II.
_Allah il Allah_! Even so
An Arab chieftain treats a foe:
Holds him as one without a fault,
Who breaks his bread and tastes his salt;
And, in fair battle, strikes him dead
With the same pleasure that he gives him bread!
ELIZABETH SARA SHEPPARD
You ask from me some particulars of the valued life so recently closed.
Miss Sheppard was my friend of many years; I was with her to the last
hour of her existence; but this is not the time for other than a brief
notice of her career, and I comply with your request by sending you a
slight memorial, hardly full enough for publication.
Elizabeth Sara Sheppard, the authoress of "Charles Auchester,"
"Counterparts," etc., was born at Blackheath, in England. Her father was
a clergyman of unusual scholastic attainments, and took high honors at
St. John's College, Oxford. Mr. Sheppard, on the mother's side, could
number Hebrew ancestors, and this was the pride of his second daughter,
the subject of this notice. Her love for the whole Hebrew race amounted
to a passion, which found its expression in the romance of "Charles
Auchester."
Very early she displayed a most decided poetic predisposition,--writing,
when but ten years old, with surprising facility on every possible
subject. No metre had any difficulties for her, and no theme seemed dull
to her vivid intelligence,--her fancy being roused to action in a
moment, by the barest hint given either by Nature or Art.
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