| <Saturday Review, April 16, 1859>
| <Walter Bagehot>
| <Lost and Won by Georgiana M. Craik>
| <PB N="151">
| WE have frequently had occasion to regret that the language of 
| criticism is defective in terms to express the minor degrees of excellence in 
| novel writing. The number of novels is so great, and the shades of 
| merit are so many, that we need a finely pointed nomenclature. The 
| language of trade is far more effective. It has very accurate, though 
| often very odd words to distinguish the hundred sorts and qualities of 
| the various articles of commerce; and it is especially copious in 
| marking the minute shades between <p> "middling" </p> and <p> 
| "good" </p> which it is so difficult to distinguish sharply. There is 
| one well-known commodity which, even in the printed circulars, has 
| the six gradations of <p> "ordinary," "middling," "fair," "good fair," 
| "good," and "fine;" </p> besides others which we are told the oral 
| language of the market would accurately define. 
| <reg orig="No one"> No-one </reg> believes that 
| literary excellence has fewer shades of distinction than cotton, and yet 
| how few are the words of the critic in comparison with those of the 
| broker.
| If we might for once use trade language, we should venture to 
| describe <hi rend="italic"> Lost and Won </hi> as a <p> "fine 
| middling," </p> or <p> "readable second quality" </p> novel. The 
| language is good, the narrative spirited, the characters are fairly 
| selected and fairly delineated, the dialogue has considerable dramatic 
| force, and yet the work, as a whole, is by no means of the first 
| excellence. A really good novel will bear to be read again and again, to 
| be thought over in various connexions, to be meditated upon in 
| various moods, to be discussed and commented on.  
| <hi rend="italic"> Lost and Won </hi> would not bear so extreme a test; 
| its merits are almost certain to strike us at a first reading, and quite sure 
| to escape us at a second. We liked the spirited narrative yesterday ~~ 
| to-day it seems poor, for we know what we are going to be told. The 
| characters seemed not amiss at first, for we were always expecting a 
| new insight into them; but on a second reading we can scarcely endure 
| them, because
| <pb n="152">
| we know that this insight into their essence is never to be given us, 
| and that the delineations will be sketchy and external to the last page. 
| <p> "If you are pleased with a common acquaintance," </p> we 
| have been warned, <p> "be rather careful not to see him again." </p> 
| If you have read a common novel with pleasure, the warning of criticism 
| is never to open it again.
| We can scarcely compliment the authoress of <hi rend="italic"> 
| Lost and Won </hi> upon her plot. The narrative purports to be written 
| by the heroine ~~ or the quietest of the heroines ~~ of the book. The 
| scene opens with a description of her domestication with an aunt and 
| two male cousins, in a very quiet situation, and an account of one of the 
| latter ~~ a very large young man ~~ getting extremely wet. The repose 
| of their life is broken by the occurrence ~~ it is difficult to use any other 
| word ~~ of a young lady called "Hildred Kane," who has been in Italy, 
| and has been in Brussels, has splendid hair, is the daughter of an 
| actress, and is altogether an exciting and astonishing sort of 
| personage. The large young man whom we have mentioned 
| immediately falls in love with this young lady, and being in the same 
| house has considerable opportunities of rendering himself acceptable. He 
| does not, however, succeed completely. She is intellectual, cultivated, 
| and accustomed ~~ though we are not very distinctly told where ~~ to 
| intellectual conversation. He is manly and bulky ~~ according to the 
| traditional type in novels of the common young Englishman ~~ but is 
| not remarkable for many ideas, and has only a cumbrous way of 
| expressing those he possesses. She accepts him, however, at last, and 
| they are to be married, when a certain Lord Carstairs appears on the 
| scene. This nobleman did not bear, we are informed, the best of 
| reputations in that neighbourhood, as there had been an unpleasant affair 
| with a governess in those parts ~~ still he was received in society. His 
| first introduction is thus described: ~~ <q> 
| </q> 
| As every reader will expect, Hildred is
| <pb n="153">
| fascinated with this singular face. Lord Carstairs, as well as herself, 
| has been in Italy, and they have a good deal doubtless respecting that 
| country to say to one another. Several exciting incidents occur. There is 
| a fire, and he saves her life ~~ he goes out in a life-boat towards a 
| ship in difficulties, and she strains her eyes after it, regardless of her 
| bulky <hi rend="italic"> fiance, </hi> who has again got wet. 
| Considerable skill and taste are shown in the description of her 
| struggles: she has no money, and is only prevented from going upon the 
| stage by a promise that she would not do so, made to her father on his 
| death-bed. She exerts herself very much to fasten her mind down to 
| ordinary English life, and the simple attractions of her commonplace 
| admirer, but in vain. The moral of the book evidently is, that a certain 
| excitement is necessary for persons whose excitability is naturally great; 
| and that it is very dangerous by artificial moralities, or conventional 
| distinctions, to exclude them from the pursuits which naturally afford 
| that excitement. If Hildred had been allowed to go on the stage, the 
| authoress almost tells us, she would have had a career ~~ an opening 
| for her strongest tendencies, a sphere for using her higher powers of 
| mind. Common English society affords an Englishwoman no such 
| opportunity. She must bend her mind ~~ ordinarily it does not 
| require much bending ~~ to a rather pleasant but still not very 
| exciting routine. Needlework is appointed her ~~ she is quite 
| forbidden to be theatrical. Hildred revolts at this necessity, and listens 
| to Lord Carstairs. He seduces her, and they live together for awhile in 
| Italy, where he leaves her, and she ends, after all, by going on the stage.
| This is one half of the plot of the book. The other half relates to the 
| narratress. We have said that she begins by describing herself as 
| domesticated with two young cousins ~~ both young gentlemen ~~ one 
| of whom falls in love with their anomalous visitor Hildred. Of course the 
| other falls in love with the supposed authoress, and is successful. He is a 
| good young clergyman, who, we are informed, is clever and 
| accomplished, but who never does anything or says anything which 
| evinces those qualities. The narratress is a quiet and tolerably clever 
| girl, who delineates herself incidentally, and by short allusions, in a 
| very skilful way, and who accepts first the intellectual guidance, and 
| then the hand of her clerical cousin with gentle gratitude, and constant, if 
| rather tame affection. The sole interruption to their tranquil course is a 
| somewhat anomalous relation of the gentleman with a consumptive young 
| lady who is much in love with him, but at the point of death.
| <pb n="154">
| She ultimately dies, to the evident relief of her especial friend the 
| narratress, and no other difficulties intervene. The quiet course of this 
| love affair is evidently intended as a relief from the exciting story of 
| Hildred Kane, and answers that purpose extremely well.
| It will be seen from this sketch of the plot that there is little in this novel 
| which will require or bear very special criticism. As we have said, it is 
| rather good, but not very good; and the language of criticism would 
| ineffectually exhaust itself in endeavouring to give a more accurate or 
| expressive description of it. It has, however, one peculiarity, in relation to 
| which it may be instructive to consider it somewhat further. We have 
| said that the narrative professes to have been composed by the quiet 
| heroine, and there are evident advantages which not unfrequently just 
| now induce writers of novels to tell their story from that point of view. 
| It is the greatest of these that the necessary limitations of the life which 
| it is proper to describe in the novel, exactly coincide with the necessary 
| limitations of the knowledge of the person who, on this supposition, 
| professedly writes it. Nothing is, by the received rules, permitted in 
| novels, which does not suit the perusal of young ladies as well as of 
| young gentlemen. Such a writer as Mr. Thackeray is constantly 
| irritated at this restraint. He has evidently to reject illustrations which 
| would be telling, and remarks which would be very appropriate, because 
| they belong to the unladylike and interdicted world. Every man, in 
| proportion to the variety of his acquaintance with life, will feel the same 
| constraint. The obvious remedy is, that the writer should throw himself 
| once for all into the position of a young lady in the story ~~ hear only 
| what she hears, see only what she sees, know only what she knows. 
| His dramatic instincts will then preserve him even from wishing to 
| overstep the prescribed boundary. Whatever he may wish to say 
| himself, he will not wish that a quiet heroine of his delineation 
| should say anything which it would not be quite proper that she should 
| say. If the novel be written, as we know is now not very uncommon, by a 
| young lady, she will find an additional advantage in selecting as the 
| point of delineation the exact point of view with which she is 
| inevitably most familiar, and which is more or less her own. She will 
| be sure of describing only what she can describe, as well as be 
| protected from all risk, if by possibility there should be any, of 
| trespassing on what she ought not to describe.
| But there are drawbacks on these advantages. Not only does the
| <pb n="155">
| extreme limitation of the field of delineation after a time weary all 
| those whose range of knowledge is more varied, but a less evident 
| result follows, of which <hi rend="italic"> Lost and Won </hi> is 
| a striking instance. The narrative becomes very melodramatic. A little 
| reflection will, indeed, enable us to perceive why this must be so. By a 
| melodramatic incident, we mean a startling incident of which no 
| rational or intelligible account is given us. By a melodramatic character, 
| we mean one which has the startling features and exaggerated qualities 
| which tell upon the stage, but of which no real <hi rend="italic"> 
| rationale </hi> is offered. In the case of the event, we have either no idea 
| of its cause, or we perceive that cause to be improbable. In the case of 
| the man, we do not know the inner nature out of which his startling 
| peculiarities arise. These peculiarities are described to us, and we are 
| told that they belong to a certain man, but what that man is we do not 
| know. Some such delineation as this is the inevitable result of that limited 
| knowledge which it is proper to attribute to the favourite narratress of 
| modern fiction ~~ the quiet heroine. A young lady of that kind can 
| only in a modified way understand that which passes around her. Not 
| to speak of other limitations, the entire sphere of masculine action is 
| wholly shut out from her perception. Half the incidents in life have 
| their origin in events belonging to the active world, which she has no 
| means of knowing. All around her people move and act from impulses 
| and causes which she only very vaguely, if at all, apprehends, and 
| which never enter her real world of secret thought. In consequence, 
| she acquires a habit of accepting the obvious incidents of life as 
| what they are, without concerning herself with the reasons for them, 
| or much thinking if there are any reasons. As soon as this state of mind 
| is made the point of view from which a narrative is imagined to be 
| told us, we have inevitably one of the principal elements of a 
| melodrama. We have recounted to us events ~~ probably rather 
| striking events, for <reg orig="no one"> no-one </reg> 
| likes telling a story <p> "about nothing" 
| </p> ~~ of which no rational account is given to us, or, from 
| knowledge appropriate to the imagined narratress, can be given to 
| us. The same result, to an extent even greater, is true of characters. For 
| example, nothing can be more melodramatic than the delineation of Lord 
| Carstairs in <hi rend="italic"> Lost and Won. </hi> He is a very bad 
| but very picturesque young nobleman. He treats Hildred in what may 
| possibly be an attractive sort of way, but it is not a sort of way which 
| enables us to understand his character. He is intended to be a person of 
| much ability, much cultivation, and much daring,
| <pb n="156">
| but utterly unscrupulous in his relations with women, and much 
| disposed, if they will permit it, to amuse himself at their expense.
| <reg orig="No one"> No-one </reg> can deny that such a 
| character is possible, or that, in the hands of a 
| master of literary delineation, it might be made a telling subject for the 
| exercise of his art. But it is equally certain that such a character is 
| beyond the mental experience of a common lady. She can have no idea 
| of the early life by which such a man is formed into what he is, or of the 
| more mature life which he leads when he has been so formed. Both 
| conceptions are beyond her sphere. We do not say that a woman of 
| genius may not emancipate herself from these limits; the task is 
| difficult, but we quite believe that it may be possible for an intuitive 
| imagination to divine all that is essential in such a character. But no 
| similar divination must be attributed to an ordinary young heroine. 
| She is not intended to be a woman of genius. Her mind is timid, and its 
| range is narrow. No acquaintance with the real existence of a bad young 
| nobleman can be acquired by such a person except under very peculiar 
| circumstances, or at her own cost. To attribute such knowledge to a 
| gentle young lady who has never had any experience would be 
| monstrous. The authoress of <hi rend="italic"> Lost and Won </hi> 
| has escaped this error. She has not made Lord Carstairs a real 
| character. We have only a sketch of certain obvious traits and 
| picturesque features of his, which a young lady could not help noticing. 
| But, in consequence, the novel as a delineation of life is inevitably very 
| imperfect. We are shown, as moving among the real people of the book, a 
| kind of wicked lay figure that destroys their happiness and ruins their 
| fortunes. The same defect must attend every attempt to describe the 
| striking characters and startling incidents of real life from a point of 
| view at which the real nature of the former, and the producing causes of 
| the latter, are altogether invisible.