| | | | | | ALTHOUGH this is not exactly a novel with a dogma, | it is a novel with a notion. | The notion is that we ought not to dislike to live | in a semi-detached house. | exclaims one of the | ladies in the first page, | | The lady who objects to the

"semi-detachment" |

is a certain Lady | Chester, and the book is to teach us that she ought | not to object. Mrs. | Hopkinson does turn out to be fat, but also turns | out to be very sensible, | good-humoured, and obliging, to have two nice | daughters, and to be capable | of giving wise counsel on the management of the | kitchen chimney. The | purpose of the book, in so far as it has a purpose, | is to teach us that we should | take life easily and frankly ~~ associate with the | people whom chance throws | in our way, if they seem sensible and pleasant ~~ | that we should not be too | much pleased at speaking to persons of superior | rank, nor too anxious to | avoid those who may be below us. Our readers will | say that, after all, this is | not very new, | | and it certainly is not. But it is a great | achievement to teach a lesson in an | enlivening way, and this is a lesson which it is | rather difficult to teach with | perfect good taste. Mr. Thackeray, for example, has | been teaching it with | consummate ability for many years; but perhaps he | makes too much of it. We | fancy he considers it both more difficult and more | important than it really is. | He a little overrates the intensity of the snobbish | propensities ~~ he dwells | on them almost sympathizingly. A certain dean of a | departed generation | cautions hearers against

"That besetting liquor, | old port wine, by which | some of our clergy have been led astray."

In a | somewhat similar vein our | great satirist warns us that no literary ability, no | fame, no power is an effectual | protection against the desire to speak to Dukes. | Wherever he looks through the | world, this is the desire he perceives. The | insidious temptation creeps into all | hearts, and injures where it enters. We own that we | think this an exceedingly | exaggerated form of teaching. The snobbish desires | undoubtedly exist, and are | diffused most widely; but it is only in rare cases | that they are extremely | powerful. They would take most people a little way, | but very few people a | great way. Mr. Thackeray, too, we think, fancies his | lesson important. Like | all missionaries, he intensifies the evil against | which he is preaching. Many | people who do care too much about the great, and who | are too much afraid | of talking to those below them are nevertheless very | good people. They | have their fault, as others do theirs; but for all | that their nature may in the main | be sound, and capacity for substantial excellence | may in most of its parts not | be much impaired. Snobbishness is an insidious | endemic, but it is not a mortal | malady. We can scarcely perhaps give the | Semi-Detached | House a higher sort of praise than | that it teaches Mr. | Thackeray's peculiar doctrine in a healthier and | better way than he does. The | varieties of snobbishness ~~ that of running from | our inferiors and of making up | to our superiors ~~ both occur pretty often in this | book, and both are laughed | at. They are allowed to be venial sins, but we are | shown that they are ludicrous | ~~ that they interfere with the tranquility of life | and with the chances of | enjoyment that turn up in it ~~ able, sensible | persons, whatever their rank may | be, laugh at them. Of course there is nothing new in | the lesson; but there is a | good-natured attempt in the way it is given that is | telling. We can fancy it | curing or half-curing, the vice. Mr. Thackeray, we | fear, only teaches people to | hide the indications of it. | | A novel of this sort necessarily has its scene in | the middle rank of social life | ~~ with some people who are lords and ladies and | some who are neither; and | it has the sort of merits which such a novel may be | expected to have. The | dialogue is very good, very witty and buoyant ~~ | jolly, though yet ladylike. | The events are the ordinary ones of social life. Two | families live in the two | halves of one house, and are naturally thrown | together; and as one is of rank, | and the other by no means of rank, the scenes can be | made amusing. The | lady of no rank fancies, moreover, that the lady of | rank is not all which she | should be, and this is made amusing too. The | authoress has one peculiarity | which is invaluable to a painter of common social | life ~~ she has a genius | for middle-aged women. For obvious reasons young | people are made more | prominent in novels than they are in reality. | Perhaps the discovery of this is | one of the sorest disappointments of early life. | Young people come out with | romantic notions of various sorts, and it is | disappointing to find middle-aged | people with the influence which they in fact have. | As to men, it does not seem to | matter so much; they have occupations, and briefs, | and offices, which seem to | explain it. But that the social half of life should | be subject to the administrative | vivacity of ladies with historical complexions is | for a time a trial. A novel like | the Semi-Detached House, | which brings out this fact, | and shows how far the middle-aged | regime may be | made tolerable, is instructive. | There are two middle-aged women in this book ~~ one | good and the other | bad, but both fat and both energetic. We may give a | specimen of the | conversation of the former: ~~ | | | The snobbish fat lady is a certain Baroness Sampson, | the wife of a certain | Jewish millionaire in the | City, who is discovered at | the end of the book not to be a | millionaire, and | decamps. This lady is not, indeed, asked to the | Queen's balls, but intends to | bring her Majesty

"to her senses next year," |

and lives upon that | pretension in the mean time. That she pretends to | know persons whom she | has never seen, and is very anxious to know people | who will upon no account | know her, it is not necessary for us to relate. | One defect of the lesson not to object to a

| "semi-detached house"

is | that it will not make a plot of itself. The | authoress of the book, wishing to | have a plot, like other novelists, has been obliged | to annex one from other | sources. She has not, however, thought it worth | while to look out for a | complicated one. The hero is a certain man named | Willis, who has lost his | wife, and trades on his disconsolateness ever after. | He really makes a great | deal of it in general society. Much attention is | paid him by way of relief, and | the minor comforts of life are constantly offered to | him by way of | compensation. These, however, he resists, and | perseveres in his | unconquerable depression, naturally feeling that | while it obtained him so many | pleasant things it would be foolish to relinquish | it. There is one pursuit in life | in which a conspicuous grief for a deceased wife is | likely to be rather an | incumbrance than a help ~~ and that is, the wooing | of a second. In Mr. Willis's | case the difficulty is increased by his having | selected a matter-of-fact young | lady who works out her ideas with unusual | distinctness. | she says to Mr. Willis, | | Mr. Willis is logician enough to feel the force | of this reasoning, and | ceases to be disconsolate. | We do not know whether such a plot was intended to | be anything; but it is | nothing. No art could spin much out of so slight a | material. Besides, the | moment Mr. Willis ceases to be mournful, he ceases | to be anything. He has, in | other respects, no more character than the mute in a | funeral. He displays all | through the book one trait, and one only. The moment | he loses that, he | vanishes in our fancy entirely. As this is the case, | we need not say that the | merit of the book does not lie in the story, but in | its sparkling dialogue, its | good subsidiary characters, and its cheerful and | habitual good sense.