theirs is the golden harp, with which to celebrate the mysterious victory over sorrow and disappointment-the solution of the problem insoluble to the world, the final triumph of Love over Pain.

We are on the highest slope of a breezy cliff, a foreland of the glorious coast which makes North Devon the loveliest of English counties. The path, mounting straight up from the village below without any curve or winding, out of effeminate regard for the steepness of the hill, has left the thick hedges, which at its lower levels rise over it on each side, like an old arch out of which the keystone has dropped, but which yet preserves its stability. It has passed beyond the fringe of flowers on either hand-the tall foxglove, yellow hawkweed, pink herbrobert, and the white milfoil; it has emerged upon the open down, where it runs along the edge of the precipice, and looks out upon the tossing sea beneath and beyond. The great waves of the channel show from this height no signs of motion, save in the white lines of crested foam and wild seahorses' manes that lie flecked about the surface; the steamer below, that is tossing and rolling as she plunges along, seems to be moving on a sea of molten glass; the clouds that fly across the sky cast their shadows before and behind them upon the waters; and the face of ocean, as you gaze upon it to its blue distances beyond, is as bright, as profound, and as impenetrable as the face of the Sphinx rising out of the white sands and warmed with the cloudless sunshine of the desert. For that "multitudinous smile" which we quote so often is a subjective thing. We see in the ocean, as in nature, what we feel in ourselves: we are in a mood of laughter, and ocean smiles; we are in a mood of sadness, and ocean is grave: we are contemplative, and its face is like that of the owl-faced Athênê for unutterable wisdom. On either side the hill descends rapidly; on either side the view is nearly the same. To right and left is seen a circular cove, into which the waves rush through the narrow mouth and sweep back, dragging with them shingle, stones, drift-wood, seaweed-all the flotsam and jetsam of a wild coast. On either side are long

WITH HARP AND CROWN

A NOVEL

BY

WALTER BESANT AND JAMES RICE

LIBRARY EDITION

NEW YORK

DODD, MEAD & COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

PREFACE.

ITH HARP AND CROWN" is a story of woman's fidelity,

patience, and unmerited misfortune. Contrary to the usual practice in novels, and more in accordance with the experience of real life, Marion Revel's sufferings are rewarded -cynically, some critics, unthinking, said-by the withholding of life's supreme happiness. Who will deny that this is no strange and unknown fate? The years of self-denial, were women like Marion to look for the reward of selfish joy, would seem, in the end, a mockery and a waste. There are thousands such as she: their youth is spent in toil for others more helpless than themselves. They have no crown of husband and tender children. But in their calm and passionless faces, in the smile of content which reigns like the sun of heaven in their eyes, we know that they have their reward. Is there not in every family such a history, such a memory, such a woman? "Strength and honour are her clothing: she openeth her mouth with wisdom: in her tongue is the law of kindness: her own works praise her in the gates." It is nothing to her that the strong and the crafty, like Joe Chacomb, grow rich: that the helpless and the weak of will, like her brother Fred, live in idleness and eat the fruit of her hands. She is happy. For the sake of these good women, and for the real lesson of their lives, we have written this book.

W. B.

J. R.