A Nihilist Romance.

Otago Witness, Issue 1555, 27 August 1881, Page 27

A Nihilist Romance.

The eldest daughter of a highly respectable St. Petersburg family, a maiden of eighteen, was betrothed a few months ago to a student of good birth and brilliant promise. The couple were most tenderly attaohed, and the marriage was to have taken place on the Wednesday in Easter week. On Easter Monday, when the young man made a visit to his intended bride, he told her that he had an important confession to make to her, and entreated her to hear it with patience and self-command. She was naturally excited, fearing to hear of some prior love-entanglement ; but she was struok with horror when she learned that the man to whom she had given her heart belonged to the Nihilist party. The lover shocked her still more by saying that as he had no doubt of her devotion to him, he felt certain that he should find her a faithful companion in the revolutionary career which he had planned for them. The poor girl saw all her hopes of peaoe and domestic joy dashed to pieces in one moment. She told him that she loved him above all the world, but if he persisted in his horrible course she would not live with him, though if she had to live without him she would die of grief. She was so resolute that the young man drew a dagcer to terrify her. She lefb the room, and her sweetheart rushed from the house. The girl fell Into a swoon, and was found In this condition by her mother, who could get no reply to her questions. The poor girl went to her own room and took poison. Her aot was discovered in time to send for a physician ; but it was tuo late to save her life, although her parents managed at last to draw from her the true cause of her snioidal act. The girl died, and the Nihilist student is now la the hands of the police.

An Extraordinary Case.

At a recent meeting of the Presbytery In Washington a petition from a portion of the congregation of the North Presbyterian Church was read, requesting the severance of the pastoral relations of the Rev. O. B. Ramsdell, now in charge of the congregation. The petition stated that considerable dissatlsfaotion existed in the ohuroh, whioh was traceable to the marriage of the paster with a member of the Roman Catholic Ohuroh. Dr Ramsdell being put o^ his defence said his wife was in the habit of going to her own church. She also went to confession to the priest in her own obureh. Dr Ramsdell was subjected to a rigid examination as to his and his wife's habits in connection with church customs, to whloh he replied that she pursued the path' whioh she thought led heavenward, and he wss doing the same. He would be gratified to have her join his church, but if she had other opinions, he was not responsible for them. She was a good wife as well as -a good ChristUn. Dr Ramsdell's remarks were very affecting at times, and when he had conoluded his explanation, the Presbytery adjourned until the evening, when a member offered a resolution aB follows :— • 'We declare our solemn judgment that no Presbyterian has a moral right to marry a Roman Cathollo lady, for her religious training teaohes her to look upon all Protestant* as heretics ; consequently her husband's usefulness as a minister is impaired.' The resolution further declared that the relations between Mr Ramsdell and the North Churoh be at onoe dissolved. The decision was postponed. . i

Novels and Novel-Writing:— The Author of " John Halifax " tells her Experience and Practice.

'How do you write a novel?' has beep asked me hundreds of times j and as half the world now writes novels, expecting the other other half to read them, my answer, given in plain print, may not be quite useless, What other novelists do I know not, bat this has been my own way — ab ovo. For, I contend, all stories that are meant to live must contain the germ of life, the egg, the vital principle. Therefore the first thing is to fix on a central idea, like the spine 6f a human being, or the trunk of a tree. From it, this one prinoipal ides, proceed all aftergrowths; the kind of plot whioh shall Best develop it, the characters which must aot it out, the incidents which will express these characters, even to the conversations whloh evolve and describe these incidents-rail are sequences following one another in natural order. Every part should be made subservient to the whole. You must have a foreground and, background and a middle distance. If you persist in working up one obaraoter, or finishing minutely one incident or series of incidents, your prospective will be destroyed and your novel become a mere collection of fragments, not a work of art at all. The true artist will always be ready to saorifioe any pet detail to the perfection of the whole. This, if I have put my meaning clearly, shows that a consolentlously-wrlttea novel is by no means a piece of impulsive, accidental scribbling, but a deliberate work of art ; that though in one sense it is also a work of nature, since every part ought to result from and be kept subservient to the whole, still, in another, the novel Is the last thing that ought to be allowed to say 9! itself, like Topsy, 'S'pects Igrowed.' Not even aB to the mere writing of it. . Style or composition, though to some it comes naturally, to others does not come at all. When I was young, an older and more ex* perlenoed writer once said to me : ' Never use two adjectives where one will do ; never use an adjeotive at all where a noun will do. Avoid italics, notes of exclamation, foreign words and quotations, rut full stops instead of colons. Make your sentenoes as short and clear as you possibly oan, and whenever you think you have written a particularly fine sentence, out it out.' We novelists cannot but smile when asked if such and such a character is 'taken from life,' and especially when ingenious critics persist in identifying — usually falsely— certain persons, plaoes, or Inoidents. For me, I can only say that during all the years I have studied humanity I have never met with one human being who could have been ' put into a book,' as a whole, without injuring it. The only time I ever attempted (by request) to make a study from nature—absolutely literal — all reviewers cried out, to my extreme amusement, ' This oharacter is altogether unnatural.'— Harper's Bazaar.