| | Christian Remembrancer, vol. 33, 1857> | <9 works listed> | | The authoress of 'Amy Herbert,' though distinguished by a | sustained and well-merited popularity, has not yet received | any extended notice in our columns. We propose in the | following article to supply the deficiency by a general review of | her works of fiction, the publication of which extends over a | period of thirteen years. This seems the only fair course | towards a writer whose efforts have taken a consistent course, | who writes, in most cases, under the rule of a distinctly definite | aim, whose works should be regarded as a series; each separate | story an illustration of some truth or doctrine, or practical maxim | of conduct; to be understood by the light of what has gone before. | | They have been thirteen restless eventful years and those have | been staid minds indeed, ~~ or time must have previously fixed the | mould of thought, ~~ which have undergone no change in them, | and which at the end of this period give to the same points | precisely the same relative importance which they assigned to them | at the beginning. A general unity of purpose, the same objects | of interest, the same preferences and aversions in the main, the | same position in the eye of friends; these constitute | consistency in such times. We must not look for, we must not | always desire, identity of view; and the credit of such | consistency of view and position is due to this author, for we are | not willing to regard in a serious light the satire in her last | work, which has excited suspicion of change in some quarters. | High and pure aims, earnestness of purpose, and sobriety of | judgment, are the qualities which give weight and value to | this writer's intellectual endowments, which atone for | considerable deficiencies, and which constitute her a peculiarly safe | and trustworthy guide for young minds. Even her faults ~~ as | wanting the charm of originality ~~ have little to alarm in them, | being of the time-honoured conservative class, and so far | | running counter to prevailing theories and the tone of modern | authorship, as to give the impression of something old-fashioned | and prejudiced, as of a fine mind early warped by certain narrowing | influences, which have lost their hold over the world at large. | Some holes and corners in every mind thus escape intrusion, and | are left pretty much as nature and the chances of childhood made | them, their little idols and houses of imagery untouched and | unswept. But the characteristics of the mind before us are practical | religious self-discipline, rigid self-training, carefully | cultivated habits of thought and observation, and habitual | self-control. No writer gives more the conviction of writing from | experience; the reader, judging from the works alone, is persuaded | of this: it gives them their power; we instinctively know that the | practical teaching in them has been worked out, and found to be | true. And practical views of life are apt to be sad ones: they | certainly are in this case. There is something unsparing and almost | severe in her mode of viewing the common life of society; her | sympathies, little alive to its pleasures, are kept on the continual | stretch, in pity for the inevitable cares and trials of those who | would live in it for a purpose, and are bent on doing the work | which God has sent them into the world to do. The troubles | incidental to her own sex especially weigh on her heart and | feelings; and life after life of patient self-sacrifice ~~ the only variety, | as she somewhere says, being the variety of trial ~~ pass before us, all | told with an air of truth that ensures conviction, till her male | readers ~~ we imagine the minority ~~ must feel ashamed of themselves | for being at the bottom of so much suffering; and the advocates of | the rights of women would certainly claim her as one of their | sisterhood, but that her pious resignation and her course of active | religious remedies might be, we fear, worse to their taste than the | original disease. Human trial, the question of responsibility, the | great problems of life, press on her too constantly, so that her books | are not cheerful. We are interested and edified but at the same time | saddened more than need be, and certainly more than she intends | that we should be, for there is often a talk of cheerfulness while the | actual scenes are depressing. | | But while we say this, we must own at the same time that it is not | fair to expect from this class of fiction more than the author | professes to give us. Here the implied promise only is to illustrate | certain moral views of life by example and by warning. Young | people will read good advice in a story, when | they turn aside from it in a sermon or an essay; therefore the | authoress uses the gifts she has to make her teaching acceptable and | palatable. But amusement is a secondary object with her, while | with ordinary novel writers, and conscientious ones | | too, this is not the case; their promise to their readers, first of all, | is amusement; they are justified in drawing characters | and composing scenes with no other view, a licence never taken by | this lady, who sticks to her real design with a fidelity she is never | tempted to swerve from, so that though sometimes tedious, as what | moral writer is not ~~ She is never irrelevant or frivolous; faults, by | the way, almost universal in these days of rapid authorship. The | novel writer is impelled by the possession of certain powers, | by a vivid imagination, a lively fancy, a clear | insight into character, ~~ these gifts are the motive power, while | each one's principles for good or evil influence the mode in which | he exercises these gifts, and make them a blessing or a curse. | But he does not consciously say things because they will do | good; he is never knowingly didactic; he never goes out of | the way for this purpose. In a pure work of fiction, a grave | discussion, introduced merely for the abstract truth and importance of | the question involved, is a literary error and mistake. The good | such works may do ~~ and it is often infinite untold good ~~ is not, | in the strict sense of the word, designed. But in | the works before us the avowed design of the writer is to use | fiction as the vehicle for conveying certain truths, practical or | theoretical. All the characters must assist in their development, | all the incidents must work them out. It follows by a sort of | necessity that the plot must be a tangled skein of mistakes, the | consequences of moral errors; the most provoking of all plans for | getting up the necessary intricacies of a story, one which it is a | blunder in the mere novelist to adopt, and which puts the writer | for instruction at an intellectual disadvantage. | | But on higher ground, it is more difficult to write a truly moral | story with a definite moral aim than without one. A writer guided | by general good intentions, and a love and appreciation of what | is excellent, and possessed of the qualifications necessary for his | art, has comparatively little difficulty in making his good | people act rightly, supposing him to be untrammelled | in the choice of incident; if he is allowed to make his | plot as fortuitous, as subject to external and incidental influences, | as the course of this world seems to the observer's | narrow ken to be. But if the course of events must be moral too, if | nothing must happen by chance, if events must be the | inevitable results of causes, if every action, word, and thought | must develop into its fruit, a new element of difficulty is evolved. | To make the characters and incidents really fit, to | make all flow naturally, to sacrifice nothing on either side, to | make the virtuous characters act with a free and spontaneous | grace, to construct incidents at once probable, the legitimate | consequences of human action, and of a kind to illustrate the | | author's aims, is a task very few have achieved. There never fails to | arise a hitch somewhere. The characters all seem to have a task to | perform, a part to play, and the moral, to which so much is | sacrificed, is far-fetched and unnatural, or not unfrequently loses its | force in the end by being, after all, indebted to some fortuitous | event for its denouement. Perhaps the task is above mortal powers. | We cannot tell, in any delicate or minute sense, what are all the | consequences of thought and action, for we never see them in real | life left unassisted to work themselves. If we did, human reason | would surely sink under an overwhelming sense of responsibilities | thus forced upon its consciousness. | | When, therefore, we have occasion to criticise the conduct of | our authoress's tales, the working, of mind upon mind, the | relation of her characters to each other, their acts themselves, | or the consequences of them, the difficulty of the task must | always be borne in mind, so that probably what seems a deliberate | error in judgment, and a misapprehension of duty, is rather | attributable to some hardness of construction, some obstinate | entanglement, which no ingenuity can set straight. | | But passing from generalities, it is time to return to our authoress's | peculiar qualifications for this class of fiction, such as it is. And | first, she is fortunate in a style which reflects the thought, | refinement, and self-recollection, which give the tone to | her works. Clear, cultivated, easy, and flowing, with a perfect | command of words for all she wishes to express, the reader is | pleasantly carried on without trouble or effort on his part ~~ the scenes | pass, in orderly review before him, his memory aud attention are | never unduly tasked; the transitions from narrative to dialogue, | from description to reflection, are all so natural and well timed, | that she may forget to give due credit for the order and power of | arrangement which have made a difficult task seem an easy one, | and for the modesty which has taught to the writer the limits of her | own powers, and preserved her from venturing in any line for | which nature has not qualified her. Though rarely eloquent, and | with no marked traits or felicities of diction which constitute | distinctive, characteristic styles, she can yet write prose worthy to | be called such, measured, expressive, and harmonious, ~~ a higher | praise than our readers may be at first disposed to consider it in | these days, when the discovery has been made by so many, ~~ | especially lady-writers, that whole books can be written without | having recourse to their own language at all, principles, story, and | characters, all represented through the disjointed chit-chat and | broken sentences which pass for natural conversation. But though | escaping this feminine snare, the style is yet essentially a feminine | one; no | | one can read a page and remain in doubt on this point; not from any | inaccuracies or fault of any kind, but rather from the merit of | transparency; that expressiveness we have already noted, which | reveals the mind within, in the best sense of the word, a feminine | mind; content with its own sphere, tender, sympathising, religious, | cultivating its narrower field of thought and observation, with no | temptation to stray beyond, and deriving practical wisdom from it. | | Some considerable share of fancy and imagination must also | belong to the writer of so many really popular tales, and we are | willing to grant it; though the question brings us to the point where | we often find ourselves at issue with her. We have already noted an | evident experience of life, and habits of observation to turn such | experience to excellent account; but these are not the materials | from which to weave a plot. The home of invention, as | everyone | can tell for himself, lies far back in a wholly different region, | where from infancy the mind has chosen its favourite haunts and | laid up its pleasant fancies and choicest delights so long as the | business of the world leaves room and | time for such day-dreams. This is the storehouse to which the mind | must always recur when it sets itself to make a story. According to | the play of fancy and force of the imagination, according to the | power inherent in the poetic faculty of seizing and making | its own what it instinctively loves; ~~ not with any thought of | self, ~~ but because it is congenial, and for its own goodness and | beauty's sake, will be the variety and value of this store. Most | dreamers stop far short of this; it is not fancy so much as desire that | is at work; so they construct, not poems, but castles in the air; and | how many so ever of these the memory lays by, as the same | architect builds them, a family likeness will most surely run | through them all. Now this author's storehouse seems to us to be | composed of these fabrics. Certain pictures and images run from | story to story, we cannot get away from them. It is the business of | the author's own reason, indeed, to mark them down successively | as they appear; to show how baseless they are, how little real | happiness they would confer, but fate and necessity get the better, | and the same edifice rears itself anew in the next volume. | | We conclude, then, that the plan and groundwork of a story | show an author's natural bias, while the characters who act their part in it | represent his knowledge of life; in the present writer we see these | two principles act upon one another in an unusually independent | and even antagonistic mode. It is very clear that the early fancies | and reveries we have attributed to mankind at large lay with her in | the great world. There was a time when the fancy expatiated | unrestrained in the dignified good things of | | this world ~~ mansions and parks, saloons and terraces, pedigrees and | rent-rolls, ~~ lords and ladies removed from vulgar cares, | visited by trials of their own, ~~ these are inseparably associated with the | romance of her nature, her invention cannot play freely in a lower | scene. Something has made the common world a very stern | forbidding scene to her, and she invests it with no | borrowed beauty she smooths over none of its roughnesses or | asperities. The gleams that she throws upon it are not from itself, | but from her ideal sphere of aristocratic refinement and grace. She | cannot imagine human happiness, which has not, at least in some | distant and remote way some connexion with those polite oases; | and thus an impression of secularity is often left in the mind of the | reader at utter variance with the direct teaching, as well as with the | author's deliberate intention. | | Indeed, her actual knowledge of life presents a very different | series of pictures from these fancy ones. There she is met by | harsh distinctions of rank; she sees that life's battle is fought amid | petty trials, small annoyances, and often under undignified | privations; there the lot of the many forces itself painfully on a | mind of great realizing power, and below the average cheerfulness | of temperament. There all trials present themselves to her mind | with their full weight, heavy laden, and depressing in proportion to | their pettiness, and contradiction to the ideal originally formed | of a grand and dignified existence. Sympathy and duty urge her to | help in the struggle, by counsel, warning, encouragement, while | reason labours to see the cause, and piety to search out the good | hidden under the apparent evil. | | These two conflicting principles or impulses divide her stories. In | those tales where the plot carries the day, and fancy has all its own | way, the characters are ideal ~~ as in the 'Earl's Daughter,' the trials of | the titled porcelain heroine are such as would very little affect | commoner clay, and affect us therefore very little in the telling; in | others, where the characters form the interest, and the writer | composes not from imagination but observation, the trials are only | too real, ~~ want of money, hard work, selfishness, and harsh tempers, | touch the reader's own experience only too nearly, as in the | 'Experience of Life.' In many cases there is a clash between real | and ideal, the reader finds himself in the perplexity of childhood, | when at Madame Tussaud's we saw living figures standing amid | waxen celebrities, and in the jumble | of the moment grouped together, the living homely flesh and blood, | the sleeping beauties and courtly circles, perplexing our | dawning powers of discrimination. Such strange conjunctions we | see in Margaret Percival. The author has an instinct of this | difference of nature herself, which shows itself in the brittleness | of texture and precarious tenure of life with which she endows | | her high-born ethereal creations; the slightest rub disorganizes | them, disappointment quenches their lamp of life. But we will not | trench on the details which are to follow. The agency | by which these different elements are brought together is | invariably friendship, female friendship, which our author loves to | represent as a passion. A romantic unequal friendship must have | played a constant part in her early dreams; it plays a very curious | part in all these tales, and we venture to say finds very little | response from her readers' experience. Indeed, these friendships are | the one unnatural, unlikely feature in her view of life; and if young | people were likely to found expectations from it, which we dare | say they are not, it might do them harm. However this may be, a | friendship is a never failing ingredient in our author's plots; all | her heroines have friends, and their mothers had friends before | them, ~~ and these friends are often a very distinct and peculiar sort | of persons, and highly conventional. They have most frequently no | obvious connexion with the object of attachment, either from | position or suitability, something like a magnetic attraction | bringing the two together. It is so very engrossing a relation as | generally to interfere with the enlargement of the mind in any | other direction, and grows up and is sustained under difficulties of | circumstances, inequality of rank and chances of meeting, as would | present effectual hindrances to the formation of any other tie. But | with so many instances before us we need not dwell on the subject | here, being anxious to proceed to the details of our task. Some | individual notice of each work will be needed, and even in many | instances a slight analysis of the story, as a necessary framework | for our comments on each, and the ground of our general | conclusions. | | All great artists begin as imitators. Painters follow their masters | before they feel their way to their own style; musicians adopt the | manner of their predecessors till time emancipates their genius | from these trammels of custom, and they learn to trust themselves. | It is no disparagement, therefore, of the author of 'Amy Herbert' to | say that her first work was an imitation, that it could not have been | written if the 'Fairy Bower' had not been written before. Indeed, the | imitation in some points is so direct as probably to have been | avowed and designed for a certain definite purpose; for while the | characters and incidents have a marked resemblance, the principle | on which the mind of childhood is to be formed is at direct | variance. We must suppose, therefore, that the framework of that | very bright and original story was adopted with a view to work out | a different lesson from it. The 'Fairy Bower' leaves the young | mind to work out the practical difficulties that meet it alone, | | by the exercise of its own judgment. It wishes the youngest mind to | feel that it must rely upon itself: that circumstances may arise in | which not even the nearest and most trusted can directly help in its | decision; that individual conscience is to be at once the adviser and | the appeal; and for this purpose it is taught, like Telemachus, early | to keep a secret even from its mother. While we follow the | intricacies and scruples that beset poor Grace, and see her harassed | by mysteries, we cannot but feel that the lesson comes too soon, | and that the burden is not suited to the bearer. On the other hand, | Amy Herbert's mother is the vicegerent of her conscience, as | conscience is the vicegerent of God. She not only brings to her all | her own troubles and thoughts, and decides on nothing without her, | but she repeats all that she hears to her, and details to her the | particulars of every conversation in which she has taken part. She is | not happy with a thought of mystery or a trial unshared. | | Truth lies, where it so often lies, between. In theory we are inclined | to side with the mother of Amy Herbert, and certainly do not | approve of mysteries in practice. But we know that absolute | transparency and unreserve is not desirable. As a mere question of | nature, such a character as Amy Herbert is impossible. No child | with a healthy, unexcited brain, whatever her natural candour, can | or ever does express aloud all her thoughts, or tell every event that | happens to her. Children have spontaneous talk enough. They | chatter and run on, or if they are in the mind, now and then work | out a thought aloud, though we hold this to | be an unusual occurrence, and a great effort; but as for repeating | conversations, the present always occupies them too much for the | memory to be consciously storing up for future unburdening. | Would it not be a painful thought, and disturbing to our | intercourse with them, to believe otherwise? Unconsciousness is | one of the charms of childhood and early youth, and what makes | them different in nature from mature men and women. It is not | concealment which makes a young girl not speak much of her | thoughts, or of what she hears, but that there is no motive for any | such communicativeness; it never occurs to her to do it, nor has she | the machinery at command. Besides, there is almost a morbid sense | of honour in children which would prevent their feeling it right to | repeat conversation and thus excite criticism of their | companions. We speak, of course, of premeditation. All sorts of | things transpire accidentally; but after such an impulse we believe | that thoughtful children go through much suffering, if excitement | has betrayed them into repeating conversations or incidents in | which others are concerned. It is so contrary to their nature | | that they have a feeling of doing wrong. Let | anyone really try to | extract from a child what it has been doing on any given occasion, | when it has been thrown alone amongst new people, and has had to | act for itself, and how hard the process of extracting information is! | how small and bald the results of a laborious catechetical | examination! Not because the mind has not been actively at | work ~~ probably the memory laying up stores to its dying day ~~ | but because the knack of telling is wanting. They do not know | where to begin; their ideas are not in presentable order; and they | have to go through a long silent process before they can become so. | Children who can narrate freely are old before their time; and if any | good advice could make them all prematurely communicative, we | should think such books dangerous, whatever their principles, and | however excellent the views of the writer. But we repose too much | confidence in the passive resistance of childhood to any | encroachment on its own domain, to entertain any such fear. | Thousands of little girls have read 'Amy Herbert,' and a good | proportion have, perhaps, read it in such a teachable spirit as to | derive, besides passing amusement, some permanent lessons for | good; but we do not believe its heroine has found one imitator. | They do not think whether it is desirable or not to tell mamma | every word they hear, and every thought that occurs to themselves; | they probably, think it was very good in Amy to do so; but simply | they will not dream of a personal application. Something comes in | the way of the experiment being even formally made for them, as | any mamma may ascertain for herself if she has a desire to try. All | this, of course, does not bear upon conscious secrets, which must, | we think, be injurious, and which, with all deference to Mrs. Leslie, | we think a mother should both guard against and probe to the | bottom, if she has reason to suppose one is weighing on her child's mind. | We may be thought presumptuous in setting our opinion against | that of ladies of so much thought and apparent experience, but | our defence is, that all writers about children are forced to this | departure from nature. Real natural children would make | very short books; their real conversations would make a | strange show in print, and a very poor one; and, in fact, if | instruction is to be conveyed to others through their talk, they | must be made very conventional little personages. | | Though we have spoken of 'Amy Herbert' as in some sort a copy, | yet the prevailing characteristics of the author all show themselves | in embryo, ~~ both the good, and that questionable | feeling towards the world's distinctions which more or less | pervades them. It is hardly fair to class with these the great house, | with its suites of rooms and imposing air, which appears | | and re-appears so constantly in all these tales. But | there it always is, the same veritable big house, | whatever dress it assumes, whether Elizabethan, | Queen Anne's, or Grecian, whether of brick or | stone, which at some far off time excited while it | overshadowed, and perhaps circumscribed, the | writer’s childish fancy. It comes in very naturally in | 'Amy Herbert,’ as contrasted with the heavenly | inheritance promised in our baptism; and while it | stood empty, and was a sort of mysterious | playground for her, we can fully sympathise in the | impression it made on her mind. But what we | cannot so well understand is, that the writer should | take it for granted that desire possession, and envy | of the possessor, should be a natural temptation to a | child. The house belongs to Amy's maternal uncle | and her mother ~~ a very sweet and interesting | person, to whom envious feelings would be as little | congenial as could well be, ~~ in order to guard her | child against the temptation, tells her own | experience at ten years old, when her brother came | of age. For some time her imagination had been | excited by the honours in preparation for the heir, | which all made her think how delightful it would be | to be in his place. When the day came, she goes | on to say: ~~ | And as the day passes on she confesses that

'all | she could think '

of was the grandeur of her | brother's situation, and the pleasure

'of having | so many persons assembled to do honour to | oneself;'

and the feeling grows throughout the | day, till a practical evidence of the transitoriness of | earthly greatness startles her. Surely this is a very | precocious state for a little girl of ten. There would | be no merit in a child's forgetting self at such a time, | and being absorbed, and finding all her pleasure in | witnessing and sharing, by sympathy and reflection, | her brother’s distinctions, ~~ she would be only like | all children; but to us there is something revolting, | because unnatural, in a child’s longing for property | and the importance of possession, or even realizing | what such things are at so early an age. | Again, long after, when Amy, in conversation with | one of her cousins, alludes to her mother's history of | this grand day of coming of age, we find the cousins | spontaneously taking up the same idea: ~~ | | | | And Amy herself is subject to the same sensations. | She pays a visit to a state-house, grander even | than Emmerton, ~~ the subject of the envy we have | already described. These are her impressions on | seeing it for the first time: ~~ | | We are sure that the author has made a mistake, | and offended against the simplicity of childhood by | giving the warning. However, perhaps it is a natural | mistake to predate temptation and one our author | often falls into. These ideas are not left without | abundant antidotes, indeed many of them are | introduced for the antidotes' sake, whether that is a | wise method or not. It is justice to give a specimen. | We take one from a discussion amongst the girls as | to what really constitutes a lady. Lucy Cunningham | is a nobleman's daughter, and answers in her | position in story, to the lord's daughter in the ‘Fairy | Bower.’ Emily Morton is the governess. Dora is | saying: ~~ | | | | It should be noticed that this and the previous topic | bear upon the design of the book, which is to show | in every day practice the truths and doctrines, the | promises and renunciations, of the first part of the | Catechism. It may be that the fear of associating | trifling and frivolous ideas with such solemn subjects | may have led in the first instance to the unchildlike | illustration of envy which we have objected to. In | points of reverence and due seriousness this | author is never tempted to err. | ‘Laueton Parsonage' is a continuation and filling out | of this design, very ably done in many respects; for, | in spite of an amount of teaching and direct | religious instruction, which is almost apologized for | in the preface, the story forms three volumes of | proved interest and popularity among young people. | They give the history of three girls, from ten to | fifteen, ending with their confirmation. The first | volume represents home life; the next carries them | through school; the third describes their first | experience of older trials and temptations. The | children are not real children: it is hardly in the | nature of things that they should be, when we | consider the amount of serious talking they have to | perform and to listen to. In fact, the author's | sympathies are not with childhood; she interprets it | through her own grave maturity of thought, and | attributes to it faculties, | | feelings, and desires that can only exist there in | embryo. But this defective perception does not | affect the class for whom the books were written. | Very young readers seldom trouble themselves | about nature, or care for its truest delineations half | so much as for a story; and these volumes have all | vivid scenes, sometimes rising to quite an exciting | climax. We should, however, fear that an | impression of dulness might be left on their minds, | associated with a consistent Christian course, if | they were to reason upon what they read. We hear, | it is true, of Madeline's cheerful laugh, but we are | never admitted into the mirth which raises the clear | ringing sound; and Ruth, her twin sister, is | prematurely grave in her virtues as well as her | faults. Wherever mirth is represented it is | undisciplined and in the cause of evil; while the | scenes we have alluded to are the visitations and | punishments of sin and error on the trembling little | sinners. Perhaps the plan involves the necessity of | representing chiefly the inner life of the Christian | course, its temptations and struggles; but if we | could have seen a little more of the outer life, and | active employment in good, of all concerned, the | gloom we are sensible of would have been avoided, | and also our impression would have been a good | deal more after the intention of the writer. As it is, | when we see only the shortcomings, subtle errors, | and secret sins of characters whom she wishes to | represent as good in the main, the design is often | frustrated. Ruth, for example, is represented as | religious, earnest, full of active powers for good, | and centering on herself an enormous amount of | respect from her companions by habitual discretion | and propriety of conduct; yet, while told all this, we | see nothing but the subtle evil at work underneath; | she seems to the reader double-minded, designing, | and self-deceiving, almost to the point of hypocrisy. | It is, to say the least, bad management to give the | reader a totally different notion of a character from | its recognised one in the world, unless the aim is to | depict an hypocrite, which is not at all the intention | here; for Ruth is intended to be good and true at | bottom, only misled by her love of influence and | inordinate desire to direct and guide others for their | good ~~ a propensity seldom developed in early | youth. Ruth, in the second and third volume, is so | unpleasing as almost to represent a failure in the | system of education the writer offers for our | approval and imitation. | Again, if we could have been shown more of the | external picture of a Christian life, instead of | constant internal struggles and fluctuations, there | would have been more free and spontaneous | action. Rules are, we think, protruded too much, | though we feel hesitation in saying this, when we | acknowledge how excellent the writer's rules for | conduct generally are. But rules are | | only good for the effect they produce; rigidly | enforced in the abstract, they are a sort of fetter, | and chafe the spirit. In action we see them only as | habits, and habits have repose in them. As an | instance of what we mean, we are disposed to | think that the enforcing, on a girl of fifteen, such a | rule as retirement for private prayer and | self-examination twice in the day, at the hours of noon | and six o'clock, in addition, of course, to morning | and evening private prayer, is a somewhat | burdensome injunction on the consciences of | children, and may give to prayer and the habit of | prayer too rigid an aspect, especially when this girl | is represented of an unstable and unformed | character, and naturally indisposed to restraint. | This same unfortunate child, 'Alice,' is a sort of | victim of law. To her the enforcement of the fifth | commandment is put in an unduly hard point of | view. She is adopted by a grand lady of the stern | and forbidding school ~~ a sort of ogress the writer | is fond of depicting ~~ who conceals her affection | under a cold manner, and enforces rules for their | own sake with greater pertinacity than parents ever | do. Now, after all, the duty towards an adopted | parent is not the same in degree as towards a | natural one; and if the formidable Lady Catherine's | authority had not been backed by the gloomy | splendours of her great house and dreary state, we | think the author would have been more alive to this | fact, and young readers less inclined to recognise | her rights: but Lady Catherine is fulfilling a debt of | romantic friendship to the child's mother, which is | another strong claim, and adds a sort of charm of | mystery. Another point, which may embarrass some | children who make application to themselves of what | they read, is the part feeling is made to play, and | the pain a sensitive nature gives to its possessor. | Ruth and Alice, without indeed showing much | previous susceptibility, are reduced, the one to | something like despair, the other to dangerous | prostration of the powers (being at the time in | delicate health), at the intelligence of the accidental | death of a French girl, for whom they had no | regard, and with whom they came in slight contact | two years before. It is true they had some | disagreeable association of concealment and | misconduct in connexion with her, so that | conscience has something to do with it; but the | feelings are supposed to be so vehemently stirred | by an event for which they were not in the remotest | degree responsible, from the knowledge that she | had died unprepared. Children may suppose that | they ought to feel the same under similar | circumstances, because the fact is beyond all | things dreadful, they having yet to learn that our | very ignorance is our excuse, and that our feelings | were given for practical uses, not as mere | instruments of torture. | | We have been finding some faults, and yet there | are few stories avowedly inculcating religious | principle and doctrine that we should place with | greater confidence in the hands of children ~~ the | general tone is so earnest, so pure, and so | sensible; and especially the question of obedience, | as the mainspring of education, is placed on so just | and wise a footing. The following passage | describes the good mother: ~~ | | If in the conversations in 'Laneton Parsonage,' | between the father and his children, we think him | injudicious m probing into the secrets of their minds, | and forcing their confidence, and fear that the | example may do harm ~~ not to the children who | read without a thought of imitating such impossible | facility of confession, but to parents who may think it | a duty to copy so earnest a pattern of parental zeal | and watchfulness ~~ we need no better answer and | antidote than we | | find in the authoress's own views on education, | expressed in her later work, 'Margaret Percival.' | Take, for instance, the following sentences, which | exactly express our own fears and misgivings of a | too curious investigation into a child's thoughts and | feelings: ~~ | | In passing from the authoress's children's books, | which contain her system of religious teaching, we | would note one point for especial commendation. | No mistaken sense of reverence interferes with | giving due prominence to the one Name, and Work, | and Office, which form the heart of all true religion, | which are the foundation and the subject of all | doctrine, and inspire all good practice. The principle | of love to the Saviour is insisted upon with a | constancy and persuasive earnestness, and with a | paramount sense of its importance, which relieves | the somewhat strict agency enforced for its | attainment from all impression of formality; an | impression which the wisest system of rules for | practical self-guidance must leave upon the mind, | without constant reference to their great Object. | Stories for children present the readiest mode for | modest talent to feel its way and make experiment | of its powers. But our authoress soon found a more | congenial as well as a wider field in the scenes and | trials of maturer life, and one which has probably | always engrossed more of her sympathies than the | slow preparation for them which childhood offers. | 'Gertrude' is her first story of men and women, ~~ | such men and women, that is, as clever young | ladies can draw, while the first flush of romance with | its visions of unreal self-sacrifice are upon them, | before they have quite emancipated themselves | from the dreams and notions of the school-room | and the traditions of the family circle. Time and | experience, we can perceive, have altered her | views on some points, greatly on the side, of | common sense. As it stands, the plan of the story of | 'Gertrude' affords a good example of the difficulties | presented by a moral plot, ~~ one, we mean, in | which the incidents are all the exact consequences | of certain moral causes, and in which, of course, | any mistake of judgment at the outset must multiply | itself | | indefinitely, and produce effects that may chance | not to he moral at all. The starting error in 'Gertrude' | is the amiable, but not the less mischievous one, | that sisters must sacrifice themselves and their | fortunes for the sake of worthless and extravagant | brothers. Whether our authoress regards this as a | law of nature, or of reason, we do not quite | understand; but the cry of the day has at least done | the one good thing of showing the injustice of this | ancient popular delusion, on which unprincipled | men have so often presumed, and women have | acted, to their lasting loss of worldly comfort and | self-respect; for unreasonable self-sacrifices leave | bitter fruits of discontent and regret behind them. | The design of the story is the excellent practical one | of showing young women that no good works | should interfere with their first duty to their family | and home; and this is enforced by a great deal of | wise precept, as well as example and warning. Edith | is the warning; Gertrude appears, towards the | middle of the story, as the pattern to show that a | woman's duties at home and abroad need not | interfere with one another. We are first introduced to | Edith in her home, and in the society of her two | selfish sisters and weak mother, interested in her | own schemes of usefulness, devoted to schools, | attendance on the poor, and similar ministrations, | but irritating her sisters by her disregard and | contempt for all their interests, and blind to all the | minor attentions and duties that make home happy. | The picture of these sisters, their mutual sarcasms | and entire want of sympathy, is a painful one; the | necessity of showing the evil consequences of that | want of kindness and consideration for others, which | sometimes spoils zealous characters, being the | excuse for what otherwise would be gratuitously | repulsive. Edith's affections are centred in her only | brother, Edward, who in theory is as ardent and | self-denying as herself, and plans grand schemes of | future good with her. While he is poor ~~ his father | having provided for his wife and daughters, and left | him to the resources of his profession, the law ~~ | she is the confidant of all his lofty aspirations and | noble plans of benevolence, and in return thinks her | brother perfection; while his more clear-sighted | sister, Charlotte, the worldly, clever, amusing | member of the family, is never blind to the one | lurking weakness of his character. Suddenly, by the | death of a distant relative, he becomes head of the | family, possessor of the family mansion and estate, | and of a reputed income of six thousand a-year. A | week's insight into his affairs shows him that his | predecessor had overlived his means to such an | extent, that the actual income was reduced to two | thousand, ~~ a disappointment very easy, we | should have thought, to announce to the world. But | our authoress | | thinks it natural for him to suppress the fact; | taking Edith, a girl of nineteen, alone into his | confidence, under strict promises of secrecy, and | promising her to redeem his affairs by care and | economy. He deliberately continues the existing | establishment and style of living, on the ground | that the neighbourhood would expect it of him, | and very soon marries the belle of the season, a | portionless beauty. Her he takes in, like the rest | of the world, as to the real amount of his income, | and indeed indulges her in habits of | extravagance even for that nominal fortune; nor | does he ever undeceive her or | anyone else, but goes on in | continual new plans of expense, till ruin comes | with the end of the story. | This is making a foible bear fruit with a | vengeance. It is clear the authoress had no idea | of the real turpitude of such a course of action; | on the contrary, she thinks it consistent with a | high sense of honour.

'Such a high sense of | honour,'

as Mr. Dacre, the experienced | sage of the piece, says,

'is not often to be | met with.'

It can be no want of moral sense | which has led such a writer into such an | absurdity, but the necessity of making a | weakness bring its own punishment. Now, as a | fact, plenty of men dream of doing good, and do | it not without coming to such extremities as | Edward does; but the story is bound to illustrate | the mischief of self-deception, and something | very bad must therefore result from it, while, | unless the culprit is represented as interesting, | and in a certain sense high-minded, there is no | point in the warning. Edith in the meanwhile, | disgusted and jealous at her brother's marrying | without consulting her, and to the utter sacrifice | of all his high schemes, is sullen and cold to him, | and takes a violent prejudice against his | charming worldly young wife, whose truthful and | affectionate nature might have been wrought | upon for good. Influenced by pique, Edith is rude | from the first, rejects Laura's overtures, is critical | of all her actions, and will not spare the time from | her own useful pursuits to be any companion to | her, which her age and their mutual love for | Edward naturally pointed her out for. Nothing but | the necessity for showing the evil results of an | ungracious manner could have led our author | into investing real goodness of heart with so | repulsive a mien. As it is, Laura, slighted by her | young sister-in-law ~~ and a bosom friend being | an absolute necessity ~~ is drawn into intimacy | by an insinuating, flattering, mean, would-be young | lady of-the neighbourhood, who encourages all | her faults, and leads her into such scrapes of | extravagance, and concealment of her difficulties, | as in the end nearly cost her her life and reason. | All this is certainly not natural. A young wife may | find her husband's relations uncongenial without | throwing herself into the arms | | of such a sycophant as Miss Forrester; but Edith | has to learn a lesson for her own self-willed, and | ungracious conduct. When all the mischief is en | train, Gertrude, who has hitherto lived with an | aunt, returns to her own home, the inheritor of her | aunt's moderate fortune. She is a very pleasing | character. We feel the charm of her manner, | which makes goodness seem natural and easy, | and we understand how she should at once be | welcomed as the confidant and friend of the whole | family circle, and begin to set everything on a | better fooling. But the consequences of the plot | come in more provokingly in her case than in any | other, in her quality of double corrector of the | errors of her brother and sister. She, too, had had | her visions of doing good, which had been to | devote her fortune to building a church in a | neglected district on her brother's estate, ~~ one | of his own unfulfilled intentions. But at the moment | when this scheme is on the point of completion, | and her interests are centred on architect's plans | and such details, she first becomes acquainted | with her sister-in-law's embarrassments, which | can only be relieved by the sacrifice of hundreds | of this appropriated fortune; and next the state of | her brother's affairs bursts upon her. He is utterly | ruined, and on the point of sacrificing that nice | sense of honour of his for a place under | government, one of his self-deceptions being to | incur the expenses of a contested county | election, and to enter Parliament. If a man's own | sense of honour does not keep him straight, we | should not advise his sisters to sacrifice their | fortunes to keep him so; but Mr. Dacre, a good | and wise man of sixty, compels Gertrude ~~ who | shrinks with natural timidity from obtruding herself | on the closing consultation between her clever | brother and the head of his electioneering | committee ~~ quite sternly, to invade his study, | and interpose her fortune between her desperate | brother and the sacrifice of his principles. | We cannot see the great harm of fellows like | Edward voting all lengths with their party. We | cannot tremble, as we are expected to do, when | certain private crotchets are imperilled; we | cannot share in the apprehension that

| 'dishonour would crush him to the dust;'

we | have no tenderness for that honour that must be | kept intact by his sister's 10,000 l.; but its | surrender is gravely enforced as a solemn duty | on her part. The moral of the story is thought | complete by this consummation, while, in order to | enhance her sacrifice, the unselfish Gertrude is | sullied by a very superfluous error of her own, | and one at variance with her nature; and that is a | sharp pang of envious regret when her old friend, | Mr. Dacre, undertakes to build the church her | brother's superior claims have put it out of her | own power to build. Now we are not saying that | Gertrude ought to have persisted. | | in building her church; leaving her brother and | sister and their child in pecuniary distress; but we | do very much quarrel with the contrivance of the | story which suggests the difficulty. Sisters ~~ | young, inexperienced sisters especially ~~ are | ready enough to sacrifice themselves to worthless | brothers, without its being enforced on them as a | duty. We know that the Edwards of real life will | spend as many fortunes as their sisters will please | to give them, and not begin the work of | reformation till all the money is gone, whatever | they may do in a story book. Nor is it practical | wisdom to represent young people, newly come to | the possession of their money, as spending it at | once in some great work. Such acts should be | done, except under very peculiar circumstances, | only when the character is formed and age and | experience enable the giver to realize the sacrifice | he is making; and to make a young woman do this | is to fall into the fallacy, which we only call such | because it is one-sided and unfair, that a woman's | highest duty towards a large fortune is to give it | away in a lump, as though she had not a sphere, | in the same sense that a man has, for dispensing it | rationally and usefully in her own person, in liberal | plans for good. Our readers will understand, that, | so far from depreciating noble sacrifices either for | family or for the service of God, we would exalt | them by making them real, ~~ the offering of a | heart which fully counts the cost ~~ of an | understanding that can foretel all the consequences | of its actions. But certainly our authoress is a true | advocate for her sex; she gives them the lion's | share of magnanimity, and sometimes seems to | regard it as the mission of mankind to develop this | grace by trial and persecution. French religious | writers of the present-day make women saints, and | men reprobates. In a modified sense we now and | then suspect the authoress of this arrangement ~~ | she tolerates so much evil in men, as though they | could not help themselves, while her code for | women is uniformly high and strict. Thus we find | Mr. Dacre apologising for Edward:

'Mr. | Courtney has acted blindly indeed, but we must | be careful in our condemnation; he has done but | what thousands have done before him, perhaps | with less excuse.'

The truth is, she | over-estimates certain temptations, and thinks that | everything that aggrandises a man's consequence | is so enormous a trial to his conscience, that none | but the highest minded and most saintly can resist | dishonest modes of retaining them. | The following extract shows how well she | understands this class of characters, and how | tenderly she feels towards them. Gertrude has | renounced her church scheme, and is consulting | with Mr. Dacre as to how she shall best serve her | brother: ~~ | | | This notion of the loan is certainly a happy hit, | and shows that the writer knows her man to a | turn; indeed, throughout he is remarkably well | drawn, with felicitous little traits of selfishness | which are almost unconsciously recorded. Our | readers will be glad to hear that Edward suffers | as little as can be expected; he and his wife go | abroad for a year, and then settle down in town | with a small establishment, preparing to pursue | his profession, and living upon Gertrude's | fortune. The writer's instructions to her own sex | are in a different spirit. We all may be the better | for such advice as the following, bearing on | Edith's peculiar faults of neglect, and | indifference towards the tastes and feelings of | those amongst whom she lived. Edith speaks: ~~ | | | | | We fully acquiesce in the great practical benefit and | domestic daily use of a knowledge of character, | and, therefore, in the duty of making it a study | which is here inculcated. | The story of the 'Earl's Daughter’ is a leading | example of the authoress's aristocratic bearings and | sympathies, where her taste indulges itself in | high-born fragile beauty and distinguished manners, with | all the circumstances of state and magnificence, and | responsibility, which form and surround them. The | impression left upon the reader is not of much | practical usefulness though the heroine is a sweet | impersonation of a great many good and attractive | qualities; but her difficulties and trials come too | little in the way of ordinary mortals to form any | analogy with their own. Few girls of sixteen have | either to conduct princely establishments, to be the | idol of their father, the earl, or to assist in the | dispensing of valuable church patronage; and | thus, through the construction of the story, what | was designed for instruction will be read simply for | amusement, and young ladies are much more likely | to think how nice it would be to be Lady Blanche, | than to realize, as they are intended to do, the | weight of care and hidden sorrow which may sadden | the highest station and the most seemingly | brilliant prospects; and they must one and all feel | that in her place they should have managed a good | deal better, and enjoyed themselves a great deal | more. | Poor Lady Blanche has certainly a harassed life. She | is a victim of errors and mistakes which began | before she was born and which pursue her to her | grave. The events are all hi rigid conformity with | their causes, only they are assisted in two instances | by hereditary and constitutional tendencies, which | much mar the moral effect. Indeed, our own | | feeling is most strong on the imprudence and want | of due consideration for the possible circumstances | of many readers, in making a dread of insanity one | of the heroine's trials. All the scenes by which she | becomes aware of her hereditary tendency are | most objectionable to us; and, moreover, the | suspicion throws a doubt over everything she does, | so that when she seems to us morbid and | excitable, we do not know whether the author really | intends her reason to be on the turn, or that it is | only an extreme conscientiousness battling with | natural feeling, and demanding our admiration. In | opposition to Lady Blanche is her friend, Eleanor | Wentworth, daughter of the rector of the parish, | who has been educated with her, and shared the | wise teaching of her admirable governess, and has | always behaved herself extremely well up to the | point of the story's opening, when both girls begin | their home life. The circumstances of the rectory | would seem to offer a safer sphere than the castle; | but the family circle is with this authoress always a | scene of peculiar temptation: and before many | months are over, this young girl, scarcely seventeen | at the conclusion of the story, and with no taste for | misconduct for its own sake, has worried her friend | to death, brought on her mother a paralytic seizure, | and assisted in making her brother wretched for life | by a foolish marriage; ~~ that is, if she had acted | otherwise, none of these events would have | happened. Mrs. Wentworth had been a friend of | Lady Blanche's mother, fulfilling the most | mysterious idea of that relation, and making us feel | how very inconvenient such connexions would be | in real life. Having once been the deceased | countess's friend, and the confidant of her trials, | her nature is soured for any other tie; and in spite | of high principle, feeling, and intellect, she is spoilt | as a mother and a wife. The authoress likes to | invest her strong characters with pertinacity of aim; | they form unreasonable wishes, and die if they | cannot carry them out. Mrs. Wentworth is one of | these; she forms a desire that her thoughtless son | shall be a clergyman, and it is an understood thing | in the family that it will kill her if he is not. It is thus | she expresses the wish of her heart to her young | daughter: ~~ | | Charles does not much like the prospect, and | prefers flirting at the castle to preparing for his | ordination; but a good living would both reconcile | him to his fate, and get over the difficulty he has | fallen into, with his sister's assistance, by forming a | clandestine engagement: so Eleanor torments Lady | Blanche, | | whose influence with her father is all-powerful, with a | most coarse and violent importunity, pleading for her | mother's life, which hangs on her decision, till Lady | Blanche's reason nearly gives way, and her health does | entirely. She breaks a blood-vessel, and consumption | sets in; but she does not give the living, the brother | does not enter the Church, but runs away with his | lady, and Mrs. Wentworth is nearly as good as her | word, for she has a paralytic stroke on receipt of the | news. Eleanor is left to a life of misery and remorse, | and Lady Blanche's end furnishes all the pretty and | touching scenes which make the death of the young, | beautiful, and pathetic, a sure engine for exciting | interest; only, for ourselves, we can never forget that | there is no real reason for her dying at all; that a little | worry does not kill the most susceptible natures, and | that her duty was really so straightforward and easy, | that the fault lies with the authoress in imposing upon | a girl ~~ almost a child ~~ the responsibilities of | mature age. Another case of premature and morbid | anxiety, unsuited for the confiding hopefulness of | youth, is the blighting effect on her mind produced by | her father's want of sympathy in her religious feelings. | It is not that he interferes with her, but he cannot | follow her: ~~ | | All this is as excited in tone as in sentiment; and yet | there are many sensible, quiet parts, and | conversations led by Lady Blanche, which form as | great a contrast as can well be with the exaltation of | language and sentiment which characterises the story | as such. Take, for instance, her governess's rule for | reading novels, which we think a good one, though in | defiance of Sydney Smith's great test: ~~ | | 'Margaret Percival/ which stands next on our list, | shows a great advance in thought and power. The | practical parts evidence remarkable discernment, and | a mind habituated to | | reason and draw conclusions upon its own | observation. The story itself is open to some of the | old objections. The authoress has indeed, but one | device to accomplish, or at least to set going, all the | work to be done ~~ a great house and a friend; and | desiring to bring her heroine in contact with the | seductions of Romanism, these are, as a matter of | course, the instruments employed. In order to show | how they are brought to bear, and how the principal | characters act upon one another, it will be | necessary to give an outline of the story, which has | two very distinct aspects ~~ the real, which is very | real; the fanciful, which is very fanciful; and each | aspect with appropriate local scenery of its own. | Margaret Percival is the daughter of a physician, a | leading inhabitant of a country town; her mother is a | clever, worldly woman, devoted to the care and | advancement of her numerous family. There is an | elder sister, Agatha, who has been expensively | educated with a view to her teaching the younger | children; but when the time comes, Agatha ~~ who | is a beauty, with every intention of turning her | beauty to account ~~ flatly refuses to have anything | to do with the school-room; and in the parents' | difficulty poor Margaret, just eighteen, without her | sister's advantages, is chosen as the victim instead. | Margaret is a clever, imaginative girl, with a strong | though undisciplined sense of duty. She submits | with a good grace, and begins with high hopes of | success; but, with her own mind undisciplined, she | is ill fitted for the office of teacher; and we have | some excellent hints on education, founded on poor | Margaret's failure and discouragement. Her mother, | with whom she is no favourite, thwarts her plans; | her selfish sister gives her neither help nor | sympathy; her absent brother confides to her all his | pecuniary scrapes and troubles; her home is | uncomfortable, and in despair she withdraws her | mind, as far as possible, into her own visionary | world. | How true are many of these home scenes! and yet | the ideal home is a picture it is a pity to destroy, as | so many analysers of domestic life are fond of | doing. We doubt the expediency of so constantly | picturing home as the scene of disappointment, | want of sympathy, uncongeniality, worry, weariness, | and pain. Young people are the readers of these | books. It may lead them to magnify their own small | trials, to fancy themselves aggrieved, to brood over | slight injustices, to criticise and question where an | unreasoning submission is their best happiness. But | we cannot deny that it is in the reflections that arise | out of home scenes, and the everyday experiences | of home life, where our authoress's chief power lies. | We may sometimes question the wisdom of dwelling | so constantly on the sorrowful side of domestic life, | but we cannot dispute that there is one. There is a | feeling, a | | reality, a truth, however melancholy, about these | pictures, which compel the reader to pause, and think, | and acquiesce. It is only the uniformity of effort and | sacrifice, and the unrelieved character of the struggle | in the delineation of family scenes, that we regret; not | that real evils should not sometimes find a voice. It is | the

'cry of the woman,'

to use the cant of our | day, the cry of a spirit not naturally joyous, and | oppressed by the burden her sex has too often to | bear, of small nameless daily annoyances, the | perpetual fret of temper and wear of cheerfulness that | the exactions of selfishness impose upon her, | embittering what should be the fountain-head of her | purest delights. | | Within an easy walk of Margaret's home stood a | deserted mansion in a noble park, the property of a | Roman Catholic family of rank, the last descendant of | which, now a widow, lived in Italy, having married an | Italian nobleman. A fine terrace in front of the mansion | was Margaret's favourite resort. There she was in the | habit of repairing to recruit her spirits and to dream | away her annoyances undisturbed. She had never | been admitted into the interior of the house; but | through one of the windows she could see the portrait | of a beautiful girl in the quaint costume of a long past | age. The picture mingled with her fancies, and sank | into her heart, like an actual living creature, thus | preparing the ground, as the discerning reader will | easily guess, for some strong affection which is to | influence her future destiny. While Margaret | alternately labours and dreams, her selfish elder sister | has waking plans of her own. She intends to marry a | rich colonel of some fifty years old, the acknowledged | best match of the neighbourhood, and brother of her | fashionable friend, Mrs. St. Aubin. In prosecution of | this scheme, she accepts the invitation of her friend | and the colonel to join them in a little excursion into | Normandy, in which Margaret, all unconscious of her | sister's designs, is, to her | | great joy, included. Before they start we are | introduced to her uncle Mr. Sutherland, who | represents the English Church in the polemical part | of the story, ~~ a pattern man, whom the author | has made some attempt to individualise, and | possessed of that amazing stock of patience and | sympathy for the doubts and difficulties of young | ladies which good clergymen in books are always | endowed with. The journey to Rouen is an | eventful one. It gives Margaret her first favourable | impressions of Romanism, and introduces her to | her fate ~~ the Countess, she recognises on a | balcony an exact counterpart of her favourite | picture, and is not a little excited when she | discovers that it is the Countess Novera, that | picture's lineal descendant. After this discovery | she enters the Church of S. Ouen, and is so | absorbed in its beauty and the impression it makes | on her mind, that, upon being left by her party, she | yields to the influences of the place, and kneels | amid the worshippers; amongst whom she has | already recognised the graceful figure of the young | Countess, who, in her turn, is attracted by the | devotion of the English girl, whom, under such | circumstances, she never supposes to be

'a | heretic.'

| In the meantime, Agatha and the Colonel are | getting on very well together, and Margaret is | shortly informed of her engagement. The lover has | so many disagreeable qualities that Agatha's | motives cannot be mistaken, and her sister | remonstrates and warns to the verge of propriety. | But Agatha is firm; she is not afraid of his temper, | and she puts up with his dulness. She is | determined, in fact, to live in style. When the party | return home, the mother is delighted, the father | acquiesces, friends congratulate; all but Margaret | regard it as a subject of rejoicing. She to the last | seeks to work on Agatha's mind, whose struggles | between conflicting feelings are ably given; but in | vain. | While the preparations for the wedding progress, | the Countess Novera, with her confessor Father | Andrea, and her young Italian friend, Lucia, arrive at | Henningsley for a prolonged stay. The whole party | are after the approved romantic type. The | confessor especially, with his stern rigidity of | aspect, his devotion to his Church, his tenderness | for his charge, hits the youthful notion of severe | attractiveness. Notwithstanding the difference of | rank and circumstances, Margaret and the | Countess, after the scrutiny of each other's | countenances we have recorded, seem to have | read the will of fate that they were to be friends; for | before any introduction takes place, Margaret has a | discussion with her uncle on unequal friendships; | and he gives it against her making the Countess | her bosom friend, with some sensible remarks, | which, as they | | evidently never practically influence the authoress, | can hardly be expected to move Margaret. The | wonder is that the question should ever have been | mooted at all when the probability to the reader | would be so small of its ever being called for | However, the ladies no sooner meet than they feel | irresistibly drawn to one another, to the infinite | annoyance of the Italian, who personifies the | passion of jealousy. When the Countess discovers | her mistake in Margaret's religion, and doubts if | she ought not to draw back, the confessor, who | scents a convert, encourages the growing intimacy; | and thus Margaret becomes at once the idol of the | Countess, and the confessor's main object; and the | process of proselytising sets in. The Church of | England is ill represented in Margaret's parish; the | church is ugly, the parson indolent, the Dissenters | numerous. The line of argument pursued by the | authoress lightly touches on the errors of the | Church of Rome, and discusses at length the | relative claim of authority in the two churches to | Margaret's allegiance. It may have had its value | ten years ago, though then it was felt, imprudent | to throw all the interest and romance on the | Romish side. But no controversy can be of | permanent value that does not probe matters | thoroughly, and embrace all sides of the question. | For ourselves, we believe that Romanism must be | tried by its doctrines, and therefore that young | people for whom the discussions in the book are | intended, may be misled, by the little prominence | given to them, into the mistaken notion that the | authoress is not or was not as strong in her | repudiation of certain definite errors, as she | undoubtedly is and as some summary and concise | protests show her to be. The claims of the English | Church are put forward with a dutiful, loving | reverence, which leave nothing to be desired, and | which always have their value. The elder and more | critical reader cannot enter with undivided attention | into the controversial parts of the tale, from a sense | of the absolute improbability of all the | circumstances of their discussion, and the feeling | that the instruction, whatever its value, is | counterbalanced by the indiscretion of presenting | so fascinating a connexion to young fancies as | this mutual devotion of the Countess and Margaret. | They are represented as

‘absorbed,' blinded,' | ‘engrossed;'

Margaret is the Countesses one | tie to live for, her one love after her husband s | death. Such a case is neither possible nor | desirable. It would be a sign of weakness in both | parties if it could exist at all m actual life. But we | have already expressed ourselves on our | authoress’s views of the passionate, exclusive | nature of a true friendship. As an illustration, take | the following conversation between the Countess | and her confessor, on occasion of Lucia’s being | interested in a new acquaintance, which relieves | the former | | from an irksome sense of restraint in not being able | to return her little dependant's devotion. The father | sternly replies: ~~ | | There is but one earthly affection designed to be of | this, absorbing character. If it is attempted to make | any other relation such, eccentricity and failure of | duty in the natural sphere of action is the inevitable | result. Its representation in 'Margaret Percival' is | full of incongruities. Margaret has to change her | character whenever she comes under the | Countess's influence; from being vigorous, | energetic, self-reliant, a disciplinarian, and | somewhat a slave to rules, she becomes dreamy, | lavish of time, isolated from her natural interests. | Concurrent with the indulgence of this intimacy, | which the uncle's absence abroad, joined with a | reluctance on his niece's part to encounter his | disapprobation, keeps him in ignorance of, home | troubles are gathering from various quarters. The | eldest brother in the army is extravagant, contracts | gambling debts, and makes perpetual demands on | his father. Agatha's marriage turns out ill; the | Colonel is ill-tempered, and she is wilful; till, at | length, on the occasion of the death of her baby, | and his neglect of her entreaties for further advice, | she abruptly leaves him, and returns to her old | home. At length, the father's health breaks down | on receiving news of his son's fresh disgraceful | embarrassments. There is no question in the family | (and the writer seems to suppose the sacrifice | inevitable) of giving up the savings of a life to pay | debts of honour, and thus rescue the family credit | at the expense of the other sons' and daughters' | prospects, ~~ a step which ought never to be | recorded without a protest. In this complication of | disasters, the uncle comes to them, and, as a | crowning climax of his distress, discovers that | Margaret's faith is wavering; that she is, in fact, on | the point of joining the Church of Rome. Happily, in | real life such practical troubles as pecuniary | distresses, sickness, and general domestic trials, | stave off intellectual perplexities; but Margaret is | the victim of all at once. | | | The uncle loses no time in encountering the | mischief; and certainly his influence upon the | doubting and distracted mind of his niece in one | instance is beyond nature, or what we can desire to | be natural. He induces ~~ nay, forces ~~ her to give | up in a moment, without another interview, all | intercourse with the Countess, after two years of the | closest, dearest, unintermitting friendship; his fiat is, |

'You and the Countess must never meet again.' |

And Margaret, after such struggles of mind as | we meet with in books, consents, and writes a | parting letter, which is sent on the eve of the | Countess's departure from Henningsley for London. | Now, as a fact, we cannot undo our acts after this | fashion, and, all things remaining the same, loose | ourselves summarily from the consequences of | them. We do not take a flighty view of friendship, but | friends must not part in this way without change of | feeling on either side. The Countess was the same | as when her father and mother sanctioned the | imprudent intimacy. She had never made any secret | of her wishes for Margaret's conversion; she had | been uniformly kind, loving, and devoted. Such | affection has a claim like relationship, though, | perhaps, not in the same degree; and this sudden, | violent renunciation, which shocks our feelings, | does not approve itself any better to our sense of | justice or propriety. We object to this sort of | unreasoning submission to another mind, where the | heart has a right to be heard, and a Margaret of real | life would never have taken such a step; nor could | we bid her do it in spite of the dangers to her | constancy, which she escapes in the story. In fact, | the authoress herself hardly carries out her own | judgment. First, the really eloquent and fervent letter | through which Margaret conveys her decision never | reaches its destination, being intercepted by the | jealous Lucia and wickedly destroyed; and, finally, | the confessor, who is not willing to give up his | hoped-for convert, seeks her, gets an explanation | from her, and finally contrives to bring the friends | together, hoping to persuade her to accompany the | dying Countess to Italy; for we should have said, the | poor lady's health, always precarious, had given | way under the English climate and her heart's | disappointment in her friendship. Here is the scene | in which Margaret resists the temptation, and says a | formal farewell; we give it as an instance of the | romantic visionary side of our authoress's mind: ~~ | | | | | The whole scene is simply impossible, either in | itself, or the antecedents which have led up to it. It | is a dream, not a piece of life. | The conclusion of the story tells the consummation of | all kinds of sacrifices on Margaret's part. The | family, after her father's death, leave their luxurious | home, and settle in a small cottage in her uncle's | parish. Agatha's selfishness is in a perplexity; she | does not like the prospect of poverty, and is in a | mood to listen to Margaret's representations of her | duty to return to her husband, and nurse him in an | attack of gout, which makes him intolerable to | everyone else. The scene | of her return home, or rather the absence of all | scene that characterises it, is extremely well given, | and leaves a salutary dreariness on the spirits. | Margaret goes out as a governess, to enable her | second brother to finish his Oxford career, and thus | to carry out his wish to take orders in the Church. | The elder brother repents and reforms. Under her | uncle's influence, and, by the happy example of the | working of our Church-system in his parish, all | Margaret's doubts are set at rest. On her brother's | ordination her task is concluded; and we leave her | happy and serene in her own home, and enjoying | her uncle's companionship. | The character of Margaret, as seen in her own | family and home circle, is well drawn. We can | realize and feel the power of that

'air of | self-recollection about her which, perhaps, is one of the | most powerful though unconscious means of | influence excited by the higher order of minds;' |

a quality which it is the especial point of the | authoress's teaching and example to enforce, both | for its own sake, and for its effect upon others. | This quality is, perhaps, the characteristic of both | aunt and niece in her next book, 'The Experience | of Life,' ~~ to our mind the best of this lady's works, | and furnishing the happiest example of her peculiar | powers. In all her books, what we prize most is the | view they contain of the duties and responsibilities of | life; the serious, thoughtful, accurate observations | of a mind which has been always at work upon the | problem of human life, with, we believe, a religious | desire to extract that moral from it which | Providence designed it should teach. The wisdom | of experience is concentrated in the character of | Aunt Sarah, who is not only a repository of | admirable maxims, but a real old woman whose | society we should all have valued, and been the | better for. An old maid too, and not without the | singularities of one; and yet | | an example how loveable, and venerable, and | attractive old age may be, after a pious life of | serving God, and active exertion for man. It is a rare | form of commendation of a tale to say that the good | advice is its most interesting feature; yet, with no | disparagement to the story whose few incidents are | graphically told, it is certainly the case here. We are | always anxious for Aunt Sarah's opinion on every | knotty point; her strong native sense, clear and | prompt judgment, and characteristic force of | expression, ~~ the nearest approach to humour this | writer's style ever possesses, ~~ never disappoint | us; we wish to remember her sayings as guides to | ourselves in cases of difficulty or trial. Though a | concentration of practical common sense, there is | an originality in her views and notions which gives | them the freshness of novelty; the authority of her | tone, and its axiomatic precision, and air of profound | conviction, adding that weight which all advice | needs to sink properly into the mind of the recipient. | The story is an autobiography written by the niece | and disciple of Aunt Sarah, beginning from her | earliest recollections. She is one of a large family, | having four brothers and sisters older than herself, | and two younger; but owing to delicate health, and a | precocious intellect, she leads a separate life from | them all, taking a sort of external view of her family | concerns, and discussing her brothers' and sisters' | faults as a critical stranger might do; a habit | common to all this lady's heroines, and perhaps in | part attributable to the isolated view she takes of her | characters, not harmonising and blending them into | groups, ~~ an effect which close intercourse should | always produce ~~ but representing each member | of the family separate, and with separate interests, | like dwellers in a boarding-house. This critical habit | of mind is associated, oddly enough, with an almost | morbid family affection and readiness of self-sacrifice, | ~~ a contradiction which, after all, may not be so | uncommon in real life as incongruous in a book. We | should say that there is too much about money, and | that the troubles of the heroine arise too much from | the want of it, but for the opportunity the subject | offers for Aunt Sarah's admirable practical notions, | which in this point furnish a corrective to some of the | authoress's earlier views. We will not therefore raise | the question; only it is certain that the interest which | arises from pecuniary difficulties ~~ the result of | mismanagement, carelessness, indolence, | extravagance, or a family habit of

'muddling | away'

money, ~~ will certainly be of an irksome | character to the reader, who, ten to one, has private | reasons of his own for hating the subject of | money-troubles, and does not care to be reminded of them | when he takes up a. book ostensibly of light reading. | We could wish indeed in this writer generally more | light-heartedness. The trials of life are too | | constantly present with her; its duties are so heavy ~~ | dead weights with no spring in them ~~ that | resignation is too constantly in request. She is | mistrustful of mirth, and seldom introduces it but as | the crackling of thorns under a pot, or as the sign of a | selfish, cold nature. Her idea of relaxation is not gaiety, | but enthusiasm for some object. We find ourselves, | towards the end of one of these impressive, earnest, | heart-felt experiences, thinking jokes wrong. And, | indeed, if we had to live surrounded by such selfish, | unpleasant people as are gathered round the heroine, | and were as alive to all their disagreeable qualities | and low aims as her perspicacity compels her to be, | we should all find life as great a strain on the spirits as | she does. And they are very well done too; real living | troublers of the peace; especially Horatia, artful, bold; | successful, with her loud voice and laugh, and rustling | silks, and airs of patronage. Caroline, the elder sister, | is also a clever sketch. The writer has an eye for | young ladies who from their long-clothes mark out their | own course, and steadilv pursue it. Her object is a rich | marriage, which she achieves at the cost of actually | marrying a merchant, a man who by his own powers | of business has got himself a hundred thousand | pounds. | Now, for our part, we think that if it is good to have | money, which no reader of this series of stories can | doubt, it cannot be wrong to make it; and therefore we | the more wonder at the slur continually cast in them | on the pursuit of trade and commerce. This writer's | views of the mercantile world, and insight into its | workings, are certainly narrow. She takes for granted | that its interests must necessarily be selfish and | grasping, alike degrading to the manners and the | heart. She clearly sees no connexion between | England's commerce and England's greatness. | Manufacturing interests are no interest to her. She | who can discriminate so nicely between the gradations | of acknowledged station recognises no social | distinctions in trade; there can be no classification in | that outer darkness. To her it is by no means so | preposterous a sentiment as to us, when | Mrs. Wentworth declares she shall certainly break her | heart if her son enters a merchant's office. She | sympathises with the Percival horror when the ruined | father, in a fit of despair, proposes for his son such a | position, with a prospect of ultimate wealth. But | here we probably trace the influence of the editor of | her works (if we may identify him with the author of | 'Hawkstone'), whose notions on the subject of trade | are more ignorant, prejudiced, and intolerant than it | would be possible for this lady's more candid mind to | follow to their full extent. | But while Caroline is looking after her own interests, | the family fortunes are falling, till, at the father's death, | it proves | | that the machinations of the banker-uncle have | been too effectual, and the heroine, and her mother | and unmarried sisters, are left totally unprovided for, | with only selfish brothers and a selfish sister to look | to for assistance. Aunt Sarah has long foreseen this | consummation, and early implanted in her favourite | niece's mind the maxim that

'There is more | honour and more 'profit, both for this world and the | next, in fifty pounds gained by your own labour, | than in five hundred doled out by the pity of others;' | | | | Thus urged, Sarah writes letters to her brothers and | sisters, find receives vague and unsatisfactory | answers, all ingeniously and characteristically shirking | their duty, and suggesting that she should apply to | other relatives. She carries them in discouragement to | Aunt Sarah, who, nothing daunted, takes pen in hand | herself, though the exertion is great at her advanced | age: ~~ | | This letter has its effect; and in the course of time the | arrangement is entered into: ~~ | | | | We believe all this to be in exact accordance with | fact and nature, and that it is the truest wisdom and | charity not to lose patience with selfishness, but to | treat people according to the best part of their nature, | however far hidden it may lie, and not, as most are | tempted to do, according to their worst. | Let us take at random a few of Aunt Sarah's short | rules and maxims. Her niece says: ~~ | | She sets down an interfering and critical lady by | reminding her that ~~ | | On the usages of society: ~~ | | | | She gives her niece her view of rules for self- | guidance and the regulation of time: ~~ | | There is one consolation which this writer never | denies her heroines, however low she reduces their | fortunes ; whether it be the keeping of a little | day-school in a back street, as in the niece Sarah’s case, | or the superintendence of her father s shop accounts, | as in Katharine Ashton's ~~ she always gives them a | lady of rank and fortune, and all conformable | perfections, for their friend. We do not grudge Sarah | her Lady Emily Rivers, who is a very sweet person, | but it is fortunate that ordinary people do not find life | such an unmitigated trial; for, certainly, the | compensation of a titled friend distinguishing the | sufferer with especial love, favour, and protection, is | not a common form of alleviation of its sorrows. And, | because really exceptional in the highest degree, we | think the indulgence of such a fancy injurious to the | practical value of these tales. The notion is attractive | to young minds ~~ it must have taken very easily hold | of the authoress's. But in all her stones it is a feature | at variance with their avowed moral. It is all very well | to direct youthful contempt against a love of money as | such, and to set | | forth excellent examples of the insufficiency of | wealth for happiness, if side by side with these | unpleasing portraits stands an image of grace, | refinement, and high feeling and action, hereditarily | gifted with what the vulgar world is striving after. | The effect on some readers may be, that, instead | of learning to despise wealth, they may only | enlarge their desires, and wish for it, accompanied | by other distinctions, as a gift of fortune, not as a | reward of industry. | One feminine feature comes out rather pleasantly | in the details of this story, and that is, the true | woman's feeling for furniture; we call it feeling | rather than taste, because it has so much to do | with her domestic instincts. There can be no doubt | that furniture has quite a different meaning in | different minds. In some it occupies no place at all, | A chair is a thing to sit down upon; what its form is, | what its material, never enters into the mind of the | sitter, nor yet the surrounding objects that fill the | eye, when the first need of rest is supplied. Many a | man whom fortune environs with silk and gilding | has no more relation to it all than the monk to the | bare necessaries of his cell; just as numbers or | geometric figures have a substance to some minds, | and make themselves a home there, while in others | they are the merest confluence of lines suggesting | no idea. So it is with the material objects that | surround us for the convenience of our bodily | requirements; to some they are nothing, to others | they make home what it is; they have a meaning | and personality, they fix themselves in the mind | and memory, the thoughts nestle in them, and are | dislodged and desolate if these ministrants to our | material life are mean, or tasteless, or faded. With | them changes of place or colour in these things | amuse the fancy; some pretty addition, or the | removal of some desight, improves the spirits; some | fresh combination arouses the memory. The | character loves to display itself in the arrangement | of its home. Under restraint this is a very valuable | instinct in woman; it constitutes one of her arts for | making home comfortable, and is therefore a | desirable one to cultivate, while in the poor it often | leads to forethought and prudence; some few | superfluities, something approaching to decoration, | are necessary to their idea of married happiness; | and when these are procured, and housekeeping is | begun, the preserving these treasures which have | been wished for and waited for, is called

| 'keeping home together.'

Our present authoress | encourages this propensity by her example; she | rarely mentions a room without cursory notice of its | arrangement. All her grand mansions are | appropriately furnished. A. horsehair sofa is the | last drop of humiliation, and fills up the measure of | Mrs. Mortimer's ~~ the gentle mother's ~~ fall; and | we feel sensibly relieved when Lady Emily secretly | brings in | | the upholsterers to extirpate every trace of that | cold, shiny, slippery enemy to comfort. But we must | pass on to the region where, no doubt, it reigned | undisturbed ~~ the back parlour behind the shop, | where we are first introduced to 'Katharine Ashton.' | The avowed aim of this story is to show how | different classes of society may be brought together | ~~ the great question of ranks which perplexes the | authoress so much throughout her works being | fairly grappled with here. Her view is, that they can | unite in work, but not in play; therefore the | Colonel's Union Ball, where the duchess and the | tradespeople meet together, degenerates into a | vulgar romp, and plants seeds of bitterness and | disunion; while the clergymen's district societies, | and other kindred institutions, prove a real source | of friendliness and fellowship in bringing together | all degrees. It is through them that the childish | school-friendship between the bookseller's | daughter and the colonel's bride is renewed and | hallowed. We agree with a good deal of this in | theory, and the passages on district visiting are | very useful and good; but the real lesson of the | story is contrary to its professed design, and | illustrates the impossibility of an intimate friendship | between persons of very unequal social position ~~ | taking society as it is ~~ without the sacrifice of | self-respect, and a neglect of the prior claims of equals | on both sides. Katharine Ashton is the only | daughter of the most respected retail tradesman of | a considerable country town, a man of local | importance, foremost in town business, consulted | on political questions, looked up to, in short, as a | leading man. So situated, she has a position of her | own, and a station to keep, and natural ties and | interests waiting her acceptance; for a most | estimable young man, congenial in his principles, and | favoured by her parents, would certainly have | engaged her affections, if they had not been | diverted from their right channel by the absorbing | attraction of this graceful, refined, and superior | friend. So that the constant lover has to spend | eight disconsolate, solitary years, which ought to | have been happy ones. We see a course marked | out for her very clearly by Providence; but, in | counteracting it, we find quite different duties | inculcated by the author, which must, we think, | have not a little surprised some, readers. We find | the maintenance of this friendship, against the | wishes of the proud and supercilious colonel, | subjecting Katharine to continual humiliations. She | has to creep up back stairs to avoid him, to hold | secret colloquies with the housekeeper, and take | her meals with this official in a sort of stealth. All | this, from the beginning of the marriage till the | demands upon her devotion arrive at the point of | her feeling it her duty, and a call of Providence, to | enter into her | | friend's service, in order to nurse her in the illness | and depression caused by her husband's want of | feeling and selfishness; and in the capacity of lady's | maid she has to associate with the servants, to | endure the familiar impertinence, and, at length, the | insults of the butler, one of the

'pampered | menial'

class, to submit to solemn reproofs for | impropriety of conduct from the colonel; and this | while she is engaged and shortly to be married to | her old lover, now a duke's agent with five hundred | a year. Nor is the intercourse with her mistress | more satisfactory. She amuses her with the airs and | high-life-below-stairs pretensions of her | fellow-abigails while on a visit at the duke's, which is | something like treachery to her adopted class; while | the unhappy wife on her part enters into | confidences, and discusses her husband's faults | and her own mistakes, which had brought him to | such a pass of selfishness, in a way which justifies | his jealousy of the peculiar relation between them. | It is not a state of things gravely to be speculated | upon; for, of course, it is simply impossible: but if it | were not, both wife and friend should long before | have received the husband's disapprobation of the | connexion, as a sign that it should be discontinued. | Some space and ingenuity are expended at the | beginning of the story in bringing the two naturally | together; and, first, Jane, afterwards Mrs. Forbes, | discusses her old schoolfellows (she had happened | many years before to attend the town day-school) | with her mother. | | | | It is a difficult and tender subject, but our authoress | does not get to the bottom of it by the illustration | her story furnishes to her argument. The old | independent burgher-spirit has wrought too much | good in the long run; it lies too much at the root of | the distinctive English character to he set down as | a continual struggle against the decree of | Providence. Combinations of men, as citizens are, | make their own position according to the vigour, | industry, and intelligence they put into their work. | These qualities must rise; and if townspeople and | their country neighbours sometimes differ as to | their social standing, it does not follow that those | external to them take the truest view. As for the | wives and daughters, with due deference to a | lady's keen perceptions, we believe town ladies | are often misjudged. A love of bright colours need | be no sign of pretension, or a desire to rise out of | her class, but rather to shine in it, and the | question should be treated as one of vanity, not of | ambition. The case is carried into a wrong court | when the dispute becomes one of privilege, and | turns into a claim of one class to the exclusive right | of wearing fine clothes, which is the line the old | fashioned class of good books is too apt to take. | We next are introduced to Katharine Ashton, in | simple contrast to the pretension of her fellow | townswomen. The renewal of her intercourse with | Jane arose on occasion of a slight street accident. | Miss Sinclair manifested tender concern for the | injured child, and led on to the question of the | wants of the poor, and the duties of others | towards them, on which Jane speaks with knowledge | and feeling. | | | | The authoress's portraits are always good. When | she brings her characters to bear upon one another | she constantly fails in probability, or exaggerates | and degenerates into caricature; but she describes | the impulses and inner workings of a character | admirably. This is illustrated in Colonel Forbes. | When we see him in action, his petty interferences | and busy trifling as a public man are as much at | variance with our notions of the habits of people of | consequence and fashion as his behaviour to his | wife, and constant demands on her physical | strength, are incompatible with the manners of a | gentleman; but different powers are at work when | she lays bare the secret springs of action. Take him | in the following passage, after Katharine has | presumed to insinuate to him that his wife is very ill. | The whole working of a selfish mind is opened out to | us, and even made an interesting study, seen in | union with a sensitive and intellectual nature, which | we believe is no unusual combination. | | | | And who does not know the irritating bondage in | which minds of this sort hold those subject to their | influence? It is, indeed, a thraldom which it needs the | strongest resolution to combat. The qualms and | struggles they cost timid natures are well given. | | Yet we do not think the authoress really understands a | timid nature. Her characters constantly want tact, and | introduce disagreeable subjects, really with very little | tenderness or concern ; but it is one thing to | comprehend a character or a state of feeling, and | another to be able to sympathise with its workings, so | as to represent it in actual operation. | Our readers will not be sorry to hear, in conclusion, | that the colonel loses the amiable wife he had tried so | unmercifully; and the more, as it leaves Katharine free | to marry and begin to be happy on her own account, | and at the same time wakes the bereaved husband | from his dream of selfishness. | We will not dwell upon 'Cleve Hall,' which stands next | on the list; one word characterises it, both positively | and relatively. It is a failure, ~~ a failure so complete | and so elaborate, that seeing the authoress in her | succeeding and latest work has recovered her powers | and her natural manner, there must be some history | attached to its composition; it must have been written | under some unfavourable conjunction of | circumstances, which, if we knew them, would remove | the book at once from the pale of criticism. The story, | in the highest degree melodramatic, is patched up of | romantic fragments, ~~ obscure, | | involved, and totally without interest or probability. | The language is forced and extravagant. We can | care for none of the characters, nor enter into | their concerns. The great old house and family | estate figure as usual. The owner, a crabbed old | general, has disinherited his son; and all the | personages are engaged to the sacrifice of every | duty and other consideration in the recovery or | alienation of this estate. We have stage villains, | forging, smuggling, gambling, and a stage hero, |

'writhing as from a serpent's sting'

under | remorse for his father's misdeeds, with

'lips | of haughty curl'

melting into

‘feminine | sweetness,'

subject to fits of

'bitter pride, ' | ‘convulsive fierce sarcasms,'

and desperate |

'struggles with evil;’

whose time seems | mainly passed in the surely uncongenial | occupation of nursing a conventional little sick | boy. AS all this runs on with infinite prolixity | through two considerable volumes, every chapter | of which betrays, effort, perhaps the mystery of | their composition may resolve itself into the most | usual and commonplace of all secrets of failure ~~ | the necessity or fancied necessity of writing with | nothing to say. Influenced by this persuasion, | whether true or mistaken, we will not longer | delay entering upon the writer's succeeding and | latest tale, which, as being recently published and | the subject of some discussion, originates the | present lengthened notice of her works of fiction. | In 'Ivors,' the authoress is herself again; and we | have to lament no falling off inher powers, | though we may have to question on some points | the use she has made of them. The story is | distinguished by the introduction of what we may | call a new topic; for though she has touched on | the subject of love and marriage before, it has | been held subordinate to the claims of friendship | or duty, and has played no leading part, while it is | one for which our authoress would seem | especially fitted from the union of romance, | feeling, and common sense we find in her. | This question should be treated by the moralists | among our story writers; it is not well to leave so | fascinating a subject, which must some time or | other be of paramount interest to young readers, | in the hands of writers whose sole aim is | amusement. We believe it is one main use of | judicious fiction to inculcate just and high views | on this point; and that young people who are | studiously kept from such books are the worse for | it when their own experience begins, and | sometimes betray a want of tact, delicacy of | feeling, and even principle, which the sentiments | of a thoughtful, high-souled observer of life, in its | most stirring emotions and incidents might have | imparted to them. In spite of the possession of | the qualities requisite to constitute a, teacher in | affairs of the heart, we cannot regard | | the lesson taught in 'Ivors' to be a desirable one; | or rather the lesson is wanting. We really do not | see who it is to do good to, or in what critical | position of circumstances a young person can | turn to this work for counsel. Not that we have any | fault to find throughout with the tone: it is pure and | conscientious, as we feel beforehand it must | necessarily be; but the pattern and example of | the story is really no example at all, but rather a | warning. It is sometimes the way of our authoress | to make the wise people do the foolish things; and | this appears to us especially the case in 'Ivors,' | where the model Susan ~~ the admirable result of | a perfect education, and one really very pleasing | and attractive to the reader ~~ falls in love under | slighter provocations than we think could tempt a | well-disciplined mind, and is the victim of an | unrequited attachment. The position itself is one | which none but a woman would venture to | portray. For our part, we should never presume to | speculate, ~~ as we should be sorry to have to | believe, ~~ that under the composed self-restraint | and serene calm of a young lady's exterior there | lurked a hidden tumult of emotions, awakened by | no solicitations, and destined to no return. We | would willingly believe, in justice to the position of | woman, which renders it impossible for her to | declare affection, or even with maidenly propriety | to do much to promote its interests, that it is not in | her nature to form an attachment without some | instigation from the object, without the thought | being suggested by some supposed marks of | preference, without the consciousness of being | herself an attraction, before she feels herself | attracted, and the mysterious sense of sympathy | awakened. | It is not a question on which to dogmatise; nor do | we deny that facts must often seem against us. | But all we mean is that the first impulse should be | given, not rise spontaneously, as the first dawning | emotion should do on the lover's side. And we | cannot but think it undesirable to let young people | suppose that no care or self-discipline, no habitual | circumspection, no course of wise mental | occupation, no happy condition of circumstances, | no variety of interests, no useful activity of mind | and body, ~~ safeguards by which the heroine is | surrounded, ~~ can preserve a young woman from | the miseries and blighting influence of unrequited | affection, if Providence orders the fate for her. We | are not willing to believe such a trial amongst the | class, of providential sorrows which woman as | such is heir to. Of course, she may be the victim of | mistakes, her own judgment may err, she may be | misled by manner, and have reason to suppose | herself preferred when she is not. But these are not | cases in point here: for poor Susan's | | affections were entangled while she knew the | object of them was attracted by, and finally | engaged to, another. In anxiety to do the gentleman | justice, the authoress leaves the lady no valid | excuse. To the reader she is under an infatuation, | the more painful and humiliating that we know his | feelings never waver for an instant from their first | object; though certainly, now and then, Mr. Claude | does things which he had better not do, and which | mere friendship would hardly account for. But we | see so clearly all the while where his heart is, that | we cannot but feel she ought to have seen it too. If | it was only the fancy that was touched for a time, | we should not make this remonstrance; but Susan | is heart-broken, and all but dying, when she finds | out her mistake. She is meant to behave nobly and | magnanimously towards Helen, her friend and rival; | but, in fact, she could not do otherwise without | sacrificing our esteem, and is in the false position of | having to give up all her own feelings and wishes, | and yet of gaining little credit by the sacrifice. | Ivors is the seat of Sir Henry Clare, and is | described with the author's usual relish for scenes | of state and grandeur. Its ruling spirit is Lady | Augusta, his second wife, who accepted the | position less tempted by the baronet himself, than | by the opportunity presented by his two children, | and especially his daughter Helen, for carrying out | her theories on education: not, we think, a very | usual form for selfishness to show itself, but Lady | Augusta's misdeeds generally want an adequate | motive. Being a woman of strong will, professed | religious principle, and uniform worldliness, this | education is as bad as possible. The quick-sighted, | truthful child sees that all about her mother-in-law | is false and hollow, and her obedience is merely | external; the heart never goes with it, except in a | full acquiescence in Lady Augusta's exclusiveness. | Under the pretence of keeping Helen pure and | uncontaminated by the knowledge of this world's | evil, she is not permitted any companionship with | the neighbourhood; even intercourse with the poor | is forbidden. She lives for herself alone, and is | taught selfishness in principle. | Here we are tempted to pause, and again to ask | the use of such a satire on High Churchmanship as | the character of Lady Augusta presents. We cannot | feel that it comes gracefully from an author whose | sympathies, though always guarded against any | spirit of partisanship, have uniformly appeared to be | with those who hold distinctive Church doctrines, | whose teaching has enforced the ritual rules of the | Prayer-book, and has inculcated the sacramental | system, with an occasional exclusiveness as to the | channels, of grace, which, to speak for ourselves, | we could | | not always follow. Persons who have once | committed themselves to a side or a view are | bound, we would hold, by a certain courtesy | towards their party. Their teachings and warnings | to friends should be tender, considerate, and | sympathetic. But in 'Ivors' the only exposition of | Church feeling, as such is a caricature of a worldly | mind seizing upon externals, and placing all her | religion in them. The fault may exist, to a certain | decree we know that it does, but we do not believe | that what is understood by High Churchmanship is | popular enough to be deliberately chosen by a | worldly mind for a field of exhibition and display. Of | course, mere worldliness will adopt any tone that | suits its purposes; but where we have sympathies | with the tone, we should be slow in setting the world | on to suppose its manifestations are a hypocritical | pretence. The thoughtless or prejudiced may easily | make mistakes, and commit injustice; they may | learn to attribute worldly motives to an attention to | externals, merely because they do not understand | or sympathise and where the imputation may be | wholly unfounded. It is most important, no doubt, | that pure motives for every act involving a | profession of religion should be inculcated, and the | faults and imperfections that stain every human | action pointed out, if so they may be guarded | against. If there are Lady Augustas, by all means | give them something to think of, and to wake them | from their fatal delusion, but not in a mode and spirit | that shall better please the opponents of principles | which you highly value, and which you have | enforced with all the powers of your pen, than their | adherents. Readers must suppose the authoress's | soul to have been frequently vexed by scenes | passing before her eyes similar to that where Lady | Augusta sanctimoniously sighs over the shades of | her altar-cloth, and laments that her worldly friend | does not care for such things, while her heart is | inflated with triumph at her step-daughter a | engaging herself without affection to the dissipated | heir of an earldom; for she ought to have seen not | one, but many Lady Augustas before drawing such | a revolting picture. We are happy to say such | experiences have not come in our way. Flagrant | hypocrites are rare in any party; they are least likely | to be found in one that is nowhere dominant, and | lies under popular mistrust and unjust suspicion. | Folly, childishness, any amount of confusion of | ideas, merging tastes and likings into duties, we can | confess to and mourn over; but Lady Augusta is a | deliberate character; and all her faults have age and | reflection to give them weight and consistency, she | will be quoted as representing a class; and she will | be quoted against principles which we believe the | writer of ' Ivors' holds dear In contrast to this | unpleasant lady lives, in the neighbouring | | town of Wingfield, a Mrs. Graham, sister of Helen's | own mother, of limited fortune, but well-born and | connected, who has brought up a family of | daughters on principles quite opposed to Helen's | training, and resulting in a pleasanter group of | sisters than this author's pages elsewhere furnish. | The mother and daughters harmonize well together, | and a cheerful picture of goodness is drawn. We | acquiesce in all her plans of education. We like | their ways of acting and living together, and of | spending their time. Susan, the eldest daughter, is | Helen's only companion; for though Lady Augusta is | uniformly jealous of Mrs. Graham, and criticises all | her plans, who, in her turn, refuses to be patronised | by Lady Augusta, the relationship obliges some | intimacy. The story very early introduces us to a | testy old gentleman, Admiral Clare, uncle to Sir | Henry, a great favourite with the author, and rather | so with ourselves. In spite of the relationship, his | sympathies are all with Mrs. Graham and her | family, his life having been coloured by an early | fruitless attachment to Mrs. Graham's mother. He | has a ward, Claude Egerton, a youth, in the | commencement of the story, of large fortune and | great promise, the object, of Lady Augusta’s | matchmaking schemes for Helen, and of the | Admiral’s for his prime favourite, Susan. Both | behave very badly, but without an adequate reason | on either side; but we have remarked before with | what pertinacity of purpose our authoress invests | her characters. Lady Augusta is so far the best | manager that, aided by Helen's great beauty and | natural charms, she carries her point, and effects | an engagement. Susan's attractions are of a quieter | sort. Instead of beauty, grace, and fascination, she | has merely good looks, good sense, gentle | manners, an educated understanding, and pure | mind. As men are constituted, it needed no feminine | machinations to direct Claude's choice. It is useless | to quarrel with the natural effects of beauty, or to | attribute them to anybody's arts. Claude would have | fallen in love with Helen had there been no Lady | Augusta to suggest it to him; the cleverness would | have really lain in preventing it. While he is yielding | to destiny, or falling into the snare, the Admiral | holds the following conversation with Mrs. Graham, | which begins by a general review of her children, | and goes on to Susan: ~~ . | | | | Helen, in the meanwhile, only half likes her | enamoured and devoted suitor. His goodness awes | her; his affection frightens her. She is teasing and | wilful, and tries him more than he can bear. All this | Susan sees. She had always liked and respected | Claude, with dawnings of a warmer feeling. It is a trial | to see | | him thrown away on a woman who does not value | the treasure as she ought. At length, to Lady | Augusta's despair, and the Admiral's proportionate | joy, a rupture takes place on occasion of Helen's | persisting in waltzing ~~ at a ball given by Lady | Augusta in honour of Claude's election ~~ contrary | to his express wish; and the engagement is broken | off. | An interval of two years follows, and we meet all | parties again in the midst of the London season, the | Admiral having induced Mrs. Graham and her | daughters to visit him in town. Claude is in | Parliament, very active and hard-working, and a | little soured by his disappointment; seeing a great | deal of the Admiral's party, and making great | friends with Susan and her mother, though all in the | way of brotherly respect. Helen has set up a friend | ~~ a wild German woman ~~ who is leading her into | the mazes of German metaphysics. She and her | step-mother get on extremely ill together; and if it | were not for the love of rule inherent in Lady | Augusta, and her taste for ecclesiastical needlework, | she would lead but an ill life of it. Claude keeps | distant gloomy watch over the companionship | Helen has chosen, and takes Susan into his | confidence, who certainly ought to have seen that | his mind was exclusively occupied by his first love, | though only the most formal intercourse now | existed between them Madame Reinhard, the | German confidant, who has gained that ascendency | which friends always do in these tales, has her own | reasons for widening the breach between Helen | and her step-mother, in order that the sense of | restraint may force her into marriage for the sake of | liberty of action. There is a Captain Mordaunt, heir | to an earldom, whose weakness of character, and | fashionable follies, point him out as well suited for | this purpose; and here she and Lady Augusta are | for once found agreed Madame would like to have | a countess for her friend, and the step-mother | would like an earl for her son-in-law; and between | them Helen, who has never in her heart forgotten | Claude, is driven into an engagement with the | Captain. Before this consummation Claude | becomes possessed of a letter written by Madame | Reinhard to an unprincipled ally, in which she | makes a joke of Helen, and reports that Captain | Mordaunt has made bets with his friends on his | chance of success in his suit. This letter, by a | second mischance, falls into Susan's hands, who | feels it her duty to show it to Helen, and | magnanimously carries out her resolution, | confronting Madame, and encouraging Helen to | incur a second time the charge of inconstancy by | summarily discarding her new lover. The first hint of | this second disgrace and disappointment, though | broken to her with a tenderness her step-daughter's | previous conduct gave her no reason to expect, | was too much for Lady Augusta's nervous system. | Without | | waiting for the end of the explanation, brain-fever | sets in, and the second act of the drama closes. | After another interval we find the principal | personages of the story travelling in the Tyrol, on | their way to Venice; Sir Henry and Lady Augusta, | the latter prostrated m mind and body, Helen, her | considerate and devoted nurse, entirely changed | from the Helen of old, and Susan as her | companion. It is not long before Claude appears | on the scene, and is led by an accident to join their | party; his heart where it has always been, but his | brotherly attentions bestowed upon Susan, She | misinterprets these attentions, as does Helen, who | keeps herself in the background; and it is not till he | directly solicits Susan’s interest with Helen that | she wakes from her dream. She heroically fulfils | the task imposed on her, and returns home to her | mother a wreck in health and spirits. Time, | however, and the fact of Helen's marriage, | gradually restore her peace of mind; and a | concluding scene, after many years, shows Helen | the happy wife and mother, and Susan the serene | old maid, rejoicing in her lot of

‘sitting in the | shade and seeing the sunshine.'

| The story is well sustained, and the author’s heart | is always in it. To say that it drags in parts, that the | reader's interest now and then sleeps in | consequence, is only to liken it to half the good | novels that ever were written; but her own interest | in her characters and her subject never flags, and | young people will sympathise with Susan | and.grieve for her disappointment. We only hope | they will observe, at the same time, that she had | warnings which should have preserved her from her | fatal mistake. After the foolish old Admiral had, with | his dying breath, enforced his intense desire for the | union of his two favourites by joining their hands | together, and bidding Claude

'be kind to her,' |

she should have seen that only a preoccupied | heart could make him blind to the significance of | this action. And, again, what could be more | conclusive of his indifference than his formal | leave-taking after such a scene?

'I don't think | we can ever meet as strangers, however long our | separation may be.’

Words of mere calm | friendship, at such a time, should never have been | forgotten, though counterbalanced by an occasional | expression of more active regard. And if she was | blinded, her more clear-sighted mother should have | seen for her, and given good advice where she | bestowed misplaced tenderness and sympathy. | Mrs. Graham never seems to know that feelings are | under the dominion and control of their possessors; | she very early, as we have seen, became alive to | Susan's penchant for Claude; but the use she | makes of her knowledge is not to exert every | legitimate means to wean her daughter from an | evidently misplaced attention, | | but simply to screen her from observation. When the | news of Claude's and Helen's first engagement | reaches their family circle, she contrives that it shall | never be spoken of in Susan's presence. She makes | a little mystery of it. Surely, the true cure would have | been to accustom her daughter to the sound; to | make her realize it as a fact; to face it, not only to her | own heart, but to her sisters and friends. Misplaced | mystery keeps up many a mistake; but we are | satisfied that a good honest girl like Susan would | have been heart-free at once under reasonable | treatment, and we should not have had to transcribe | the following doleful and really pathetic scene which | takes place at the end of her prolonged delusion, | after her return from abroad. | | | | This is well written, with more real feeling and less | heroics than our authoress often shows in her | high-rought scenes. But surely such self-abandonment | and utter prostration is a needless humiliation to which | to subject a pure, high-minded, and sensible girl. | Susan is a favourite of ours, and we resent the | indignity for her accordingly. We are unwilling, too, to | believe that such a particular form of tribulation can | probably befal the child of a mother whose principle of | education is thus happily set forth: ~~ | | | | As little can we bear to think that the serenity of | mind and simple childlike trust and faith, so attractive | in the following picture of a mind which never knew | the tune when it did not desire to please God, could | be surprised and disturbed by such a hurricane of | earth-born grief. We are glad to extract the passage | for its own independent merits, as probably | representing the religious feeling of many a mind | trained m a knowledge of sacred truth, and a | reverence for holy things, from infancy, ~~ minds | conscious, from their earliest remembrance of the | presence of God in the soul, and of a childlike trust | in Him as a Father, and who therefore cannot enter | into, and may be needlessly perplexed by, the | demands of certain teachers for some distinct time | or period in their mind's history when truth came to | them as a new, startling, and overpowering | revelation. Susan is answering Helen's questions. | | | | The character of Helen is not very real. Wayward | vivacity is not much in our author's line. We are told | of her brilliant beauty and sparkling spirits, but we | see only the reverse moods. To us she is not very | interesting in her naughtiness, nor natural in her | penitence and goodness. There is something | morbid in her contrition and self-reproach for Lady | Augusta's broken health and spirits; but this is an | habitual error with our authoress; it is one of the | consequences of her theory of retributions and of | temporal punishments. Both facts are alike out of | reach of ordinary experience; either that Lady | Augusta's disappointment in schemes for a | step-daughter should destroy her powers of body and | mind, or that the daughter should take this view of | an ordinary attack of illness. Some practical truths | are well talked and acted out on the subject of | exclusiveness, both in Mrs. Graham's kindly spirit of | general hospitality, and Lady Augusta's rigid stand | against intercourse with neighbours as such. We do | not see that the privileged society of 'Ivors' | represents anything very charming or refined. Lady | Louisa is intended to be a bore; but how selfish | people, as the domestic circle of 'Ivors ' were, | preeminently, should willingly put up with so much | rudeness, impertinent curiosity, and pedantic | quotation, as Lady Louisa embodies, we cannot | understand. It is surely, too, a pity to render | Shakspeare's language so trite and irksome to our | taste, as everyone | must feel it broken up into fragments, and intruded | by this tiresome woman on irritated and unwilling | ears. But we fear to have already exceeded our | limits. | In taking a somewhat abrupt leave of our authoress, | we have the feeling of not having done her full | justice. We have, indeed, endeavoured to express | our approbation of her many excellences in | language that should convey the real sense we feel | of them. But we have found ourselves sometimes at | issue with her on social questions, on which | circumstances and education will make men to differ | while the world lasts, and our space may have been | unduly occupied by these differences. We can only | say that it is not because we hold such questions of | more importance than those in which we cordially | agree, but that praise can be expressed in so much | fewer words, and admits of so little amplification, | compared to the gentlest censure. While a few lines | convey not only general approval but even earnest | sympathy, warm admiration, and entire coincidence | of view, it needs long sentences, and sometimes | pages, | | to point out why we dissent from a certain | principle, why we take exception to a prejudice, | why we see duty under another aspect. It is the | old story, that we cannot talk long and much of our | neighbours, and say nothing but good of them. | But we will say, in conclusion, that we know no | works of fiction that convey more pure, wise, | impressive teaching, or where the wisdom and the | sense come home so directly from the heart of the | writer as the conviction of a personal experience. | We may have known the same all our lives as | barren knowledge; but they come to us with a fresh | force, and an additional seal, under the conviction | that an earnest, reflective, and practical mind has | found them to be true.