instrument. .

. .  If you remain here, her destruction or yours, or that of both, will be the inevitable consequence of her misplaced attachment.”  A little further on, with great art, Scott having duly prepared us by what has preceded, adds intensity and colour.  He apologises for the “tinge of superstition,” but, not believing, he evidently believes, and we justly surrender ourselves to him.  The Master of Ravenswood after the insult received from Lady Ashton wanders round the Mermaiden’s Well on his way to Wolf’s Crag and sees the wraith of Alice.  Scott makes horse as well as man afraid so that we may not immediately dismiss the apparition as a mere ordinary product of excitement.  Alice at that moment was dying, and had “prayed powerfully that she might see her master’s son and renew her warning.”  Observe the difference between this and any vulgar