| | Christian Remembrancer. Oct 1859, pp. 305-39> | | | <2. Cousin Stella. London: Smith, Elder & Co.> | <3. through the Shadows. London: Hurst & Blackett> | | What should be the first impulse of the writer of fiction? | or must his work begin in impulse at all? Ought it rather to be the | deliberate result of thought and intention? Should he be impelled | to express the pictures of human life, as such, which his | fancy draws, without ulterior aim, simply because such exercise | is congenial and delightful to him; or ought he consciously to | apply his talents to a moral purpose? Must he, that is, first be imbued | with a moral which of itself shall suggest an appropriate | illustration, or, his brain being peopled with its own creations, | may he commit them without formal design to the laws which | appear to him to regulate human action? To many the answer | is so obvious that the question appears to them scarcely a proper | one to ask. Of course those who write for a moral purpose, | must, stand highest. On reviewing our literature, which presents | abundant examples of both kinds, they will always esteem those | authors most who have the loftiest avowed aim. Now, unquestionably, | people should never devote themselves to a work without a | moral purpose, but the mere truthful exhibition of human | nature may furnish this. Whoever keeps close to the truth is | acting conscientiously: he may believe it a useful thing to assist in | enlarging men's knowledge of character and life; he may, indeed | think it better to seem to want an obvious moral than to twist one | character out of its reality, to strain one incident out of | probability, to depict one unnatural scene, to commit in fact one | minor falsehood in order to carry a main grand point. Not that | there is discrepancy between higher | and lower truth; the best fiction arrives at the one through the | other; but, many readers, if they sympathise with the high truth, | which is the professed moral, are blind or indifferent to the | anomalies and outrages by which it is reached. That is with them the | best, most, valuable story, always supposing a certain fitness | and ability in the writer which takes what they consider the | highest stand. It is this principle of judging which gives religious | fiction its popularity; people will take everything for granted | where they sympathise with the writer's aim, and expect the | happiest results from the mere assertion in a picturesque form | of a favourite principle. Whereas influences are such subtle | | things that any ignorance of the science of motives, any hitch in | the minor morals, any betrayal of sympathy with inferior rules | of action, may neutralize all the good; so that we are disposed | to estimate a novel writer's rank and value by the keenness of his | insight into character and motives, and the correctness of his | moral sense in all the details of conduct; with these two | qualities he can produce a valuable fiction even if there be no | evident moral ~ without them no alleged moral in the world, | no assertion of sublime truth will give it worth. But indeed | no-one can | possess the qualities, moral and intellectual, we | have indicated, without being stimulated by high aims, and a | desire to use such gifts for the good of others; but they may, | not be apparent on the surface, as in the story written to illustrate | a truth. The reader feels an elevating and refining influence, | but he cannot repeat in words the lesson he has learnt, as | he is expected to do in the other case, and as in some excellent | and most valuable moral fictions can be done with a real sense | of profit. | | Genius, it is said, is of no sex; and this is so far true that it is | only in a general sense, and with the consciousness of abundant | exceptions on either side, that we express the opinion of women | being the especially 'moral' writers; that is, they set to work to | prove a point ~ starting with this point, and framing the story | to set it off: intent on one definite object very near at heart in | religion, morals, conduct, or society. This may be owing to the | feminine mode of viewing things in the particular rather than in | the general, to the strong faith women have in the efficacy of | good advice, or that as leader and champion of her sex the | conscientious authoress may really feel a weight of errors to | expose, duties to inculcate, and wrongs to redress in a more | particular sense than men do, leading her when she assumes the | pen both to assign to herself a task and to give a reason to the | world for the onerous effort. She has the feeling that the | woman's side of every question has yet to be asserted; that the | time in the world's history has come for this new development; | that her tenderer organization and quick intuitiveness should be | called in, at once to the raising and the settling of momentous | doubts. | | The writer of 'A Life for a Life,' already familiar to the | general reader as the author of 'John Halifax,' 'A Woman's | Thoughts about Women,' and other popular works, stands | conspicuous in this sisterhood, and as having come to her work | brim full of purpose and with her task very distinctly | set before her. She has devoted unquestionable ability to | no less an object than changing the world's opinion on two | important points. The main and more prominent one ~ its | | conduct towards the criminal, which she somewhere calls

'the one | question of our times';

the other its views on ~ shall we use the | familiar word ~ courtship; or seek some more deep and reverential | term to express the growth and progress of the tenderest | affections? Her own sentiments on both points are evidently | not founded on custom and received habits of thought; indeed, | in the first question, are more at variance with them than she | likes openly to express, and her plot suffers from not feeling at | liberty to illustrate her meaning by an appropriate example. | Her argument demands a stronger case than she has dared to | put. Hers is a tale of progress, and she has evidently felt that | the world is not ripe for the free assertion of her views. | It is quite right to grant that public opinion does progress, | and very often changes for the better. Clearly it is the | intention of Providence that, there should be these changes, | wrought out by no direct revelation, but which the | human mind, through the gradual leavening influence | of the Gospel, works out for itself. It may then fairly be | discussed how far society may remit its punishment of sin. | We have not necessarily reached our highest wisdom on this | point. Whether the present writer is right or wrong in her claim of | entire restoration and pardon to the penitent criminal, we are not | obliged to consider the matter a settled one, and incapable of | modification; there may be advantage in directing men's thoughts | to the question. In like manner the softer affections are amenable | to progress. There can be no doubt that public opinion has a moral | weight in their regulation which the more religious minds | acknowledge and obey; that from age to age it enunciates | principles, slowly wrought out by man's purified reason, which | must be received as the development of the Christian moral code. | So that in a certain sense we are in advance of the manners and | instincts of good people of Jewish, or primitive Christian, times. | As a proof, and to make our meaning clear, we appeal | to everyone | of our readers whether they do not know some instance of persons | outraging public feeling and shocking their friends by a marriage | which they have defended with the plea that there is nothing | against their line of conduct in the Bible, or perhaps by adducing | some case from Scripture which, superficially, is in point, and | bears them out. The acting parties must feel, and dispassionate | lookers on know, that this has really nothing to do with it. Every | person is bound to sustain the refinement and civilisation of his | own day, not to impair and lower it. Our outward actions are for | ever being tried by the measure of our peers, who are chosen not | from the voices of ages past or to come, but of our own. The | manners and customs of mankind, which are the evidence of their | principles and feelings | | are nowhere established; | religion elevates the judgment of the mass, as well as renews | individual breasts ~ the first by means of the last, by the slow but | effectual influence of units on the aggregate ~ therefore we have | no right to assume that the highest point of justice, or delicacy | of perception, is already attained by society on this point, though | we do not profess to follow our authoress in all her aspirations. | | What she evidently aims at is the greater equality of woman with | man in the relation; her wishes, expressed with the most | delicate propriety, point to further progress in this direction. The old | primitive idea was that the woman is subject to her father till | he gives her to a husband. We search for indications of some | privilege, in early times, of independent action, nor are they | wholly wanting; but clearly a state of things was then acquiesced | in on all hands that would not suit our higher civilisation, and | quick, educated temperament. The Anglo-Saxon race has long | permitted its daughters a qualified liberty of choice among. | suitors. If we may trust this book and others of kindred tone, | there is a movement for more than this; for a share in the | initiative: a step in advance is taken. Hitherto that woman | should

'not unsought be won'

has been accepted almost as an | axiom, as a feature in every man's ideal; and coyness has been | assumed to be the distinctive attribute of the sex in its most | delicate and sensitive development. To this writer the idea of | being sought, persuaded, wooed, is not congenial ~ almost repugnant. | Mind should rather meet with mind on equal terms. The | reason of each must alike be at work; the attraction in each must | be mutual and simultaneous; the feelings and sympathies of the | pair must advance equally; even the decisive question ~ to speak | coarsely, the offer itself ~ must be a sort of joint affair, the crisis | being reached at the same moment by both. And further, when | a certain amount of deep pure affection is generated, it becomes | a divine power, a voice, a dispensation exempting from previous | obligations. Passive obedience is of course out of place in this | system, and a love thus created, thus spoken between two | thoughtful, devoted, congenial souls, becomes an indissoluble tie, | before that ceremonial tie is formed, which mankind has always | agreed in considering binding beyond every other human | obligation. No man may put them asunder; the public act is | antedated, and the father's supreme authority ceases from the | moment that mutual faith is plighted. | | Now we are no advocates | for strictness and severity either in punishment, or authority. We | are ready to go along with our authoress so long as she pleads for | remissions and modifications which do not change the foundation | of our principles | | but we cannot enter into | language such as the following, which bears on her first topic, | the temporal punishment of crime: ~ | | Scripture nowhere | promises total remission from the temporal consequences of sin. | But besides, this line seems to us inconsistent with a recognition | of the fallibility of our nature. Strict rules of any kind are a | confession of weakness. We must often be severe because we | dare not with our limited intelligence be otherwise. Thus society | regards those who have once been criminal with suspicion, keeps | them under surveillance, distrusts them, because it knows the fact | with a greater certainty than the repentance. Society cannot blot | out sin as God does, as this writer tells it to do; because it is | ignorant and He is omniscient; it is short-sighted, He | is all-seeing; it must judge from the outward appearance, while | God see the heart. It cannot discern between sincerity and | hypocrisy, between temporary and a lasting change; it cannot | therefore decide definitively between man and man, receiving one | into favour and excluding another, because it cannot trust itself. | As for the other point, independent of our present argument, the | institution of marriage has so much that is sacramental in its | character, we see in it a few words spoken, to have such a few | simple movements, wondrous results, that we have always felt it | must be a stumbling-block to those who reject the notion of | efficacy in a sacrament as inconsistent with a spiritual religion. | Not that we are at all wishing to impute to our very correct | author any heterodox notions on the subject of marriage: she | entirely acquiesces in its necessity and importance, but she has a | tendency to detach the outward from the inward parts of the rite, | and to assume that its sacred uniting power is independent of the | ceremony. Now here again, if mankind could really be safe from | the risk of change if when two people declare a mutual | attachment, they could absolutely trust each other, and we could | feel secure against the possibility of change; if we could | intuitively judge between one form of affection and another, and | see at a glance what is ephemeral and what is permanent, | | ~~ we see no objection to the rules she | has laid down. But young people do not know themselves; it | would not do for them to confide implicitly in certain emotions | (which, however far from her intention, we think this book | teaches them to do), they must defer to an external rule and guide; | nor would parents in all cases be doing their duty towards their | children by reverently standing by, recognising a divine hand in | ardent feelings, which actually forbids interference. The writer | has had the making of her own story, and may not see how far | her principles carry her; but it seems to us, that supposing any | young lady to be positive enough in her own affection and in her | trust in its object, she may set at nought parental authority, and | defend herself by the arguments in 'A Life for a Life.' The | authoress herself has such very high views of what marriage | implies and requires; so few people are, in her opinion, really | married, or fit to be married; she has such contempt for the | common-place mixed motives that influence the ordinary run of | people in their choice, that she may probably expect rather to be | charged with over-strictness than with laxity; but any view | which detracts from the solemnity, force, and weight of the actual | ceremony, the moment which changes two into one in a sense which | no devotion of years, no oneness of feeling can effect, or even | approach to, must be regarded with suspicion. Before entering | upon the story in detail, we will illustrate our remarks on this | point by the following passage: ~ | | The construction of the story is peculiar, and certainly not giving | the reader a general idea of what is going on, which | must be most effectually done by simple narrative. We are | never allowed to watch the of events from the | | point of view of an impartial observer. But the authoress has | more than a story to unravel; she | has opinions and convictions which she knows will not be taken | for granted by her readers. These she has found it easier to | develop, and with less sense of individual responsibility, through | the words of imaginary sufferers from the existing code: it is | an appeal not simply to our reason, but from our prejudices to our | sympathies. The book consists of two journals of the hero and | heroine, his story, in alternate chapters, the authoress never | appearing in her own person: a plan which admits | of an amount of reflection, comment, and impassioned protest, | which could hardly be tolerated in any other form, and as it is, | must try the patience of the ordinary novel reader, intent on the | progress of a really interesting and forcibly told story, rather than | on the profound questions it is designed to illustrate. | | If the writer has sought to relax any of the strictness in which | public virtue now entrenches itself, | she is careful that her examples shall not throw | any levity on the subject. In delineating a strong, ardent, | and determined passion, she has been careful to deprive it of external | aids, all the mere promptings of youth and fancy. Her hero is, | apparently, a model of middle-aged respectability. A more | responsible person cannot be pictured, than her Doctor | Max Urquhart, of forty years standing, of grave countenance, wiry | figure, reserved deportment, and irreproachable conduct: a hero | that women only dare to depict, so destitute is he of all charms | of person, manner, or position. If we can get over the anomalies of a | busy man, filling so many sheets of paper for no more | definite object than to relieve his mind, and of a sensible man | remaining in preposterous ignorance of points that concern not | only his well-being but existence itself, and other difficulties to be | laid mainly to the exigencies of the plot, there is both unity and | consistency in his character: he is real, aud we form a distinct idea | of him. The heroine is not so easy to picture. The world | sees her as a child, though she secretly mourns departed youth at | five-and-twenty: a certain spontaneousness and simplicity is | attributed to her, not consistent with the weight of experience and | discernment (the full amount of the authoress's own) with which | she is endowed. She is not as loveable to us as she is to doctor | Max. Yet perhaps it is natural that | the

'ordinary'

looking, clever | sister, who has felt heavily her own want of beauty in contrast | with that of her two handsome sisters, and the neglect | that this deficiency added to distance and reserve of manner, | necessarily entail, should kindle into new existence when she feels | herself admired and at ease, and that she should have, in fact, | two distinct phases of character. It is a common fault with all | domestic novels, especially we | <312> | suspect with those written by women, | to ignore one fact, which is one of the main cements of family | union, that persons who have always lived together, especially if | connected by the ties of blood, understand one another by | instinct, rather than by direct deliberate study, which we suspect | is a very bad element to creep into a family party. Where | members of a domestic circle live in harmony, use and habit | teach them instinctively to avoid each other's weak points, just as | the trees of a forest accommodate one another, and blend or | intermix without clashing; it is in both cases an affair of | gradual growth. But almost all stories delineating character | represent families as so many distinct individuals, with distinct | experiences and trainings, and as awake to each other's | peculiarities and differences as though there had been no nursery | or schoolroom associations, no common traditions among them; as | though from infancy each had been a cool observer of character, | (or at any rate, that one with whom the writer sympathises) | estimating and weighing every difference, awarding calm | praise and blame, and apportioning the motive to every action. | Now people are in a manner blind to objects too near them for | scrutiny; we all know that critics in manners, in morals, in faith, | are actuated by a different rule towards those that belong to | them and on whom their affections are set, from what they apply | to the world: and when the families of the novelist follow | another law altogether, we are jarred two ways, both in our | sense of nature and propriety. We are taken into a confidence | that ought not to be made, and feel there amiable prejudices to | be preferred to the most clear-sighted truth. This fault is perhaps | almost inevitable; where the heroine tells her own story it is | necessary to make her unloving. Thus she asks: ~ | | | The following scene we quote as really good and clever, though | open to one objection. Lisa is the common-place, pretty, | younger sister, described in cold unsisterly terms of | admiration, | who having flirted, and been | courted by a young officer | | after the usual fashion, comes and tells | her sister that the gentleman, an honest, well-meaning, handsome | fellow, has proposed. Now we imagine that the profounder | heroine would have understood instinctively that this was the sort | of match suited to her sister's character and intellect, that, her | sympathy would have been more alive than her judgment, and | that she would, without difficulty, acquiesce in an event which | all antecedents led up to, and smooth over, excuse, and adapt | everything to the best construction it would bear. We are sure this | is the way for sisters to agree in real life. | | (Penelope's intended was next heir to Treherne's father.) | | | | Perhaps the authoress, | who evidently feels herself deep in the secrets of her sex, may | defend this tone as natural, in one conscious at once of real gifts | and apparent deficiencies, and galled by unmerited neglect ~ in | a young woman believing herself unattractive, while her sisters | were admired, and suffering under the want of love, | sympathy, and appreciation. Having in her last work set forth the | qualities necessary to make woman happy and respectable in | single life, she devotes this story, so far as the heroine is | concerned, to the delineation of the particular character formed | for wedded life, and consciously incomplete when alone. Her | Theodora, devoted, amiable, magnanimous, when this need of the | heart is supplied, is querulous, cynical, almost envious, till her | destiny is fulfilled confiding to her desk, which will tell no tales, | | This is a sort of revelation, | if it is one, which jars a good deal on our ideal. But a woman's | ideal of female character will always betray its origin, and | Theodora in many ways would not be ours; as, for instance, in | her early acquaintance with Dr. Urquhart she has a way of asking | questions which we can hardly sanction. She and the hero had met | at a ball near Aldershot ~ an uncongenial scene to | | both till that evening; at their next encounter he records | the renewal of conversation. | | Our experience leads us to advise young ladies who are | no longer children, and are not particularly pretty, not to | fall into this habit of unsophisticated questioning, especially | about right and wrong; for one person who would enter into it | a hundred would be bored, though perhaps the hero's position | may naturally make him the exception. | But the sisters agree in this habit; the fair Lisa asks the | Doctor one question, which takes the reader as well as himself | considerably by surprise. This writer, in her courageous desire | to make real women. does not always make them ladies ~~ not | but that ladies can do and say, now and then, very odd things, | but they will not bear print and ought not to have its sanction. | he is sitting in easy intercourse with the Johnston party | (Theodora's family name and one which affects him strangely). | the question of temperance and total abstinence, one of the | topics of the book, comes up. | | | | This confession brings us, to the leading part of the | story. Dr. Urquhart is haunted by the | consciousness of a crime committed at the age of | nineteen in a fit of intoxication. The sense | demands that it should have been a real murder in | a moment of passion; but it was no such thing, and | his subsequent conduct and remorse are therefore | inconsistent and contradictory. In his way from | Scotland to join a brother abroad, he comes to | Salisbury, and there falls in with a certain Henry | Johnston, a low fellow of respectable connexions. | This man makes the youth drunk, then offers to | drive him over to Southampton in time for the | steamer, but instead of this, with much insult and | provocation, turns him out of his gig at | Stonehenge, and is on the point of leaving him in | spite of all entreaty, when, in an impulse of rage, | the boy drags Johnston out of the gig, intending to | fight him, but his head comes in contact with a | stone, and he is killed. He flies to Southampton and | sails; there a fit of insanity comes on from agony | of mind, and for a year he is incapable. At the end | of that time, hearing that Johnston's death had | been supposed accidental, he wants the courage | to confess his own share in it, but dedicates his | life to serving and doing good to others, resolving | to postpone his confession till death drew near. All | this time he is under the impression that if he were | to tell the facts of the case he should be hanged, | and in this persuasion or half persuasion he | continues, though mixing with English society, a | doctor of a regiment quartered at Aldershott, and | reading the newspapers every day. But lady | authors are permitted these aberrations. | The Johnston family consists of the father, ~~ a | clergyman, ~~ and three daughters; there is no | son, so, though the name always gives Dr. Urquhart | a qualm, he fears nothing more. In his life of | expiation he had never dreamed of marriage; but | Theodora, so original, so attractive, so evidently | drawn to him, makes the resolution first difficult, | and, in the sequel, impossible. They are engaged | with the father's approval. | The scene itself develops the writer's views of | joint, united action in this turning point of life. | He, weighed down by the sense of his own | demerits and unfitness, is taking a sort of final | leave of her. after professional attendance during | illness. Theodora records the scene. He rises to go: | ~~ | | But Mr. Johnston had had a son by a former | marriage, a scapegrace, who met with an untimely | end, while his daughters were yet children, and | who was never named amongst them, nor his | existence known in the new neighbourhood to | which the family had moved after his death. Dr. | Urquhart's sense of duty, however, obliged him to | make known the fatal blot in his life to his | betrothed. He writes to her while on the search for | further particulars of his victim's end. The | discovery comes with a vengeance. He finds a | half-buried tomb-stone, which tells him that Henry | Johnston was son of his future father, half-brother | of his Theodora. The position is certainly a | terrible one, under the actual state of things; that | is, the brother little more than a name to his | half-sister, the crime scarcely more than a misfortune. | Under the author's and the actor's assumption it | would be revolting. The highly wrought scenes | which follow are rendered with feeling, tenderness, | and, we think, nature, in the main points. The | writer fully realizes her own conception, and | pities the misery she has conjured up. He comes to | say the farewell which he assumes to be inevitable. | The lady writes: ~~ | | | It is, however, in the scene with the father that the | authoress combats what she believes to be the world's | implacable spirit. Mr. Johnston personates, with her, | public opinion, aggravated, it is true, by natural feeling, | but still backed by the universal judgment of good | men. There is nothing like a hobby or a new view for | blinding people to what is actually thought and | believed in any question. Viewing it as a scene, we | think what follows powerful and effective. The novel | reader may forget that a favourite principle is being | worked out in the feeling and passion of the dialogue. | The conscious criminal stands before the aggrieved | father, his daughters standing by. His prudent | daughter, Penelope, reminds him that Harry is not the | only person to remember at this terrible moment. | | | The father then, in his character of magistrate, begins | to write out a warrant, upon which Penelope again | interposes, reminding him of the family disgrace and | exposure that must follow the arrest and trial. This | has effect, and after exacting a promise that Dr. | Urquhart shall keep the matter secret from | henceforth, bids him ~~ | | | This, it must be allowed, is not after the Hannah | More school of morals. As good advice for young | ladies it is questionable, and implies a faith in the | stability of human purpose, which experience hardly | warrants, and which her young readers ~~ and after | all most novel readers are young ~~ may turn to any | self-willed purpose. How are they to tell whether their | present fancy is not precisely of that heaven-born | nature to justify the defiance of all law, custom and | authority? The situation hero is so far ingenious, in | the totally different views that may be taken of it, as | to defy positive judgment as to the right and the | wrong; but in all analogous cases we must feel that | Theodora's decision would tend to the undermining | of Nature's laws and instincts. If Henry had been her | full brother, if it had been a real murder ~~ and all | her arguments would stand good and support her in | either case ~~ does not Nature cry out at the outrage | of the union that eventually takes place? As it is, in | sympathy with her readers' supposed state of feeling, | the authoress dare not remit all punishment. Her | hero eventually delivers himself up to judgment, and | he is condemned, without trial or hearing of | witnesses, yet in open Court, to three months' | imprisonment, at the end of which time Theodora | meets him, and they are married in a dreary London | church. The father even nullifies his protest by | appearing in the nick | | of time to give his daughter away, after which they | sail for the New World. | We have dwelt at such length on that part of the story | which shows its principles, that we must omit more | than allusion to the forcible and melancholy picture of | an ordinary 'long engagement,' of which the faded | and soured Penelope is the victim, and which is no | doubt intended as a counterpoise and reverse to the | heroine's well-founded confidence. It is well and sadly | done; indeed there is a burden of sadness over the | whole book, as though the task of judging in all things | for herself, rejecting all foregone conclusions, had left | no room or leisure for the bright and cheerful survey | of things as they are. The author is weighed down by | problems; ~~ if she could take anything for granted | her style would brighten up wonderfully. But it has its | own class of merits. It is earnest, thoughtful, and | suggestive. There is much truth and observation. | Nothing is trivial, nothing said at random: and if she | lapses now and then into a tone of sentimental | rhapsody, in her endeavour to represent two minds in | perfect harmony and absolute congeniality, ~~ | beyond what is possible, where each is independent | and acts for itself; ~~ the feminine yearning for | sympathy and support, in spite of all self-reliance, | must be the excuse. How alive her mind is to the | pains of uncongeniality is shown in the following | sentiment of her heroine, which by inference | furnishes her notion of what the marriage of true minds | ought to be: ~~ | | ‘Cousin Stella' is a tale of less moral pretension, and | prompted by a lighter spirit. The authoress accepts | society as a fact, and describes it as she sees it, | without any apparent aim at change, or enlightenment | on fundamental questions. A quick perception and | lively turn of thought are her best, gifts; where | | she attempts romantic incident, or the deeper and | more tragic emotions, we perceive an evident falling | short, a desertion of her proper field. Her style is | very good for domestic and social uses: she can | bring a picture of everyday life distinctly and | amusingly before us; but it has not force enough for | romance; or rather, she does not see and realize in | the same way when trusting to her imagination. What | should be her most vivid scenes are washed-out | water-colours. We do not take hold of her terrible | situations; she fails in a climax. There is not much in | common between this writer and the able novelist we | have just parted from; but in one point, bearing on | that system of female progress previously noticed, we | observe a marked sympathy: the assertion, that is, of | a natural right in women to fix their affections | unasked and unsought on what they conceive a | worthy object. It marks a period where women of | intelligence and mature observation agree in | inculcating n dogma, which, if carried out into | practice, would go far to effect a social revolution. | Such grave sanction from responsible quarters leads | us dissentients to look about us for counter | arguments; and the first that presents itself we would | seriously press upon the consideration of our young | and fair readers ~~ if any such our grave pages dare | assume to possess; ~~ it is, that this reversal of | precedent by all showing, even of its advocates, is | unlucky. Old romance did infinitely better for its | heroines than these modern innovators pretend to | do. Their pictures of grey hairs and wrinkles, broken | spirits and enfeebled frames, are enough to make | matrimony terrible, and suggest the taunts, 'This | comes of ladies choosing for themselves!' 'Those | who court their own fate generally draw a bad one;' | in fact, they prove that, on the simple ground of | interest, it is wisest for young ladies to let things follow | their own course, and not take their destiny in both | their hands, as modern authorities prompt them to | do, and dictate their own fate. We suppose it is | necessary to deprive the imaginary unions on this | plan of all obvious fitness or attraction, in order to | maintain a high moral and intellectual stand; to show | that female devotedness needs no external | incentives, that wherever the heart has truly spoken, | all merely outward advantages are straw, chaff, and | dust in the balance. We quite approve of this | showing, but the principle once inculcated, it will not | always confine itself to one development. Stella may | implore her heart's idol to marry her. and give her | the privilege of a life-long sacrifice, but the accident | that rendered her, 'Louis' a hopeless cripple is | happily not a common one, and her example may be | followed without this condition. In one other point the | authoress of 'Cousin Stella' sets herself to show | woman's supremacy | | ~~ one we are not prepared to dispute with her. Where | she contrasts the extreme fallibility of man’s | penetration with woman’s unerring instincts, and shows | how the sensible man who most piques himself on his | discernment may be deceived by any woman who | takes the trouble to study his character and flatter his | weak points. This is done in the person of her dignified | hero with a good deal of sly grave humour. We are | ourselves taken in at first by Madam Olympia, the | devoted friend, who interposes so long between him | and the artless Stella. | We believe she may be right in the slight | dependence she sets on a grave and influential | manner as the sign of a perspicacious judgment, | but, unfortunately, she sees through her own hero | too well for us to be able to sympathise with | Stella's devotion; there is something wanting to | make us understand what there was in him to | inspire so ill-requited and so ungraciously-received | an attachment. | It is a pity, like the painter with his picture, that | the authoress did not take more pains with her | plot. There is really scarcely any connexion | between the first and the two following volumes. | We are introduced to many very carefully-drawn | characters in the one who never show themselves | again, and have no further effect on the story, or | who reappear to play a wholly new part. Wild | scenes of revenge, blood and murder are wrought | out by people who are first introduced to us at | home in a London drawing-room. Most of the | West Indian details, though showing personal | knowledge, and sometimes interesting, are mere | facts or digressions that only interfere with what | should be the writer of fiction's paramount object. | But no class of writings betrays where the author | has got to the end of his materials more ruthlessly | than the novel. In other forms of composition the | faults and inequalities are equally diffused, there is | no distinct line; but in the novel we can often put | our finger on the precise point where the | characters cease to act like themselves, and | where they are transmuted into the mere victims of | a clumsy or preposterous plot. | The character of Stella, in its naivete and oneness | of aim, is well drawn; the writer has a distinct | idea which she works out skilfully. Her heroine's | early training in a forbidding, unloving seclusion | forms the apology for any ignorance or neglect of | received proprieties. At sixteen she is introduced | to Walter Scott's novels, to society, and to Louis | Gautier all at once. She sets her cousin up as her | hero, her Ravenswood, on the spot, and remains | faithful to her idol to the death. The following | scene, before the arrival of this cousin, introduces | us to her consulting her young and pretty Aunt | Celia on the new | | world her reading introduces to her. The aunt is always | well done, a graceful form of selfishness, embarrassed | and helpless under her new responsibility: ~~ | | | Cousin Louis, tall, stiff, and twice her age, soon | arrives from Jamaica, to discuss with the authorities | at home, the cause of slavery, from the slave-owner's | point of view, and was at once

‘her demonstration | of a hero.’

But his own interests and thoughts arc | absorbed in those he has left behind ~~ his mother, | and a certain Madame Olympia, her adopted | daughter, and his confidential friend, a post she would | gladly exchange for another even more intimate, if a | mysterious husband, who is floating about the world, | did not stand in the way. He had been some days | looking for Jamaica letters which at length came in | his absence. Stella made much of these letters, and, | in her eagerness to be the herald of good news, | stands at the gate watching for his return, waving | them in her hand. He seizes them without remark or | thanks, and Stella is painfully impressed by seeing | herself, her zeal, and friendship, overlooked in the | rapture of letters from this friend, whom, while still at a | distance, and ignorant of her own feelings, she is | learning with woman's instinct to mistrust. As she is a | young person of courage and frankness, she is | determined to mend matters it she can. The scene | illustrates not ungracefully the principle now in | process of general inculcation: ~~ | | | | Some sketches of general society show quick | observation, brightened by a gentle satire: here is an | after-dinner scene, in which we are admitted to the | mysteries of the ladies' private circle. The entertainment | is in honour of Stella's military connexions, and at great | trouble a lady of rank has been numbered amongst the | guests. | | | | We are always struck, in reading the works of clever | female writers, with their by-play of ingenious remark, | and chance minor currents of observation, which, | whether wholly original or not, have a look of | originality, and are proofs of a lively and vigorous habit | of mind, discriminating and arranging its ideas as it | goes on into terse neat axioms and maxims. This | writer is a sayer of sayings after this fashion. Thus, of | her artful Madam Olympia, she says: ~~ | | And again: ~~ | | And of aunt Celia: ~~ | | And where it is remarked, in reference to the hero's | discernment: ~~ | 'Through the Shadows' is a tale from, apparently, a | new pen, and one that deserves from us especial | notice and encouragement. We are not often more | agreeably impressed, both by style and tone of | thought; and there is a freshness in the scene and in | the assemblage of characters which indicates a vivid | fancy and independent habits of observation. It, too, | is written with a very distinct moral purpose; but this | relates to self-government rather than to any reform | in existing opinion. Neither dogmatically, nor by | example, are our social institutions interfered with. | Nevertheless, though we most cordially acquiesce in | the principles inculcated, the story would have been | better told, and would have been more acceptable, | not only to the professed novel reader, but to the | lover of abstract justice, if the moral had not been | pushed to such extremes. We infer, more from her | stern law of consequences, and the harshness of her | judicial sentences, than from any crudeness of | manner, that the writer is young in years. Experience | surely teaches a certain reticence and timidity when | we have to assign the proportion of punishment to | error. In this story, tremendous, heart-breaking | punishment is inflicted on what (comparing ourselves | with ourselves) is but a venial, quickly repented fault. | This severity, setting reader and author so much at | variance, arises, we do not doubt, from the purely | fanciful character of the plot, with which experience | can have nothing to do. Young writers have a feeling | of power in summarily deciding the fate of their own | creations. The interest, or the necessities of the | story, are, at critical times, paramount with them; the | stability of the actors in the drama fails under the | strain; we detect a sense of unreality in the artist's | mind; he knows it is all make-believe, and allows the | characters of his piece to succumb, physically or | morally, to a fine effect, or to a principle, or to a | flourishing climax, without a scruple or a pang. Often, | under this despotic rule, we see the men and women | whom we have learnt to know and believe in, swept | clean off the board by their inventors with no more | remorse than if they were so many nine-pins, under | the implied defence that an author has a right to do | what he will with his own; a fallacy we have not | space to refute. With this protest, ~~ which we make | with an eye to the future, that the | | authoress may not risk the popularity, and, we may add, | usefulness of her next effort, by repeating the outrage | on her readers' sensibilities, ~~ we will enter on the | subject of her story, the design of which is to illustrate | the evils, the fatal influences and the sorrows that arise | from an imperious temper; and especially the mode in | which her own sex are tried and influenced when | subjected to a tyrannical will. This is very ably, we may | say powerfully, delineated in the different members of | one family, with some of whom this fatal quality is an | heir-loom. There is a tone of experience in all these | various portraits which gives them a real value. Indeed, | we quarrel with the turning point and conclusion of the | story a good deal because the gloom of the conclusion | mars it as an instructive tale. We are shown this | indomitable self-loving will in various forms, in young | and old, man and woman; but the evil genius in | particular who lies at the root of the mischief is an elderly | maiden lady, capable of great sacrifices, but wanting in | the self-restraint and sympathy necessary to confer any | real service on her fellow creatures; and waging a | general war against peace and happiness through the | perpetual irritations of an exacting temper, and what | the author calls a diseased self-love. Her sacrifice had | been to receive her widowed sister and her young family | into her own well-ordered home. The widow, Mrs. | Brandon, of weak, suffering frame, a victim to | ill-health; an elder daughter, Caroline, handsome, vain, | and self-indulgent, who has fallen amongst the religious | world, and uses its language; a second daughter, Ruth, | ardent, straightforward, sympathising, with a good | share of the family characteristic; a son, Frederic, clever | and ill-principled, whose home under his forbidding | aunt's roof is intolerable to him; and various juniors. The | influence of a bad temper upon all these different | subjects is the lesson of the book. The atmosphere of | fear in which the helpless live under such an incubus is | forcibly shown in the following passage, which | introduces us to Miss Harriet Earle: ~~ | | | | The relationships of the piece are somewhat intricate. | It takes some time to disentangle the various | cousinships. Alice Earle, the sweet, graceful, | eloquent, delicately conceived heroine, is one cousin. | Sebastion and Maxwell Earle are cousins to all the | others, and yet hardly brothers (o each other, that is, | not in position, though they are in blood. Alice's timid, | sensitive nature has been crushed in childhood by the | terrible aunt, and equally terrible grandfather, of | whom we are told: ~~ | | She now suffers under her father, who is another | influential development of the Earle will. Between her | and Sebastion there is a mutual but unacknowledged | attachment. Alice from infancy has been so much in | the habit of looking to him to screen her from | harshness and blame, that he is under the constant | impression that, her feelings for him have no deeper | source, strengthened by some jealous misgivings that | his brother Maxwell has a nearer place in her heart. | At length, and after many slips and vicissitudes, they | are engaged; but now interposes another will from an | unexpected quarter: from Ruth, who is Alice's bosom | friend, and who mistrusts Sebastion because she fears | he does not appreciate her friend enough. Ruth, | except that she does unpardonable things, is an | interesting character from her force and reality. We | see that she has a more positive existence with the | authoress than some others of her favourites, for she | refrains from extinguishing her at the end by some | dismal catastrophe. Though the results of her | mistakes and errors are extreme, she is useful as a | warning to the young and jealous. Presuming on the | strength of her affections, and a certain self-negation, | which in some degree redeems her self-confidence, | she takes those she loves under a | | patronage of protection. She has a fatal gift of | blundering, and is conscious of her own brusqueness | of manners, which no fear of her mint can tame, and | yet considers herself competent to advise on the | point of tact. | | She is Alice's especial fate, and is perpetually | interfering with her destiny. First it is to forbid her | thinking of Sebastion, on the ground that she cannot | love him. | | This speech Sebastion, standing at the foot of the | stairs, chances to hear, as, indeed, people do, | throughout, see and hear a great deal that they ought | not to do. But Alice's influence slowly overcomes all | difficulties, whether they arise from opposition, as in | Ruth's case, or too anxious a meddling to bring the | affair about, as in her father's, whose solemn | instructions to his daughter on this point have a great | deal of nature in them. After Ruth's officious warning, | the lovers first meet in the garden of Alice's home, | which gives rise to the following pretty reflection, | showing a mind at leisure for taking in the teaching | and the genius of every scene: ~~ | | | | Sebastion, desponding of ever gaining Alice's real | heart, has called to announce his intention to travel, | and finds Alice, the fair presiding spirit of the | scene, kneeling over a nest of young robins: ~~ | | This is very graceful, expressive writing, nor does | the little scene lose as it advances in the skilful, | tender reading of two hearts. Our sympathies are | always with Alice; she is finely and delicately | drawn. We feel for her the more that she is the | victim of that peculiar calamity, ably set forth by a | modern writer, of having too many friends. When | the engagement actually takes place, Sebastion is | deputed to tell Ruth. That young lady receives the | news characteristically: ~~ | | | | It is admitted that an unamiable, jealous feeling, which | probably really belongs to imperious wills, had some | share in Ruth's objection. The effect upon her is to | hang over her suffering mother with a morbid feeling | of appropriation as all that is left to her.

'You, at | all events,'

she said to herself, |

'no-one shall | take from being quite my own.'

And through this | feeling, this natural affection, made unjust through the | infusion of self, comes the great temptation and | subsequent misery of the story. Alice's wedding | preparations are hastening on under the happiest | auspices. Ruth on one of her visits sees her

| 'things,'

though things, even wedding things, had | little interest for her. At length she is shown a costly | bracelet, Sebastion's gift. It is one of the book's | bye-lessons ~~ better developed than the main moral ~~ | that a life of rigid exclusion from the pleasures of life, | even when willingly borne, is inimical to the free | development of the more generous qualities. Ruth, | suffering from the perpetual want of money and | subsequent dependence, cannot see the pearls and | diamonds without asking the price, and grudging the | 200 l. for which she could find so many better uses. | She covets not the bracelet, but the money it would | fetch. | | | Unhappily the only symbol that remains on Ruth's | mind is the vulgar one of money's worth. And here, | through defect in the plot, the open-hearted Ruth is | made to commit two flagrant breaches of the | commandments about this bracelet ~~ first she | covets it, and next, in point of fact, she steals it; that | is, she is determined to get it from its rightful owner, | and she does. We enforce this point, for we think the | authoress hardly realizes the extent of Ruth's sin. In | what follows, we cannot see the connexion between | even an unjust affection and any strength of | determination with such a violent breach of the laws | of meum and tuum; and it is contrary to the whole | construction of the self-denying character, to regard | the goods of others as its own; but, whatever we may | think of this, it gives rise to some forcible scenes. | That night her unprincipled brother Frederick | summons Ruth to a dismal confidence. He is clerk in | a bank of which the head is on the eve of marrying | their elder sister He has taken money to the amount | of a hundred pounds, and has been found out by | cousin Maxwell, who alone is in possession of the | fatal secret, but will of course feel bound to | communicate it to the firm.

'What am I to do? | what will become of me?'

he asks. | | | | This bears an ominous resemblance to Jezebel's | line of action and tone of address, whether the | authoress had her in her mind or not. We need not | say that poor Alice's bracelet is fixed on as the | means of escape, which Ruth intends to make her | give up and sell, in order to get Fred out of his | difficulty. We have not space for the opening of the | attack. Alice submits to the stronger will, and | always attracted by the idea of sacrifice, resigns the | bracelet, because it costs her so much to give it | up, but demurs long at the demand of secrecy from | even Sebastion. | | The bracelet is soon sold to a jeweller, and the | money carried by the young ladies to Maxwell | Earle, whom Ruth, without choosing to think why, | knew well could not refuse Alice a last request. | Alice's regrets and misgivings on the way are | summarily stopped, with the characteristic | selfishness of one possessed by an absorbing idea | ~~

'You are saving mamma's life; don't look | back, Alice; if she is saved, what does it matter | what becomes of any of us afterwards?'

| Maxwell stoutly refuses at first to do what they ask | him. Ruth's vehemence, stimulated by a sense of | power, is certainly vigorously given. Maxwell says | ~~ | | | | Such scenes suffer by being detached from their | context, but our readers will see enough to be aware | that the authoress has brought more than average | power to her work. She maintains a real hold of her | subject, and for the first two volumes nothing is | allowed to interfere with the progress of the story, to | which the novelist's first duty is owing. There is no | shrinking from scenes, we see and hear her | personages in the most critical moments of their | fate, and her spirit is with them sympathizing with | each change and turn of events. Caroline, Ruth's | elder sister, whose faults and temptations are of a | more common order, lends great variety to the | earlier part of the story, till settled by a mercenary | marriage; which she persuades herself is entered | upon in a spirit of self-sacrifice. The dread of 'aunt | Harriet,' prompting to the final acceptance, is | ingeniously natural, and all this young lady's previous | speculations upon her various admirers' and | danglers' sayings show some humour and a good | deal of experience of common place character. We | are glad, too, to observe that Ruth has a, kind of | trusting, sisterly sympathy in these questions, and | does not scan Caroline's feeble, vain confessions | with the severity of a stranger's eye; as the | high-minded sister of the moral tale is so constantly | made to do. | The following conversation at a religions party is in | another vein from our previous extracts. Mr. | Gadstone is Caroline's future husband. | | | | The third volume cannot be included in our | commendation of conscientious adherence to the | story, which, in fact, ends in its main interest with the | second. Alice is the victim of the concealment | enforced by Ruth, by a series of not very skilfully | managed false conclusions and blunders. Sebastion | is brought to believe that the missing bracelet, and | the interview with his brother, and a certain note that | aunt Harriet shows him, prove to demonstration | Alice's preference for Maxwell. Without giving her | the opportunity of explanation, he writes her ft final | farewell, and sails the same day on Sir John | Franklin's expedition for the North Pole; from | whence he never returns. | | She has not even the satisfaction of clearing herself | in his eyes, and goes on expecting, and waiting, and | despairing, as far as regards her human happiness, | till she dies. It is a mistake in every sense. A moral | story should be complete in itself, and must not | postpone the justice, the satisfaction, the clearing of | doubts ~~ which the reader has a right, by a sort of | tacit compact with the author, to expect ~~ to the | future tribunal. It professes to be a dramatized | picture of those providential laws that govern the | world, with this world, not the next, for its theatre; | and here in this mortal scene it should have some | conclusion that man's eyes may rest on. | But while we say this, we would do justice to the | beauty and delicacy of Alice's character; except in | the momentary falsehood (which we disown for her) | she is always true to a very fair ideal. A poetical | conception in thought and speech, she well sustains | her part. Her vision of the ice-bound ships is | oppressive in its vivid distinctness; and her story to | the little children, for its gentle pathos and utter | simplicity of diction, is a rare success. | The third volume is devoted in part to the | development of a new scheme for the employment of | women, conducted by a very conventional, good | woman, gifted with an intense insight into every one's | character and capabilities, and in whose presence | the whole system of human intercourse seems to | change its character. It concludes by a wholesale, | not to say unfeeling, sweep of the minor characters. | Amongst the rest are two violent deaths, which are | so little realized by the author, that she forgets how | they ought to affect those left behind; Ruth, and the | less impressionable Caroline, alike sustain the death | of husband and brother under the most terrible | circumstances, with no greater shock to the nerves, or | permanent influence on their tone of thought, than if | the events had only concerned them as lookers-on. | This we only note as a warning how sparingly such | incidents should he used by the novelist, especially if | writing only from fancy. Feebly told horrors, awful | events, recorded without due sense of their awe, | weaken more than the pages in which they occur; | they leave a general sense of inexperience and even | puerility. We speak strongly because the defects and | failings we have noted are not unlikely to injure the | general acceptance of a story which, for strength and | elegance of style, dramatic power, and high tone of | feeling, takes quite another stand from the ordinary | novel. One tale, the most remarkable that has | appeared for many years ~~ a work of genius still | exciting general interest amongst all classes of | readers ~~ 'Adam Bede;' which if it be, as there is | internal evidence, written by a woman, places | woman's aptitude | | for this form of composition in some points higher | than it, has ever stood before ~~ fairly side by side | with man ~~ we have not yet touched upon; not | only because it, is already so popular that it needs | no further introduction, and so generally noticed | by the press that little new can be said upon it; | but because the uncontradicted rumour of its | authorship is a perplexity and an enigma which | interposes itself and confuses our critical powers | when we attempt any analysis. If there is one | feature more than another that stamps, or seems | to stamp, the book, it is its earnestness; ~~ a | profound realization of certain great moral | principles as the key to man's nature and moral | government. It is a work not of the imagination only, | or chiefly; but, of the heart. And how can we | reconcile this tone, its apparent honesty, and | truthfulness, and genuineness, its deep religious | sentiment, with the other literary labours and the | sceptical association attributed to its author, and, | as we say, uncontradicted? People tell us the | public have no right, to pry into an author's secrets; | we do not, know what rights mean on this | question; we have no right to take unlawful means | of getting to know, but it is not in human nature not | to wish to know the author who has interested and | absorbed us. If we hear a good sermon, do not we | ask who preached it? if we hear good music, do | we rest till we learn the composer? they have not | their full effect till we know; a book is incomplete, | it has not fully told its tale, till we know its author. If | it represents a strong intellect, a vivid imagination, | tender feeling, and large experience, its readers | must wish to learn in whom these gifts have met; | what favourable circumstances have developed the | mind to such felicitous harmony and power. We do | not now, after waiting in vain for a denial, set | ourselves to find out our mistake, to modify our first | high appreciation, to seek for lapses and latent | touches of infidelity; we thought it a beautiful tale | when we read it, we think it so still, though it should | indeed prove to be a simply intellectual effort, of | memory and association; but if the statement | remains uncontradicted because it cannot be | denied, we can only say, there is nothing in | 'AdamBede' so surprising us its authorship. We | leave it as a riddle yet unsolved, and have sought in | other sources what may be the direction of our | popular literature, as led by female pens, which | seem now to have almost a, monopoly of the purely | domestic fiction.