HALF-BELIEFS.

WE have just been reading a reprint brought out by Messrs. Blackwood of Mrs. Oliphant's "Stories of the Seen and the Unseen" (3s. 6d.) As we laid it down we asked ourselves how far may the element of the supernatural (we do not mean religion, properly so called) legitimately intrude into fiction; that is, into novels and stories whose aim is presumably to depict life as it is. Most discreet lovers of fiction—those, that is, who like to scrutinise the manners and motives of men as keen observers set them down in books—dislike the intervention of this element. Great men, they must admit, have introduced it,—Scott and Hawthorne, for instance. Nevertheless, they generally feel that it is a device recourse to which is lawful but not expedient,—a license which should be kept for the very great. We do not altogether agree with this verdict. The element of the supernatural enters a good deal into life. It is impossible to map out correctly the human heart and mind, leaving out that half - lit region which lies outside the realm of fancy and beyond the bounds of actual belief where those theories take shape whose propositions most men will not affirm and yet dare not deny. "Half-beliefs," as Mr. Bagehot calls them, have a great influence upon life; consequently their discussion has a 'Awe in fiction. Very often they are nothing but the ghosts of that passed-away host of certainties which kept up the light heart of our youth, belief in some of which we would perhaps have died to retain, but almost all of which we have probably lived to doubt. In our opinion, no author has ever known his way about the spiritualistic side of the commonplace mind better than Mrs. Oliphant. She was a past-mistress of what we may call the domestic supernatural. She never trespassed upon the vulgar precincts of mere horror, nor lost her way in the celestial country of pare poetry; neither, though her stories of the unseen are certainly religious, did she invade the various folds of the orthodox faith. She dealt exclusively with those improbable possibilities so dear to the heart, so foreign to the intelligence, of man. She writes of them in the only way they can properly be written of,—in a style "which shirks, not meets," the intellect. We do not, however, desire ta write an appreciation of Mrs. Oliphant, or a review of her ghost-stories; all we would do is to point out to our readers the immense part that " half-beliefs " play in life, and how hare and cold would be the appearance of the world if they were suddenly swept away.

Few of us, we suppose, would be prepared to say we believe that one mind can influence another from a distance without the help of speech, writing, or action. We are all ready to condemn the unscrupulous impostors who accept 30s. a week in remuneration for "absent treatment" of some poor credulous invalid. We are sure that we cannot project the number of a five - pound note into another man's mind, and that if we asked our friends to dinner by a process of williag, we could not tell the butler even approximately how many to lay for. All the same, when we write to a friend and our letter crosses his, it gives us pleasure to notice that the two were written upon the same day, and if, as not infrequently happens, the letters turn upon the same subjects, we think, even if we do not believe, that some means of communication other. than that of the post exists between us. Friendship would be a much poorer thing, and the world a much more lonely place, if we were sure that memory alone keeps up the fire of love in the minds of the absent.

None but Roman Catholics dare to dogmatise upon the icarious efficacy of works of supererogation. We agree with

'avid and with Matthew Arnold that "no man can save his brother's soul nor pay his brother's debt," and we regard those who shut themselves up in convents and give their lives to vain repetitions of "Ares" and "Paternosters" to deliver the world from the Devil as so many pious wasters of time. All the same, how much pathos would be taken out of life, and how much bitterness would take its place, if we had not some hazy idea that the sufferings of good people do benefit the worthless individuals for whom they are often undertaken. The idea of imputed righteousness lies at the root of love, but it is a senti- ment which turns to ashes at the least touch of logic. We all have a vague notion that we can by mere willing do each other good or harm. If we hear a person wishing another bad wishes, we are shocked, not because we think be is doing harm to his own mind and soul—this may very well be the case— but probably we despise him too much at the moment to care a pin. Oar instinctive feeling is that we have witnessed an injury and are sorry. The feeling is not, of course, so poignant es if the injury had been actual, but the one sensation is the shadow of the other. If we happen to say that we hate some one, and then immediately hear that he is ill, we instinctively take back our words. We do not definitely think that our ex- pression of opinion could stand in, the way of his recovery, but we anxiously avoid the possibility of its doing so. The dislike to speak ill of those lately dead has been proverbial for ages The feeling no doubt springs largely from a chivalrous fear of slandering those who can no longer speak in their own defence; but have we not also a secret feeling that our thought may injure a soul which has cast off all material protection ? True, we do not feel this of the dead we have never known; the dead in history are as the dead in fiction. Impersonal hates are not very pointed, and can probably injure no one. That a sense of well-being arises in the minds of those who feel that many people actively wish them well, we all vaguely know. To look for an opportunity to do a man a ,

good turn is, we suspect, to benefit him in some manner, even though the actual opportunity should never arise. To hate seine one to the extent of desiring to do him a mischief is to sin, we are certain,—and that not only against our own souls. ?fatty of us have experienced, or have imagined we experienced, In moments of doubt, perplexity, or suffering, a sense of suggestion, as if some friend prompted us to a course of action, or offered us an argument, a consolation, or a convic-

tion. If we had asked that friend whether or no he was aware of our mental distress on that particular day, he would Probably have told us that he was absorbed in his work or his I amusement, and never thought of us at all. Perhaps this ti On the other hand, it might prove nothing of the sort, I

might prove to our mind that the whole thing was imagine- On

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and we might consider that we had still a right to associate our friend with our moment of mental relief. We know next to nothing about the spiritual laws of the unseen world.

The person we thought of is sure to be some one who has actually desired our happiness, and expended his mental and moral force for our good or our pleasure, perhaps when we were in no immediate need. That force, for anything we know, may stand to our credit, and uphold us when we want it most.

Sensible pcople if they are asked whether they believe in ghosts generally reply, with a mixture of irritation and

sincerity, that they certainly do not. If, however, it is not impossible that we may be in some sort of touch with those at a distance, why is it impossible that we should be in touch with those at the greatest distance of all, with those, we mean, who have passed beyond the horizon of death ? It would greatly add to the sadness of life if every man were absolutely certain that no one he had ever loved, no one whom any one had ever loved, could ever again show him, by any manner of means, the slightest sympathy or the slightest approval, that nothing he ever did while he remained in the world could ever again be of the least consequence to the person to whom, maybe, for many years his affairs were the most important thing in life. Many men's influence lasts beyond their death; sometimes it seems to become stronger. Perhaps it may be all accounted for by the germination of the seed they sowed.

Perhaps, being dead, they still speak, and speak with more authority. If it would be absurd to affirm this latter

suggestion, why is it not equally absurd to affirm the former P Life is garnished by possibilities, and made beauti- ful by half-beliefs. To depict it without them is to draw a picture without atmosphere, to define the facts and miss the

truth :—

"Can science bear us To the hid springs Of human things? Why may not dream Or thought's day-gleam Startle yet cheer us?"