aracters 
 
 ^iction. 
 
QfotncU Hnioeraitg ffiibrarg 
 
 at^ara. Sfew ^nrk 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 HENRY W. SAGE 
 
 1891 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 868.C4T74 
 
 Great characters of fiction. 
 
 3 1924 013 276 914 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013276914 
 
Great Characters of Fiction. 
 
Great Characters 
 of 
 
 Fiction. 
 
 Edited by 
 M. E. TOWNSEND. 
 
 LONDON: WELLS GARDNER, DARTON, y CO., 
 2 Paternoster Buildings, E.G.; 
 And 44 Victoria Street, Westminster, S.W. 
 
 H 
 
 d4 
 
1893. 
 
Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 EVELINA I 
 
 By Mrs, Jerome Mekciek 
 
 ANNE ELLIOTT 13 
 
 By Charlotte M. Yonge. 
 
 ESMOND 21 
 
 By £. Raikes. 
 
 COLONEL NEWCOME 33 
 
 By M. E. TowNSEND. 
 
 JEANIE DEANS 43 
 
 By Gertrude Julian Young. 
 
 MORTON AND EVANDALE .... 57 
 By Gertrude Julian Young. 
 
 AGNES WICK.FIELD 7' 
 
 By M. £. Townsend. 
 
 SYDNEY CARTON 81 
 
 By M. Bramston. 
 
 SHIRLEY 93 
 
 By Mrs. E. M. Field. 
 
 ADAM BEDE 105 
 
 By Grace Latham. 
 
Contents. 
 
 FACE 
 
 ROMOLA "7 
 
 By £. Raikes. 
 
 AMYAS LEIGH 129 
 
 By Gertrude Julian Young. 
 
 HEREWARD 143 
 
 By Mrs. E. M. Field. 
 
 QHARLES RAVENSHOE 153 
 
 By Christabel Coleridge. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE MATHILDE . . . .167 
 By Amy Percival. 
 
 JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN . . .179 
 By Mrs. E. M. Field. 
 
 HILDA 191 
 
 By Charlotte M. Yonge. 
 
 MARA: THE PEARL 199 
 
 By M. E. TowNSEND. 
 
 MOLLY GIBSON 209 
 
 By Christabel Coleridge. 
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLY 219 
 
 By EsmS Stuart. 
 
Preamble. 
 
 I 
 
 N such an age as the present, when the craving 
 for novels and tales of all kinds is constantly on 
 the increase, and apparently almost insatiable, 
 it seems as if it may be useful to present the subject of 
 fiction in a new and different light — as a profitable 
 study rather than as a mere indulgence wherewith to 
 while away an idle hour. 
 
 The love of fiction is rooted in the human soul : 
 witness'the child's eager petition, 'Tell me a story;' 
 witness the power of the minstrel bard, the impro- 
 visatore, the story - teller in all ages ; witness the 
 romances, the legends, and the tales of folk-lore sur- 
 viving in all countries ever since the childhood of the 
 world ; witness the immortal power of such books 
 as the Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe^ and the 
 Arabian Nights, which hold their own from generation 
 to generation. Stories — true or fictitious — always 
 have been, and always will be, of universal interest, 
 because they appeal to our humanity, to those deeper 
 
Preamble. 
 
 thoughts and emotions, common to us all, which go 
 to make up the drama of human life ; and if they have 
 been wrought with that ' touch of nature which makes 
 the whole world kin,' they will live and speak and 
 teach their lessons when other books have to rest 
 silent on their shelves. 
 
 It is in vain to tell people not to read fiction — 
 the young will read it because they are young, and on 
 the look-out for amusement ; the old will read it be- 
 cause it makes them feel young again, because it 
 brings back 'the glory and the dream' of former 
 years, and makes their hearts thrill once more with 
 the memories of love and sorrow ; the weary and the 
 hard-worked will read it because it rests them, and 
 diverts their minds from the worries of life by plunging 
 them into the absorbing interests of a new and brighter 
 world. 
 
 But it is not in vain so to cultivate the taste, the 
 judgment, and the refinement of thoughtful readers, 
 as that they will learn to 'refuse the evil and choose 
 the good ' in fiction as in other things ; not in vain to 
 teach them to appreciate the beauty of style in such 
 great masters of the art as Scott or Dickens or 
 Thackeray, so that they may not care to read vulgar 
 
Preamble. 
 
 or ill-written books ; not in vain to show them how 
 fiction may be used for noble ends — to stir the heart 
 to such sacrifices as were made by an Esmond or a 
 Jeanie Deans, or to rouse the world to take up the 
 cause of the oppressed, as when Uncle Tom's Cabin 
 went forth, from the pen of a woman, as the deliverer 
 of the slave and at the same time preached the good 
 news of the Gospel to many who could have been 
 reached by no other means. 
 
 What we need to do is to cultivate the critical 
 faculty, and induce those who have come to the age 
 of discretion to study that which is best in fiction, as 
 well as in other literature, so that they may not be 
 able to tolerate the silly trash which so many of them 
 are now devouring, and a taste for which too often 
 leads on to that insidious poison which through the 
 very cheapness and rapid spread of literature is now 
 being introduced amongst us. At the same time, 
 we would urge upon readers of any kind of fiction 
 to study the excellent warning of Professor Ruskin 
 as to what he quaintly calls ' the sore temptation of 
 novel-reading : ' — 
 
 ' It is not the badness of a novel that we should dread, 
 so much as its overwrought interest The weakest romance 
 
Preamble. 
 
 is not so stupefying as the lower forms of religious exciting 
 literature, and the worst romance is not so corrupting as 
 false history, false philosophy, or false political essays. But 
 the best romance becomes dangerous if, by its excitement, 
 it renders the ordinary course of life uninteresting, and 
 increases the morbid thirst for useless acquaintance with 
 scenes in which we shall never be called upon to act.' 
 
 Our aim, then, in collecting this series of papers 
 is to show the true uses of fiction by promoting a taste 
 for the best and noblest kinds of it, and our plan has 
 been to give, as it were, a portrait of the principal 
 character presented in each standard novel or tale 
 selected — a portrait painted with such careful and 
 delicate touches as may cause it to stand out before 
 our readers sufficiently to induce them to study the 
 work for themselves, without telling enough of the 
 story to spoil its interest if, perchance, they are not 
 already acquainted with it. 
 
 And, in following out this plan, we strike another 
 chord which generally finds a quick response in the 
 popular mind — that of hero-worship. So strongly, 
 indeed, is this worship ingrained in human hearts, 
 that even the heroes of fiction come in for their share 
 of it. 
 
Preamble. 
 
 As biography is to history in real life, so is the 
 working out of a great character in a novel or poem to 
 the novel or poem itself. What would our country be 
 without the examples of great lives and noble deeds, 
 handed down to be the possession and inheritance of 
 her children yet unborn? 
 
 ' What is it makes a nation truly great ? 
 Her sons ; her sons alone ; not theirs, but they.' 
 
 And surely our lives would also be the poorer if the 
 great heroes and heroines of fiction could be swept 
 away ; if we could lose the silent friendship of Henry 
 Esmond or Colonel Newcome, oi Romola or yohn Halifax 
 or Amyas Leigh^ and many another whom we have 
 known from childhood. How we should miss even 
 the charming personalities of the children of literature 
 — of the tender Little Nell^ or bright Little Lord 
 Fauntleroy, or sweet, chivalrous Wee Willie Winkie, 
 We love them all, and could not do without them ; 
 and many an interesting study might be made of such 
 characters as these, comparing one with another, and 
 drawing out the lesson which each life has been de- 
 signed to teach by acting it, as it were, on mimic stage 
 before us. 
 
Preamble. 
 
 Nor, we think, can the range of works selected 
 here fail to suggest some interesting thoughts to 
 students of our English literature. It is singular, 
 indeed, to look back to the date of Miss Burney's 
 Evelina, and to remember that novels before her time 
 were too coarse for any perusal of the gentler sex. 
 Doubtless such stories as Evelina and Camilla were 
 eagerly devoured by the young people of those days, 
 while Miss Austen's choice miniature paintings must 
 have been still more carefully treasured by those 
 whose perceptions were keen enough to take in their 
 beauties — beauties which are now, curiously enough, 
 forming the taste of readers in the younger world of 
 America. 
 
 But what a revolution in the kingdom of fiction 
 was created by the appearance of Waverley and its 
 successors, and how the fascination of these novels was 
 only enhanced by their proceeding from the pen of a 
 'great unknown,' may be more easily imagined than 
 described; nor can we forget to look upon it as a 
 subject of devout thankfulness that this stream of 
 literature which flowed so long from one source flowed 
 also so crystal pure, never tainted by false principle or 
 unworthy thought, but always true to loyalty, honour, 
 
Preamble. 
 
 and virtue. How much Sir Walter Scott may have 
 done to ' set the tone ' of fiction for future generations 
 it is, indeed, impossible to calculate. 
 
 The contrast between the two great contemporary- 
 writers — Thackeray and Dickens — would form an 
 interesting study of itself. Both took in hand to lash 
 the vices and expose the sins and miseries of the world 
 in differing ranks of society. For beauty of style, 
 combining noblest pathos and keenest satire with the 
 most finished word-painting, Thackeray must surely 
 bear the palm ; but Charles Dickens will probably 
 always stand nearest to the heart of England, most in 
 sympathy with her toiling, sorrowing millions, ' feeling 
 with not for the people,' whose sufFerings haunted him 
 till he stood forth their champion with unresting pen, 
 winning for them the reform of many an abuse, and 
 pressing even the power of the ludicrous into the 
 service of humanity. 
 
 There are, probably, few who will not regret the 
 impetus towards the fantastic and sensational in fiction 
 which was given by the weird sisters of the North — 
 the Brontes. They have found a host of successive 
 imitators, who, like all inferior artists, have deepened 
 their shadows to blackness, while they have lost the 
 
Preamble. 
 
 , light which streamed here and there in delicate purity 
 over their sombre pictures. 
 
 In Dinah Muloch, and in Mrs. Gaskell (herself 
 the generous and loyal biographer of Currer Bell), 
 we have examples of the exact opposite in female 
 authorship, healthy in tone, and combining tenderness 
 with strength. 
 
 Of the works of Charles Kingsley, whose name is 
 as a household word loved and honoured amongst us, 
 and of his less great brother Henry, greater only in 
 his keener sense of humour, we might find many 
 things to say; but enough has been pointed out to 
 show our readers the scope of the work which we 
 have tried to do in bringing before them this gallery 
 of portraits, painted by living artists, dressed in the 
 costumes of many successive periods, set ofF, as far as 
 may be, with appropriate backgrounds, and framed 
 each in their separate settings as becomes their worth 
 and dignity. 
 
 We leave them now to study the characters for 
 themselves. 
 
 M. E. TOWNSEND. 
 
Evelina. 
 
 EVELINA. ' 
 
 By Frances Borney. 
 
'Derhing her inspiration in fart from Richardson, Frances 
 Burniy heads the roll of those femak novelists whose works 
 form a considerable part of English literature. The purity 
 of her -writings first made the circulating library respectable. 
 "IVe owe to her," says Macaulay very justly, "not only 
 Evelina, Cecilia, and Camilla, but Mansfield Park and the 
 Absentee." ' 
 
 L, B. Seeley — ' Fanny Burney and Her Friends.' 
 
Evelina. 
 
 '^ smooth and sledfast mind^ 
 Gentle thoughts and ealm desires^ 
 Hearts tvith e^ual love combined^ 
 Kindle never-dying jires : 
 Pf'Aere these are not^ I despise 
 Lovely cheeks^ or lips^ or eyes^ 
 
 Thomas Carew (1589-1639). 
 
 VELINA is perhaps rather the principal char- 
 acter of a celebrated story than a great character 
 herself ; yet she has in her more of the ele- 
 ments of a great character than her timidity would at 
 first lead us to suppose. She is, when introduced to 
 us, a lovely, but simple and timid girl, well brought 
 up in a retired home ; and her good sense and high 
 principle only emerge gradually from a fog of over- 
 powering shyness. 
 
 The story of Evelina holds a very important place 
 in English literature from being the first novel which 
 was readable by ladies. It was published in 1778, 
 and opened a new field of enjoyment to the daughters 
 ■of England. The English princesses were allowed 
 to read Evelina^ and the sensation which it made in 
 the whole reading public could not now be believed. 
 The novels had been hitherto almost unreadable on 
 
Evelina. 
 
 account of their coarseness — society was very coarse 
 even in the higher circles -, but Miss Fanny Burney, 
 the authoress, had taste and tact and sense to put it 
 forth only in such a form as could be read without 
 ofFence, though some of the characters are in them- 
 selves coarse enough. 
 
 Frances Burney was the daughter of a popular 
 organist and writer on musical subjects, and lived in a 
 happy, easy, middle-class fashion till she had the good 
 or ill fortune to be chosen as reader and lady-in-waiting 
 to good Queen Charlotte, wife of George III. Though 
 the Queen was most amiable, those about her were not 
 always so, and Frances led a dreary life enough, till at 
 last she broke free from court trammels and married 
 a French refugee named D'Arblay. None of her 
 writings were equal to Evelina, which took society 
 by storm, and made its young authoress famous at 
 once. 
 
 It may seem remarkable that Fanny Burney's fame 
 should have lasted so long. Macaulay, in reviewing 
 her Diary and Letters in 1843, writes thus of her 
 early productions, and gives the clue to the secret : — 
 
 'Many books, written for temporary eiFect, had run 
 through six or seven editions, and had been then gathered 
 to the novels of Afra Behn, and the epic poems of Sir 
 Richard Blackmore, yet the early work's of Madame d'Arblay, 
 in spite of the lapse of years, in spite of the change of 
 manners, m spite of the popularity deservedly obtained by 
 some of her rivals, continued to hold a high place in public 
 
 4 
 
Evel 
 
 ina. 
 
 esteem. She lived to be a classic; Time set on her fame, 
 before she went hence, that seal which is seldom set except 
 on the fame of the departed. Like Sir Condy Rackrent in 
 the tale, she survived her own wake, and overheard the 
 judgment of posterity !' 
 
 Evelina, heroine of the story, went by the name of 
 Miss Anville, though her real name, unknown even to 
 herself, was Belmont. She is represented as the child 
 of an unhappy and gentle woman of inferior birth, 
 whose husband. Sir John Belmont, attracted by her 
 charms, had afterwards basely deserted her. 
 
 Evelina, on her mother's death, was adopted by an 
 admirable clergyman of the name of Villars, and en- 
 joyed the friendship of a wise and good neighbour. 
 Lady Howard. Thus the girl grew up, very lovely, 
 but quite unconscious of her beauty, well educated 
 and refined, but in so quiet a circle that she had not 
 learned any of the world's ways and fashions, when at 
 the urgent request of Lady Howard she was allowed 
 by Mr. Villars to visit that kind friend at Howard 
 Grove, and thence to go to London with Lady 
 Howard's daughter, Mrs. Mirvan, to meet her hus- 
 band. Captain Mirvan, on his return from abroad, 
 and to enjoy a first sight of the great city in company 
 with her own dear friend, Maria Mirvan. 
 
 Here begin poor Evelina's trials. At her first 
 dance she commits the dreadful mistake of refusing 
 one partner and accepting another. The scene is very 
 amusing, as Evelina relates it in a letter to her vener- 
 
 5 
 
Evelina. 
 
 able friend, Mr. Villars. (The whole book is in the 
 form of letters.) 
 
 ' A young man, who had for some time looked at 
 us with a kind of negligent impertinence, advanced on 
 tiptoe towards me ; he had a set smile on his face, and 
 his dress was so foppish rhat I really believe he even 
 wished to be stared at ; and yet he was very ugly. 
 
 ' Bowing almost to the ground with a sort of 
 swing, and waving his hand with the greatest conceit,, 
 after a short and silly pause, he said, " Madam, may I 
 presume?" and stopped, offering to take my hand. 
 I drew it back, but could scarce forbear laughing. 
 " Allow me, madam," continued he, affectedly break- 
 ing off every half-moment, "the honour and happi- 
 ness " Again he would have taken my hand, but 
 
 bowing my head, I begged to be excused, and turned 
 to Miss Mirvan to conceal my laughter. He then 
 desired to know if I had already engaged myself to 
 some more fortunate man. I said " No," and that I 
 believed I should not dance at all. He would keep 
 himself, he told me, disengaged in hopes I should 
 relent ; and then uttering some ridiculous speeches of 
 sorrow and disappointment, though his face still wore 
 the same invariable smile, he retreated.' 
 
 Not long after a much more sensible and agree- 
 able-looking man, Lord Orville, persuades the shy, 
 giggling, pretty girl to stand up with him in a dance, 
 and tries her with various subjects of conversation, but 
 she is far too frightened to talk. And when at last the 
 
 6 
 
Evelina. 
 
 affected youth whom she has rejected, one Mr. Lovel, 
 comes up in anger and asks ' to what accident he must 
 attribute the fact of Evelina's dancing with another 
 after refusing him,' she perceives her mistake. 'Tired, 
 ashamed, and mortified, she begs to sit down ' till her 
 party shall return home. 
 
 Now, here we see several characteristics of our 
 little country beauty. It is her good sense which 
 makes her reject the fop, but her ignorance which 
 makes her accept the more favoured partner, and so 
 arouse anger and jealousy. Nor does she manage 
 better at her next ball, where, to escape a disagreeable 
 partner, she says, untruly, that she is already engaged. 
 From this untruth much unpleasantness arises, and she 
 has to repent it sincerely. The gentleman, suspecting 
 her motive, stays near her, professing to look out for 
 her missing partner, and at last Mrs. Mirvan assures 
 her she must dance with him. He still annoys her 
 by inquiry into the name of the absent partner, and by 
 a sign she indicates Lord Orville, who at that moment 
 makes his appearance. This is going from bad to 
 worse ; one falsehood has led to another, and the 
 worst of all is that Evelina's teasing partner, suddenly 
 seizing her hand, says to Lord Orville, before Mrs. 
 Mirvan : ' Think, my lord, what must be my reluc- 
 tance to resign this fair hand to your lordship.' 
 
 ' I coloured violently,' says Evelina. ' You do me 
 too much honour, sir,' cried Lord Orville. ' However, 
 I shall be happy to profit by it if this lady,' turning 
 
Evelina. 
 
 to Mrs. Mirvan, ' will permit me to seek for her 
 party.' 
 
 ' To compel him thus to dance I could not endure, 
 and eagerly called out, " By no means — not for the 
 world — I must beg." ' 
 
 ' What shall be done, my dear ? ' said Mrs. 
 Mirvan. 
 
 ' Nothing, ma'am ; anything, I mean.' 
 
 ' But do you dance or not ? You see his lordship 
 waits.' 
 
 The scene goes on till Evelina, convicted of her 
 fault, sure that Lord Orville sees how improperly she 
 has used his name, bursts into tears, and has to go 
 home. 
 
 Well, this is hardly the conduct of a heroine. It 
 is the conduct of a shy girl, frightened at the great 
 world in which for the first time she finds herself; 
 attracted at once to Lord Orville, the only young man 
 of good sense, refinement, and conduct whom she 
 meets, and who thus reminds her of her beloved 
 adopted father, Mr. Villars, and disgusted by the 
 silly, forward fops who were the men of fashion of 
 that day, when gentlemen dressed in silks, velvets, 
 and laces, and were more affected than any fine lady 
 is now. But the story-telling is quite inexcusable, 
 and shows a weakness of character which we always 
 find in Evelina. Her charm lies in her extraordinary 
 beauty and grace, fresh colour and modest expression. 
 These cannot be put on paper, so we must draw on 
 
Evelina. 
 
 our fancy and make an Evelina to our liking, with 
 the help of the most charming pictures we know. 
 
 In a place of amusement, a tall, elderly woman, 
 with a foreign accent, rushes up while the Mirvans 
 and Evelina are waiting for their carriage. She is in 
 want of a coach, and it is raining. Captain Mirvan 
 unwillingly admits her to his own, and in the course 
 of a rather unpleasant conversation, in which Captain 
 Mirvan — a rough sailor — and the stranger lady are 
 equally ill-bred, the latter turns out to be Madame 
 Duval, the grandmother of Evelina. No intercourse 
 had taken place between them, Mr. Villars dreading 
 the bad influence of Madame Duval on his adopted 
 daughter. But now the meeting has accidentally 
 taken place, Evelina must needs show all respect to 
 her aged but very frivolous relative. She stays with 
 her in London, leaving her kind friends, the Mirvans, 
 for this purpose. Madame Duval introduces her to 
 some commonplace but very amusing relatives, the 
 Branghtons, who keep a silversmith's shop on Snow 
 HiU, and in this house Evelina has an opportunity of 
 showing her better feelings and real power of using 
 her influence for good. It happens thus: — 
 
 A young Scotch gentleman, a poet, named 
 Macartney, who lodges with the Branghtons, and 
 to whom Evelina has shown a delicate respect, is 
 reduced by poverty and pride to the verge of despair. 
 While waiting in a parlour alone, she sees the young 
 man rush up the staircase to his room with a per- 
 
 9 
 
Evelina. 
 
 turbed and affrighted looL At the corner of the 
 stairs, in his hurry, he slipped and fell, and Evelina 
 plainly perceived the end of a pistol which started 
 from his pocket as he struck against the stairs. She 
 was inexpressibly shocked. All that she had heard 
 of his misery occurring to her memory, made her 
 conclude that he was at that very moment contem- 
 plating suicide. Yielding to a noble impulse, she 
 followed him, and looking in at his door saw him on 
 his knees, a pistol in each hand, and as he called out, 
 'O God, forgive me!' Evelina rushed in, caught his 
 arm, and though nearly fainting with emotion, she 
 had courage and presence of mind to pick up the 
 pistols which Macartney in his surprise had dropped, 
 and when he would have seized them she exclaimed, 
 ' Oh, sir, have mercy upon yourself ! ' Her beauty, 
 her white robe, make the wretched man think he 
 sees an angel, and when he cries, 'Why, for what 
 purpose, tell me, do you withhold them ? ' she 
 answers, ' To give you time to think ; to save you 
 from eternal misery ; and, I hope, to reserve you 
 for mercy and forgiveness.' 
 
 Space fails to follow Evelina through her various 
 adventures, which come much thicker and faster than 
 in real life. She finds her unnatural father. Sir John 
 Belmont, during a visit to Bath, and wins his love by 
 her gentle beauty and her likeness to her mother, 
 whose memory — beloved though injured as she was — 
 returns on him in full force. In the once wretched 
 
Evelina. 
 
 Macartney she finds a brother whom the cruel father 
 also acknowledges, though late, allowing his marriage 
 with a worthy girl to whom Sir John gives a portion ; 
 and, after many troubles, Evelina herself becomes at 
 last the happy wife of the good Lord Orville. 
 
 The tale is long, and every incident is most 
 minutely described, but it is well worth reading, and if 
 our readers like to ask for it at old bookstalls, they may 
 perhaps obtain it for a modest sum. The characters 
 are broadly drawn ; the extremes of fantastic luxury, 
 and of coarse vulgarity, meet in one picture in a way 
 which seems strange to our more educated age, when 
 good manners are the rule in all but the lowest class. 
 But our Evelina moves among them all, simple, right- 
 minded, though unwise sometimes from extreme 
 timidity, but coming out safely from many awkward 
 situations by the protecting force of her own inner 
 purity. 
 
 That which strikes us most in the book is its viva- 
 cious style, and the marked contrast between a few 
 refined and delicate-minded women, and the rough 
 practical jokes which were apparently not out of favour 
 in that day even in the highest circles. For instance, 
 the constant quarrelling between Captain Mirvan and 
 Madame Duval, ending in his leading her a wild-goose 
 chase to visit a friend in misfortune, and then, with a 
 young baronet of more wit than manners, setting upon 
 her in the guise of highwaymen, seating her, tied hand 
 and foot, in a ditch, minus her head-dress and wig. 
 
Evelina. 
 
 exposed to the ridicule of her own fluniceys. This is 
 a sort of joke which we can hardly understand, but 
 which lends considerable force to a tale of adventure. 
 And through such scenes, and worse, we still find 
 the elder novelists portraying virtuous womanhood 
 capable of moving — like Una in Spenser's exquisite 
 poem — without a stain on the white robe of her purity. 
 Such women have ever held in their hands the guiding 
 thread to all real power and influence, and such it is 
 our part to strive after now as ever. 
 
Anne Elliott. 
 
 PERSUASION. 
 
 By Jane Austen. 
 
' yane Austen's proper theme ivas the English lady as she 
 ought to he ,• and as our fr'tendsUp luith her heroines becomes 
 more strongly knit^ toe feel not only assured that none such had 
 been produced in fiction since Shakespeare, but half inclined to 
 doubt 'whether the ambitious novelist of later days, 'with all his 
 'widening range of scene and character, has ever created "women 
 quite so 'worthy of the noble name of lady J 
 
 W. Warde Fowler. 
 
Anne Elliott. 
 
 ' Thou, •who canst give to lightest lay 
 An unpedantic moral gay. 
 Nor less the dullest theme bid flit 
 On ivings of unexpected icit, 
 In letters as in life approved, 
 Example honoured and beloveds' 
 
 Scott. 
 
 -m-^ ERSUASION is a story of the earlier years 
 A-^ of the century. In Anne Elliott we have 
 
 the picture of the development of the gentle, 
 
 submissive girl of the earlier years of the century, a 
 maiden who has yielded to family opinion and in- 
 fluences, but who has a root of hidden strength within 
 her. Perhaps it has the more force from not having 
 been put forth in earlier struggles, but having been 
 always repressed. 
 
 We meet her first when she is seven-and-twenty ; 
 a little faded, but more from the wearing effect of her 
 life than from age. She is the daughter of a vain, 
 conceited man, whose cold contempt had assisted in 
 preventing her, when very young, from engaging her- 
 self to a spirited naval officer. This is the ' Persua- 
 sion ' which gives name to the book. Anne has been 
 persuaded^ partly as a matter of deference to her father, 
 and partly by the inducement of her kindest friends, 
 
 15 
 
Anne Elliott. 
 
 to refuse her lover utterly, and break off all connexion 
 with him. Ever since, her life has gone on in a dull 
 course, without any real companionship, since her 
 mother's death — for her elder sister is as proud, ■ 
 pompous, and shallow as her father, and the younger, 
 with equally little intellect, is a perpetual grumbler ; 
 yet there is no discontent or restlessness on Anne's 
 part ; she accepts her natural surroundings, and quietly 
 makes the best of them without consciousness of effort. 
 It would have seemed to her little short of high 
 treason, almost an act of insanity, to confess even to 
 herself that her father was so dictatorial and stupid, 
 or that the lack of intellectual cultivation was so painful 
 that she must needs find interests elsewhere. She reads, 
 she follows up her accomplishments, as young ladies 
 used to do in those days ; does not fret or pine, but is 
 quietly patient of a far from cheerful lot. 
 
 We take her up just as her father has decided on 
 letting his house and going to live in Bath. The 
 place, Bellynch Hall, is taken by a delightful, good- 
 natured admiral, who is married to the sister of her 
 former lover, Captain Wentworth. 
 
 Anne, with no choice of her own, is left behind 
 to make a long visit to her younger sister, Mary 
 Musgrave, a wonderful portrait of the perpetual 
 grumbler. She is married to the heir of a neighbour- 
 ing squire, and her perpetual theme is her fancied 
 slights from his whole family, not to speak of her 
 troubles with her servants and children. She lives in 
 
 16 
 
Anne Elliott. 
 
 a perpetual state of complaint of her husband's kindred, 
 and yet of seeking their companionship, and Anne has 
 to hear it all. Indeed, Anne is one of those kindly and 
 safe people who, without any pretence of sympathy, 
 become universal confidants, and hear both sides of 
 a question. It is no small perfection to be able to 
 do this as a peace-maker, not a mischief-maker. 
 Of course, Captain Wentworth comes to stay with 
 his sister, having no other home, and Anne has in 
 silence and self-control to go through the trials, not 
 only of meeting him, but of perceiving that he has not 
 forgiven her, but is attracted by Louisa Musgrave — 
 a silly, shallow, lively girl of nineteen. 
 
 Anne watches all, never compromising her dignity 
 or her sweetness, more wounded than pleased by an 
 occasional little touch of feeling into which Captain 
 Wentworth is betrayed, but never showing sharpness 
 or bitterness, or letting her sensations be suspected. 
 All is given in little touches, but we feel the full 
 beauty of self-control. By-and-by, all go for a party 
 of pleasure to Lyme, to visit some naval friends of 
 Captain Wentworth, one of whom is in a state of 
 deep dejection over the loss by death of his lady- 
 love. There Louisa, through her own obstinate folly, 
 meets with an accident, alarming at first, but which 
 detains her there till after Anne has been summoned 
 to Bath, where others of the party gradually arrive, 
 and where, ere long, they are utterly electrified by the 
 tidings that the lively, merry Louisa, no doubt in her 
 
 c 17 
 
Anne Elliott. 
 
 subdued state of recovery, has become engaged to the 
 melancholy, sentimental gentleman whom they had 
 left mourning for his love ! 
 
 Anne has, shortly after, a conversation with this 
 poor lady's brother, who is sore over the speed with 
 which she has been forgotten, and it is then that the 
 words are drawn from her, by an argument on the 
 comparative constancy of men and women, 'AH the 
 privilege that I claim for my own sex (it is not a 
 very enviable one, you need not covet it) is that of 
 loving longest, when existence and when hope is^ 
 gone.' 
 
 Captain Wentworth is within hearing. Thouglv 
 seemingly absorbed in a letter, he has caught the 
 words, and they give him courage to confess that his 
 heart has always been Anne's, though resentment had 
 held him apart, till the accident taught him 'to dis- 
 tinguish between the steadiness of principle and the 
 obstinacy of self-will, between the daring of heedless- 
 ness and the resolution of a collected mind,' and thus 
 all ends happily, and Anne's sweet patience and self- 
 command are rewarded. 
 
 It was Miss Austen's last story, and has more 
 depth of feeling and pathos than most of hers. There 
 is a family tradition (though not inserted in her life) 
 that while on a tour in Wales she became acquainted 
 with a gentleman, who parted giving her to under- 
 stand that he should shortly appear at her home ia 
 Hampshire. He never came, and it was not till after 
 
Anne Elliott. 
 
 a considerable interval that she learnt that he had died 
 by an accident not long after their meeting. If true, 
 this recollection may breathe in Anne's words. 
 
 Jane Austen's are all maidens of the last century, 
 without aspirations after a career, leading quiet lives 
 in their homes, dutiful and refined. Even Emma, 
 who is lively, domineering, and adventurous, is per- 
 fectly devoted to her feeble,' wearisome old father, 
 and continually sacrifices her pleasure to him without 
 a word of disrespect or discontent ; Elizabeth, though 
 high-spirited and with her strong sense of the absurd, 
 is equally forbearing to her foolish, vulgar mother ; 
 Eleanor, though seeing her mother's imprudence in 
 being carried along by Marianne's unguarded, impe- 
 tuous sentiment, only utters gentle remonstrances ; and 
 Fanny, though brought up to a very different sphere 
 from that of her family at Portsmouth, never asserts 
 her superiority. Excepting with Anne and Emma, 
 full-grown life has begun with these girls much sooner 
 than it does, happily, with most now. Marianne 
 Dashwood's vehement demonstrations and emotions 
 begin at sixteen, when she ought to have been in 
 the midst of her studies, and Catharine Morland's 
 mare's-nest romance was the work of only a year 
 later in age. The delicate miniature painting of the 
 characters in these tales is apt not to be appreciated 
 by the young, and the tone of county society of that 
 day disgusts them ; but as they grow older they per- 
 ceive how much ability and insight is displayed in the 
 
 19 
 
Anne Elliott. 
 
 work, and esteem the forbearance, sweetness, and 
 self-restraint of such a heroine as Anne. 
 
 Miss Austen's own account of her works was, that 
 they were like ' a little bit of ivory two inches wide, on 
 which she worked with a brush so fine as to produce 
 little effect after much labour.' 
 
 But she had the seeing eye, the just appreciation, 
 and the true suppressed sense of humour which ren- 
 dered these miniatures effective, though only of the 
 commonplace, alike in scenes and characters. Her 
 imagination never carried her beyond what she 
 thoroughly knew and understood in her quiet home 
 life, which was almost entirely without events, and 
 ended in early middle life, before her home had been 
 broken up by the death of her mother. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott much admired her works, and 
 they have grown in popularity ever since her time. 
 They are now actually subjects of examination at 
 American Universities. 
 
Esmond. 
 
 ESMOND. 
 
 By W. M. Thackeray. 
 
'■Esmond is — and here the high art and the high morality of 
 Mr, Thac]^ray's genius is shown — altogether a man of his 
 oivn age, , . , The temptations ivhich he conquers are just 
 those under ivhich the men around him fall. But how does he 
 conquer them f By holding fast throughout to honour ^ duty, 
 •virtue. Thus and thus alone he becomes an ideal eighteenth- 
 century gentleman, an eighteenth-century hero. This was 'what 
 Mr., Thackeray meant — for he told me so himself — that it ivas 
 possible J even in England* s lowest and foulest times, to be a 
 gentleman and a hero, if a man ivould but be true to the light 
 within him,^ — Charles Kingsley, 
 
Esmond. 
 
 ^Fortune J good or iilj as I take zV, does not change men and nvotnen. 
 It but develops their characters.^ — Esmond. 
 
 I 
 
 T is difficult to think of Esmond as of a character 
 in fiction. His story is so perfectly set in a 
 framework of history, that one can scarcely 
 believe that he did not really exist as he is represented, 
 «ide by side with Addison, Steele, General Webb, 
 Lord Mohun, and the Chevalier of St. George. For 
 the same reason, it is impossible to regard the book 
 which tells Esmond's story in the light of a mere 
 novel. It is a novel, undoubtedly, but it is also more. 
 It is a history, and that of the best kind, for it deals 
 ■with the social rather than the political side of events. 
 It is a history of English people of the period in which 
 •the action of the story is laid — namely, in the reigns 
 of William III. and Anne. It presents us with a 
 ■series of pictures of their life and manners, dealing 
 also, as true history always must, with the state of 
 ■religion and literature. 
 
 ' I would have history, familiar rather than heroic,' 
 says the author, on his very first page. And so we 
 have those great and startling events, which we are 
 apt to consider as alone constituting history proper, 
 such as the great victories of Marlborough, shown us, 
 
 23 
 
Esmond. 
 
 not as isolated facts, but in their relation to others 
 existing at the time. The splendid names of Blenheim, 
 Ramilies, and the rest, will be, for those who have 
 read Eimond^ no more connected solely with their 
 effect on the balance of European power, nor witb 
 their results 6n the fortunes of a few private persons 
 in high places in England ; but they will be associated 
 with the real horrors of war, such as the pillage which 
 follows a great victory ; and also with the lives of 
 those engaged in them, with the daring and reckless- 
 ness of the young officers, and the woes and ways of 
 the private soldiers. Moreover, in Esmond we find 
 people whose worth and importance is of different 
 kinds, placed in a better light with regard .to each- 
 other than is always possible in a history proper. 
 Marlborough, as represented by Thackeray, is not in. 
 all his glory a greater or more enduring figure than 
 Addison in his garret in the Haymarket. 
 
 What a charming description that is of the poet,, 
 in Chapter XL, Book II. We seem to see him 
 ' poring over a folio volume at the bookshop near to- 
 St. James's Church .... a fair, tall man, in a snufF- 
 coloured suit, with a plain sword, very sober and 
 almost shabby in appearance ;' and afterwards, re- 
 ceiving ' his guests in his apartment, which was indeed 
 but a shabby one, though no grandee of the land could, 
 receive his guests with a more perfect and courtly grace- 
 than this gentleman.' 
 
 We hear, too, as much of Dick the Scholar, first 
 24 
 
Esmond. 
 
 as trooper, then as Captain Steele, as of General Webb, 
 while the Chevalier of St. George, now somewhat 
 contemptuously buried for us under the name of the 
 ' Old Pretender,' is shown in all his weakness and 
 folly, yet surrounded by that mist, half of poetry, half 
 of sanctity, through which a great part of the nation 
 at that period regarded the members of the House of 
 Stuart. 
 
 And it is because this story of Esmond thus brings 
 to our near regard an age now past, an age with 
 different manners and -less refinement than our own, 
 that we are conscious, as we read, of much that is 
 discordant with our own modern tastes. The jests, 
 the gambling, and the drinking, for instance, belong 
 to the habits of that age, as does the duelling. We 
 do not care to read about them ; we are sometimes 
 surprised to find the unspotted hero of the book is not 
 himself shocked by them ; but we feel that the picture 
 would be incomplete without them. The true artist, 
 the faithful historian of the age of Anne, could not 
 leave them out. And Thackeray is more than these. 
 He is among the poets, the true lovers of mankind. 
 "• He nothing human alien deems unto himself.' Look 
 at the closing paragraph of Book I. and you will see 
 what I mean. 
 
 The reader of Esmond must have something of this 
 mind, too, or he will not be able to appreciate the 
 book. In nothing, indeed, is this great author's skill 
 more shown than in the art with which he reproduces 
 
 25 
 
Esmond. 
 
 the follies, caprices, and vices of a past age, with all 
 that makes it different from our own. He makes us 
 feel, as we read, that it was different rather than 
 worse, and with subtle power leads us to pity where 
 we cannot admire ; to love what is good in spite of 
 the ill that clings to it ; and most of all, to love that 
 good which is perfected and heightened in the struggle 
 with evil, and in quiet self-sacrifice, which is at once 
 'heroic' and 'familiar.' Most of all, he makes us 
 love and reverence Esmond himself. It would take 
 too long, and it would also be unfair to the reader, to 
 give more than the briefest outline of Esmond's own 
 beautiful story. It is, also, a specially difficult one to 
 tell, as it is a tale of long patience, and of that truth 
 and tenderness, both in him and in her whom the 
 reader comes to feel is the real heroine of the tale, 
 which can only be made perfect in the slow iires of 
 suffering and the self-devotion of every day. The 
 characters of Henry Esmond and of Lady Castlewood 
 are such as grow upon one with every fresh reading of 
 the book. The author is too great an artist to make 
 either of them flawless. In the lady, especially, we 
 mark those particular defects which we are sometimes 
 inclined to think Thackeray must have believed in- 
 separable from all charming women. But when these 
 are subtracted, we feel that in Esmond and his 
 mistress we have before us a perfect gentleman and 
 lady, in the best sense of the words. 
 
 In our early days of novel-reading, we are apt to 
 26 
 
Esmond. 
 
 be swept away by admiration for the youth of 
 impossible daring and courage. We are in love 
 with his very insolence and independence of common 
 human things ; with his fiery impetuosity, his pride 
 which can brook no check. It is but a part of that 
 youthful error which leads us to neglect the near in 
 longings for the distant, and makes us believe the 
 noblest things are those which are far away. As our 
 experience grows, life and character become differently 
 focussed for us. Such a hero as I have described we 
 come to find is not merely (and fortunately) untrue 
 to nature, but even if he did exist he would not be a 
 fine creature after all, and we wonder how we could 
 ever have thought so. I will say no more definitely 
 of Esmond than that he is not like such an imaginary 
 character. 
 
 While still quite a child, Henry Esmond was 
 adopted by his father's cousin. There was a mystery 
 about his birth, and the boy grew up in the belief his 
 kind relations also shared, that his mother, an obscure 
 Frenchwoman, was not properly married to his father, 
 Thomas Viscount Castlewood, who certainly forsook 
 her and was afterwards married to an Englishwoman 
 of his own rank. Henry was therefore in a dependent 
 position in the house of Castlewood. But this he 
 little felt, on account of the kindness of his young 
 mistress, who became, when he first made her 
 acquaintance, soon like an elder sister to him. The 
 day when she laid a fair hand on the head of the 
 
 27 
 
Esmond. 
 
 lonely orphan boy was for him the beginning of a 
 life-long devotion to her and to her children. Years 
 after, a grave man, older than his years, after long 
 absence which was enhanced by strange vicissitudes 
 of fortune, he came to lie once more on the little 
 bed he had occupied at Castlewood. In the room, 
 familiar from childhood, he remembered how wheri 
 years ago, a boy on that very bed, she had blessed 
 him and called him her knight, he had made a vow 
 to be faithful and never desert her dear service. Had 
 he kept that fond, boyish promise ? Yes, before 
 heaven ! yes, praise be to God ! His life had been 
 hers; his blood, his fortune, his name, his whole 
 heart ever since had been hers and her children's. 
 
 Lord Castlewood was unworthy of his beautiful 
 wife. He was rough and coarse in feeling and 
 manners, though not without a certain nobility of 
 character and kindness of heart. The gradual 
 estrangement between the pair is wonderfully told. 
 Henry remained the friend of each, and, grown to a 
 young man, stood by his patron in the fatal duel 
 which ended his life. It was then, from the lips of 
 the dying man, that he learned a secret which Lord 
 Castlewood himself had only possessed a few months. 
 Henry's mother had been legally married to his father, 
 and therefore he himself, and not his dying patron, 
 was the real Viscount. Consequently the boy Frank, 
 at Castlewood, the darling son of Henry's dear 
 mistress, was not the heir to the great name and 
 
 28 
 
Esmond. 
 
 property, but born to a comparatively obscure posi- 
 tion. By the advice of Bishop Atterbury, w^ho is 
 made to attend his dying bed, Henry's patron put his 
 signature to a w^ritten confession of this great secret. 
 But the young man almost instantly resolved to make 
 no use of information which would bring misery on 
 those he loved, and he burnt the paper in the presence 
 of the Bishop. 
 
 For a long time this act of self-sacrifice was un- 
 known to those whom it most affected, and Esmond 
 himself was separated, partly by a misunderstanding 
 and partly by her own scruples, from Lady Castle- 
 wood and her children. 
 
 When he came back to them, and this was 
 not till after his first military campaign, he found his 
 mistress more gracious, gentle, and loving than ever, 
 and her daughter Beatrix grown into the most 
 beautiful creature he had ever seen. He straight- 
 way fell in love with her, and from this time the 
 ' History of Henry Esmond, Esq.,' consists greatly 
 of vain attempts to win the young lady's favour. 
 
 Beatrix, of surpassing beauty and brilliant gifts, 
 was a wayward creature, with many of her father's 
 faults. Her love of admiration made her fickle. 
 *Thou wilt always forsake an old friend for a new 
 one, Trix,' her father said to her, when she was 
 only four years old. And years after her mother 
 said, ' Beatrix loves admiration more than love. The 
 man who would marry her will not be happy with 
 
 29 
 
Esmond. 
 
 her unless he be a great person, and can put her in 
 a great position.' 
 
 It is fair to Beatrix to say that if she loved to 
 provoke Esmond's admiration, and she thought all 
 admiration worth having, she gave him no encourage- 
 ment to hope that she would ever become his wife ; 
 for she openly professed she would marry for the 
 highest rank she could. Her own inconstant nature, 
 combined with uncontrollable fate, frustrated one of 
 her schemes after another, and each time he found her 
 free Esmond's foolish hope revived. To please her, 
 he sought to distinguish himself in war; but though 
 she was gratified that he should give and do all for 
 her, she was no more ready to give anything herself. 
 And all the time he had the painful reflection, that 
 if he had not chosen to sacrifice himself for her 
 family, if he had claimed the title and estates which 
 were justly his, he could also have had the wife he 
 wanted. 
 
 The ' great person ' duly appeared — really great, 
 in character as well as in position and name. The 
 suitor to whom Beatrix pledged herself was none 
 other than the Duke of Hamilton, known to his time 
 by his noble qualities, and his high courage which 
 was as wide as his charity. Esmond, who already 
 knew in his heart of hearts that he could not make 
 Beatrix his wife, was in a manner prepared for this 
 final blow to his hopes. He could , even feel relieved 
 that the torture of suspense was over. For him he 
 
Esmond. 
 
 felt there could be but one woman, and he brought 
 her as a wedding gift the costly diamonds, a family 
 heirloom which were his to give to his own bride. 
 It befits the simple greatness of his hero's character 
 that the author should make no special remark upon 
 this act of sacrifice which showed how completely 
 his love was free from selfishness. 
 
 The Duke of Hamilton was killed in a duel — 
 famous in history — with the base Lord Mohun, and 
 on Esmond devolved the painful task of telling Beatrix 
 of the loss of one who would not only have gratified 
 her worldly ambitions, but who would also have made 
 her a noble husband. 
 
 Then for the faithful lover, began once more the 
 torture of unreasonable hope. At last, and this brings 
 us to the close of the book, Esmond devised a mad 
 scheme to win Beatrix. Knowing her romantic 
 devotion to the House of Stuart, he formed a plan by 
 which the chief representative, the son of James H., 
 then living at Versailles under the name of the 
 Chevalier of St. George, should be brought to England 
 and introduced at Court. Queen Anne was old and 
 ill, her own children had died, and it was hoped she 
 would receive this young brother with some favour. 
 How the scheme failed, both in its public and private 
 ends, must be read in the book itself 
 
 And what was the end of Esmond's story ? That 
 indeed it is not fair to tell, except that it was the most 
 natural one that could be. Further details of his life 
 
 3' 
 
Esmond, 
 
 will be found in the preface to the book, which should 
 certainly not be read before the book itself. The 
 story of Esmond does not really end here, but melts 
 into that of his descendants, the Virginians. 
 
 Something should have been said of the style in 
 which the book is written. The reader must 
 remember that it is not merely old, but that its 
 finish and art consist in its being an older style than 
 our own, used to describe events which are still 
 older. 
 
 I can only hope, in conclusion, that enough has 
 been said in this short sketch to induce some to enter 
 thoughtfully on the reading of this great work, the 
 masterpiece, perhaps, of one of our greatest English 
 novelists. 
 
 32 
 
Colonel Newcome. 
 
 THE NEfTCOMES. 
 
 By W. M. Thackeray. 
 
' He had our English *way of making fun 
 
 Of time shy feelings ivhick our hearts ivill hold 
 Like deivdrops all a~tremble^ and enfold 
 Them 'with our sheltering strength from storm and sun. 
 
 ' He ivas not one of those 'who are light at Heart 
 Because "'tis empty in its airy sowing : 
 He found the 'world too full of sorrowings 
 But showed us ho'W to smile and bear our smart, 
 
 '•Many of God'' s most precious gifts are sad 
 
 To tearSj and^ though no 'weeper^ this he kne'Wj 
 So in our merry 'wine 'would steep the rue, 
 That 'with a manlier strength 'we might gro'w gladJ 
 
 Gerald Massey on W. M. Thackeray* 
 
Colonel Newcome. 
 
 ' We gather grapes of joy up in the sun^ 
 But our best wine must ripen in the gloom. ' 
 
 Gerald Massey. 
 
 LTHOUGH the great novelist, Thackeray, 
 has entitled his book. The Newcomes in the 
 
 plural number, and although in its second 
 
 chapter it is for the history of the young Clive that he 
 ostensibly bespeaks our interest, still we believe every 
 one will agree that the real hero of the story is, and 
 always will be, none other than Colonel Newcome 
 himself. It is over this exquisite portrait of a noble 
 character that the artist lingers most lovingly; it is 
 this figure which is brought out touch by touch as the 
 tale goes on, whereof many chapters may be found 
 lengthy by the reader where Colonel Newcome is 
 absent, but none, we venture to think, where he is 
 present. The ingenuous Clive, who was yet so much 
 more worldly than his father ; the high-spirited and 
 affectionate, though very faulty Ethel ; the tender, 
 womanly Laura, the odious Barnes, the gay De Florae, 
 the detestable ' Campaigner,' only serve to bring out 
 this great character into higher relief, and the whole 
 effect is enhanced by the deep reverence, coupled with 
 a kind of pathetic humour, with which the imaginary 
 narrator follows at every turn this one biography with- 
 
 35 
 
Colonel Newcome. 
 
 out neglecting the rest of his dramatis persoms. There 
 is, perhaps, no more characteristic scene in the whole 
 book than that in which, at the first outset of the 
 story, the father and son are introduced to the reader 
 in the ' Cave of Harmony,' where the simple-hearted 
 Colonel joins heartily in all the fun as long as it is 
 harmless, and departs in a fiery flame of wrath as soon 
 as ever it becomes such as would offend his boy's 
 innocent ears and his own childlike soul. 
 
 Colonel Newcome had but just returned on leave 
 from India, where, after having been considered some- 
 thing of a scapegrace by uncomprehending parents at 
 home, he had risen to be a gallant officer, beloved by 
 all who knew him, that is, by all ' who loved modesty, 
 generosity, and honour,' and leaving his regiment after 
 thirty-four years' service in a state of the highest dis- 
 cipline and efficiency. Early left a widower with one 
 child, his whole soul is wrapt up, first in this boy, 
 whom he has not seen for nine years, having sent him 
 to England for education, and next in his family, his 
 affection for which is so wide and all-embracing that 
 it includes not only the rich and rising members of 
 it, but the homely spinster who lets lodgings by the 
 seaside and the old nurse in her humble cottage at 
 Newcome. 
 
 How inimitably has our author painted for us the 
 Colonel's astonishment at his own reception by his 
 prosperous banker brethren and their wives. How 
 humorous is the account of the first visit to Bryanston 
 
 36 
 
Colonel Newcome. 
 
 Square, the accidental meeting with the voluble French 
 governess and the children, the great Mrs. Newcome 
 driving up in her barouche and patronising the Colonel, 
 whom she does not ask to dinner. While, on the 
 other hand, with what delicate grace and fun is the 
 scene in the Brighton lodging-house presented to us, 
 when Lady Anne Newcome's class prejudices go down 
 before the roast chicken and bread-sauce supplied to 
 her darling little invalid by the ancient Miss Honey- 
 man. How well is the distinction drawn between the 
 families of the two sisters-in-law, while, to the credit 
 of Lady Anne's breeding, it must be recorded that 
 she, at least, early appreciated the true nobility of the 
 Colonel's character, which was altogether lost on 
 Mrs. Hobson Newcome's vulgar soul. 
 
 Meantime, the simple-hearted soldier moves amongst 
 them all, puzzled at the hollow conventionalities around 
 him, yet kind and thoughtful for every one. We can 
 almost fancy we see the fine figure, the bald head, the 
 fiill moustache, the half-smiling mouth, and sad eyes. 
 Ah, yes ! in those eyes can still be read the tale of a 
 bygone sorrow ; in that unforgetting heart sleeps still 
 the memory of a first and faithful love, which has 
 made him chivalrous and tenderly respectful to all 
 women, and beloved by them accordingly. But that 
 heart is hungry still, for even the father's passionate 
 devotion to his boy does not meet with the satisfaction 
 that he might have looked for. Not that Clive does 
 not love his father — far from it, but as years go on and 
 
 37 
 
Colonel Newcome. 
 
 manhood comes upon him, there comes also that 
 change of thought and feeling which every parent's 
 heart must learn to expect. The growing youth or 
 maiden enters upon life with dilFerent views and ideas 
 from those of a former generation, and however their 
 elders may try to keep up with them and innocently 
 think themselves as young as the youngest, however 
 much they may sacrifice themselves to bring brightness 
 and gaiety into their children's surroundings, still they 
 will constantly find themselves left behind ; they will 
 find — and how natural it is that it should be so — that 
 they are excluded from a thousand little intimate con- 
 fidences, amusing trifles, and harmless entertainments 
 which they long to enter into ; and they will often see 
 that smile of half-pitying superiority which means, 
 ' No one does that now,' or — ' AH those ideas belong 
 to a bygone age ! ' 
 
 Perhaps one of the most touching pictures in the 
 whole of the book we are studying, is that of the 
 Colonel * sitting below in his blank, cheerless bed- 
 room,' and listening to the snatches of gay laughter, 
 where ' the lad and his friends were talking, singing, 
 and making merry overhead.' 
 
 ' They had all sorts of tricks, byw^ords, and waggeries, of 
 which the father could not understand the jest nor its secret. 
 He longed to share in it, but the party would be hushed if 
 he went m to join it, and he would come away sad at heart 
 to think that his presence should be a signal for silence among 
 them, and that his son could not be merry in his company.' 
 
 38 
 
Colonel Newcome. 
 
 By Thomas Newcome, with his childlike heart 
 and kindly spirit, this condition of things would be far 
 more acutely felt than by many another, and therefore 
 his return to India was the most natural and perhaps 
 the wisest step he could take under the circumstances. 
 On that return to India, and on the consequences it 
 brought about, much of the story hangs. When next 
 we see our hero, it is as the prosperous shareholder in 
 the apparently flourishing Bundelcund Banking Com- 
 pany, showering benefits and luxuries on all around 
 him, amassing a fortune simply to lay at his son's feet, 
 but single-minded and unworldly as ever himself, and, 
 alas ! as innocent of money matters the while as any 
 baby. And still the great wish of his heart remains 
 ungratified. Ethel, his beloved niece — the only woman 
 who has ever reminded him of his lost Leonore — is 
 5till free, and still returns his Clive's devotion with 
 apparent coldness and condescension, while she allows 
 lier worldly old grandmother to drag her about from 
 one gay assembly to another, and openly to put her up 
 for auction to the highest bidder in the matrimonial 
 market. 
 
 And here we cannot refrain fi-om quoting the pic- 
 ture which our novelist has given us of the said Ethel 
 at seventeen years old. There is something about it 
 «o in harmony with the character of the Colonel, and 
 withal so fascinating, that we cease to wonder at his 
 pertinacious attempts to take her to his heart as a 
 ■daughter. 
 
 39 
 
Colonel Newcome 
 
 ' She is rather taller than the majority of women, of a. 
 countenance somewhat grave and haughty, but on occasion 
 brightening with humour or beaming with kindliness and 
 affection. Too quick to detect affectation or insincerity in 
 others, too impatient of dulness or pomposity, she is more 
 sarcastic now than she became when after years of suffering 
 had softened her nature. Truth looks out of her bright 
 eyes, and rises up armed, and flashes scorn or denial, perhaps- 
 too readily, when she encounters flattery, or meanness, or 
 imposture. After her first appearance in the world, if the 
 truth must be told, this young lady was popular neither with 
 many men nor with most women. The innocent dancing 
 youth who pressed around her, attracted by her beauty, were 
 rather afraid, after a while, of engaging her. This one felt 
 dimly that she despised him ; another, that his simpering, 
 commonplaces only occasioned Miss Newcome's laughter. 
 . . . The young women were frightened at her sarcasm. 
 . . . . Tn Miss Ethel's black hair there was a slight natural 
 ripple. Her eyes were grey, her mouth rather large, her 
 teeth regular and bright .... her voice low and sweet,, 
 and her smile, when it lighted up her face and eyes, as 
 beautiful as spring sunshine ; also they could lighten and 
 flash often, and sometimes, though rarely, rain. As for her 
 figure — but as this tall, slender form is concealed in a simple 
 white muslin robe, in which her fair arms are enveloped,, 
 and which is confined at her slim waist by an azure ribbon, 
 and descends to her feet, let us make a respectful bow to. 
 that fair image of youth, health, and modesty, and fancy it 
 as pretty as we will.' 
 
 If, however, we have at all succeeded in drawing, 
 for our readers even the most indistinct outline of 
 
 40 
 
Colonel Newcome. 
 
 Colonel Newcome's character (which they can best 
 fill in for themselves by an attentive study of this 
 noble book), they will see at a glance that in two 
 points his character differed essentially from that of 
 the brilliant and stately Ethel : no keen flash of scorn, 
 or quick insight to detect imposture was possible to 
 him ; and although he loved- the innocent gaiety of 
 youth, he had no power of satire nor even sense of 
 humour any more than a child would have. He could 
 not live a double existence, touched on the one side 
 by the deep solemnities of life, and on the other hand 
 enjoying the humour and the fun which to some 
 people so greatly helps to make life bearable. To his 
 guileless mind all was serious, simple, and straight- 
 forward, but — once deceived, the impression was in- 
 delible and could not be forgotten. His wrath against 
 the cowardly Barnes was exactly in proportion to his 
 astonishment at his duplicity. The impulsive manner 
 in which he embarked in his electioneering campaign, 
 the relentless way in which he — the kindest of men — 
 pursued his enemy, simply because he had been de- 
 ceived by him, are true to nature, though none but a 
 perfect artist would have dared, even so far as this, 
 to spoil the fair ideal of such a life by introducing 
 passages so regrettable. 
 
 But the end crowns all. We see our hero again 
 with the halo of a misfortune, nobly borne, brightening 
 around him ; we see him and his favourite Ethel alike 
 purified and softened by affliction received in a humble 
 
 41 
 
Colonel Newcome. 
 
 spirit from the Divine mercy. Though Thomas 
 Newcome's steps might well-nigh slip, he could 
 never be cast away, for the heavenly Guide, Whom 
 in the days of his prosperity he was never ashamed to 
 acknowledge before men, was near to uphold him with 
 His hand. 
 
 We should suppose that in all literature there is 
 scarcely to be found a more exquisite picture than 
 that of the scene in the Grey Friars' Chapel on 
 Founder's Day, where Pendennis, lifting his eyes 
 from his book, first sees Thomas Newcome habited 
 in the black gown of the pensioners of the hospital, 
 ' his dear old head bent down over his Prayer-book, 
 his Order of the Bath on his breast' — nor a more 
 pathetic one than the closing act of all, when the 
 Colonel, surrounded by his faithful friends in the 
 ' Poor Brother's ' cell, calls, with one piercing cry, on 
 the lost love of his faithful youth, unknowing that she 
 is kneeling by his side, and then answers joyfully to 
 the summons for which he has waited so long. 
 
 ' At the usual evening hour the chapel bell began to toll, 
 and Thomas Newcome's hands, outside the bed, feebly beat 
 time ; and, just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile 
 shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a little, and 
 quickly said, "Adsum !" and fell back. It was the word we 
 used at school when names were called ; and, lo, he whose 
 heart was as that of a little child, had answered to his name, 
 and stood in the presence of The Master.' 
 
 42 
 
Jeanie Deans. 
 
 THE HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN. 
 
 By Sir Walter Scott. 
 
'. . . . there is no friend like a sister 
 In calm or stormy 'weather i 
 To cheer one on the tedious ivay^ 
 To fetch one if one goes astray , 
 To lift one if one totters doivn^ 
 To strengthen whilst one stands/ 
 
 Christina Rossetti. 
 
Jeanie Deans. 
 
 '/n the characters of Ellen Douglas, Flora Mac Ivor, 
 Catherine Seyton, Die fernon, and Jeanie Deans .... 
 •ivith endless -aarieties of grace, tenderness, and intellectual 
 power, ive find in all a quite infallible and inevitable sense 
 of cUgnity and justice, a fearless, instant, and untiring self- 
 sacrifice to even the appearance of duty, much more to its 
 real claims.' — Sesame and Lilies. 
 
 N these days of culture and advanced education, 
 it is surprising to find that the writings of Scott 
 — and Thackeray, Kingsley and Mrs. Gaskell, 
 are comparatively unknown to our girls and boys, or 
 only taken up as a last resource when there is 
 * nothing new ' in the house, while the tawdry 
 romances of Ouida and her illiterate satellites are 
 €agerly sought after and devoured ; and even when 
 these earlier novels are read, young people speak of 
 them with amusing condescension, as stilted and 
 old-fashioned, and vote the characters priggish and 
 unnatural. 
 
 In the stories of the present day the value of truth 
 and purity is too frequently ignored or set aside, while 
 sympathy is excited on behalf of those characters 
 who sacrifice principle to emotion, and hover danger- 
 ously near the very brink of crime, if they do not 
 actually commit it. Those who guide their lives by 
 
 45 
 
Jeanie Deans. 
 
 religion, and practise the virtues of self-control and 
 absolute sincerity, are almost invariably represented 
 as colourless and unsympathetic, so that we cannot 
 wonder if they fail to arouse interest or enthusiasm. 
 To turn from these latter-day heroines to the page& 
 of Sir Walter Scott, is like stepping from a hothouse 
 of enervating exotics on to the healthy moorland of 
 his native country. 
 
 In the Heart of Midlothian^ the lovely but weak- 
 minded EfBe is only brought into notice as are the 
 dark shadows in a picture, in order to throw into more 
 striking relief the unsullied purity and brightness of 
 her sister's character. Our interest in her is merely 
 secondary, and the romance of the story no less than 
 the sketches of character, both humorous and pathetic, 
 centre round the homely figure of the modest Jeanie. 
 
 The opening chapters of the novel depict her as 
 the model housewife, the 'Aow^-keeping' daughter of 
 Davie Deans, a stern old Puritan of the strictest sort, 
 and her softer side is only betrayed by her indulgent 
 affection for her younger and prettier sister, the 
 pleasure-loving Effie, who, weary of the monotony 
 of home life, has been serving as apprentice in the 
 shop of Mrs. Saddletree, an old acquaintance in 
 Edinburgh. Jeanie's own quiet love story with her 
 childhood's playmate, the staid young Dominie, Reuben 
 Butler, is but slightly suggested at first to us, although, 
 as the tragic circumstances of her story unfold them- 
 selves, and her domestic virtues develop into heroism^ 
 
 46 
 
Jeanie Deans. 
 
 her powers of affection intensify also, and express 
 themselves more fervently. 
 
 The beauty of the picture is the more striking, 
 because that in spite of the varied experiences she 
 undergoes, she retains to the last that simplicity and 
 freshness which reminds us of the heather of her 
 beloved hills. 
 
 The plot of the Heart of Midlothian is more or 
 less familiar to most of us, and needs only a passing 
 glance. Effie Deans, while apprenticed to Mrs. 
 Saddletree, forms the acquaintance of a reckless and 
 dissipated adventurer, who bears the name of George 
 Robertson, and is mixed up in various discreditable 
 and lawless proceedings. Cajoled by his flattery and 
 believing in his promise of marriage, she allows herself 
 to be betrayed by him, and, from fear of her father's 
 anger, conceals her shame and humiliation even from 
 her tender-hearted sister, and flying from the house of 
 her employer, finds a miserable refuge with a hag 
 named Murdockson and her mad daughter, who are 
 mysteriously connected with George Robertson's 
 earlier life. Here her child is born, and during the 
 delirium into which she falls after its birth, the babe 
 disappears and its fate is wrapped in mystery until 
 the close of the book. The matter becomes public, 
 and Scotch law being especially severe at that period 
 on the crime of child-murder, she is thrown into 
 prison on this awful charge, the fact of the deceit 
 and secrecy she has practised being taken as a well- 
 
 47 
 
Jeanie Deans. 
 
 nigh convincing proof of her crime. Broken-hearted 
 as is her father by this terrible humiliation, his rigid 
 morality will not allow of his moving a finger in her 
 defence, although the struggle between his past love 
 for his erring child and his indignation at her fall, go 
 nigh to breaking down the sturdy old Calvinist 
 altogether. Although Jeanie's purity of nature is 
 equally revolted by the sin of her sister, her woman's 
 instinct refuses to admit the possibility of her having 
 committed such a crime, and she at once turns all her 
 thoughts to the hope of saving her. 
 
 A message is brought to her by the reluctant 
 Dominie, summoning her to a midnight tryst, with 
 an unknown stranger in the lonely vicinity of St. 
 Anthony's Chapel, if she wishes to rescue the 
 unhappy Eflie. Her ready wit tells her at once 
 that such a summons can only come from George 
 Robertson, and though her modesty shrinks from 
 encountering a man of such evil reputation, she 
 resolves upon obeying it, in spite of Butler's entreaties 
 and at the risk of his irrevocable displeasure. ' Folk 
 maun do muckle they have little will to do in this 
 world,' she meekly answers him ; adding, ' My life 
 and safety are in God's hands, but I'll no spare to 
 risk either of them on the errand I'm gaun to do.' 
 These simple words reflect the spirit in which Jeanie 
 meets each trial in her subsequent undertaking : 
 entire self-sacrifice and devotion to her one object, 
 based on an absolute dependence upon God's will. 
 
 48 
 
Jeanie Deans. 
 
 With these words she seems to mount the first 
 step on the upward path of heroism, and committing 
 herself to God's protection, she at last sets out on 
 her midnight walk, like Christiana, in the Pilgrim's 
 Progress, 'now in glimmer and now in gloom,' 
 endeavouring to keep ofF superstitious terror by fixing 
 her mind resolutely on the motive of her enterprise. 
 As she had rightly^ conjectured, she meets the man 
 who has been the destroyer of her sister's innocence, 
 but who is at least anxious to rescue her from the 
 terrible fate before her. He explains to Jeanie that 
 if she will only declare in court that Effie confided 
 her secret to her, she may yet be saved ; but in spite 
 of entreaties, threats, and violence, added to the 
 Jonging of her loving heart, she resolutely refuses to 
 perjure herself, and the scene might here end yet 
 more tragically .but that the arrival of the sheriff's 
 officers, who have a warrant for the arrest of 
 Robertson on another crime, necessitates his imme- 
 diate flight, and Jeanie succeeds in evading their 
 inquiries and reaching her cottage in safety. 
 
 From this point the struggle between Jeanie's love 
 and her truthfulness becomes more and more painful ; 
 -but, though at one moment her resolution wavers, so 
 torn is she by love and pity, she yet remains firm in 
 her resolve to speak nothing but absolute truth at the 
 trial, whatever may be the result of her doing so. 
 
 The scene in the courthouse is deeply pathetic, 
 and reaches its climax when she is appealed to by the 
 
 E 49 
 
Jeanie Deans, 
 
 prisoner with the piteous cry, ' Oh, Jeanie ! save me,, 
 save me ! ' and Davie Deans, stricken to the heart 
 with humiliation and grief, is carried senseless out of 
 court. 
 
 Broken-hearted though she is, Jeanie adheres to 
 her determination, and the advocate failing to elicit 
 from her any evidence in her sister's favour, the jury 
 reluctantly condemn her as guilty, and the judge 
 solemnly sentences her to be hung. In consideration 
 of her extreme youth the jury entreat the judge to 
 recommend her to the mercy of the Crown, which 
 he consents to do, though he warns both the prisoner 
 and the jury that he has not the slightest hope of a 
 pardon being granted. EiBe having received her 
 sentence with the apathy of despair, is led back to 
 her cell, while Jeanie hurries to the house of Mrs. 
 Saddletree, whither her father had been conveyed. 
 While tenderly ministering to his wants, she learns 
 from her hostess that instances have sometimes 
 occurred where a pardon has been extended to 
 criminals by a direct and personal application to the 
 Kihg. Without an instant's hesitation Jeanie deter- 
 mines on endeavouring to win it, unassisted and alone,, 
 feeling certain that her desperate attempt will be 
 hindered if she reveals her intention beforehand. 
 
 For one moment she kneels by her father's side to 
 implore his blessing, which he bestows mechanically,, 
 and in ignorance of her special need for it ; then 
 exclaiming, ' He has blessed mine errand,' she hurries 
 
 5° 
 
Jeanie Deans. 
 
 to Effie's dungeon^ and exhorts her to hope. The 
 turnkey, struck by her enthusiastic courage, gives her 
 the valuable advice that she should apply to the Duke 
 of Argyle to intercede at Court for her, and she flies 
 home to St. Leonard's Crag, where she spends the 
 rest of the day in arranging her domestic affairs to 
 the best of her ability, and in securing the services of 
 an old servant for her father during her absence. 
 
 This task completed, she sets about her prepara- 
 tions for her journey, vi^hich she contemplates making 
 entirely on foot. 
 
 What a picture of simplicity and courage is pre- 
 sented to us by the Lowland maiden — barefooted, 
 carrying her spotless white stockings and shoes in her 
 modest bundle, her comely countenance shaded by 
 the tartan snood, preparing to make her long and 
 hazardous journey alone and unaided, strong in her 
 childlike faith and sisterly devotion ! 
 
 The chief difficulty still remained. How was she 
 to obtain the necessary funds for her undertaking ? 
 She could not apply to her father, having determined 
 to keep her plans a secret from him till she was 
 sufficiently far on her journey to render it impossible 
 for him to interfere, and Reuben Butler she knew to 
 be poorer than herself, and therefore she determines 
 to ask the assistance of the eccentric Laird of 
 Dumbiedikes, 'a well-wisher' (or admirer), as she 
 naively expresses it, of hers from her childhood. 
 She wends her way early next morning to his house, 
 
 51 
 
Jeanie Deans. 
 
 and surprises him in a decidedly ' casual ' costume. 
 The interview between them is extremely comic, and 
 relieves the tragic tension of the narrative. With 
 her usual sincerity she repels his uncouth attempts 
 at love-making, confessing that she cares only for 
 Reuben Butler, and will never marry any one else. 
 His pique at finding the Laird of Dumbiedikes 
 rejected for a poor dominie, causes him at first to 
 refuse her any assistance, but she has scarcely quitted 
 his grounds before his better nature reasserts itself, 
 and he gallops after her on his Highland pony, 
 arrayed in nightgown and slippers, crowned with a 
 gold-laced hat, and presses a well-filled purse into 
 her hand, containing sufficient to supply all her 
 modest requirements. 
 
 Thus equipped, she turns her steps to the humbler 
 dwelling of Butler, her woman's heart yearning for 
 his sympathy and farewell words of affection. At 
 first he disapproves of her scheme, and tries to dis- 
 courage her, telling her she knows nothing of courts 
 and courtiers, and that such an attempt is madness ; 
 but she answers in her homely, earnest fashion, ' I 
 hae that within me that will keep my heart frae 
 failing, and I'm amaist sure I will be strengthened to 
 speak the errand I came for.' 
 
 Seeing that no persuasions will induce her to 
 abandon her project, he ofFers to write for her to 
 the Duke of Argyle, on whose generosity Butler has 
 a claim ; but this she refuses also in words of simple 
 
 52 
 
Jeanie Deans. 
 
 eloquence. ' Writing winna do it,' she says ; ' a 
 letter canna look and pray and beg and beseech as 
 the human voice can do to the human heart. A 
 letter's like the music ladies have for their spinets, 
 naething but black scores compared to the same tune 
 played or sung.' 
 
 Her words carry conviction to her lover's mind, 
 and ceasing to remonstrate, he furnishes her with a 
 document, given to his grandfather by the former 
 Duke of Argyle, in recognition of his having saved 
 his life in battle. In this paper the Duke calls on his 
 descendants ' to befriend the said Butler's family and 
 friends if occasion should arise.' Armed with this 
 valuable assistance, Jeanie leaves him abruptly, while 
 she still has the courage to maintain a sad but loving 
 smile. 
 
 Her journey as far as Durham is accomplished 
 in safety, and although her costume excites some 
 curiosity, her gentle manners and modest appearance 
 win her a kindly welcome at the halting-places she 
 selects. Soon after this her good luck deserts her, 
 and the thrilling adventures through which she passes, 
 and the unexpected revelations she overhears, and 
 which throw new lights on her sister's, story, are 
 sufficiently exciting to satisfy the taste of the most 
 sensation-loving reader of the present day. 
 
 The God in Whom she trusts so implicitly does 
 not fail her in her time of danger, and she at last 
 reaches the safe shelter of her kinswoman's — Mrs. 
 
 53 
 
Jeanie Deans. 
 
 Glass's — house in London. She loses no time in 
 seeking an audience with the Duke of Argyle, whose 
 heart, as Jeanie anticipates, warms 'at the sight o' 
 the tartan,' and whose sympathy is still further aroused 
 by her pleasing appearance and unconscious heroism, 
 and by the letter with which Butler has furnished her. 
 The scenes following are full of excitement and novel 
 experiences for Jeanie, but the sincerity and simplicity 
 of her character remains unsullied, although her perfect 
 truthfulness leads her into dangerous quicksands during 
 the royal interview which the Duke succeeds in pro- 
 curing for her. 
 
 After this climax, up to which our interest has been 
 wrought to the highest pitch of tension, the strain is 
 relieved and the narrative lightened with the power of 
 the true artist. 
 
 The playful kindness of the Duke on their return 
 journey from Windsor, when he induces Jeanie to 
 discuss the rural matters, which in happier days were 
 matters of vital importance to the humble maiden, and 
 her delight when he declares his preference for 'Dunlop 
 cheese,' and promises to accept one of her own making, 
 is described with much humour and liveliness, and 
 brings us, as well as our heroine, gently back to the 
 level of daily life. Admirably natural also is the 
 anxiety to which Jeanie now becomes a prey on 
 Butler's account. Her mission accomplished, the need 
 for self-devotion past, the woman reasserts herself, and 
 she passes the time of her safe and comfortable return 
 
 54 
 
Jeanie Deans. 
 
 journey in torturing doubts as to her lover's health 
 and the state of his feelings towards herself, dreading 
 lest he may have come to the conclusion during her 
 absence that a marriage with one so unfortunately 
 connected would be fatal to his prospects as a 
 minister. 
 
 The evident quickening and deepening of her love, 
 and the development of intelligence and sensitiveness 
 which shows itself more and more at this part of her 
 story, renders her ever dearer and more sympathetic 
 to us. Jeanie Deans is a beautiful and true type of 
 woman of the best kind in any rank of life, capable 
 of heroism through her affections and her moral 
 courage alone ; enabled to defy custom and face 
 obstacles before which a man even might quail when 
 devotion requires it, and yet retaining her virgin sim- 
 plicity and tenderness of heart unsullied ; so that once 
 her object is achieved, she becomes again the humble 
 fustic maiden first introduced to us, but with a widened 
 sympathy and charity taught her by the knowledge of 
 human passion, sin, and suffering, which has been 
 brought so near to her. 
 
 It has often been said that Sir Walter Scott ex- 
 celled in his feminine characters, and we must, we 
 think, agree in this assertion, and venture to assign 
 the foremost place to this beautiful type of a Lowland 
 lassie, which he has drawn with such truth and with 
 such a loving touch. 
 
 We hope, therefore, that our favourite Jeanie will 
 55 
 
Jeanie Deans. 
 
 not long remain a stranger to any who have hitherto, 
 been unacquainted with her, but that they will learn 
 to admire her as we do, and recognise the crystal 
 clearness with which her little figure stands out con- 
 spicuous among the many charming heroines of the 
 Waverley novels. 
 
 S6 
 
Morton and Evandale. 
 
 OLD MORTALirr. 
 
 By Sir Walter Scott, 
 
*jAnd c'verj by the nmnter hearth^ 
 Old tales I heard of ivoe or mirth, 
 Ofio'vej's' sleights, of ladies^ charms^ 
 Ofivitches* spells ^ of 'warriors^ arms J' 
 
 Sir Walter Scott 
 
Morton and Evandale. 
 
 ' The curse of growing factions and di-visions still 'vex ycur counsels*' 
 
 T 
 
 HIS motto, taken from the pages of Old 
 Mortality^ sounds, as it were, the keynote 
 of the story, which, while ranking foremost 
 among the Waverley novels for variety of character 
 sketches, stirring incidents, and infinite humour, affords 
 also an accurate picture of the disorders and abuses 
 under which the Scottish people suffered during the 
 reign of the last Stuarts. 
 
 The rigid doctrines of Calvinism, combined with 
 the national spirit of independence, engendered feelings 
 of bitterness which caused the people to revolt against 
 every action of the government ; while those in au- 
 thority exercised their powers in so arbitrary and 
 impolitic a fashion as to inflame this spirit to the 
 uttermost. To compel men by the terrors of the law 
 to break through their rigorous observance of the 
 Sabbath, and to dance and make merry against their 
 religious convictions, only confirmed the more rigid 
 Presbyterians in their narrowmindedness and deter- 
 mination to oppose the government, while the younger 
 men became discontented and unsettled, unable to 
 resist the temptation of sharing in the military sports 
 and exercises intended to promote a military spirit 
 
 59 
 
Morton and Evandale. 
 
 among them on the one hand, or to avoid listening 
 to the threats and denunciations of the fanatic 
 Covenanters on the other. The effect of these 
 opposing influences on an earnest and thoughtful mind 
 forms the leading interest of Old Mortality, and on 
 that account we think the author intends Henry 
 Morton to play the hero's part in the story. We 
 are loth to admit this, however, as the spirited figure 
 of Lord Evandale stands out with equal beauty in the 
 picture of faithful love and generous rivalry, and their 
 characters so act and react on each other, that they 
 gain in interest from their very contrast. 
 
 Lord Evandale is probably the favourite with all 
 young readers. There is an ardour and dashing 
 gallantry about him which, combined with his un- 
 happy fate, renders him peculiarly attractive, while 
 Morton's restrained and serious nature wins on us 
 more slowly, and it is not until the close of the story 
 that we fully realise his heroic qualities. 
 
 The rivals make their appearance simultaneously 
 at a shooting-match, and we see at once that the 
 heart of fair Edith Bellenden is the real target at which 
 they are aiming. Lord Evandale, the handsome and 
 carefully decorated cavalier, rides in close attendance 
 on Lady Margaret Bellenden and her beautiful grand- 
 daughter ; but it is on the appearance of *■ a slender 
 young man simply attired, yet with a certain elegance 
 and distinction, that Miss Bellenden shows confusion 
 and embarrassment.' 
 
 60 
 
Morton and Evandale. 
 
 The two gallants acquit themselves equally in the 
 first trial of skill, but as if to put his superiority beyond 
 a doubt in the final contest, Morton vaults on his horse 
 and brings dowrn the popinjay at full gallop, a feat 
 w^hich Lord Evandale fails to accomplish, even though 
 Morton courteously offers him his well-trained horse 
 for the purpose. The young nobleman conceals his 
 mortification with difficulty, and rides away moodily, 
 while the applause of the crowd, which had originally 
 been with him, is speedily transferred to his victorious 
 rival. As Morton is led forward to be congratulated 
 by the lord-lieutenant, he makes a profound salutation 
 to Edith, who replies to her grandmother's inquiries 
 about him with evident embarrassment. It transpires 
 that he is the son of the late Colonel Milnwood, an 
 officer of distinction, and, in spite of opposing politics, 
 an old friend of Edith's uncle. Major Bellenden. It 
 is at his house that the young people have met from 
 time to time from childhood, and that the boy and 
 girl friendship has developed almost imperceptibly 
 into a warmer attachment, all unknown to Lady 
 Margaret, whose staunch old Royalist spirit would 
 have revolted from such an idea. Brought up by a 
 miserly uncle, Morton has had little chance of 
 mixing in society save that afforded him by the 
 kindness of Major Bellenden, but he has had ample 
 opportunities for observing the harshness and tyranny 
 of the government, and the discontent and oppression 
 of his countrymen. 
 
 6i 
 
Morton and Evandale. 
 
 We read that Henry Morton possessed a force 
 of character unknown to himself. From his father 
 he inherited undaunted courage, and a detestation of 
 injustice whether in politics or religion, but his 
 enthusiasm was unsullied by fanaticism and un- 
 leavened by the sourness of the puritanical spirit. 
 From these his mind revolted, partly through the 
 justice of his understanding and partly through his 
 long visits at Major Bellenden's, where he had 
 enjoyed the advantage of meeting many whose 
 enlightened conversation taught him that goodness 
 is not limited to any single form of religious doctrine. 
 The parsimony of his uncle had deprived him of 
 many educational advantages, and although he had 
 made the utmost use of what he had, his soul was 
 fettered by a sense of dependence and limitation which 
 imparted a certain reserve and indifference to his 
 manner often misinterpreted. This neutrality had 
 its root in very praiseworthy motives, and arose 
 from anything but coldheartedness. He had little 
 in common with the objects of the present persecu- 
 tion, being disgusted by their gloomy fanaticism and 
 the rancour of their political hatred, while his mind 
 was still more revolted by the violence of the govern- 
 ment and the license and brutality of the soldiers. 
 
 Condemning as he did the excesses on both sides, 
 without the power to mitigate or relieve them, he 
 would, ere the opening of the story, have left the 
 country but for his love for Edith Bellenden, and the 
 
 62 
 
Morton and Evandale. 
 
 occasional opportunities afforded him of meeting her 
 at her uncle's. As time went on, these meetings led 
 to further interviews in their walks, which gradually 
 assumed the appearance of appointments. Books 
 and letters began to be exchanged, and each became 
 tacitly aware of the feelings of the other. The 
 superiority of Edith's position and the diffidence of 
 young Morton's disposition, conspired to render him 
 doubtful of her affection, and rumour having raised up 
 a rival in Lord Evandale, whose birth, fortune, and 
 politics made him a suitable candidate for her hand, 
 the jealousy of Morton was often excited, especially 
 as the visits of Lord Evandale at the Castle of 
 Tillietudlem frequently interfered with the pre- 
 arranged appointment of the lovers. 
 
 On his homeward ride from the Wappenshaw, 
 .he encounters the evil genius of his future career, 
 John Burley, redhanded from the murder of Arch- 
 bishop Sharpe ; he appeals to him, as an old comrade 
 of his father, to shelter him for the night, which he 
 consents to do. At daybreak Burley departs, not, 
 however, without having endeavoured to sow the 
 seeds of rebellion in the young man's mind. Torn 
 by conflicting emotions, and disheartened by the 
 knowledge of the obstacles between himself and 
 Edith, Morton hastens to his uncle and declares 
 his intention of seeking his fortune as a soldier 
 abroad. Old Milnwood raises every conceivable 
 objection, and Morton relinquishes the scheme, not, 
 
 63 
 
Morton and Evandale. 
 
 perhaps, altogether sorry that fate compels him to 
 remain in the neighbourhood of Tillietudlem. To- 
 wards evening, Cuddie Headrigg and his mother make 
 their appearance, having been dismissed from Lady 
 Margaret's estate for disobedience to her commands. 
 Cuddie brings a note from Edith entreating Morton 
 to befriend them, and he succeeds in inducing his 
 uncle to give them temporary shelter. The arrival 
 of the King's soldiers, and the arrest of Morton on 
 suspicion of having connived at the escape of Barley, 
 is quickly followred by his conveyance as a prisoner 
 to TiUietudlem to await the coming of Claverhouse. 
 The spirited and saucy Jenny Dennison, Edith's 
 attendant and the adored of Cuddie Headrigg, dis- 
 covers the prisoner to be Morton, and reveals the 
 fact to her mistress, whose lo.ve overpowers all false 
 pride or feminine cowardice, and fired by the hope of 
 saving him, she accompanies Jenny in disguise to the 
 apartment in which he has been confined. Morton's 
 rapture at this proof of her affection is chilled by the 
 hopelessness of his position, and the sentry interrupts 
 their interview before any plan for escape can be 
 matured. Undaunted by this failure, Edith resolves 
 to enlist the sympathy and assistance of her uncle, 
 and despatches a note by night, entreating him to 
 come to Tillietudlem, only betraying her real motive 
 for writing in the postscript, to the astonishment of 
 the innocent old soldier, who is completely taken in 
 by this small piece of feminine strategy. The kind 
 
 64 
 
Morton and Evandale. 
 
 •old man loses no time in obeying the summons, and 
 his arrival is soon followed by that of Grahame of 
 Claverhouse, whose handsome person and polished 
 address contrast strangely with his formidable reputation. 
 The intercessions of Major Bellenden on behalf of 
 his protege make little impression on Colonel Grahame, 
 his resentment against rebels being freshly excited by 
 Lord Evandale's appearance in haste and disorder with 
 the intelligence of a general rising of the Whigs and 
 their encampment in the vicinity. Claverhouse gives 
 orders for an immediate sally, and Lord Evandale, 
 approaching Edith, addresses her in low tones of fare- 
 well. Simple and respectful as are his words, the 
 agitated tenderness of his manner convinces her of 
 the depth of his emotion, and she replies with the 
 ■cordiality of true friendship, yet with no touch of a 
 warmer feeling. In all her intercourse with the rival 
 lovers, making allowance for the somewhat stilted 
 language of the time, we must admire the modest 
 yet courageous sincerity of her character, and the 
 warmth of heart which ever struggles with her dignity 
 and maidenly reserve. When she hears the stern 
 words of Claverhouse as he orders Morton to be 
 brought before him, her love overcomes all restraint, 
 and she makes an agitated appeal to Lord Evandale 
 to intercede in his behalf. He responds with the 
 generosity of his noble nature : ' By Heaven, he shall 
 not die, if / die in his place ! ' and Edith, carried away 
 by her gratitude, is in the act of pouring out her 
 
 F 65 
 
Morton and Evandale. 
 
 thanks, when a deep sigh causes her to turn her head' 
 and to perceive that the object of her entreaties has 
 just been led in, and haS misinterpreted the meaning, 
 of her manner towards Lord Evandale. Morton's 
 glance of reproach completes her distress and con- 
 fusion, and reveals to Lord Evandale the existence 
 of an understanding between them. He recognises 
 the winner of the shooting match, and exclaims, ' I 
 believe this is the young gentleman who gained the 
 prize?' In her agitation Edith is for once tempted to 
 equivocate: 'I am not sure; I rather think not,' she 
 stammers. ' It is he/ Lord Evandale replies ; adding,, 
 reproachfully, ' a victor ought to have interested you 
 as a spectator more deeply.' 
 
 This moment makes a singular revolution in the 
 character of Morton. The depth of despair to which 
 both his love and fortunes are reduced, and what he 
 imagines to be the change in Edith's aiFections, render 
 her intercessions for him infinitely galling. These 
 emotions conspire to arouse the dormant passions of 
 his hitherto gentle nature, and, desperate himself, he 
 determines to throw in his lot with his desperate 
 countrymen. He answers Claverhouse's searching 
 questions with a rash frankness most detrimental to 
 his cause, astounding his friends by the recklessness 
 of his behaviour. The intercessions of Lady Margaret 
 and of Major Bellenden are powerless against his own 
 temerity, when the sight of Edith well-nigh fainting 
 from despair inspires Lord Evandale to make an urgent 
 
 66 
 
Morton and Evandale. 
 
 appeal in his favour, to the surprise of Claverhouse, 
 whose quick eye has detected the ability and energy 
 of Morton, and who recognises that such a man may 
 prove a dangerous element in an opposing force. 
 
 No better testimony to the heroic qualities of 
 Morton can be adduced than Claverhouse's own 
 words. ' You see him,' he whispers ; ' he is hovering 
 on the verge between time and eternity, yet his is the 
 only cheek unblenched, the only nerves not quivering.' 
 
 We venture to think that it is owing to Claver- 
 house's recognition and sympathy with this intrepidity 
 of character, rather than to the intervention of Lord 
 Evandale, that Morton's sentence is remitted, but 
 he orders him to be brought along with the troops, 
 accompanied by three other prisoners — Cuddie Head- 
 rigg, his mother, and a covenanting preacher — all of 
 whom are suspected to be abettors of the rebels. The 
 tragic excitement of the narrative is here relieved by 
 the astonishing eloquence of Mause Headrigg and 
 the droll humour of Cuddie, who from this point be- 
 comes the faithful follower of Henry Morton, and 
 presents a delightful picture of Scotch cunning and 
 devoted service. 
 
 In the ensuing fight. Lord Evandale again and 
 again displays daring, courage, and readiness to risk 
 his own life for that of others, but the fates are, on 
 this occasion, dead against the Royalists. They are 
 totally routed, and even he and the redoubtable 
 Claverhouse forced to fly from the field. A stray 
 
 67 
 
Morton and Evandale. 
 
 shot strikes down the horse of the young nobleman, 
 who has himself been wounded, and Morton, who 
 has freed himself during the melee, springs forward to 
 defend him from two of his pursuers — incited partly 
 by natural generosity, and partly by a wish to requite 
 the obligation which he had incurred in the morning. 
 Recognising one of the pursuers to be the formidable 
 Burley himself, he throws himself between him and 
 Lord Evandale, reminding Burley that his own life 
 had been endangered solely through the fact of his 
 having sheltered him and assisted his escape, and boldly 
 demanding the life of Evandale as a recompense. 
 
 Reluctantly the pitiless Puritan admits the justice 
 of his argument, and, sheathing his bloody sword, he 
 rides away, while Morton, catching a riderless charger, 
 assists the cavalier to mount and gallop ofF in the 
 direction of Tillietudlem. Events now succeed each 
 other rapidly, and Morton, joining the insurgent 
 forces, soon rises to a position of importance and 
 command, the cooler heads of the party readily re- 
 cognising his soldierly qualities. His motive for this 
 step is the hope of restraining violence and of inducing 
 the more moderate party to come to terms with the 
 government. This very moderation wins him but 
 little favour with the fanatics, who eye him with sus- 
 picion and distrust as a lukewarm ally; and on hearing 
 that the castle of Tillietudlem is besieged, and the 
 garrison almost starving, the old love reasserts itself 
 above ambition and party spirit, and, quitting his 
 
 68 
 
Morton and Evandale. 
 
 command, he hastens to the camp of the besiegers. 
 There he learns what a sturdy resistance has been 
 made by Edith's valiant uncle, and the no less stout- 
 hearted Lady Margaret, and to what desperate straits 
 they are reduced, and his whole soul yearns to deliver 
 them. He finds Lord Evandale a prisoner in the 
 camp, and seeks an interview with him by night, at 
 which Morton offers to send Lord Evandale back 
 to the castle with a proposition that if the garrison 
 will at once surrender, they shall have a safe-conduct 
 to Edinburgh, where they can place themselves under 
 the protection of the Duke of Monmouth, who has 
 been appointed to the command of the Royalist 
 troops. 
 
 It is with difficulty that Lord Evandale succeeds 
 in inducing Major Bellenden to accept these terms, 
 but seeing no alternative, he is compelled to do so, 
 and the little troop ride sorrowfully and silently forth, 
 escorted by a small guard of insurgent horsemen, while 
 the flag of the rebels floats out from the Royalist 
 fortress as they move away. 
 
 Lord Evandale, instead of placing himself by 
 Edith's side, as might have been expected, betakes 
 himself to the front, leaving that coveted place to one 
 of the escort, whose dark cloak and flapping hat 
 effectually conceal his features. The ensuing con- 
 versation between Edith and this horseman discloses 
 his identity with her former lover, who endeavours 
 to explain and justify the reasons for his late course 
 
 69 
 
Morton and Evandale; 
 
 of action, referring her to ' the honoured testimony 
 of Lord Evandale ' to bear witness to the sincerity of 
 his motives. She listens in confused silence, and 
 again misunderstanding her he turns haughtily away, 
 after receiving the warmest thanks from Lord Evandale 
 for the obligations he has conferred on the little band. 
 Through the vicissitudes of their adventurous and 
 chequered career it is interesting to observe how these 
 rivals both in love and war are gradually attracted by 
 the recognition of the same heroic and generous attri- 
 butes. Esteem gradually develops into confidence and 
 friendship ; and though remaining rivals to the last, 
 it is on an almost brotherly affection that the curtain 
 falls on the gallant deathbed of the one and the long-, 
 deferred happiness of the other. 
 
 70 
 
Agnes Wickfield. 
 
 DAVID COPPERFIELD. 
 
 Bv Charles Dickens. 
 
* Like calm midsummer cloudy nor less 
 Clothed 'with siveet light and silentnesSj 
 She in her gracious movement is : 
 
 * Noble 'withal, and free frcm fear 
 As Mart of eagle, and Mgh and near 
 To heaven in all her loays : of cheer 
 
 * Gentle and meek, from harshness free 
 yJs heart of dove : nor chideth she 
 Things ill J but kncfweth not that they be : 
 
 ' All clear as nvaters clean that run 
 Through shadouo sweet and through siveet sun. 
 Her pure thoughts are : scorn hath she nonej 
 
 Owen Meredith. 
 
Agnes Wickfield. 
 
 * / hope that real hue and truth are Uronger in the end 
 than any evil or misfortune in the ivorld.^ 
 
 David Copperfield. 
 
 F there is one characteristic which we can never 
 fail to notice as common to all the heroines 
 — created by Charles Dickens, it is their pure 
 womanliness. They are never particularly clever or 
 amusing, seldom piquante or even light-hearted, but 
 always gentle, and home-loving, and patiently endur- 
 ing. Their characters do not seem to change or 
 develop with time, to be moulded by circumstances, 
 by sorrow, or by love, as is the case with Thackeray's 
 Ethel Newcome and Laura Pendennis. Like some 
 fair and delicate flowers, they seem to open and 
 expand at once, blooming generally in shade rather 
 than in sunshine, lighting up the dark places of the 
 earth with their quiet radiance, and protecting — rather 
 than protected by — fathers, brothers, and lovers, to 
 whom they might naturally have looked for support. 
 Think of ' Little Dorrit ' amidst the squalid sur- 
 roundings of the Marshalsea prison, growing up in 
 that twilight atmosphere of dim disgrace, but always 
 honest and true — the faithful daughter and the 
 
 73 
 
Agnes Wickfield. 
 
 constant friend. Or follow the fortunes of little 
 Nell through her wandering life to her pathetic 
 death — a lovely poem from beginning to end; while 
 in Florence Dombey we see the same sweet grace, 
 the same kind of protecting love for little Paul which 
 Nell lavished on her childish and childlike grandfather, 
 we see the 'grown-up angel,' as Jeffrey styled her, 
 but endowed at the same time with a dash of spirit — 
 a touch of self-dependence and heroism which adds 
 strength and freshness to the softer qualities of her 
 character. And Esther Summerson, where could we 
 find a more complete impersonation of that real good- 
 ness which can overcome evil instead of shrinking 
 from it ? True, she is often voted a female prig, but 
 it must naturally be difficult for any one to write their 
 own autobiography or paint their own portrait without 
 exaggeration on the one hand, or false humility on the 
 other; and we cannot help wishing that the great 
 author of Bleak House had seen his way to telling 
 Esther's story for her, and so, by avoiding the said 
 imputation of priggishness, had presented the quiet 
 beauty of her character in its true light — always 
 surrounded by natures far inferior to her own, and 
 always bringing out their best qualities by her loving 
 touch and softening the worst by those ' deeds of 
 week-day holiness' which make up the daily record 
 of her life. 
 
 Even in Dickens's minor female characters — in 
 the bright, impulsive, not over-wise Dot of the Cricket 
 74 
 
Agnes Wickfield. 
 
 on the Hearth; in the sensible Milly, the saviour of 
 the Haunted Man; in the mingled foolishness and 
 magnanimity of the 'child-wife,' and in the brave, 
 enduring reticence of Annie Strong (both in David 
 Copperfield) — we can invariably trace the same sweet, 
 womanly nature. 
 
 But it is in the character of Agnes Wickfield that 
 Charles Dickens has touched the height of his ideal of 
 womanhood ; of all his books, David Copperfield, as he 
 has told us himself, was the favourite ' child of his 
 fancy/ and in its heroine we have the full realisation 
 of that which he always conceived to be woman's 
 mission — to lead men higher, to ' point upward,' to 
 strengthen and to guide. In Agnes he has painted for 
 us a perfectly unselfish character living day by day in 
 the hves of others, but accustomed from childhood to 
 a certain self-restraint, which enables her the better 
 to conceal the one attachment of her life under the 
 modest veil of true sisterly aff^ection, to be for years 
 as an adopted sister to the man whom in the secret 
 shrine of her pure heart she worshipped as a lover. 
 
 No description of Agnes in outward form or 
 feature is given to us in any part of the book ; we 
 only see the soul shining through the face with a 
 noble purity in keeping with her name ; we see her 
 not clever or brilliant, but quietly and silently self- 
 reliant — 'strong in grave peace, in pity circumspect;' 
 perfect in modesty and dignity — true woman, true 
 daughter, true sister. 
 
 75 
 
Agnes Wickfield. 
 
 Perhaps we may secretly wish that the object of 
 her love had been more worthy of her, that he had 
 been endowed with force of character himself instead 
 of leaning so much upon hers ; but at least he had the 
 virtue of having preserved through all the vicissitudes, 
 of his career the same unvarying attachment to her as 
 his good angel. It has been well said, that ' many 
 mortals hold half their rectitude in the mind of the 
 being they love best;' and something of this feeling 
 is always present with us as we follow the fortunes of 
 David Copperfield. Blindly he groped after the great 
 happiness of his life ; but, when his eyes were opened^ 
 at least he knew how to value the treasure which had 
 been his, unawares, so long. 
 
 Those who are well acquainted with Dickens's, 
 great story will remember that Agnes Wickfield does, 
 not appear very often or very prominently in its pages. 
 Rather, her calm presence is like a golden background 
 against which the other characters are shown up, and 
 from which they seem to receive a kind of reflected 
 light. She is first introduced to us by her father as. 
 his little housekeeper, on that memorable day when 
 Betsy Trotwood seeks the advice of her old friend and 
 lawyer, Mr. Wickfield, and, at the same time, finds a 
 home for her nephew where she least expected it. 
 There, in the old oak-panelled house, with its quaint 
 rooms and snug corners, we see the child Agnes for 
 the first time, with her little basket-trifle, containing 
 her keys, hanging at her side, calm even then and 
 
 76 
 
Agnes Wickfield. 
 
 watchful of her father, and, later on, encouraging 
 Trotwood in his school life, nursing him after his 
 boyish fights, and taking her place always as his 
 sister. 
 
 It is thus that the hero of the book describes his 
 first impression of her, and it is the keynote of the 
 "whole story : — 
 
 • I cannot call to mind where or when, in my child- 
 hood, I had seen a stained-glass window in a church. Nor 
 do I recollect its subject. But I know that when I saw her 
 turn round, in the grave light of the old staircase, and wait 
 for us above, 1 thought of that window ; and that I associated 
 something of its tranquil brightness with Agnes Wickfield 
 ■ever afterwards.' 
 
 The scene in which Agnes first confides to her 
 adopted brother her anxiety about her father, with its 
 beautiful mingling of daughterly compassion and 
 daughterly pride, is only equalled (though perhaps 
 surpassed) by the inimitable description of the tea- 
 party at which Agnes first becomes acquainted with 
 Dora, the child- wife that is to be : — 
 
 ' Dora was afraid of Agnes.' (It is David Copperfield 
 who speaks.) ' She had told me that she knew Agnes was 
 " too clever." But when she saw her looking at once so 
 cheerful and so earnest, and so thoughtful and so good, she 
 gave a faint little cry of pleased surprise, and just put her 
 affectionate arms round Agnes's heck, and laid her innocent 
 ■cheek against her face. 
 
 ' I never was so happy, I never was so pleased as when 
 
 77 
 
Agnes Wickfield. 
 
 I saw those two sit down together, side by side ; as when I 
 saw my little darling looking up so naturally to those cordial 
 eyes ; as when I saw the tender and beautiful regard which 
 Agnes cast upon her 
 
 ' Never, never, had I loved Dora so deeply and truly as 
 I loved her that night. When we had again alighted, and 
 were walking in the starlight along the quiet road that led 
 to the doctor's house, I told Agnes it was her doing. 
 
 ' " When you were sitting by her," said I, " you seemed 
 to be no less her guardian angel than mine ; and you seem 
 so now, Agnes." " A poor angel," she returned, " but 
 faithful." .... 
 
 ' I glanced at the serene face looking upward, and thought 
 it was the stars that made it seem so noble.' 
 
 We who know Agnes's secret know that it was 
 not the stars, but the light of a faithful, silent, un- 
 selfish love that ennobled that countenance and made 
 it holy ; we know that she had learnt to rejoice 
 without one shade of envy in the happiness that was 
 not for her, albeit she enhanced it by her loyal and 
 generous sympathy. And though the critics may 
 sneer at her ' too unfailing wisdom and self-sacrificing 
 goodness' (Forster's Life of Charles Dickens), who 
 can tell what hidden struggles may have shaken the 
 depths of that apparently quiet nature ere this lovely 
 serenity was attained ? 
 
 Indeed, there are many indications, especially in 
 the later chapters of the story, to show that the inner 
 life of this fair soul was far from being an untroubled 
 one ; that the sorrows of the burdened heart must 
 
 78 
 
Agnes Wickfield. 
 
 often have been wept out unseen before the brow 
 could appear unclouded to the eyes of men ; that the 
 sacrifice of self may often have been rehearsed and 
 the rebellious hopes schooled in secret, ere the out- 
 ward result was perfectly attained. 
 
 That it was attained was enough for the object of 
 her half-unconscious devotion. Her own trials made 
 her all the more fitted to be his constant, though often 
 invisible, guide and counsellor, ever ' pointing upward,' 
 ever expecting him to be at his best and so inducing 
 him to do his best — all her simple creed contained in 
 her own words : ' Remember that I confide in simple 
 love and truth at last' — all her influence summed up 
 in the spirit of the letter which reached him in a 
 foreign land after his great sorrow, and brought him 
 back to life, and hope, and joy : — 
 
 ' She gave me no advice ; she urged no duty on me ; she 
 only told me, in her own fervent manner, what her trust in 
 me was. She knew (she said) how such a nature as mine 
 would turn affliction to good. She knew how trial and 
 emotion would exalt and strengthen it. She was sure that 
 in my every purpose I should gain a firmer and a higher 
 tendency, through the grief I had undergone. She, who so 
 gloried in my fame and so looked forward to its augmenta- 
 tion, well knew that I would labour on. She knew that in 
 me, sorrow could not be weakness, but must be strength. 
 As the endurance of my childish days had done its part to 
 make me what I was, so greater calamities would nerve me 
 on, to be yet better than I was ; and so, as they had taught 
 me, would I teach orhers. She commended me to God, 
 79 
 
Agnes Wickfield. 
 
 Who had taken my innocent darling to His rest ; and in her 
 sisterly affection cherished me always, and was always at my 
 side go where I would ; proud of what I had done, but 
 infinitely prouder yet of what I was reserved to do.' 
 
 What a different world it would be if woman, like 
 England, expected every man to do his duty. 
 
 80 
 
Sydney Carton. 
 
 A TALE OF TWO CITIES. 
 
 By Charles Dickens. 
 
' Its portrayal of the noble-natured castaivay makes the 
 Tale of Two Cities almost a peerless book in modern literature^ 
 and gives it a place among the highest examples of literary art. 
 The conception of this character shows in its author an ideal 
 of magnanimity and of charity unsurpassed. There is not a 
 g*-ander^ lovelier figure than the selfiorecked^ self-devoted 
 Sydney Carton, in literature or history.^ — Grant White. 
 
T 
 
 Sydney Carton. 
 
 ' Greater love hath no man than tMs, that a man lay dovin his 
 life for his friends,^ 
 
 HE Tale of Two Cities^ in which Sydney- 
 Carton appears, differs from most other 
 works of Dickens in having a clear and 
 definite story, which is worked out more artistically 
 than most of his plots, and the issue of which is 
 dependent upon the development of the character of 
 this one man out of worthlessness into heroism. In 
 most of his stories, except perhaps in Great Expecta- 
 tions^ Dickens's characters can hardly be said to 
 develop at all. David Copperfield is the same mild, 
 inane youth and man, as he was a mild and inane 
 little boy j Nicholas Nickleby and Oliver Twist are 
 lay figures, and Mr. Jarndyce, who may be called the 
 hero of Bleak House, is amiable enough, but with no 
 salt of common sense to flavour his amiability. But 
 Sydney Carton is different from these. He is not the 
 hero who marries the heroine, but he is the hero in a 
 truer sense, because his work in the story is to be the 
 deliverer and champion, who gives without receiving 
 for himself, and makes the happy termination of the 
 tragedy possible by his own sacrifice. 
 
 When we first come across Sydney Carton, he is a 
 8:; 
 
Sydney Carton, 
 
 cleverj dissipated young barrister, who has fallen into 
 evil ways apparently beyond restoration, and has to 
 support himself by taking work for a pompous and 
 prosperous counsel — a former schoolfellow of his — 
 whose cases he gets up with such skill and acuteness 
 that Stryver gets fame and reputation, while no one 
 hears of Sydney Carton. It falls to Stryver's lot to 
 defend the conventional hero of the' tale, Charles St. 
 Evremond, who is known in England by the name of 
 Darnay, from a charge of high treason as a French 
 spy plotting against the English Government. Things 
 are going greatly against the prisoner, when Carton, 
 who has apparently been looking at the ceiling of the 
 court all through the trial, sends a note to Stryver, 
 suggesting that he should call attention to a striking 
 likeness of features which he sees to exist between 
 the prisoner and himself, to prove the possibility of a 
 mistake in the evidence. This gets Darnay off, and 
 he is acquitted, though it has always appeared to me 
 that Dickens ought to have explained how Carton 
 came to be so familiar with his own face, being, as he 
 was, very negligent and dilapidated in his dress, and by 
 no means given to the contemplation of himself in a 
 mirror. At the trial a young French girl, a fellow- 
 traveller of Darnay, by name Lucie Manette, has to 
 give damaging evidence against him, and faints at the 
 end, when Carton calls attention to her condition and 
 sees that she is helped out of court. It is from this 
 time onward evident that Charles Darnay and Lucie 
 
 84 
 
Sydney Carton. 
 
 Manette are to be the lovers of the tale, and also that 
 Sydney Carton has fallen in love — love which he 
 knows to be hopeless, from his own unworthy 
 character and circumstances — with the same young 
 girl as the man whose life he has thus saved. 
 
 Sydney Carton up to this time has acquiesced in 
 his own degradation, and his love for Lucie does not 
 at once make him another man. It shows him up, 
 however, to himself. He never makes love to Lucie, 
 whose heart is from the first bespoken by Darnay, but 
 it is the first time that the influence of a good woman 
 has touched him, and her gentle considerateness to- 
 wards him makes his hopeless love turn to good and 
 not evil. On the night before she marries Darnay 
 he asks for an interview with her, which is thus 
 told :— 
 
 ' He leaned an elbow on her table and covered his eyes 
 with his hand. He knew her to be distressed, without 
 looking at her, and said, — 
 
 '"Pray forgive me. Miss Manette. I break down 
 before the knowledge of what I want to say to you. Will 
 you hear me ?" 
 
 ' " If it will do you any good, Mr. Carton, if it would 
 make you happier, it would make me very glad.'' 
 
 ' " God bless you for your sweet compassion.'' 
 
 ' He unshaded his face after a little while, and spoke 
 steadily. 
 
 ' " If it had been possible. Miss Manette, that you could 
 have returned the love of the man you see before you — self 
 flung away, wasted, drunken, poor creature of misuse as you 
 
 8S 
 
Sydney Carton. 
 
 know him to be — he would have been conscious this day and 
 hour, in spite of his happiness, that he would bring you to 
 misery, bring you to sorrow and repentance, blight you, 
 disgrace you, puU you down with him. I know very well 
 that you can have no tenderness for me, I ask for none ; I 
 am even thankful that it cannot be." ' 
 
 Lucie tries to inspire in him energy for better 
 things, but his self-despair cannot be alleviated. At 
 last he says : — 
 
 * " It is useless to say this, I know ; but it rises out of 
 my soul. For you or for any dear to you I would do any- 
 thing. If my career were of that better kind that there was 
 any opportunity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any 
 sacrifice for you and those dear to you. Try to hold me 
 in your mind at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in 
 this one thing ; . . . . think now and then that there is a 
 man who would give his life to keep a life you love beside 
 you.'" 
 
 Lucie marries Charles Darnay ; their life goes on 
 smoothly for several years, during which Sydney 
 Carton remams, at his own request to Darnay, so 
 far an intimate friend of the family, that he comes in 
 now and then — not very often — to spend the evening 
 without invitation. Sydney is, we feel, gradually 
 lifted and purified in character by the fact that he 
 has proved himself capable of a pure and unselfish 
 love for a good woman, and Lucie's children learn to 
 love him dearly. But he does not regain his lost 
 place in the world. 
 
 86 
 
Sydney Carton. 
 
 Seven or eight years later the Revolution breaks 
 out, and Darnay, who has left his French property in 
 charge of an old steward, is recalled to France by a 
 letter from the old man to say that he is in danger of 
 death from the Republicans. Darnay goes to try to 
 save him, and is himself imprisoned. Lucie and her 
 father come to Paris to be near him, and Dr. 
 Manette, who has been a Bastille prisoner, after a 
 long time of waiting, once gets him set free. But 
 owing to a chain of circumstances too long to tell 
 here, he is quickly retaken, and this time Manette 
 can do nothing for him, while the fierce hereditary 
 enemies of his house are anxious to hunt down not 
 him only, but his wife and child. It is at this 
 juncture that Sydney Carton turns up in Paris, to 
 see what he can do to help the Darnays in their 
 trouble. 
 
 Fortune favours him. He comes across a certain 
 good-for-nothing Englishman, whose employment in 
 life has been that of a Government spy before the 
 Revolution, partly in England, partly in France. His 
 present employment is that of turnkey in the Con- 
 ciergerie prison, where Darnay is confined. Sydney 
 Carton lets him know that if he made public the fact 
 of his past as a Government spy, the mob would tear 
 him to pieces. Having this hold upon him, it is plain 
 that the turnkey will allow him to do anything which 
 •does not bring risk upon himself. We are not told 
 in so many words, but we are made to guess the 
 
 87 
 
Sydney Carton. 
 
 resolution which Sydney Carton — so like in features to. 
 Charles Darnay that the likeness had already saved. 
 Darnay's life — has taken to save him. 
 
 He makes his arrangements for the morrow so that 
 it should be possible to carry out this resolution. 
 
 ' " There is nothing more to do," said he, glancing up at 
 the moon, " until to-morrow. I can't sleep." 
 
 ' It was not a recidess manner, the manner in which he- 
 said these words aloud under the fast-sailing clouds, nor was 
 it more expressive of negligence than defiance. It was the 
 setded manner of a tired man, who had wandered and 
 struggled and got lost, but who at length struck into his 
 road, and saw its end. 
 
 ' Long ago, when he had been famous among his earliest 
 competitors as a youth of great promise, he had followed his 
 father to the grave. His mother had died years before.. 
 These solemn words, which had been read at his father's 
 grave, arose in his mind as he went down the dark streets,, 
 among the heavy shadows, with the moon 4nd the clouds 
 sailing on high above him : " I am the resurrection and the- 
 life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in Me, though he 
 were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and 
 believeth on Me shall never die." . . . 
 
 ' Now that the streets were quiet and the night wore on,, 
 the words were in the echoes of his feet and were in the air. 
 Perfectly calm and steady, he sometimes repeated them to. 
 
 himself as he walked ; but he heard them always 
 
 The strong tide, so deep, so swift, so certain, was Uke a. 
 congenial friend in the morning stillness. He walked by the 
 stream, far from the houses, and in the light and warmth of 
 the sun fell asleep on the bank. When he awoke and was. 
 
 88 
 
Sydney Carton. 
 
 afloat again he lingered there yet a little longer, watching an 
 eddy that turned and turned purposeless, until the stream 
 absorbed it and carried it on to the sea. " Like me ! '' 
 
 ' A trading boat, with a sail of the softened colour of a 
 dead leaf, then glided into his view, floated by him, and died 
 away. As its silent track in the water disappeared, the 
 prayer that had broken up out of his heart for a merciful 
 consideration of all his poor blindnesses and errors ended in 
 the words, " I am the resurrection and the life." ' 
 
 The day thus begun sees Charles Darnay con- 
 demned to the guillotine by a wave of popular fury 
 for a terrible family crime committed by his father 
 and uncle. Lucie bears up bravely till she has said 
 good-bye to her husband, but as he goes out she falls 
 into a deep swoon. Sydney Carton takes her up, and 
 helps to get her home, still unconscious. 
 
 '"Oh! Carton, Carton, dear Carton!" cried little 
 Lucie, springing up and throwing her arms passionately 
 round him- in a burst of grief. " Now that you have come, 
 I think you will do something to help mamma, to save 
 papa. Oh ! look at her, dear Carton ! Can you, of all 
 the people who love her, bear to see her so ?" 
 
 ' He bent over the child and laid her blooming cheek 
 against his face. He put her gently from him and looked 
 at her unconscious mother. 
 
 ' " Before I go," he said, and paused, " I may kiss 
 her?" 
 
 ' It was remembered afterwards that when he bent down 
 and touched her face with his lips he murmured some words. 
 The child, who was nearest to him, told them afterwards, 
 
 89 
 
Sydney Carton. 
 
 and told her grandchildren, when she was a handsome old 
 lady, that she heard him say, " A life you love." ' 
 
 Carton carries out his resolution. Armed with 
 something which must have had the properties of 
 chloroform, before chloroform was discovered, he 
 makes the turnkey admit him to Darnay's prison, 
 drugs him, gets him into his own coat and cravat, 
 sends him out insensible, and remains in his place. 
 Charles Darnay — still insensible — and his family are 
 got out of Paris in a coach, Charles Darnay passing 
 as Sydney Carton, and Sydney Carton waits for his 
 death — a very short time he has to wait — in the 
 prison. As he gets into the tumbril he is recognised 
 as — or rather recognised not to be — Darnay by a little 
 sempstress, one of Darnay's fellow-prisoners, to whom 
 he had been kind. They are taken together to the 
 place of execution. 
 
 ' The supposed Evr^mond descends from the tumbril, 
 and the sempstress is lifted out next after him. He has 
 not relinquished her patient hand in getting out, but still 
 holds it as he promised. He gently places her with her 
 back to the crashing engine that constantly whirrs up and 
 falls, and she looks into his face and thanks him. 
 
 ' " But for you, dear stranger, I should not be so com- 
 posed, for I am naturally a poor little thing, faint of heart ; 
 nor should I have been able to raise my thoughts to Him 
 Who was put to death that we might have hope and 
 comfort here to-day. I think you were sent me by 
 Heaven." 
 
 9° 
 
Sydney Carton. 
 
 ' " Or you to me," says Sydney Carton. " Keep your 
 eyes upon me, dear child, and mind no other object." 
 
 ' " I mind nothing while I hold your hand. I shall 
 mind nothing when I let it go if they are rapid." 
 
 ' " They will be rapid. Fear not." 
 
 ' The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, 
 but they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to 
 voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of 
 the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have 
 come together on the dark highway, to repair home together 
 and to rest in her bosom. 
 
 '"Brave and generous friend, will you just let me ask you 
 one last question ? I am very ignorant, and it troubles me 
 a little. ... I have a cousin, an only relative and an orphan 
 like myself, whom I love very dearly. What I have been 
 thinking as I came along, and what I am still thinking now, 
 as I look into your kind, strong face, which gives me so much 
 support, is this : — If the Republic really does good to the poor, 
 and they come to be less hungry and in all ways to suffer less, 
 she may live a long time; she may even live to be old." 
 
 ' " What then, my gentle sister ? " 
 
 ' "Do you think" — the uncomplaining eyes in which there 
 is so much endurance fill with tears, and the lips part a little 
 more and^ tremble — " that it will seem long to me while I wait 
 for her in the better land, where I trust both you and I 
 will be mercifully sheltered ? " 
 
 ' " It cannot be, my child ; there is no time there, and no 
 trouble there." 
 
 ' " You comfort me so much. I am so ignorant Am 
 I to kiss you now ? Is the moment come ?" 
 
 ' " Yes." 
 
 ' She kisses his lips, he kisses hers ; they solemnly bless 
 91 
 
Sydney Carton. 
 
 each other. The spare hand does not tremble as he releases 
 it ; nothing worse than a sweet, bright constancy is in the 
 patient face. She goes next before him — is gone; the 
 knitting women count Twenty-Two. 
 
 ' " I am the resurrection and the Hfe, saith the Lord ; 
 he that believeth on Me, though he were dead, yet shall he 
 live ; and whoso liveth and believeth on Me shall never 
 die." 
 
 ' The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of 
 many faces, the pressing on of many footsteps in the out- 
 skirts of the crowd, so that it swells forward in a mass, like 
 one great heave of water, all flashes away. Twenty-Three.' 
 
 92 
 
Shirley. 
 
 SHIRLEY. 
 
 By Charlotte Bronte. 
 
' M.y sister Emily first declined, , . , Day by day^ 'when 
 I saiu ivith ivhat a front she met sufferings I looked on her 
 'voith an anguish of tvonder and love. 2 have seen nothing 
 Hie it ; hut J indeed^ J have never seen her parallel in any- 
 thing. Stronger than a man^ simpler than a child^ her nature 
 stood alone. , . . 
 
 ' / shall bend as my poivers tend. The loss of <what <we 
 possess nearest and dearest to us in this ivorld produces an 
 effect upon the character } ive search out ivhat lue have left 
 that can sup^rt^ and ivhen found ive cling to it ivith a hold 
 of new-strung tenacity. The faculty of imagination lifted me 
 vjhen I ivas sinking, three months ago ; its active exercise has 
 kept my head above ivater since ,• its results cheer me noiv, 
 for I feel they have enabled me to give pleasure to others, I 
 am thankful to God ivho gave me the faculty, and it is to me 
 a part of my religion to defend this gift and to profit by its 
 possession.^ — Letter of C. Bronte. 
 
Shirley. 
 
 T 
 
 ' Stern daughter of the Voice of God'. 
 Duty! if that name thou love^ 
 Who art a light to guitiej a rod 
 To check the erring and reprove ; 
 Thou luho art victory and laiv^ 
 fVhen empty terrors overaive^ 
 From 'vain temptations dost set free^ 
 And calmest the 'weary strife of frail humanity I ' 
 
 Wordsworth — ' Ode to Duty,^ 
 
 HERE are, I suppose, few readers of fiction 
 who do not in some degree form to them- 
 selves an idea of the personality of the author 
 whose thoughts they are sharing, and into whose views 
 of life they are entering, as they follow the development 
 of character or sequence of circumstances set forth in 
 his work. For our minds have strata like the earth, and 
 to know a fellow-creature is to sink a shaft down below 
 the superficial outside self of mere acquaintance. A 
 book gives us the ore dug up from below the surface 
 of the writer's mind ; we find in it the inmost thoughts 
 which in years of acquaintance and even of friendship 
 would never have been confided to us. Perhaps the 
 measure in which the author's personality impresses 
 itself upon the reader may even to some extent be 
 the measure of his genius, some indication at least of 
 its force and genuineness. Whether this be so or 
 
 95 
 
Shirley. 
 
 not, however, it is certain that the books that set us 
 thinking, that exercise a formative influence upon our 
 own minds, will generally be those in which we have not 
 merely become interested in the doings of the characters, 
 but have been conscious of the author's voice speaking 
 to us through them. We have made a new acquaint- 
 ance, perhaps a new friend, whose conversation has 
 either revealed to us new possibilities of life and hope, 
 and joy and duty, or else has turned up the seamy side 
 of life ; has made us ashamed of , ourselves and of 
 humanity ; has turned a search-light upon the dark 
 places of the world and of our hearts, and has sent 
 us away haunted with new fears, or gifted with a new 
 knowledge of good and evil that makes us suspicious 
 rather than wise. 
 
 As is the author, so is his book. From the vine 
 nurtured in soft southern air, in glowing days and warm 
 nights, full of scent and song, we may pluck sweet 
 grapes ; from the bramble of the north, growing sturdily 
 in east wind and sleet, frozen in cold creeping fog of star- 
 less nights, scorched by brief hot sunshine through which 
 the wind still blows keen, we shall gather its fit fruit, 
 with a keenness of flavour, even in its ripeness, that 
 brings before us in a moment a vision of the purple 
 moorland over which cloud shadows flit and wild 
 birds skim in the brief, bright, autumn day. 
 
 The stern, barren north was Charlotte Bronte's 
 home, where hard rock and stiflF heather cover the 
 soil, and warm hearts hide under a cold, rude manner ; 
 
 96 
 
Shirley. 
 
 where man must wrestle with Nature to win aught 
 from her, and those who seek to know and sympathise 
 with their fellows must not allow their hearts to be 
 chilled by apparent indifference or even repulse. And 
 her life-pathway led her but seldom in green pastures or 
 by still waters. Only in the short nine months of her 
 married life, begun when she was eight-and-thirty, 
 could the few friends who loved her feel that at last 
 her sorely tried spirit was tasting the cup of happiness. 
 Then death snatched it from her lips. So goes the 
 earthly phrase. Shall we not rather say that the soul 
 that had been tried and tempered by much sorrow was 
 for a short space tuned to joy on earth before the gate 
 of everlasting happiness was opened to her ? 
 
 Left motherless when quite a young child, after 
 the quiet parsonage-house had already been saddened 
 for a year or two by the mother's last illness, Charlotte 
 Bronte found herself soon called by the early deaths 
 of her two elder sisters to become sister and mother in 
 one to the two remaining sisters, Emily and Anne, 
 known since to the world as authors of Wuthering 
 Heights and Agnes Grey, and to the one brother whose 
 miserable life-story darkened his sisters' lives, and 
 hastened the early deaths of Emily and Anne. The 
 father lived strangely apart from his children. His 
 health was never good ; Charlotte herself was often 
 ill ; means were small, and altogether the unhealthy 
 stone-floored house in the Yorkshire village of 
 Haworth, surrounded by a graveyard, damp in itself, 
 
 H 97 
 
Shirley. 
 
 and set on a height which in winter nights seemed 
 to be a playground or battlefield for the four winds of 
 heaven, seemed a place where Sorrow had taken up a 
 lasting abode. 
 
 Hither it was that Imagination came as healer and 
 consoler. First three sisters, then two, then one in the 
 agony of her solitude sought refuge from the pain of 
 the Actual in the realms of romance. Excepting the 
 time passed by two of the sisters in studying at 
 Brussels — which gave to the world the story of Villette 
 — and short engagements as governess in different 
 families, with the addition of a few visits paid when 
 fame had come to her, all Charlotte Bronte's life was 
 spent in the solitude of Haworth. Why ? 
 
 Because Duty required it; duty, the key-note of life 
 to all that family except the brother, whose wasted life 
 and miserable end seemed to stand as an awful warning 
 of the result of the opposite course. Never once does 
 it seem to have occurred to Mr. Bronte to give up his 
 charge in a place which so severely tried the health of 
 his family. Never even when the whole reading public 
 cried out for more of her work, and the publisher 
 grew importunate, did Charlotte allow the exercise of 
 her powers to take the first place in her life. The 
 care of her father, the duties of the house, the charge of 
 a very old woman, the faithful servant who had nursed 
 the sisters as children, these and all other claims upon 
 the woman must be satisfied before the author might 
 utter the thoughts that craved for words. 
 
Shirley. 
 
 Naturally, then, in all her writing sounds the wail 
 of the cramped spirit born for freer, sunnier life, 
 beating itself against the bars of circumstance, and, 
 like a bird of wild race bred in captivity, pining for 
 liberty, yet unable to shape to itself a clear vision of 
 the liberty it seeks. 
 
 Loneliness and captivity. ' I had no place to flee 
 unto, and no man cared for my soul.' ' No man.' Few 
 men or women in her day had begun even to look 
 in the face of those problems of women's lives which 
 our generation both confesses and seeks to solve — the 
 problems which in Shirley we see agitating the mind, 
 and even undermining the health of Caroline Helstone, 
 when caught in their toils. Through this book also, 
 as in all her writings, sounds a cry, a longing, to which 
 in her actual life Charlotte Bronte gave little voice, the 
 passionate longing for love. She made few friends ; 
 three offers of marriage she refused ; the fourth, which 
 she herself desired to accept, was for some time, until 
 her father's mood changed, steadily put aside for his 
 sake. But all her heroines are hungry and thirsty for 
 love, not only for the love of lovers, but that of friends 
 also. Had she written another book when her own 
 heart had found rest in the tender, protecting affection 
 of her husband, we may feel sure that it would have 
 been free from the ring of bitterness which pervades all 
 her work, and, we cannot but feel, detracts from its 
 perfection. In Shirley, while some of the characters 
 are described with all tenderness and pathos, the petty 
 
 99 
 
Shirley. 
 
 follies and meannesses of others are set forth with a 
 fierce bitterness that seems almost vindictive, as though 
 no good-humoured smile had ever played about the 
 lips of the observer of human nature. 
 
 To one who had so incessantly faced the stern 
 realities of life mere external beauty and grace seemed' 
 a poor varnish, and, unless the soul within were fair 
 also, a perilous whitening of the sepulchre. Frequently,, 
 therefore, she preferred to divest her heroes and 
 heroines of outward charm, and to show her ideal 
 manhood as the ugly Rochester of Jane Eyre, or the 
 little Professor of Villette^ or the stern, almost harsh,. 
 Robert Moore of Shirley, and her heroine as the poor 
 plain governess who claims to be a woman and a sister 
 for that she also can taste of Love and Sorrow, the- 
 true emblems of the soul, the true makers of beauty. 
 ' True indeed ! ' said the world that bowed before her 
 genius, and the plain woman had her vogue in fiction, 
 though it must be owned that half-way through a book, 
 the story-teller often repented, and slily gifted his 
 heroine with beauty discernible at least to the eye of 
 her lover. Strength is the main attribute of Charlotte 
 Bronte's heroes. The ideal man must be an oak 
 round which the frail plant may clasp its tendrils, the 
 falconer to whose hand the shy wild bird comes at last 
 a willing captive — too willing, we can hardly help 
 feeling, in the case of Caroline Helstone and Robert 
 Moore. Caroline is a timid, affectionate, simple girl, 
 who divides the role of heroine with Shirley Keeldar, 
 
Shirley. 
 
 and upon whose life presses so heavily the unconscious 
 tyranny, so heavy because so unconscious, of her uncle, 
 the Yorkshire parson, of a nature w^hich the author 
 knew through and through. The minor characters in 
 ■this book, so vividly drawn that as we read we seem 
 to make actual personal acquaintance with them, were 
 indeed portraits from the life, and excited some wrath 
 and more amusement when at last the veil of anonymity 
 Avas lifted from the identity ot ' Currer Bell.' 
 
 The character of Shirley Keeldar, the young and 
 heautiful heiress, who is so lovingly depicted, was 
 drawn also from life, and from the character of one 
 «iost dear to the author, her sister, Emily : Emily 
 Bronte as she would have been, had grinding poverty 
 and ceaseless sorrow taken their iron pressure from 
 ofF her spirit. The almost passionate delight in 
 freedom, freedom of body in the keen air of the moors, 
 freedom of soul on an open path in life, the intense 
 affection for animals, the studious mind, the gentleness 
 and resoluteness combined, all these were characteristic 
 -of Emily, the ' spirit apart ' whom her sister describes 
 once more in the words which preface this paper. 
 The incident of her kindness to the stray dog, which 
 •repaid her by a bite, and her courageous cauterisation 
 of the wound, her treatment of the dog. Keeper, and 
 other vivid little incidents of the story, are taken from 
 Emily's actual life. 
 
 None can fail to love the brilliant yet lovable 
 Shirley, and Caroline Helstone sees her cousin's 
 
Shirley. 
 
 affections drawn away from herself — for a short time 
 only, and her lonely hours and sad musings on the 
 problems of girl-life give us the author's own medita- 
 tions on the pressing questions in words not without 
 meaning to our own generation : — 
 
 'Nobody in particular is to blame, that I can see, for 
 the state in which things are, and I cannot tell, however 
 much I puzzle over it, how they are to be altered for the 
 better, but I feel that there is something wrong somewhere^ 
 I believe single women should have more to do — better 
 chances of interesting and profitable occupation than they 
 possess now. Look at the numerous families of girls in 
 this neighbourhood. The brothers of these girls are every 
 one in business or professions j they have something to do i 
 their sisters have no earthly employment but household work 
 and sewing, no earthly pleasure but an unprofitable visiting, 
 and no hope in all their life to come of anything better. 
 This stagnant state of things makes them decline in health, 
 they are never well, and their minds and views shrink tO' 
 wondrous narrowness. The great wish, the sole aim, of 
 every one of them is to be married ; but the majority will 
 never marry, they will die as they now live. Men of 
 England ! look at your poor girls, many of them fading, 
 around, dropping off into consumption and decline ; or, what 
 is worse, degenerating to sour old maids — envious, back- 
 biting, wretched, because life is a desert to them ; or, what 
 is worst of all, reduced to strive, by scarce modest coquetry 
 and degrading artifice, to gain that position and consideration 
 by marriage which to celibacy is denied.' 
 
 The fuller, wider life, for which Caroline Helstone 
 
 102 
 
Shirley. 
 
 sighed as making maidenhood happy and contented, is 
 represented as possible in that generation to Shirley 
 Keeldar only because of her accidental circumstances 
 of wealth and independence. She is painted for us as 
 gracious and modest and maidenly, yet fearless and 
 truthful, venturing to face social problems, and able 
 to defend her convictions when attacked, or to silence 
 talk unfit for her presence, or, again, to resist impudent 
 demands upon her ready charity. Wealth and rank 
 in the person of Sir Philip Nunneby fail to tempt her 
 to a marriage which is not dictated by affection ; of her 
 own free will the high-spirited heiress lays her hand 
 with her heart in it in that of her brother's tutor, 
 Louis Moore, whom she loves because she can look 
 up to him. In Louis Moore's portrait we can hardlj 
 feel that our author has scored a success ; he is but a 
 shadowy figure, and we must be content to take his 
 worth for granted, since Shirley feels him worthy of 
 her. Caroline binds her fate on the same principle to 
 Robert Moore's, for Charlotte Bronte's heroines are 
 fain to be the moth rather than the star, and glory m 
 submission and captivity so soon as the worthy lord is 
 found. With this ideal we may quarrel if we please. 
 There is much in its depiction in Shirley that 
 cannot fail to please, and much also that we may do 
 well to ponder over. However much we may dis- 
 agree, We cannot feel indifferent, either to the cha- 
 racters drawn for us so vividly, or to the writer whose 
 personality grows familiar to us as we read, the woman 
 
 103 
 
Shirley. 
 
 so faithful to duty, both in daily life and in the use ot 
 her literary gift. Seen in the light of her life, the 
 flavour of bitterness in the book is explained and for- 
 given, how^ever much regretted, remembering that her 
 utter truthfulness bade her depict men and women as 
 she had knowm them, and not creatures from the fairy- 
 land of imagination. Her experience of life had been 
 hard ; her work is its outcome. No golden halo is 
 thrown over her hard reality, but neither is any 
 bewildering mist thrown round evil that it may seem 
 fair and good. 
 
 ' It is possible/ writes an able critic, Charlotte's 
 biographer and friend, Mrs. Gaskell, speaking of the 
 work of all three sisters, ' that it would have been 
 better to have described only good and pleasant people, 
 doing good and pleasant things (in which case they 
 could hardly have written at any time). All I can say 
 is that never, I believe, did women possessed of such 
 wonderful gifts exercise them with a fuller feeling of 
 responsibility for their use.' 
 
 They rest from their labours, and their works do 
 follow them. 
 
 104 
 
Adam Bede. 
 
 ADAM BEDE 
 
 By George Eliot. 
 
^ I would mt^ even if I had the choice^ be the clever novelist 
 ivho could create a luorld so muck better than tKis^ in ivhkh ive 
 get up in the morning to do our daily luork^ that you ^vould be 
 likely to turn a harder^ colder eye on the dusty streets and the 
 common green fields — on the real breathing men and •women^ 
 •who can be chilled by your indifference or injured by your pre- 
 judice ; "who can be cheered and helped onward by your fellotv- 
 Jeelingj your forbearance^ your outspoken^ brave justice. So I 
 am content to tell my simple story^ ivithout trying to make things 
 seem better than they tvere ,* dreading nothings indeed, butfalsityy 
 •which, in spite of one^s best efforts, there is reason to dread. 
 Falsehood is so easy^ truth so difficult.* — Geurge Eliot, 
 
Adam Bede. 
 
 ' AH true ivork is sacred ; in ail true ivorky toere it but 
 true hand labour^ there is something of divineness, ' 
 
 Carlyle. 
 
 G 
 
 REAT fiction may be roughly divided into 
 four classes, in which the interest is primarily 
 concentrated : 
 
 1 . On the events of the story : as Defoe, Wilkie 
 Collins. 
 
 2. On the surface and slighter details of life ; on 
 feeling in its less powerful and more usual forms : as 
 Sheridan, Miss Austen. 
 
 3. On the ideal and often picturesque setting forth 
 of scenery, events, and characters : as Sir Walter 
 Scott, Dickens. 
 
 4. On the study of character for its own sake ; 
 especially with regard to its moral or spiritual deve- 
 lopment : as Shakspere, Thackeray, Shorthouse. 
 
 These classes may often overlap each other, or 
 stray into each other's territories, the writer who 
 thinks first of the construction of his plot often giving 
 us bits of wonderful characterisation or ideal descrip- 
 tion ; but, taken as a whole, each class portrays life 
 from a different point of view, drawing from it different 
 kinds of pleasure and instruction. 
 
 The fourth class is the highest and most compre- 
 hensive. It acknowledges the importance of events 
 
 107 
 
Adam Bede. 
 
 and externals, ideal as well as realistic truth ; it even 
 borrows the styles of writing of the previous classes, 
 when necessary to a clearer setting forth of its own 
 meaning, as, for instance, in,— i. The Merchant of 
 Venice. 2. A Shabby Genteel Story (Thackeray). 
 3. John Inglesant. To produce good work in this 
 class requires great gifts and rare experience ; wide 
 sympathy, the insight of a poet, the faculty of obser- 
 vation, and the unerring logic of a scientist, together 
 with a personal knowledge of, as well as the power of 
 depicting, strong feeling and a wide variety of men, 
 minds, and manners. The characters these writers 
 create appear to them as personalities, influenced by 
 circumstances, but distinct from them, and finding 
 success or failure in spiritual rather than worldly life. 
 
 George Eliot is a writer of the fourth class. 
 Keeping closer to actual life than Shorthouse, less 
 powerful and fuller of, often unnecessary, detail than 
 Shakspere, she yet shares with both a clear vision of 
 the fact that our deeds, mental and actual, mould our 
 spiritual and worldly destiny, while she reiterates 
 throughout her works her own message to mankind — 
 our responsibility to do good by deed and example, 
 and thus to leave the world better than we find it. 
 
 One of the most perfect of her novels in style, 
 and the distribution and balance of its parts, is Adam 
 Bede. All art has its technical side, the artificial 
 means of arranging its matter so as best to display 
 itself to the public, and George Eliot has used them 
 
 loS 
 
Adam Bede. 
 
 with a master hand. First we have a background, 
 showing us English country life at the beginning of 
 the century, which might well serve as a commentary 
 on the pictures of that time, at the close of which she 
 herself was born. We see the simpler, harder life of 
 all classes, their closer union, the dignity and cere- 
 mony which belonged to special occasions, the greater 
 leisure and slower movement of existence, the difficulty 
 of travel ; the very dresses and furniture are brought 
 before us, till we cry, * This is a Morland ; this a 
 Westall engraving; and here a portrait of Gains- 
 borough ! ' To this background belong the secondary 
 characters — Bartle Massey, Mrs. Irwine, Squire 
 Donnithorne, and the Poysers ; they supply the real life 
 and its surroundings, needed from the author's desire to 
 connect the chief characters which are drawn mostly 
 from the point of view of soul life and development, 
 as closely as possible with actual existence. The 
 secondary characters also serve to give brightness and 
 the sorely needed touch of humour which relieves the 
 tragedy. Many of th^m are made out with wonderful 
 sympathy and keenness of observation, as Mrs. Irwine 
 and Mrs. Poyser, but they are carefully kept from 
 absorbing the interest which does not belong to them ; 
 those of the Hall and Rectory have most to do with 
 Arthur Donnithorne, those of farm and village with 
 Adam Bede, Dinah, and Hetty. 
 
 These four central figures and their attendant 
 groups are carefully contrasted, illuminating and 
 
 109 
 
Adam Bede. 
 
 explaining each other by their very unlikeness, con- 
 trast being one of the most valuable methods of setting 
 forth things literary and artistic. 
 
 Adam Bede, the hero, is a young carpenter, w^ho 
 is dominated by an intellectual passion for his w^orlc, 
 as an artist is by his art ; this great force pervades his 
 life, spiritual and practical. He says : — 
 
 ' " I know a man must have the love o' God in his soul, 
 and the Bible's God's Word, but what does the Bible say ? 
 Why, it says as God put His sperrit into the workman as 
 built the tabernacle, to make him do all the carved work 
 and things as wanted a nice hand, and this is my way o' 
 looking at it : there's the sperrit o' God in all things and all 
 times — weekday as well as Sunday — and i' the great works 
 and inventions, and the figuring and mechanics. And God 
 helps us with our headpieces and our hands as well as with 
 our souls." ' 
 
 To Adam his trade has a dignity and beauty of its 
 own ; he cannot bear to see others slight it by leaving 
 work the moment the clock strikes, as though they 
 were afraid of doing a stroke too much. To his ears 
 the distant sound of tools is 
 
 ' like the tentative sounds of the orchestra to the violinist 
 who has to bear his part in the overture ; the strong fibres 
 begin their accustomed thrill, and what was a moment 
 before joy, vexation, or ambition, begins its change into 
 energy. All passion becomes strength when it has an outlet 
 from the narrow Umits of our personal lot in the labour of 
 our right arm, the cunning of our right hand, or the still 
 creative activity of our thought.' 
 
Adam Bede. 
 
 Everything helps his vocation ; the beauty of a 
 summer's day, the near approaching possession of his 
 beloved, stir him to think out good work, and he is 
 filled with a desire to leave the world better than he 
 found it through his faithful labour. We have been 
 often told of this high and spiritual side of labour in 
 connexion with art, but George Eliot shows us that 
 it can exist equally in all useful and innocent employ- 
 ment, raising and ennobling life. 
 
 ' Such men as Adam are reared in every generation of our 
 peasant artisans, with an inheritance of affections nurtured 
 by a simple family life of common need and common in- 
 dustry, and an inheritance of faculties trained in skilful, 
 courageous labour; they make their way upward, rarely as 
 geniuses, most commonly as painstaking, honest men, with 
 the skill and conscience to do well the tasks that lie before 
 them. . . . Their lives have no discernible echo beyond 
 the neighbourhood where they dwelt, but you are almost 
 sure to find there some good piece of road, some building, 
 some application of mineral produce, some improvement of 
 farming practice, some reform of parish abuses, with which 
 their names are associated by one or two generations after 
 them.' 
 
 Adam had worked hard to get the mastery of his 
 pen, to spell, to learn his musical notes and part- 
 singing, but most of his spare time, except on Sundays, 
 went to the study of mechanics and figures, and all 
 that belonged to his profession. His books were few 
 but good, most of them feeding the spiritual side of 
 his nature, ' as the Bible, Taylor's Holy Living and 
 
Adam Bede. 
 
 Dyings The Pilgrim's Progress^ with Bunyan's Life 
 and Holy War;' and while endowed with exceeding 
 keenness and common sense, he had also a deep and 
 reverent faith. Such a nature needs and seeks an 
 ideal, and he found his in that Arthur who was to 
 do him so great a wrong. Only noble natures can 
 have an ideal, poor ones are too self-Centred and self- 
 content to have one ; and even if the ideal be ill-placed, 
 or the creation of our own imagination, it helps us to 
 rise above our natural spiritual level ; only if the idol 
 be shattered, it needs much strength, tenderness, and 
 forbearance not to turn against it, and make shipwreck 
 of ourselves. 
 
 Adam is pointedly contrasted with Arthur Donni- 
 thorne, the young squire ; we are shown how his 
 position as heir to the estate, on whom all eyes and 
 hopes are fixed, fostered in him the dangerous habit 
 of dwelling on such of his actions as he considered 
 would redound to his credit, thus blinding himself to 
 the ugly consequences of less carefully considered,' 
 because less creditable, deeds. Adam has no self- 
 consciousness, and face to face with the stern realities 
 of a working life, has escaped the delusion of Arthur, 
 the rich man's son, that a wrong may be wiped out 
 by subsequent benefits. Adam's instinct is to face 
 a disagreeable duty, Arthur's to shove it aside ; hence 
 he slips down the plane of temptation, beguiling him- 
 self with dreams of future generosity, while he yields, 
 half-unconsciously, to present desires. Yet his plans 
 
Adam Bede. 
 
 are always beneficent ; he is capable of real, if self- 
 conscious, repentance, and attains through it to the 
 virtue of self-sacrifice. Nearly equal parts of strength 
 and tenderness form the groundwork of Adam's 
 -character, a tenderness that translates itself into active 
 labour. Hard work to keep the house together for the 
 •drunken father, once a clever workman, from whom 
 Adam inherited the flexible, long-fingered hand, and 
 the mental faculty which made the labour of his trade 
 xlelightful to him ; thoughtful help for the careful 
 mother ; steady kindness to the dog. His very love 
 for Hetty is based on her softness and need of pro- 
 tection, as well as on her beauty ; she is the natural 
 partner of Adam's earlier self, a bit of flesh-and-blood 
 loveliness — hard, vain, shut up in self, but appealing to 
 all our hearts, as well as to that of Adam, by her ignorant 
 helplessness, her soft beauty, and her tragic fate. 
 
 Physicallv and morally strong, Adam's life is one 
 of daily self-control, of conscious choosing of the right j 
 the habit of strenuous labour in his trade passing on 
 into his moral life, while the logical quality of his 
 mind, trained in his work to see that certain given 
 •causes must of necessity lead to certain effects, com- 
 bined with the tenderness that shrinks from giving 
 pain, produces an infinite sense of responsibility. 
 
 ' " It's plain enough," he says, " you get into the wrong 
 road i' this life, if you run after this and that only for the 
 •sake o' making things easy and pleasant to yourself. A pig 
 may poke his nose into the trough and think o' nothing 
 
 I 113 
 
Adam Bede. 
 
 outside it, but if you've got a man's heart and soul inside 
 you, you can't be easy amaking your own bed an' leaving the 
 rest to lie on the stones. Nay, I'll never slip my neck out o' 
 the yoke and leave the load to be drawn by the weak ones." * 
 
 The weakness in Adam's character springs out of 
 its strength. The well-balanced nature can hardly 
 understand the wavering, half-deliberate yielding to- 
 temptation the force of which he is almost too busy 
 to feel, while his logical mind makes him intolerant 
 of those who wilfully close their eyes to the evil that 
 must follow their acts. He says to Arthur : — 
 
 ' " I don't remember ever being see-saw in that way 
 when I'd made my mind up, as you say, that a thing was- 
 wrong. It takes the taste out o' my mouth for things when 
 I know I should have a heavy conscience after 'em. I've 
 seen pretty clear, ever since I could cast up a sum, as you 
 can never do what's wrong without breeding sin and trouble 
 more than you can ever see. It's like a bit o' bad work- 
 manship, you can never see the end o' the mischief it'll do. 
 And it's a poor lookout to come into the world to make your 
 fellow-creatures worse oiF instead o' better." ' 
 
 Adam is hard in thought and speech to the drunken 
 father ; only by strongest self-repression can he endure 
 the well-meaning, worrying mother ; he is inclined ta 
 condemn even the well-loved but unpractical Seth,. 
 who lives absorbed in devout thought and spiritual 
 experiences, producing much forgetfulness in daily 
 life, yet issuing in a rare and beautiful unselfishness 
 which desires the happiness of others even at the 
 
 114 
 
Adam Bede. 
 
 sacrifice of its own — a tender hopefulness and ready 
 sympathy, which in Adam is the result of hardest 
 trials and inward conflict. It is one of the literary 
 perfections of this character that every quality in it 
 acts and is reacted on by the rest. It is this proud 
 hardness, as well as the loss of his ideal and his loving 
 pity for the weak, which makes him feel Hetty and 
 Arthur's sin so bitterly. How, aided by the memory 
 of his repentance for former unkindness over the grave 
 of Thias, Adam overcomes his weakness and resists 
 the temptation to seek revenge on Arthur and to 
 forsake Hetty on the day of her trial, forms the great 
 spiritual crisis and victory of his life. 
 
 Rightly used, sorrow raises us to nobler life ; 
 Hetty's tragedy lifts her into what may be called the 
 first human existence she has ever had. This is 
 brought about by the woman on whom Adam fixes 
 his second love ; whose beauty of soul and body is as 
 spiritual as Hetty's is earthly, and who holds the 
 central place among the women of the story. 
 
 Dinah is not merely guided by a strong sense of 
 right, she habitually lives in a vivid consciousness of 
 the Divine Presence, and in restful dependence on 
 and submission to His Will ; and this living Faith 
 with her tender heart give her an intense power over 
 struggling and suffering humanity. She unites in 
 her person some of the chief characteristics of both 
 brothers ; her spirituality goes far beyond that of 
 Seth, but it is also like Adam in its practical outcome. 
 
 "S 
 
Adam Bede. 
 
 She strives to convert the sinner, and to give him not 
 only religion, but the happiness of a well-ordered 
 existence. Her ministrations include deft housew^ifery, 
 tender care for the bodies as well as the souls of those 
 to whom she is sent, and in her hands the meanest 
 offices become a sacred service from the spirit in 
 which they are done — that of work committed to her 
 by God for His creatures, whom she dearly loves for 
 His and their own sake ; this is the most usual attitude 
 of her mind, but in time of temptation or spiritual 
 depression she falls back with a touching trustfulness 
 on dutiful obedience to the Will of God, as when she 
 leaves Adam, whom she loves, to return to Snowfield. 
 
 Dinah is the fitting partner of the ennobled and dis- 
 ciplined Adam, who lives in conscious sympathy with 
 all connected with him, loving and forbearing as well 
 as aiding, widely tolerant as well as strictly upright. 
 
 The great moral lesson of the book is our re- 
 sponsibility for the consequences of our actions ; that 
 of the character of Adam is, how taking up his ruined 
 life, he built it anew in a nobler, fairer form. 
 
 ' Adam had not outlived his sorrow, had not felt it slip 
 from him as a temporary burden, and leave him the same 
 man again. Do any of us ? God forbid. It would be a 
 poor result of all our anguish and all our wrestling if we 
 won nothing but our old selves at the end of it. . . . Let 
 us rather be thankful that our sorrow lives in us as an 
 indestructible force, only changing its form, as forces do, 
 and passing from pain into sympathy — the one poor word 
 which includes all our best insight and our best love.' 
 
 ii6 
 
Romola. 
 
 ROMOLyi. 
 
 By Georgk Eliot. 
 
* Measure thy life by loss instead of gain ; 
 Not by the ivine drunky hut by the uoine poured forth ; 
 For lovers strength standetk in lo've'^s sacrifice^ 
 And lohoso suffers most hath most to give, ' 
 
 H. E. Hamilton King. 
 
Romola. 
 
 * We can only have the highest happiness , , , > by having 
 ivide thoughts and much feeling for the rest of the ivorld as 
 tvell as our selves J* — Romola. 
 
 O 
 
 F the many uses of good fiction, a chief one is 
 surely that of leading the mind out and beyond 
 the limits of our personal, every-day life. By 
 the power of a real story our intelligence is awakened 
 and increased, our imagination is exercised, and our sym- 
 pathy widened to embrace lives and interests we do not 
 Jcnow by experience ; and therefore we owe a special 
 debt of gratitude to writers who tell us of other times 
 and other lands than our own. It is only waste of 
 good time and good feeling to read some stories, such 
 as those which depict the silly, idle emotions of silly 
 people, who fortunately exist nowhere. Some readers 
 are not afraid of this waste, and it is always a tempta- 
 tion to read what is very easily understood. But all 
 who have once mastered the difficulties of a good 
 historical tale, or a good story of foreign life, must feel 
 they have gained more than they expected ; not in 
 mere knowledge alone, but specially in the under- 
 standing of true, great lives and deeds outside their 
 own experience. 
 
 The writer, who chose to be called George Eliot, 
 119 
 
Romola. 
 
 brings before us in Romola, with the. toil and care oh 
 real accuracy, the intimate life of a foreign people and 
 of a past generation. Only an historian can fully ap- 
 preciate the accuracy of Romola. For others, it is true 
 to say that they may safely take on trust the historical 
 events and characters. Romola, Tito, and Baldassarre^ 
 Tessa, and the shop-people, are not, of course, histori- 
 cally accurate personages ; but with these exceptions,, 
 all the characters of the story, as well as the political 
 events, are known to history. The exceptions named, 
 if not true to history as individuals, are all people wha 
 might have existed in the city and age in which the 
 story is laid, and they are true to human nature in all 
 times and places. 
 
 The story begins in the year 1492, the year in 
 which Lorenzo de Medici, called the Magnificent,, 
 died. Lorenzo's name represented a great power in 
 his day. In his own state of Florence it was an over- 
 weening one. By means of his wealth, his talent, his. 
 love of rule, he almost succeeded in enslaving the city,, 
 hitherto mainly self-governed. His death saved her — 
 his death, and the unwavering opposition of the monk,, 
 Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who owned for Florence na- 
 king but Jesus Christ. 
 
 Romola is shown us first as a girl of seventeen, 
 the light of her blind old father's home. Bardo's sort 
 had become lost to him for ever, when, in direct oppo- 
 sition to his father's wishes and tastes, he took the 
 vows of a monk. Romola's hopes and efforts were 
 
Romola. 
 
 to supply her brother's place. The tie that bound her 
 to her father was a threefold one. For her heart was 
 full of natural filial piety, of reverence for old age, as 
 well as for high and noble thoughts, and also of pity 
 for weakness. Thus, she was patient and enduring 
 in the long hours in which she strove to help Bardo 
 in scholarly research ; patient and loving, too, when all 
 her devotion failed to satisfy him, when he regretted 
 her feminine intellect, and longed for his lost son. 
 This longing on the part of Bardo, combined wi'h 
 the girl's pity and wish to help him, led the simple, 
 noble father and daughter to accept at once Tito 
 Melema, the ' pretty Greek,' of whom Bernardo del 
 Nero, Romola's godfather, said, ' He has a lithe sleek- 
 ness about him which seems marvellously fitted for 
 slipping into any nest he fixes his mind on.' Tito, 
 a mere adventurer, had appeared in the streets of 
 Florence as if he had dropped from the skies. He 
 came at a time and place when a young Greek, with 
 smooth manners and beauty, with a good knowledge 
 of Greek learning and a few costly gems about him, 
 was not unlikely to receive a welcome. Tito had 
 suffered shipwreck with his adopted father. The 
 younger man had escaped, while the older and weaker 
 one had been carried into captivity by pirates. His 
 ransom might have been effected by the gems and 
 manuscripts Tito managed to save, and it may be that 
 the young man did not at first intend to use them only 
 for his own advantage. 
 
Romola. 
 
 Only Bernardo, with his keen penetration of 
 character, and the gruff old painter, Piero di Cosimo, 
 who had no hesitation in showing his true instincts, 
 failed to be attracted and deceived by Tito's beautiful 
 face and smooth address. 
 
 Tito soon became the acknowledged suitor of 
 Romola, and, in due course, her husband. It was 
 by the merest chance, apparently, that Romola failed ' 
 to learn before her marriage that Tito was guilty of 
 baseness which it would be least easy to her nature 
 to forgive; for Piero's instinct was just, when he saw 
 in Tito's fair face the possibilities of a traitor and a 
 coward. Tito was nothing better. At the very 
 moment that he knew himself sure of winning 
 Romola's love, he received a message from the man 
 who had been a father to him, bidding him make use 
 of the gems which a Florentine collector had appraised 
 as ' worth a man's ransom,' to free him from slavery. 
 This message reached Tito through a Dominican 
 monk, who was none other than Romola's brother, 
 come home to die. 
 
 Romola was summoned to her brother's dying bed, 
 and, beside it, she came for the first time into the 
 presence of the great Frate, Savonarola himself 
 Brought up, though she was, to believe the Christian 
 faith to be mere narrow-minded bigotry, from which 
 cultured minds must keep themselves free, Romola was 
 forced by the monk's quiet, mysterious power to kneel 
 and hear the dying man's vision and message of warning 
 
Romola. 
 
 to herself. It seemed to her but an evil and unnatural 
 dream ; she was hurt, too, that her brother had no 
 words for the father whom he had so deeply grieved j 
 but, in spite of these feelings, her spirit was for the first 
 time awakened to a consciousness of the supernatural ; 
 * it seemed to her as if this first vision of death must 
 alter the daylight for her for evermore.' 
 
 Afterwards Tito, bright young lover and husband, 
 made her hide the crucifix her brother had clasped in 
 death, and which she brought away with her. The 
 curious cabinet painted with gay classical figures, in 
 which Tito concealed it, was symbolical of the lightness 
 and brightness with which he would put away all 
 thoughts of stern reality. Little Romola guessed that, 
 at the very moment when he made her do this, as his 
 chosen bride, he was himself false to her ; for, when he 
 feared he should lose her for ever, in consequence of 
 revelations about himself the brother might maice, Tito 
 had consoled himself by a mock marriage with Tessa, 
 a little peasant girl, ignorant, and trusting, and easily 
 deceived. 
 
 Soon after Romola's marriage her father died, and 
 not without the disappointment of finding Jhat Tito, 
 the son from whom he had hoped so much,* had other 
 interests than those of the blind scholar. Bardo died 
 personally poor, his possessions consisting almost 
 entirely of a valuable collection of manuscripts and 
 antiquities which he left to the State, when the State 
 -would find a building to receive them. This could not 
 
 123 
 
Romola. 
 
 be at once, for Florence was distracted with political 
 change. Fra Girolamo had become the real ruler of 
 the city, and his throne was the pulpit in the Duomo. 
 The form of government of the city was unchanged. 
 The Signoria, the ten nobles (whose Latin secretary 
 was now Tito Melema) remained apparently in power, 
 but the real influence in the city was that of the great 
 Dominican monk. It was at his invitation that 
 Charles VIII. of France visited Florence. In his train 
 were some prisoners, among whom was Baldassarre, 
 Tito's adopted father, who thus unexpectedly found 
 himself face to face with the man from whom he had 
 hoped to receive his liberty, and who, he thought,, 
 must be dead. He now learned his treachery, and 
 vowed revenge. 
 
 The first revelation of Tito's true character came to 
 Romola when, in defiance of her father's lifelong wish, 
 and of her own aim and hope, he sold the library which 
 was the fruit of half a century of toil and frugality. 
 ■■ Have you deceived somebody who is not dead ? Is 
 that the reason you wear armour ? ' It was thus that 
 her true instinct shaped itself in a bitter cry. As it 
 waSj she felt she could live with him no longer, and 
 after sadly watching the dispersion of the treasures 
 she had seen gathered by her father, she could bear her 
 home — Tito's home — no more. 
 
 Taking her brother's crucifix from its bright hiding- 
 place, and dressed as a lay sister, Romola stole from 
 her home, intending to go to Venice. But she was 
 
 124 
 
Romola. 
 
 not thus allowed to flee her duties. Fra Girolamo, 
 who had seen her departure, followed her, and, in a few 
 strong words, showed her she could not thus escape. 
 ' You may choose to forsake your duties, and choose 
 not to have the sorrow they bring. But you will go 
 forth ; and what will you find ? . . . Sorrow without 
 duty — bitter herbs, and no bread with them.' 
 
 They were noble words, and Romola felt them so ; 
 but her heart's best affections were wounded at their 
 rootj and she could fear no personal suffering greater 
 than what she was undergoing at that moment. Nor 
 could the call of duty, so long as it appeared a personal 
 thing alone, be of any help to her then. But it was 
 otherwise when Savonarola spoke again, and this time 
 of the need that others had of her, when he pointed to 
 the crucifix in her hand and appealed to her by the 
 devotion it symbolised. ' You think nothing,' he cried, 
 ' of the sorrow and wrong that are within the walls of 
 the city where you dwell : you would leave your place 
 empty, when it ought to be filled with your pity and 
 your labour. If there is wickedness in the streets, 
 your steps should shine with the light of purity ; if 
 there is a cry of anguish, you, my daughter, because 
 you know the meaning of the cry, should be there to 
 still it. . . . Sorrow has come to teach you a new 
 worship ; the sign of it hangs before you.' And 
 Romola's great woman heart was melted. Out of 
 her own deep personal loss, she rose to feel a touch 
 of that Divine love which takes away the sin of the 
 
 125 
 
Romola. 
 
 world, and, as at the voice of Christ, she came back, 
 to her place. 
 
 For the next few months Romola is shown as 
 humbly learning of the Frate, and giving her time and 
 possessions to help those in need. The city of 
 Florence was brought into great straits by remaining 
 true to her French alliance, and even suffered siege 
 when the other Italian states, with the Pope at their 
 head, combined against France under the name of the 
 Holy League. Savonarola, too, had, by his indepen- 
 dence, drawn the Papal displeasure on himself, and his 
 public preaching became an act of open rebellion 
 against authority. 
 
 In the tumult that followed Savonarola's arrest, 
 Tito, traitor to all, was denounced by those whom he 
 had betrayed, and was hounded to a miserable death at 
 the hands of the old man, who, of all, had suffered 
 most from his selfishness. 
 
 Romola was at this time far from Florence. Once 
 more she had fled, and this time unrecalled. Her 
 husband's baseness was now absolutely known to her. 
 She had seen Baldassarre, and heard his story. She 
 had found Tessa and her children. She knew the 
 treachery which, for personal ends, had betrayed each 
 political party in turn. Savonarola, too, had dis- 
 appointed Romola's highest hopes ; she could not enter 
 into the spirit which made him support his own 
 party as the cause of God, by means she felt to be 
 unjust. 
 
 126 
 
Romola. 
 
 In her wretchedness, Romola sought to put a long 
 distance between herself and Florence, and when she 
 had reached the seashore she got into a boat and let 
 herself drift ; thus she was brought to an out-of-the 
 way island, where she found a village stricken with 
 the plague. Here her spirit was refreshed by the 
 simple, natural service of the sick and neglected, and 
 after a time she felt she could go back. 
 
 Romola came home, to find Savonarola in prison 
 and her husband dead. Her first act was to seek out 
 poor little Tessa and to give her a home. Her great- 
 ness of soul is specially shown in the fact that she 
 never told Tessa of the base deception that had been 
 practised upon her, but let her think herself Tito's 
 lawful wife, while Romola cared for Tito's children as 
 her own. Our last picture of her, then, is surrounded 
 by those who were not merely dependent on her 
 bounty, but who were supported and raised by her 
 nobility of character. Thus she lived, childless her- 
 self and worse than widowed, for her own fresh, girlish 
 love had been cruelly blighted ; but, instead of making 
 her bitter, her personal loss made her richer to help. 
 
 It will be seen that the real interest of the book 
 lies in the contrast of the characters of Romola and 
 Tito. Tito was bent on ■■ saving himself,' on having 
 what he liked, with that agreeable selfishness which is 
 the more dangerous because not always found out at 
 once. 
 
 Romola was in every way his opposite. She was 
 127 
 
Romola. 
 
 born with a strong hereditary as well as natural love of 
 home and family. Her first impulses were noble and 
 unselfish. She has sometimes been blamed for rigidity 
 in conduct towards Tito. Many excuses, if they are 
 really needed, might be made for this. But were two 
 beings ever less fitted to understand or act upon each 
 other ? The saddest part of the ill-assorted marriage 
 is that Romola's nature was too large and noble to 
 take effect upon Tito's mean and petty one, and he 
 knew no suffering or trouble which could have 
 awakened within her the pitifulness her true woman 
 heart possessed so abundantly. 
 
 In Romola, George Eliot draws a character of the. 
 kind dearest to her, one which we believe to be her 
 ideal for a woman ; one whose early affections and 
 interests are inseparable from the ties of home and 
 family, who, through personal suffering and disappoint- 
 ment, rises ever higher in the only true life — the life 
 of faith, hope, and charity. 
 
 It may be that to some the book ' Romola ' will 
 seem a little difficult, being full of complicated politics 
 and historical and learned allusions. Let us beg those 
 who find it so to persevere, that they may come to 
 know the woman Romola, with her large brain and 
 larger heart — great and simple, pitiful and strong. 
 
 128 
 
Amyas Leigh. 
 
 WESTJVARD HO! 
 
 By Chaklzs Kingsley. 
 
' Ike love of duty is the strength of heroes.' 
 
 F. Paget. 
 
Amyas Leigh. 
 
 * Still the race of Hero Spirits 
 
 Past the lamp from hand to hand, 
 Age from age the -words inherits, 
 Wife and Child and Fatherland. 
 
 ' Still the youthful hunter gathers 
 
 Fiery joy from wold and luood, 
 He "will dare as dared his fathers 
 Give him cause as good.* 
 
 KiNGSLEY, 
 
 E are constandy told that the age of chivalry 
 and heroism is passed away, and I am afraid 
 
 we are often tempted to believe it, so that 
 
 it seems an actual refreshment to read these cheering 
 words of Charles Kingsley's, himself an embodiment 
 of manly virtue, and to turn to the pages of Westward 
 Ho ! where he depicts the character of his ' own ideal 
 knight ' with such an eloquent and sympathetic touch. 
 Unconsciously, no doubt, he has infused into the por- 
 trait of Amyas Leigh many of his own most striking 
 characteristics, and it is interesting to compare his 
 -description of Amyas with the account of his own 
 youth as given in his Memoirs. 
 
 We read that Amyas, 'who could thrash every boy 
 in Bideford,' was as full of courtesy as of valour, that 
 
 131 
 
Amyas Leigh. 
 
 he had learnt to bear pain cheerfully and to give up 
 his own pleasure for that of others weaker than him- 
 self; that the field sports, so dear to him and in which 
 he excelled, had taught him thoughtfulness, perseve- 
 rance, and the habit of keeping his temper ; that he 
 knew the names and ways of every bird, beast, and 
 fly, without ever having had ' an object lesson,' and 
 that he had learnt from his father and mother that it 
 was infinitely noble to do right, and infinitely base to 
 do wrong. Conspicuous also throughout the story is 
 his chivalrous protection of the weak, and his hatred 
 of all meanness and tyranny. Such is the account 
 given us of the hero of Westward Ho ! and now let 
 us glance at that of the author : — 
 
 ' Charles inherited from his father's side his sporting 
 tastes and fighting blood, the men of his family having been 
 soldiers for generations. From his mother's side came his- 
 love of science, travel, and romance, which awoke in him 
 the longing to see the West Indies, which was at last 
 accomplished. He had a passionate love of natural history 
 and a keen relish for field sports, and one of his most 
 intimate school ftiends bears witness to his vehement spirit,, 
 love of truth, and the adventurous courage and impatience 
 of injustice, which, in after life, planted him in the fore- 
 front of the battle for the weak and oppressed.' 
 
 We also read of the extraordinary power he had 
 of bearing pain calmly, though at the same time in- 
 finitely tender and compassionate over the suffering 
 of others. 
 
 132 
 
Amy as Leigh. 
 
 I think enough has been quoted to show the strong 
 cesemblance existing between the hero adventurer of 
 ■the Elizabethan era and the *■ soldier priest' of Eversley, 
 -whose stirring accents still sound in our ears, although 
 he who uttered them has passed to 'where beyond 
 these voices there is peace.' 
 
 The valiant spirit of Amyas appears the more truly 
 heroic when we consider the tender affection he dis- 
 plays towards his mother from his earliest youth, 
 the first proof being the thoughtfulness with which, 
 as a very young lad, he conceals from her his 
 ardent longing to go to sea, knowing it will pain 
 her, and the promptitude with which he realises on 
 his father's death that he must now act and think for 
 her, and no longer allow himself to depend upon her 
 soHcitude. 
 
 A beautiful picture of mother and son is given in 
 •the scene on the morning after he returns from 
 his first voyage with Drake. Amyas is about to start 
 for a bathe in the early dawn, but cannot resist peeping 
 into his mother's room as he passes the door. He sees 
 her absorbed in devotion, and gently kneeling down 
 beside her, the mother and son offer their prayers 
 together. He knew her prayers were for him, and he 
 prayed for her, and for poor John Oxenham and his 
 vanished crew, of whose disappearance he had been 
 told on his arrival. After this, with the simplicity of a 
 child, our fair-haired giant finds his way daily to his 
 mother's side to say his prayers, until one morning 
 
 133 
 
Amyas Leigh. 
 
 he finds himself forestalled by his beautiful brother^ 
 Frank, the Court favourite and poet, and overhears 
 him confide to his mother his love for Rose Salterne,. 
 the object of Amyas's own youthful devotion. The 
 struggle for generous self-sacrifice on the part of each 
 brother is very touching, and gives the first note of the 
 intensity of their love for each other j but Amyas wins 
 the day in the noble contest, through the downright 
 resolution and cheerful simplicity with which he 
 renounces his claim upon Rose's affection. It may not 
 be out of place to remark that the love story of Amyas-. 
 plays a secondary part in his life, while in that of the 
 more sensitive Frank it is the dominant passion. The 
 devotion to his mother, and the half-protecting, half- 
 admiring affection he displays for Frank, form the 
 mainspring of his actions, and, we venture to think, it 
 is chivalry rather than love that inspires him with the 
 determination to seek Rose Salterne throughout the 
 world at a later point in the story. 
 
 The brothers find, however, that they are not the 
 only victims to the Rose of Torridge, but that she 
 is the apple of discord among many of their comrades: 
 in the neighbourhood. They invite all the rival suitors 
 to a banquet, and propose to them to form a society to- 
 which they shall give the name of the Brotherhood of 
 the Rose, for the faithful service and protection of their 
 liege lady, agreeing to bury all personal jealousies and 
 rivalries under this one object, and to serve her until 
 death as her sworn champions and brothers-in-arms. 
 
 134 
 
Amyas Leigh. 
 
 Shortly after this, Sir Richard Grenville advises 
 Amyas to seek his fortune in Ireland in fighting the 
 Spaniards under Raleigh. Frank returns to his life at 
 the Court of Elizabeth, where he advances in her 
 favour and in that of his patron, Sir Philip Sydney, 
 while honest Will Cary joins his friend Amyas, so 
 that the Brotherhood is soon scattered, and Rose is 
 left a prey to her own wayward fancy and vanity. 
 
 On the eve of his departure Amyas comes across 
 Salvation Yeo, the only survivor of Oxenham's un- 
 fortunate crew, whose account of his thrilling adven- 
 tures and of the horrors of the Inquisition which he 
 has himself undergone, stirs Amyas's pulses with fresh 
 longing to avenge his countrymen's wrongs and to 
 fight the Spaniards to the death. Yeo's sorrow for 
 the untimely death of Oxenham, and his burning 
 anxiety to discover what has become of 'the little 
 maid,' his child, find sympathetic response in Amyas's 
 noble heart, and he takes him at once into his service. 
 Salvation Yeo's portrait has a sombre beauty about it 
 worthy of Velasquez, and the absolute devotion with 
 which he attaches himself to Amyas and serves him 
 till death is most touchingly portrayed. 
 
 Amyas distinguishes himself in Ireland in a sharp 
 skirmish with the Spaniards, and takes prisoner the 
 haughty Don Guzman, who is destined to work so 
 much mischief in the ensuing narrative ; Raleigh 
 appoints him his lieutenant, and he. is placed in com- 
 mand of a dreary castle, surrounded by bogs, and with 
 
 '35 
 
Amyas Leigh. 
 
 no society save that of Don Guzman, who has been 
 adjudged to him as prisoner of war. 
 
 Thrown on each other in this solitude, the men 
 are constrained to fraternise to a certain extent, and 
 the wily Spaniard fills Amyas's itching ears with 
 fabulous tales of the treasures and marvels to be 
 discovered in the Southern Seas. After a time' Sir 
 Richard Grenville writes, inviting the Don to become 
 his guest at Bideford until his ransom shall arrive, and 
 Don Guzman takes his departure nothing loth, leaving 
 our hero to his lonely existence for two more weary 
 years. Meanwhile the Spaniard becomes a favoured 
 guest among the Devon gentry, and Rose Salterne 
 succumbs but too easily to his flattering tongue and 
 graceful manners. 
 
 At last Amyas is released frorh his monotonous 
 existence, and he, together with Salvation Yeo, join 
 Sir Humphrey Gilbert's ill-fated expedition to New- 
 foundland, from which he returns penniless and de- 
 jected at the loss of his noble friend and commander. 
 On reaching Bideford he finds his mother has joined 
 Frank in London, and he is greeted by the tidings of 
 Rose Salterne's flight from the neighbourhood, and of 
 her father's broken-hearted condition. Will Gary 
 throws light on the matter by telling him of Don 
 Guzman's attentions to her, which had aroused Gary's 
 own jealousy, and that the Spaniard's liberation and 
 appointment to La Guayra — an island in the West 
 Indies — occiurred simultaneously with the mysterious 
 136 
 
Amyas Leigh. 
 
 disappearance of Rose. The friends at once resolve 
 to seek her at the sword's point, and old Salterne, 
 yearning for tidings of his daughter, and eager for 
 revenge on the Spaniard, offers to supply them with 
 the necessary funds for the expedition. Amyas hurries 
 to London to see his mother and to acquaint Frank 
 with their intention. He receives a shock on ob- 
 serving the altered appearance of his beloved brother, 
 and entreats him not to accompany them on a voyage 
 which is certain to be full of hardship and exposure. 
 In spite of the Queen's persuasions and of the offer 
 of knighthood, the gentle Frank insists on his right 
 as . a member of the youthful Brotherhood, and Mrs. 
 Leigh is too high-minded and unselfish to hold him 
 back from what he considers a Sacred duty, and he 
 returns to Bideford with Amyas, whose mind is filled 
 with gloomy forebodings on his account. 
 
 No time is lost in fitting out a goodly ship and 
 in selecting a crew of able and trustworthy seamen, 
 in which latter task Yeo proves himself a valuable 
 assistant. He is wild with delight at the prospect of 
 fighting Spaniards again, and of once more going to 
 seek ' the little maid.' 
 
 Meanwhile Frank looks on at these preparations 
 with an ever-increasing humility with respect to him- 
 self, and of admiration for his brother. He marks 
 with wonder w^hat the years of hardship and dis- 
 appointment have done for the simple sailor, ripening 
 his manhood and developing his capacity as a com- 
 
 "37 
 
Amyas Leigh. 
 
 mander, through the mere exercise of patience, honesty, 
 and common sense. He sees how untiring he is, how 
 thorough and conscientious, how cheery and sweet- 
 natured, inspiring his men with such absolute con- 
 fidence in him that they are ready to work early and 
 late to win a smile from him. 
 
 At last the good ship Rose is complete at all points, 
 and, after commander and crew have knelt for the last 
 time to receive the Communion at Northam Church, 
 they hove on board again and sailed out over the Bar, 
 amid cheers from old and young and many a tearful 
 prayer, as they glided out into the boundless West. 
 They are watched to the last by Mrs. Leigh, who, as 
 they vanished into the grey Atlantic, ' bowed her head 
 and worshipped, and then went home to loneliness 
 and prayer.' 
 
 Even when merely glancing at the story of Amyas 
 Leigh, it is impossible not to remark on the exquisite 
 type of womanhood presented to us in the character 
 of his mother. To have inspired two siich sons with 
 such tender and chivalrous devotion would be suffi- 
 cient proof of the sweetness of her nature ; but every 
 line that is penned about her, every scene in which 
 she plays a part, offers a perfect picture of feminine 
 grace and piety of the most elevated kind. 
 
 The two other female portraits are inferior in 
 conception and subordinate in interest, so that it is 
 consistent that the lifelong and dominant affection of 
 Amyas is given to his mother, although it is possible 
 
 138 
 
Amy as Leigh. 
 
 some readers may take exception to this fact and 
 consider it a defect in the novel. It must, however, 
 be remembered that, in the man of action, of whom 
 Amyas is emphatically a type, love-making seldom 
 plays the leading part ; whereas Frank, the student 
 and dreamer, is consumed by his hopeless attachment 
 to Rose, and knows no other aim in the expedition than 
 that of rescuing her, while Amyas is loyally anxious 
 to combine the service of his Queen and country with 
 the more romantic object of the enterprise. 
 
 From this point the story becomes more and more 
 absorbing, as the scenes through which the Rose passes 
 take the rich colouring of the tropics, and are over- 
 shadowed by the consciousness of coming woe. 
 
 Amyas stands conspicuous in the foreground, a 
 knightly figure of heroic courage and cheerful endu- 
 rance, grand in his perfect simplicity, ever encouraging 
 his companions and his men by his own example. 
 They know him to be always ready to share any 
 hardship with them as a brother, and yet look up to 
 him with entire confidence as a wise and determined 
 leader, well qualified to quell insubordination and to 
 punish evildoers. 
 
 It would be unfair to anticipate the plot of this 
 delightful book for those who have still the treat of 
 reading it before them, but we would fain glance at 
 one or two other points in the hero's character before 
 bidding him farewell. 
 
 True to the ideal Kingsley has chosen to portray, 
 139 
 
Amyas Leigh. 
 
 when it becomes a question whether Rose or Frank 
 is to be sacrificed, the thought of his mother's anguish 
 and his own brotherly devotion decide the matter, 
 and it is the intensity of his grief when he finds his 
 efforts to be unavailing that embitters him for a 
 time and changes his courage into recklessness, 
 undermining the natural generosity of his nature. 
 Yet at the same critical period of his career his treat- 
 ment of the beautiful and lawless Ayacanora is grand 
 in its ascetic purity, and all the more to be admired 
 that he is at first irresistibly attracted to her. The 
 behaviour of the whole Brotherhood and crew is in- 
 spired by the example of their Captain, and, though 
 at times the fear of his own weakness betrays him into 
 unnecessary harshness towards the maiden who has 
 been so singularly placed under his protection, he 
 is able to tell his mother, when he at last returns 
 home, ' that he has kept unspotted, like a gentleman 
 and a Christian, the soul which God had given into 
 his charge.' 
 
 Heroic as are the qualities of Amyas Leigh, his 
 is by no means a faultless character. In the pause 
 that ensues after his return from La Guayra, a time 
 of waiting and suspense which he spends at home 
 with his mother, he nurses his revenge against the 
 Spaniards until it becomes a consuming fire, and 
 one hardly recognises the cheery comrade and loving 
 son in the gloomy and irritable man who roughly 
 repulses poor Ayacanora, and pains his mother's 
 
 140 
 
Amyas Leigh. 
 
 tender heart by his rebellious thoughts and words. 
 Only when the news of the Armada's approach arrives 
 does he recover his spirits, which rise to an almost 
 insane pitch at the prospect of again fighting the 
 Spaniards and encountering his detested foe, Don 
 Guzman. 
 
 But, alas ! Amyas has shut himself out from the 
 lace of God, and when whole crews are receiving the 
 Communion before going into action, he turns away, 
 as he says, ' in charity with no man.' 
 
 Swift and sure is the retribution that falls upon 
 him, and, though our hearts ache with pity for the 
 humbled giant, we feel it to be as just as it is merciful. 
 In judging this man, one must take into consideration 
 the time in which he lived, when the hearts of English- 
 men burned to revenge the horrors of the Inquisition 
 and the insolent tyranny of Spain ; and, when we add 
 to these reflections the remembrance of his private 
 wrongs, we can comprehend without wishing to 
 justify his conduct. 
 
 Nothing can be more deeply pathetic than his 
 acceptance of his punishment ; so complete that he 
 not only admits the justice of it, but recognises the 
 nobler qualities of his late enemy, and all our old 
 affection for him returns as we read his touching 
 words of repentance and self-abasement, and realise 
 that henceforth he is called on to endure a life of 
 inaction and helplessness while still in the flower of 
 
 his manhood. 
 
 141 
 
Amyas Leigh. 
 
 We leave him with regret, and with something of 
 the same feeling with which we closed the Memoir 
 of his biographer. ' Take him for all in all, we shall 
 not look upon his like again.' 
 
 142 
 
Hereward. 
 
 HEREff^ARD THE WAKE. 
 
 By Charles Kingsley. 
 
' / ^vaged His loars^ and n<nu T pais and die, 
 me ! for ivky is all around us here 
 As if some lesser god had made the ivorldy 
 But had not force to shape it as he luould 
 Till the High God behold it from beyond^ 
 And enter it and make it beautiful f 
 Or else as if the luorld ivere ivhollyfair^ 
 But that these eyes of men are dense and dim^ 
 And have not power to see it as it tSj 
 Perchance because *ive see not to the close ; 
 For /, being simple^ thought to ivork His wtllj 
 And hofve but stricken with the sword in vain.* 
 
 Tennyson — ' Passing of Arthur.^ 
 
Hereward the Wake. 
 
 'Ife-ver .... that most mble knight 
 Were for one hour less noble than himself, 
 Pray for him that he 'scape the doom of fire, 
 And -weep for her -who drew him to his doom.' 
 
 Tennyson — ' Idylls of the King.' 
 
 HE story of Hereward the Wake has one 
 peculiar charm which is not always to be 
 
 found in stories. It is that charm which is 
 
 found in matchless perfection in the Greatest of Story- 
 books, and which gives to the life-histories recorded 
 there such wonderful power and influence over our 
 lives of nowadays, helping us, if we use the help 
 rightly, to * make our lives sublime.' It is the charm 
 of perfect truth. The man Hereward is made to live 
 and move before us as he lived and moved before his 
 contemporaries, with all the strength and all the 
 weakness of his character, a man of like passions 
 with ourselves. 
 
 All the strength : Loyal-hearted, truth-speaking, 
 faithful friend, noble enemy, chivalrous helper of the 
 weak and oppressed, scorner of meanness and double 
 dealing and sly diplomacy, reverent as a Christian, but 
 loathing utterly all cant or glib profession of piety. 
 
 All the weakness : A certain over-boastfulness and 
 
 L 145 
 
Hereward the Wake. 
 
 vaingloriousness of spirit, a bitter memory of wrongs 
 and heathenish joy in vengeance, and, above all, that 
 weakness which caused his fall, as it caused the sin of 
 Solomon and the ruin of Samson' — the weakness to 
 which strong men especially are prone, of yielding to 
 the wiles of evil women. 
 
 To those who are banded together for the very 
 purpose of working — God helping them — to raise and 
 ennoble all womanhood, this absorbingly interesting 
 story can scarcely fail to give food for very serious 
 thought of the power and responsibilities of women. 
 For we see the character of a strong and noble man 
 moulded at one time by the influence of a noble- 
 hearted woman, and then weakened and degraded by 
 that of a bold and wicked woman. Torfrida makes 
 Hereward feel ashamed of his foolish boasting and 
 disgusted with swinish pleasures of heavy feasting; 
 she draws out all that is best in him, and teaches him, 
 in small matters as in great, to show himself a true 
 Christian knight. And for love of her the wild lad, 
 who had been exiled and outlawed for the outrageous 
 behaviour which grieved his pious parents, Leofric 
 and Godiva, and gave unpardonable oiFence to some 
 of the clergy — this wild lad strove to rule himself, 
 and learned to pray. Torfrida, not less as his wife 
 than as the lady of his love, was Hereward's good 
 angel, doing angel's work on earth in the training of 
 a human soul. 
 
 Ah ! but Alftruda, the beautiful, the selfish, the 
 146 
 
Hereward the Wake. 
 
 wilful, the wicked— what of her ? Tempting by all 
 the power of her beauty and of her guile, determined 
 to win Hereward, less because she loved him than 
 because it was her ambition to possess him, knowing, 
 indeed, in her vain and shallow nature, nothing of true 
 love — love which desires above all the true happiness 
 of the loved one — what has she to answer for ? 
 Nothing less than the ruin of a noble nature, the 
 tragic end of an heroic life ! 
 
 But, though she gains her wicked will, she does 
 not gain the expected happiness. She knows in the 
 •depth of her heart that, though she has succeeded in 
 snaring Hereward's feet in her wicked web, she has 
 never really won his heart. That is with the heroic 
 woman who has proved the height and depth of her 
 love by willingly retiring into a convent, and thus 
 allowing her husband to have a divorce, that he may 
 gain that which he thinks will bring him happiness — 
 the new wife, young and lovely, the siren who has 
 lured him from his allegiance to Torfrida herself 
 
 There are such tragedies in real life, and nothing 
 can be more interesting to any thoughtful human 
 being than to watch the unfolding of any one such 
 story, tracing the consequences of men's actions and 
 following them through the ups and downs of life, 
 finding for ourselves as we read — 
 
 ' Some duty set in clearer light. 
 In seeing with another's sight 
 How men the ends of life may gain.' 
 '47 
 
Hereward the Wake. 
 
 In reading such a history as. this of Hereward and 
 his noble but fruitless struggle, this thought also can 
 hardly fail to strike us, that if only we had clear sight 
 of the ends of things, many tangles and troubles of our 
 lives would cease to seem so painful and perplexing ta 
 us as they now do. For we see that the Norman 
 Conquest, which to Hereward and his friends seemed 
 nothing less than the ruin of their nation, was far from 
 proving in the end so black and hopeless a calamity. 
 The wave of conquest was not the destructive ocean 
 wave which sweeps away all prosperity and leaves 
 behind it desolation ; rather was it like the overflow 
 of the great river of Egypt, which covers all the land 
 indeed for a time, but, then retiring, leaves the soil 
 enriched with sprouting life. Cruelty there was, and 
 confusion of justice and injustice, grasping greed, wily 
 statecraft in the conquerors ; and in the conquered, 
 bitterness against God and man, passionate desire of 
 vengeance, reprisals secret and open, black despair, 
 which opened the door to many crimes. But if Here- 
 ward could for can^ for we must remember that the 
 story is a true one, and Sir Hereward as real a character 
 as William of Normandy himself) — if he could look 
 now from another world, and learn what has passed 
 in the land that he loved so well, and how great a 
 nation grew from the mixture of conquerors and con- 
 quered, we may feel sure that he would rejoice, though 
 perhaps he would say, ' Even had I known, I could 
 not have done otherwise than I did.' Perhaps a man 
 
 148 
 
Hereward the Wake. • 
 
 ■so noble, so devoted to his country, could not have 
 ■done otherwrise than resist her conquerors to the 
 bitter end. 
 
 The history of his life and doings is too great a 
 story to be briefly told. Hereward, surnamed the 
 Wake from the acute and watchful spirit which was 
 not too common a characteristic of the Saxons, is 
 •depicted for us as the ideal Englishman, wanting in 
 the courtly manners and finer statecraft of the Flemish 
 and French, and even of the Northman ; a nature 
 strong, noble, and simple, with something of the child 
 about it in its candour and absence of guile and sus- 
 picion, in its credulity, too, and readiness to be in- 
 fluenced, and its love of song and story and delight 
 in success which leads to boastfulness. Fair-haired 
 and blue-eyed, not of the type of the Norse giants, 
 but broad-shouldered and sturdy, the physical strength 
 of Hereward was such as in those days sufficed to 
 raise a man into a popular hero — a few centuries 
 ■earlier would have ranked him with the gods. 
 
 Hereward was son of Leofric, the great Saxon 
 thane, and of that Godiva who, to win remission of 
 a heavy tax for the people of Coventry, rode through 
 the town wrapped only in her flowing hair. In his 
 wild youth he provoked the anger of the monks and 
 priests by his rough doings, and those of the reckless 
 band which he gathered about him, and gave so much 
 scandal that, by the desire of his own parents, too 
 serious to understand such a lad, he was made an 
 
 •49 
 
Hereward the Wake. 
 
 outlaw. So he went forth into the world rejoicing ir* 
 his great strength, and, because in heart he was noble> 
 not abusing it, but doing his great deeds chiefly in 
 defence of the oppressed. Great deeds, indeed, these 
 were, which minstrels for centuries delighted to sing,, 
 such as the slaying of the great bear, the rescue of the 
 Princess of Cornwall, or the winning of the wonderful! 
 mare. Swallow. In Flanders he meets Torfrida, the 
 Southern woman with the marvellous black eyes„ 
 whose power is not only in her beauty, but that which 
 subdued men in those ignorant days, the power of an 
 educated mind. She, as we have seen, proves a goodi 
 angel to Hereward. Had not his lot fallen upon evil 
 days, we may suppose that he would have lived on 
 with her into the honoured old age which should have 
 followed the noble knighthood to which Leofric's 
 scapegrace son attained. In the judgment of all his- 
 contemporaries there were few more perfect knights.. 
 But Edward the Confessor, the saintly, but weak and 
 even foolish king, was dead ; Harold, between whose 
 family and that of Leofric there was long-standing, 
 jealousy, became king. Then came Senlac, and the 
 Normans pouring into England after their Duke with 
 greedy eyes and grasping hearts. 
 
 William the Conqueror was a good judge of men. 
 He would have had Hereward the Wake (alike for 
 his strength and his keen watchfulness) to be his» 
 friend, and not his enemy. But that could not be,, 
 and the Wake gathered men together — the sturdy,. 
 
 150 
 
Hereward the Wake. 
 
 cool-headed men of the eastern fen country — and 
 held all those fens of Cambridge and Lincolnshire and 
 the counties round, with the Isle of Ely for a strong- 
 hold. He had learned abroad, and he continued to 
 learn from his enemies, the Normans, more of the art 
 of war than the English knew. But the struggle 
 must needs be a hopeless one, for William had force 
 on his side which overmatched all that Hereward 
 could raise, especially when success had rallied even 
 the majority of the English to his standard. At the 
 long last the brave leader was forced to burn his 
 stronghold and fly, hiding up and down the green- 
 wood for years, and, even in that desperate resort, 
 continuing to be a thorn in the side of the Conqueror, 
 who had tried diplomacy as well as force of arms 
 against the enemy whom he was forced to respect, 
 and whom he would gladly have won as an ally. 
 Alas ! that, as the Philistines conquered Samson, so 
 the last of the English was conquered — brought help- 
 less into the hands of the new King by the wiles of 
 a wicked woman ! The decline of his noble nature, 
 the scattering of the devoted band, the sufferings ot 
 the brave and proud soul of Torfrida among her 
 monastic austerities, make the close of the story 
 almost too sad to read. The character of Torfrida 
 is drawn with marvellous skill ; her undeserved suffer- 
 ings at the last rouse in us, as they roused in the 
 hearts of Hereward's followers, an ardent sympathy. 
 In her love for her knight is a touch of mother liness 
 
 151 
 
Hereward the Wake 
 
 which gives to the portrait a special reality, for we 
 see how it corresponds with that childlike element 
 in the character of Hereward which we have already 
 noticed. 
 
 There is much that is worth pondering over in 
 the growth of her character, and the darkening of its 
 sunshine under the tragic circumstances of her life. 
 The story of this noble but hopeless struggle must 
 needs grow sadder as it goes on. But through it all 
 the writer, though he never preaches to us, but simply 
 unwinds history, shows us the consequences of good 
 deeds and those of evil deeds, and makes us feel that 
 whatever rapine and wrong go forward ori earth for a 
 time, yet ' the Lord's seat is in heaven,' and that for 
 those who have striven to do His will, so far as their 
 weak eyes could see it, with them it is well for ever. 
 For Hereward the Wake — let his one great sin not 
 blot out for us his great nobleness — for him the fight 
 for justice and freedom was the nearest duty, and he 
 did it with all his might, with the strength of his 
 strong arm. For those who come after him the same 
 eternal warfare waits, for light against darkness, for 
 freedom and truth against slavery and wrong in some 
 form or another. The story leaves Richard de Rulos, 
 Hereward's heir in the third generation, showing his 
 courage by ' daring to be a man of peace,' and, for the 
 glory of God and the good of his fellow-men, draining 
 the fens. 
 
Charles Ravenshoe. 
 
 RAVENSHOE. 
 
 By Henrv Kingslet. 
 
' . . , . if it be a sin to c<yvet honour^ 
 I am the most offending soul alive.^ 
 
 Henry V., Act iv., Scene 3. 
 
Charles Ravenshoe. 
 
 * -He ivas the best man I ever knetv,'' — Ravenshoe. 
 
 HARLES RAVENSHOE was born on the 
 
 loth of June, 1831, at Ravenshoe Hall, a 
 
 fine old house on the North Devon coast. 
 
 His father wras the head of a very ancient Roman 
 Catholic family, his mother was a Protestant, and 
 died when Charles was born, having exacted a promise 
 from her husband that this her second son should be 
 brought up in her own faith. 
 
 This promise was faithfully kept by Denzil' 
 Ravenshoe, though not without difficulty, for he was 
 a man of weak character, and much under the in- 
 fluence of Father Mackworth, his chaplain and con- 
 fessor, who had been at Ravenshoe before the master 
 of it was married. Little Charles was sent out to 
 nurse with the Irish wife of his father's favourite 
 servant, now his gamekeeper, James Horton. She 
 took him into her arms along with her own boy baby 
 William, and nursed and loved them both alike, while 
 Ellen, her only girl, was like an elder sister to both. 
 She soon, however, had to give up Charles to a 
 Protestant nurse, who had entire charge of him ; 
 while, as he grew old enough, the vicar taught him 
 
 155 
 
Charles Ravenshoe. 
 
 his catechism and his prayers. Every Sunday he 
 went to -the parish church and sat by himself in the 
 great square family pew, a solitary little child ; but 
 not a lonely one, for all the village were his friends, 
 and rejoiced to see him there. He had what goes far 
 to make childhood happy — the devoted affection of 
 crowds of faithful servants and dependents. They 
 spoiled him, of course, but the recollection of their 
 love would be sweet to him all his life through. The 
 relations of landlord and tenant, servant and master, 
 were still of a feudal character at Ravenshoe fifty or 
 sixty years ago ; but they were touched and made 
 more vivid, perhaps, by the new ideas of mutual duty 
 and kindness which were beginning to be felt. At 
 that time, at any rate, the old bottles could still hold 
 some of the new wine. And then the little boy was 
 surrounded by all the interests of country life — the 
 happy life of a great easy-going, extravagant country 
 house, hospitable and comfortable, with all the dogs 
 and horses that any one could wish for ; plenty of 
 sport, and so much space and freedom that preserving 
 could never be a grievance ; beautiful wild country 
 over which he might roam at will, and the still wilder 
 and more beautiful sea always before his eyes. And 
 Charles was a nice little boy, honest and loving, with 
 curly hair and a rosy face, devoted to his older brother 
 Cuthbert, who was a grave, serio\is youth, who did 
 not like to show the real affection he felt for Charles, 
 and quite ready to be friends with Father Mackworth, 
 
 156 
 
Charles Ravenshoe. 
 
 who was the only person who did not love him in 
 return. So Charles had an extremely happy child- 
 hood, in spite of some black sins and sorrows in the 
 background of his family history. 
 
 Peter Ravenshoe, the father of Denzil, had married 
 a certain Lady Alicia Ascot, a sister of Lord Ascot, 
 a great sporting nobleman, who lived at Ranford, a 
 fine place on the Thames, not far from Twyford. 
 When Charles was about ten years old his great-aunt, 
 the dowager Lady Ascot, sent for him to pay her a 
 visit, which was the beginning of many things for 
 Charley. There he met and made friends with his 
 cousin, Lord Welter, a boy of his own age, just going 
 to Eton, and there he saw General Mainwaring, a 
 fine old hero of the Afighan war, and also a splendid 
 old gentleman, one of the dandies of the Regency, 
 Lord Saltire, who surprised him by asking after his 
 father's old servant Jim. And there, too, he fell in 
 love with Adelaide Welter, a beautiful little girl with 
 fair crinkly hair and bright blue eyes, an adopted 
 child of his kind, eccentric, grand lady of an aunt. 
 Lady Ascot. Charles enjoyed himself very much, 
 and then came home by train and coach through 
 much such a ' blizzard ' as has lately raged in the 
 west country, though he never thought of so calling it, 
 with the great trees crashing round him, and the wind 
 howling and blowing great guns. That night there 
 was a shipwreck in Ravenshoe Bay, and a little, quiet, 
 brown-eyed girl, who was called Mary Corby, was 
 
 '57 
 
Charles Ravenshoe. 
 
 saved from the wreck and brought up at Ravenshoe. 
 Charles and Lord Welter had a happy life at Eton, 
 but at the University they were wild and idle, and, 
 after a great row in Charles' rooms, were both rusti- 
 cated, and went away to Ranford together, after an 
 extremely unseemly but apparently innocent mis- 
 demeanour, in the account of which it appears that 
 young men then enjoyed rougher fun, but held the 
 offended authorities in far greater awe than at present. 
 William, Charles' foster-brother, who had grown up 
 remarkably like him, was with him at this time. At 
 Ranford Charles met Adelaide, a beautiful, ambitious 
 girl, who had laughed at his devotion all his life, but 
 who yielded to his entreaties and promised to marry 
 him. Old Lady Ascot pretended to be angry, but 
 really encouraged this attachment, and Charles went 
 home happy, but having discovered that Lord Ascot 
 was almost ruined, and that Ranford was a fast house, 
 where it was not well to be. 
 
 Over the dear old home there was a shadow of 
 coming evil. Denzil Ravenshoe's health was failing, 
 and Father Mackworth constantly watched him. 
 Another priest, a kind, jolly Irishman, Father Tiernay, 
 had come to join him, and with him Charles got on 
 capitally, but Mackworth resented Charles' boyish 
 roughness, and evidently tried to find a quarrel with 
 him. Once Charles accidentally let his Greek lexicon 
 fall over the stairs on Mackworth's head ; the priest 
 thought that it was an intentional insult, and in his 
 
 158 
 
Charles Ravenshoe. 
 
 anger let fall words which sank into Charles' mind, 
 and gave him a dim sense of danger ahead. This, 
 too, was William's belief, who, Catholic as he was, 
 distrusted Mackworth, and the trouble fell, first of all, 
 on the keeper's house. Ellen, the beautiful sister, fled 
 from her home — why, and with whom, no one knew ; 
 her mother died of grief, and Charles and William 
 were nearly equally distressed and ashamed. Still, 
 these, which were to be the last days of Charles' 
 youth, were, on the whole, happy. Mary was his 
 companion ; Cuthbert, though cold at times, was at 
 others passionately affectionate ; Adelaide had pro- 
 mised to be his ; sometimes he saw her. Friends and 
 visitors — Welter, Lord Saltire, and a college friend, 
 John Marston — came to Ravenshoe. Several things 
 happened which Charles did not know or notice. John 
 Marston fell in love with Mary and she refused him. 
 
 Almost at the same moment Father Tiernay mis- 
 took James Horton for Denzil Ravenshoe, and James 
 mistook Charles for William. Ellen, before she left 
 home, quarrelled — first with William, then with the 
 priest. 
 
 Charles himself, warm-hearted and simple-minded, 
 with pride of name and race hardly to be known from 
 love of home and kindred, but with little strength of 
 principle or power of self-control, was in no way fitted 
 to stand the heavy blow which was to fall upon him. 
 
 He went back to Oxford, and in Welter's absence 
 did well there, and rowed in the Oxford eight, among 
 
 159 
 
Charles Ravenshoe. 
 
 men who in those days, when ' muscular Christianity ' 
 was a powerful inspiration, were certainly 'good all 
 round.' The race was won, and as Charles, in high 
 spirits, stood in front of the ' Ship ' at Mortlake, 
 William touched him on the arm. His father was 
 dying, he must come home at once. William was 
 tender to him as a brother, took care of him, made 
 him eat, and tried to comfort him, but a deadly terror 
 hung upon Charles. He feared worse than sorrow. 
 They came too late to Ravenshoe : its master was 
 dead. Nothing could further trouble him, and his old 
 servant James died in the same hour of grief at his 
 loss, and was laid beside him in the family vault of the 
 Ravenshoes. 
 
 'They will never know what is coming,' said 
 William. 
 
 ' Do you know ? ' asked Charles. 
 
 ' No,' said William, and then the two swore to 
 stand by each other. 
 
 The week before the funeral was spent by Cuthbert 
 in prayers and in struggles to avert what he knew must 
 come ; by gentle little Mary in nerving herself to seek 
 another home, which old Lady Ascot offered her for 
 the present. 
 
 The funeral was over, and Charles and William 
 were summoned to the library together; Cuthbert, 
 pale as death, and the two priests were there. Then 
 the blow fell. William, not Charles, was the true 
 Ravenshoe ; the Irish foster-mother had changed them 
 
 i6o 
 
Charles Ravenshoe. 
 
 at nurse. Charles was the son of James, who was 
 himself the illegitimate son of Peter Ravenshoe, so 
 that the Ravenshoe face had belonged to him and to 
 his son alike. Charles fainted with the shock, but 
 when he came to himself, holding by William's arm, 
 and knew it was true, he refused all Cuthbert's offers 
 of a provision for him, said that he would go where 
 he could never be heard of, asked William, who said 
 scarcely anything, to take his horse and gun, and after 
 a wild outburst of grief and love for Cuthbert, whose 
 heart was breaking for him, rushed away and flung 
 himself on the floor of his room. 
 
 He had lost his identity, for all young souls are 
 part of their surroundings, and Charles had no self 
 apart from Ravenshoe, and his own people, and the 
 sense of his own place in the world. Whatever he 
 believed, the only living part of his creed was that 
 he was a gentleman, and even that seemed now swept 
 from him. He was literally beside himself ; William's 
 faithful love and Cuthbert's tenderness brought him 
 no comfort, and in despairing pride he fled from his 
 old home in the night. 
 
 One thing might still belong to him, Adelaide's 
 love. He went to Ranford, and found that Adelaide 
 had fled with Lord Welter, and not as his wife. He 
 went away without a word, ignorant that only half 
 the mystery of his birth was explained, and that old 
 Lady Ascot had more to tell. She and Cuthbert and 
 William set every possible agency at work to find him; 
 
 M l6l 
 
Charles Ravenshoe. 
 
 but perhaps detectives were less keen in those days, 
 advertisements less widely spread, the telegraph less 
 helpful, for they never found him, though he was 
 close at hand. Nor could he, at first, find his sister 
 Ellen, the only real relative he had in the world. 
 
 Charles took service as a groom with Hornby, a 
 lieutenant in the Guards, and lived in a London mews. 
 He did not mind it much on the surface, but really 
 his heart was broken. ' His master knew he was 
 a gentleman, and the other gentlemen's servants, 
 whom he found as a class worthy of all respect and 
 liking, were very kind to him. He himself was kind 
 to a little shoeblack in Grosvenor Square. Very 
 slowly the sense of life and pain came back to him. 
 One day he saw Lord Welter, and then, soon after, 
 he saw Mary Corby with the children of an old friend 
 to whom she was governess ; and Mary talked to them 
 about Charles and Ravenshoe. Then Hornby told 
 him that Lord Welter had at last married Adelaide, 
 and Charles learned that he had ruined Ellen, but that 
 she, nobler than Adelaide, had refused to marry him 
 because she would not act as a decoy to the young 
 men with whom he wished to gamble. 
 
 We must pass over a period of slowly failing 
 courage. Ellen left Lord Welter's home, Charles 
 met him, and thoughts of their boyish affection so 
 softened his heart, sick and faint with trouble, that 
 they parted hardly as enemies, rather as separated 
 friends. Then, with good news of which he never 
 i6z 
 
Charles Ravenshoe. 
 
 dreamed within his reach, Charles turned his back on 
 friends and brothers, and enlisted as a private in a 
 regiment bound for the Crimea. Desperately wounded 
 at Balaclava, Charles crept home, with broken health 
 and crushed spirits, to find, indeed, that 
 
 ' All the sport was stale, lad. 
 And all the wheels run down.' 
 
 He took service with an officer whose life he had 
 saved ; but the life with inferiors, which had been 
 possible to a man of not very active brain and in- 
 terested in outdoor life while in strong health, became 
 intolerable to him now that his nerves were all on edge 
 with pain and sleeplessness. 
 
 Dark thoughts of the river and of ending his misery 
 in its depths came across him ; and, when a summons 
 to the deathbed of the little shoeblack whom he had 
 formerly befriended obliged him to cross Westminster 
 Bridge, it was with the feeling that he did not know 
 how he should come back again. 
 
 As he held the dead child in his arms, some one 
 touched his shoulder, and he looked round and saw his 
 friend — John Marston. 
 
 Charles was found by a series of accidents, as 
 strange as those by which he had been constantly 
 missed. He had to hear much, — that Lord Saltire 
 had left him money, that Lady Ascot all along had 
 known that his father, called James Horton, had been 
 the lawful, not the illegitiniate, son of Peter Ravenshoe, 
 
 163 
 
Charles Ravenshoe. 
 
 so that his foster-mother's deceit had really put him in 
 his right place ; Ellen and he were the true Ravenshoes, 
 Cuthbert and William were the children of the younger 
 son. 
 
 Then Charles cried out that he would hide again ; 
 he would never displace Cuthbert. But Cuthbert was^ 
 beyond the reach of earthly change, he had been drowned 
 while bathing, at which news Charles broke down into- 
 passionate grief, and was soon too ill with brain fever 
 to know that all his loving friends were round him. 
 
 He recovered after a terrible illness, through whicb 
 William, only too thankful to give him back his own,, 
 nursed him tenderly, — recovered to find that his heart 
 had long been Mary Corby's, and to return tO' 
 Ravenshoe again, where Ellen emerged from the 
 convent in which she had hidden herself, and supplied 
 the missing links in the evidence of her own and 
 Charles' rights. So Charles, his wild pride subdued 
 and his heart full of thankfulness, came back to the- 
 friends who loved him so well. But there was still a. 
 shadow on his kindly face, and the merry look had 
 gone for ever from his eyes. 
 
 The story of Ravenshoe is so complicated that 
 the only way to bring out the most lovable character 
 of the hero seemed to be to tell it as clearly as possible,, 
 but in this way we have done very little justice to the 
 book as a whole, or to the other splendid characters 
 which it contains. Who will ever forget the church- 
 164 
 
Charles Ravenshoe. 
 
 going of those delightful children, Gus and Flora ; the 
 humour of Lord Saltire's remarks, and of old Lady 
 Ascot's unexpected turns of character and conversation ; 
 the fresh, hearty swing of the whole story, which, sad 
 as it is, is still so human and so wholesome, so full of 
 -sunshine and fresh air ? It is inspired by a spirit at once 
 liberal and intensely aristocratic, and also most opti- 
 mistic — a firm belief that the framework of English 
 society as it is, or was in ' the fifties,' oiFers the noblest 
 possibilities both for masters and servants, for rich and 
 poor. Then there is the old romantic view of the 
 ■Church of Rome as a mysterious foe, but a foe here 
 treated respectfully and chivalrously. There is a glory 
 of romance over it all, no one, even Lord Welter, 
 is as bad as he seems, a sort of outspoken innocence 
 about the book which seems to belong to a period 
 when many ideas, now hackneyed, were fresh, and 
 * when all the world was young ' with a spring of 
 youth which the author's greater brother had done 
 much to set flowing. 
 
 One of the closest and noblest followers of Charles 
 Kingsley was his brother Henry, and the love of 
 brother for brother, in spite of all diiFerences of 
 religion and character, is beautifully shown in Cuth- 
 liert and Charles Ravenshoe, while the tie that binds 
 William to both is hardly less strong. The ties of 
 kindred, of neighbourhood, of faithful service, are 
 brought out in their fullest strength, and with every 
 charm of external picturesqueness. 
 
 165 
 
Charles Ravenshoe. 
 
 It is a book that is full of faith, in home and friends 
 and country; in short, in all the possibilities of life 
 and character. Charles Ravenshoe's heart is nearly 
 broken by misfortune, and the story is as full of 
 tragedy as a story can well be. But its answer to 
 the question, 'Is life worth living?' is a most em- 
 phatic, ' Yes ! ' And therefore in its delightful pages 
 we shall find many friends who will help us to live 
 worthily. 
 
 1 66 
 
Mademoiselle Mathilde. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE MATHILDE. 
 
 By Henry Kingsley. 
 
* Self Sacrifice ! What is love 'worth that does not show 
 itself in action f and more^ ivhich does not sho'w itself in passion 
 in the true sense of that ivord : namely j in suffering? in daring, 
 in struggling, in grieving, in agonising, and, if need be, in 
 dying for the object of its hveV — Charles Kingsley. 
 
Mademoiselle Mathilde. 
 
 ' " Lwe is all and Death is nought I" quoth she,' 
 ■ Robert Browning. 
 
 N~ O one can read Henry Kingsley's story of 
 
 Mademoiselle Mathilde^ disjointed, oddly put 
 
 together as it is, without feeling that they 
 
 have made a new friend, in beautiful, clumsy Mathilde 
 d'Isigny, with her unselfish, loving soul, her devotion 
 to others, her unfailing abnegation of self. Not a 
 perfect woman by any means, yet one who is ever 
 striving after perfection, and who wins our affection and 
 respect by her honest desire to do right, and her large- 
 hearted love for all with whom she comes in contact. 
 
 ' For out of the abundance of her own great heart 
 she could love. God only, Who made that great heart, 
 can say how much. Could love, I say — did love! 
 Everything she met she took to her great capacious 
 bosom, and loved them. High and low, rich and poor, 
 dogs, cats, and dormice. There was an enormous 
 capacity of loving in her, which expressed itself in her 
 face,' and which shed itself most upon her sister Adele, 
 who, lovely and lovable as she is, was cause of most of 
 her troubles, and of all the greatest sorrow of her life ; 
 for ' Mathilde was a woman who ought to have had 
 children to take care of, for she loved those best who 
 teased her most. Full of humour withal, but " utterly 
 unable to sneer at people," amused most of all at her- 
 
 169 
 
Mademoiselle Mathilde. 
 
 self, " violently protesting against doing anything what- 
 ever, in a real Teutonic manner," and spending her 
 life " in doing such things as were fit to be done, such 
 as were right, after all." ' 
 
 As to looks, she is described as one of those persons 
 about whose beauty there is always discussion. ' Some 
 people said that Mademoiselle Mathilde was decidedly 
 plain. Some said that she must have been rather pretty 
 when she was younger. Others, again, said that what 
 little beauty she had wore well, and that she did not 
 show her age, which was twenty-four. Others, again, 
 said that she had a cold, hard, and somewhat stupid 
 face. Others said that her face wanted expression 
 until she was roused. But Mrs. Bone ' (' her English 
 servant ') declared ' that Mademoiselle's face was that 
 of an angel.' Added to this doubtful beauty a short 
 and clumsy figure, and a voice 'like the chiming of 
 silver bells.' 
 
 She and her sister Adele are the daughters of 
 M. d'lsigny, of one of the oldest families of France, 
 and of an Englishwoman of good birth, but with such 
 a violent temper that husband and children alike quail' 
 before it, and for the sake of peace have agreed to 
 live on her estates in Dorsetshire, while she occupies 
 M. d'Isigny's chateau in Brittany, and the time in 
 which the story is laid is that terrible one, surpassing 
 in its horrors all that fiction has ever imagined — the 
 time of the French Revolution. 
 
 The two girls have not a very happy time witli 
 170 
 
Mademoiselle Mathilde. 
 
 their father ; for, good man as he is, he is most cer- 
 tainly what nurses call ' contrairy^ and amusing descrip- 
 tions are given of his methods of discipline, and of his 
 curious crotchets in the disposal of the family life ; yet, 
 with all his crotchets, a man to respect, even when he 
 is most provoking — brave to the core ; ' a very tall, 
 splendidly made man, as to body : narrow flanks, deep 
 chest, graceful carriage. As to features, regular ; as to 
 complexion, perfect, .... the whole form of the 
 face noble and grand, handsome and inexorably calm ; ' 
 and though driving Mathilde sometimes, as she said 
 herself, not so much to rebellion as to revolution by 
 his sternness, ' making virtue appear so extremely 
 disagreeable,' yet when he condescends to a little 
 gentleness winning her so utterly that she vows to 
 give him her life if required, in the stormy times 
 coming on their unhappy country, and if need be 
 'to die mute.' 
 
 ' " Tell me," he says, " are you afraid of death ?" 
 
 ' " I am your daughter, sir." 
 
 ' " And so is Adele," said M. d'Isigny, quietly, " who 
 certainly could not die mute. What I mean is this. Do 
 you think that, if everything went wrong, you could trust 
 yourself to die without mentioning names ?" 
 
 ' " I am sure I could, sir.'' 
 
 ' " I am not so sure, you are not submissive ; you break 
 out at times and objurgate me. And just now, when I 
 complimented you about the management of a wretched 
 domestic detail concerning two fools, you burst into tears. 
 I doubt I cannot trust you." 
 
 171 
 
Mademoiselle Mathilde. 
 
 ' " You may trust me to the very death, sir ; and I will 
 die silent. I only ask this, Will you be kind to me ?" 
 
 '" No," said d'Isigny, shortly. "I was kind to you just 
 now, and you made a fool of yourself. I shall be stern to 
 you, and keep you up to the mark." ' 
 
 This is the discipline which, meant to brace 
 Mathilde, drives her sister, weak and pleasure-loving, 
 and abjectly afraid of her father, into deceit and dis- 
 obedience, involving Mathilde often in the conse- 
 quences of her faults, and taking as her right all the 
 love that Mathilde showers on her, even to the re- 
 nunciation of life's dearest hopes. 
 
 Very early in the story we gather the first hint of 
 what such renunciation means. Adele, with her charm 
 of beauty and pretty ways, has won and returns the 
 affection of their cousin, Louis de Valognes, but, 
 fearing her father's objection to the match, conceals 
 her feeling, while Louis has allowed both M. d'Isigny 
 and Mathilde to think that his visits and attentions 
 were paid to the latter. Mathilde's true, honest love 
 goes out to the -gallant lover who seems to have courted 
 it, and all the time Adele, though engaged to an English 
 neighbour. Sir Lionel Somers, carries on a clandestine 
 correspondence with Louis, over the water in France ; 
 but, the news of the English engagement reaching 
 Louis de Valognes, he starts off at once to see what 
 can be done, writing first to tell Adele that he is 
 coming to claim her hand. The letter, before it 
 reaches Adele, falls into the hands of M. d'Isigny, who, 
 
 172 
 
Mademoiselle Mathilde. 
 
 seeing how he has been deceived, sets to work to punish 
 Adele with one of his ingeniously contrived systems, 
 this time taking the form of elaborately respectful 
 deference to all her wishes, driving the foolish girl 
 nearly crazy. Mathilde, seeing the torments her sister 
 is subjected to, ignorant of her offence, does what she 
 can to shield her, and in so doing follows her one 
 morning when she is evidently starting out on a secret 
 expedition — follows her to warn her that their father 
 is close behind, and to save her if possible from the 
 eiFects of any indiscretion she may have in view ; and 
 so, thinking of Louis de Valognes, her lover as she 
 imagines him to be, she follows Adele on that summer 
 morning. 
 
 ' There was not a whisper of the summer wind across 
 the flowered grass, not a scent of rose or woodbine, not a 
 rustle of air among the trees, but what spoke of him, and 
 her love for him. Her whole great soul was filled with a 
 tender love for him, and as she walked under the gathering 
 shadows, and thought of him, and of the honour he had 
 done her among all women, her noble face developed a 
 radiant and glorious beauty, to which that of Ad^Ie was 
 small and commonplace.' 
 
 And then, hearing voices, she looks through the 
 hedge, and sees Adele clasped in De Valognes' arms, a 
 blow that strikes her as if to death. ' In the full flush 
 of her gentle, honest love for him, she had found him 
 false, and herself a dreaming fool.' Long afterwards, 
 when she was giving her life itself for her sister, and 
 
 173 
 
Mademoiselle Mathilde. 
 
 one said to her how hard it was to die, she only said, 
 'Bless you, I have died before this.' All thought of 
 herself, all care for her own happiness died then. One 
 moment she thought within herself that she had but to 
 keep silence, to leave them unwarned, and the punish- 
 ment for their deceit would surely come upon them ; 
 the next her whole thought was how to save Adele — 
 foolish, pretty Adele — from the consequences of her 
 deceit, though she determines that the deceit must last 
 no longer. She knows that Sir Lionel must be un- 
 deceived, and that in those days of duels the result will 
 most likely be a fight to the death between the rivals 
 for Adele's hand, and that her father will be equally 
 called on to fight ; so, confronting Louis, she bids him 
 fly at once, that her father is close at hand, and that if 
 he finds Louis there, the consequences to Adele will 
 be very terrible. 
 
 And then she tries her best to put things straight 
 for them all by going to Father Martin, their priest, 
 and begging him to 'help Adele out of the conse- 
 quences of her awful indiscretion,' treating her own 
 sorrow as of little moment and to be disregarded, so 
 only that Adele may be saved. 
 
 The duel is averted ; the engagement with Sir 
 Lionel broken without a quarrel ; Adele sent back to 
 France, to marry De Valognes in the end, while 
 Mathilde remains in Dorsetshire to look after her 
 father's interests there. The year goes on ; in France 
 things get worse and worse, and the Revolution, the 
 
 T74 
 
Mademoiselle Mathilde. 
 
 result of years of oppression, is bearing fruit in cruelty 
 and murder, while poor, lonely Mathilde, in England, 
 occupies herself with her poor and sick, thinking always 
 of others and never of herself, yearning for the exercises 
 of her religion, debarred to her now that Father Martin 
 has returned to France, and at last, Romanist as she 
 is, borrowing her servant's English Bible and reading it 
 with a hungry soul, for here, in this forbidden Bible, 
 she found every phase of her soul satisfied. 
 
 ' " Why have they kept it from me ? " she said ; and 
 there was no answer.' 
 
 To her in her loneliness came Sir Lionel Somers, 
 formerly her sister's aiEanced husband, but now, with 
 his eyes opened, beginning to see that Mathilde, whom 
 he had scarcely though of before, was one of the most 
 charming and original women he had ever met, and, as 
 a natural consequence, he fell in love with her ; and 
 Mathilde, ' a woman with a great longing heart which 
 had never been satisfied,' loved him, and felt that this 
 second love was so strong, that she told him who 
 knew all her story, that she really thought she had 
 never loved any but him from the first, and he should 
 be the last. 
 
 Then, in the flush of this new-found happiness, she 
 is called upon again to resign it, and again for Adele. 
 M. d'Isigny sends for her to look after Adele, now 
 Marquise de Valognes, who is in the thick of Royalist 
 plots, dragged into them by her violent and reckless 
 mother ; and Mathilde, knowing full well that, as her 
 
 •75 
 
Mademoiselle Mathilde, 
 
 lover put it, she is risking her own life and his happi- 
 ness, crosses to France, where, in those days, no one 
 who bore an aristocratic name was safe. The very 
 night after her arrival at her sister's chateau the guards 
 arrive to arrest Adele, and Mathilde, prompted by her 
 mother, goes forth in her place. 
 
 'Are you the daughter of d'Isigny, who married 
 the ci-devant Marquis de Valognes ? ' they ask. And 
 Mathilde tells the great lie from which she never de- 
 parted, ' I am,' and is carried away to prison in Paris. 
 
 A wonderful picture is drawn for us of the life m 
 this prison j ladies and gentlemen of the noblest birth, 
 huddled together in misery and in daily fear of death, 
 yet keeping up as far as might be the old traditions of 
 their order, the courtliness of manner, the refinements 
 of etiquette, and going to trial and execution with the 
 same stately grace with which they walked the minuet 
 in happier days ; many of them those who, by their 
 luxury, their profligacy, their carelessness of all things 
 good, had reduced the nation to such bitter straits, and 
 yet by sheer force of breeding rising to heroism, and 
 dying a noble death after years of wasted life. 
 
 To them comes Mathilde, bright, cheerful, willing 
 to save Adele even by her own death, yet still 
 hopeful that her life may be spared, and here, as 
 ever, looking out for what she can do to alleviate the 
 lot of others. She takes at once to her heart two sisters, 
 sharing with them her wretched cell, and mentally com- 
 paring them to herself and Adele : the elder, strong 
 
 176 
 
Mademoiselle Mathilde. 
 
 and patient ; the younger, beautiful, ' utterly wearied, 
 utterly idle, and petulant in her idleness,' kept by her 
 sister's love from the knowledge of the ruin that has 
 come upon them and all they held dear. And Mathilde, 
 in her strong yet tender love for both, breaks the news 
 of all this misery to the capricious young one, teaching 
 her to bear more patiently the present troubles. 
 
 Then comes the end, when the prisoners are let 
 out one by one, to be struck down by assassins at the 
 prison door. A French gentleman, St. Meard, who 
 had known her of old and had kept her secret for her, 
 learning as he did so to love and honour her, begs her, 
 on his knees, to own that she is not the Marquise de 
 Valognes who has been implicated in Royalist plots, 
 but only her innocent sister just come from England, 
 and once a kind friend to Marat, one of the leaders of 
 the Revolution, who could save her with a word ; her 
 English groom, William, who, for love of his mistress, 
 has got himself arrested so as to be with her, implores 
 her to speak out. But she only answered, ' You weary 
 me, you two ; I promised my father.' And so after a, 
 time, they sat still and saw her pray, till the guards 
 came to take her to her doom. 
 
 ' The night was late when they got downstairs into the 
 main passage or hall which led to the street. ... A table with 
 ruffians, guards with pikes, brandy bottles on the side table.' 
 
 The President interrogates her : — 
 
 '" You are the soi-disant Marquise de Valognes?" 
 
 '"I am the soi-disant Marquise de Valognes," she an- 
 
 N 177 
 
Mademoiselle Mathilde. 
 
 swered, firmly ; and thought, " I shall not die with a lie 
 on my lips after all."' 
 
 Then they accuse her of plotting, and the mock 
 trial is at an end ; she is ordered forth to die, and her 
 last words are, 'You men, I forgive you all;' and to 
 her friend, who stands by, ' I will compromise you by 
 no messages, but, if you live to see any one whom I 
 have loved, tell them I love them still.' 
 
 ' So she went down the steps, carrying her missal, and, 
 entering the dark passage, was lost to sight. Nothing to 
 be seen of her any more in this life save the missal she held ; 
 and on one leaf, which opened easiest to the hand as being 
 the most used, there was an illumination in red, which the 
 patient monk, who had done the beautiful work, had never 
 contemplated .... a broad red stain across the lilies and 
 the ivy leaves.' 
 
 Only this and her good works, and her gentle 
 memory, acting as an ennobling influence on all she had 
 loved and suffered for, and on all who read this story 
 of a life of abnegation and love, with its fitting ending 
 of a calm and silent death. 
 
 How can we end better than with the words which 
 
 that other martyr in this story, the noble Father Martin, 
 
 chanted as he, too, went to his death : — 
 
 ' a«n 31 JeatB s great Hoice out «f Jeaaen, sfsjing, TBeiolD 
 tl&e taiernacle of (Son is isiti) men, ann !&e tnill niocH ioiti) 
 if)tm, aitn tle^ sJjaH lie ipts people, snn ®on ^imseli s^sH ie 
 iaifb rteirt ann lie t^eir (Son; ann (Son sjall inipe all teats 
 front tjetr ejesi, ann tTjere g^all ie no more neati, neither 
 gottoto, nor crying, neirter sjall tljere it an? more pain, for 
 t1)e former things are passen ajnap.' 
 
 178 
 
John Halifax, Gentleman. 
 
 JOHN HALIFAX. 
 
 By Mrs. Craik. 
 
* John Halifax, Gentleman, is simply tAe history of a. 
 poor young clerij *who rises to be a ^wealthy mill-Qivner in 
 the manufacturing districts in the early part of this century. 
 But he contrives to be an heroic and ideal clerkj an heroic and 
 ideal mill-owner ; and that without doing anything luhick the 
 loorld 'mould call heroic or iiUal^ or in any 'wise stepping out 
 of his sphere^ minding simply his own business^ and doing the 
 duty ivhich lies nearest him. And howf By getting into 
 his head the strangest notion^ that in 'whatever station or 
 businea he may bcy he can ahvays be 'what he considers a 
 gentleman; and that if he only beha-ves like a gentleman^ all 
 must go right at last, A beautiful book. As I said before^ 
 somewhat of an heroic and ideal book, ' 
 
 Charles Kingsley. 
 
John Halifax, Gentleman. 
 
 ^And thus he bore 'without abuse 
 l^he grand old name of Gentleman^ 
 
 In Memoriam. 
 
 HESE lines appear on the title-page of John 
 Halifax^ suggesting a question which we of 
 
 the present day especially must often ask 
 
 ourselves. For now that the words Gentleman and 
 Lady, and even, though less commonly, Gentlewoman, 
 -are so freely applied that to withhold them is almost 
 an insult, and they must needs be at times 'soiled 
 with all ignoble use,' it must be well for us to pause 
 -and ask ourselves whether these words have indeed 
 any distinctive meaning whatever, and distinguish any 
 kind of person from any other kind of person. For 
 kw people nowadays would, I suppose, define a 
 gentleman as a man who wears a good coat or drives 
 a fine carriage — the man whom Carlyle throughout 
 his writings delights to call a Gigman, according to 
 the definition given once in a law court of "■ a very 
 xespectable person.' 
 
 The author of John Halifax answers this question 
 iby painting for us with consummate skill and delicacy 
 the portrait of a gentleman ; and it is well worth while 
 jiot merely to skim the book hastily, but to study it 
 with care, seeing how, while circumstances help to 
 
John Halifax, Gentleman. 
 
 mould the man, yet he also meets and conquers cir- 
 cumstances, and so comes out of sorrow and joy alike, 
 more noble and more perfectly gentle in spirit, as one 
 set of circumstances changes like a dissolving view 
 into another set For our author has not painted a 
 man absolutely perfect. In our poor human nature^ 
 virtues even may be exaggerated into faults. Good 
 nature tends to pass over into a weak yielding to evil,, 
 thrift into avarice, diligence into a soul-deadening, 
 drudgery for ruin, and high purpose into ambition — 
 by that sin fell the angels. The noblest and best 
 qualities need to be trained and restrained by the 
 grace of God to perfect service by the building up,, 
 not of one or two characteristics merely, but of the 
 whole character into the image of Christ, which is 
 the image also of the perfect gentleman. 
 
 In John Halifax we see this gradual tempering and. 
 refining of a nature strong in candour and honesty,, 
 courage and self-respect ; a strong nature, yet one in 
 which, under the sterner qualities, lay a depth of ten- 
 derness that, under evil influence, might have been his 
 bane, but that became, by God's grace, his blessing. 
 
 John Halifax knows little of his parentage. Only 
 on the fly-leaf of his one treasure — a tiny Greek 
 Testament — were written the dates on which Guy 
 Halifax, Gentleman, was wedded and died. Our 
 author, while showing how men may raise themselves,, 
 would yet not have us despise gentle birth. It is a 
 good thing to be gently born, because heredity does. 
 
John Halifax, Gentleman. 
 
 something for us in good things as well as in evil, and 
 because, just as the son of a drunkard will probably 
 have one special temptation to fight, so the child of 
 parents who have thought pure thoughts and done 
 gracious acts may hope to inherit something of the 
 nobler spirit to which they attained before him. Of 
 his birth, then, John Halifax is neither vain nor 
 ashamed ; it is to him something to be thankful for, 
 as a man may and should be thankful for strength of 
 limb, or speed of foot, or any other birthgift of God. 
 
 When we see him first, however, it is as a pinched 
 and hungry-looking lad, in clothing worn but clean, 
 who is glad to earn a few pence by wheeling home 
 the invalid carriage of the lame and weakly Phineas 
 Fletcher, the narrator of the story. A shower of rain 
 has come on while Abel Fletcher, the stern yet not 
 unloveable father of Phineas, was taking his son for 
 an airing, and the busy man must hasten back to 
 business. Alas ! how great a trial to Abel Fletcher 
 was the weakliness of his only child, Phineas knew 
 but too well. There is a quiet strength about the 
 boy John Halifax which even in this first interview 
 draws Phineas to him even as, long ago, the gentle 
 soul of Jonathan was drawn to that of David, in 
 whom, while but a boy, the God of Israel saw the 
 qualities needed for a ruler of His people. These 
 two are David and Jonathan to their lives' end. And 
 while they wait together for the rain to cease we have 
 a glimpse of another young spirit : a little scene is 
 
 183 
 
John Halifax, Gentleman. 
 
 acted which turns out later to be one of those ' trifles ' 
 which shape the course of human lives. 
 
 At the nursery window of the mayor's good, solid, 
 provincial town-house opposite, rosy little faces are 
 peeping, smiling with amusement at the predicament 
 of the two boys, while within are heard pleasant 
 sounds of preparation for dinner. Presently among 
 the others appears the face of another child, whom 
 Phineas knows to be only a visitor. After looking a 
 moment she disappears, and then suddenly the hall 
 door opens and the little girl appears at it, followed 
 by a loudly protesting nurse. In one hand is a loaf, 
 in the other a knife. She cuts a slice of bread and 
 cries, 'Take it, poor boy! you look so hungry!' and 
 then, as the nurse drags her in, she throws the slice 
 -towards John Halifax, and both boys start, for the 
 door closes upon a sharp cry. 
 
 By degrees John Halifax wins his way into the 
 esteem — after long years into the love — of Abel 
 Fletcher, the hard, upright, narrow-souled, but just 
 and excellent man. The cart of reeking hides which 
 he must at first drive, and the unpleasant circum- 
 stances of the tanyard, revolt the son of ' Guy Halifax, 
 Gentleman.' But while he admits the loathing, he 
 knows himself able to strive against and conquer it ; 
 so that in all things he is found faithful, and his master 
 advances him step by step, praising him now and 
 again with grave praise, solemn as the reproofs which 
 he is never slow to administer when duty seems to 
 
 184 
 
John Halifax, Gentleman. 
 
 require it. Meantime, the friendship betweea the 
 two lads grows with their growth, till a sudden stop 
 is put to, it by the old Quaker's stern command. 
 The two have been into a theatre, have seen — no 
 worse sight — Mrs. Siddons as Lady Macbeth, and 
 John takes upon himself the blame, if blame must 
 be, of the adventure. And Fletcher speaks no angry 
 words, but his cold ' I have been mistaken in thee ' 
 smites John Halifax more sharply than any reproaches 
 could have done, and though his stern sense of justice 
 forbids him to dismiss the lad from his business, since 
 in that he has never proved himself unworthy, yet a 
 companion to Phineas he shall no longer be. 
 
 Thus two lonely years for Phineas pass, and then 
 comes 1820, the dear year when England was filled 
 with horror ; for war, famine, and tumult came 
 stalking hand in hand, and none could stay them, 
 when July found the quartern loaf at the famine price 
 ■of nearly three shillings, and meal four shillings a-peck. 
 The scene of the story is laid in Gloucestershire, and 
 the Bristol bread riots are matter of history. The 
 ferocious attack on Abel Fletcher's mill, and the calm 
 courage and tact of young John Halifax's conduct, 
 form an episode of most thrilling interest. 
 
 Once more 'David and Jonathan' are permitted 
 to enjoy the old happy intercourse, and since the 
 excitement of the riots has made Phineas ill, the two 
 go away together to country lodgings at ' Enderley,' 
 by which perhaps is intended Amberley, a most lovely 
 
 185 
 
John Halifax, Gentleman. 
 
 spot in the midst of the lovely scenery of the Cotswold 
 Hills. And here it is that the fate which Phineas has 
 already begun to anticipate — not without dread — for 
 his friend comes upon John Halifax. The glimmer 
 of a grey silk gown, glimpses of a slender but stately- 
 girl figure, lastly acquaintance with Ursula March, 
 and some services which the young man can render 
 to the solitary girl, whose long-ailing father rapidly 
 fades and dies. Then the sight of a long purple scar 
 on the slender wrist, and the discovery that the wound 
 was received on the day long ago when she struggled,, 
 knife in hand, with her nurse, to give a bit of bread 
 to a certain 'poor hungry boy.' 
 
 There is nothing in all the story in which we more 
 strongly feel John Halifax to be the true gentleman than 
 his relations with Ursula March, the exquisite tender- 
 ness and delicacy and self-restraint of his every thought^ 
 word, and deed. Happy the woman to whom it is given 
 to be loved thus ! And happily Ursula is worthy of 
 such love. But before she leaves Enderley John has 
 something to tell her ; not the happy secret of his love,^ 
 no, but the fact that as the world esteems such things, 
 he is not her equal, she is a lady, he is — a tradesman^ 
 making no mention now of Guy Halifax, Gentleman.' 
 
 So they part, but fate does not sunder them to a 
 great distance. Ursula March is coming to Norton 
 Bury, to the house of her cousin and trustee. Squire 
 Brithwood, of the Mythe. And now we have a por- 
 trait which we may set beside that of John Halifax,. 
 
 i86 
 
John Halifax, Gendeman. 
 
 and look ' upon this picture and on this,' the portrait 
 of the gentleman in birth, the churl in spirit, of whom 
 the poet's words are entirely true ; — 
 
 ' The churl in spirit, howe'er he veil 
 His want in forms for fashion's sake. 
 Will let his coltish nature break 
 At seasons through the gilded pale : 
 
 For who can always act ?' 
 
 And Richard Brithwood gratuitously insults John 
 Halifax at an evening party to which he and Phineas 
 have been invited by Lady Caroline Brithwood's 
 special request, offers him money for the service 
 rendered many years before, when John Halifax saved 
 the Squire and Ursula March's father from drowning 
 in an eger on the Severn. In this scene one man 
 disgraces himself, but that man is not John Halifax ; 
 for, as Ursula bravely declares before all the assembly, 
 ' no insult offered to a man can ever degrade him, the 
 only real degradation is when he degrades himself.' 
 
 Ursula leaves her cousin's house and comes to 
 live with her old governess, the wife of Dr. Jessop. 
 But John Halifax made no attempt to force himself 
 upon her notice. Not only is she in the world's 
 judgment above him, she is an heiress also. It is left 
 to Phineas, the faithful friend, to bring them together 
 at last, when John finally breaks down under the 
 severity of his self-restraint and becomes seriously ill, 
 poor Phineas feeling as he does so that his friend will 
 
 187 
 
John Halifax, Gentleman. 
 
 never be quite the same again to him. But after long 
 years Phineas can happily declare that the friendship, 
 if not quite the same in kind, is no less in strength, 
 and from the day when Abel Fletcher goes to his 
 reward in peace, the home of John and Ursula is his 
 home ; he is brother Phineas to them. Uncle Phineas 
 to the children. 
 
 We have now the record of a beautiful family life 
 begun in poverty that was not sordid, because bravely 
 met, but was real, for Richard Brithwood withholds 
 Ursula's fortune for some years, and only gives it up 
 at last when Lord Luxmore, Lady Caroline's father, 
 interferes for purposes of his own, because he wants 
 John Halifax to be useful to him in politics. How 
 bravely and yet how courteously John conducts him- 
 self in this matter of the rotten 'pocket borough' the 
 story records, John among the county magnates and 
 the working folk alike showing at once the dignity 
 and courtesy of a true gentleman. 
 
 Now John Halifax grows year by year in wealth 
 and influence, and the spiteful attempt of his enemy to 
 ruin him by diverting the stream which turns his cloth 
 mill is changed into a blessing, for he meets need by 
 applying the new and wonderful motive power — steam. 
 
 Serious riots have in many places followed the 
 introduction of this new force ; ' a devil,' as it seemed 
 to the uneducated minds, to whom all that is new is 
 matter for suspicion. But there was no riot at John 
 Halifax's mill, because his men both loved and re- 
 
John Halifax, Gentleman. 
 
 spected him. Christian tact and Christian firmness 
 ever went hand in hand in his dealings with them, and 
 it may be worth while to chronicle in his wife's words 
 his simple recipe for making his men feel him friend 
 as well as master : ' To pay attention and considera- 
 tion to all they say, and always to take care and 
 remember to call them by their right Christian names.' 
 A little matter this last seems, but what a depth of 
 meaning there is in it ! 
 
 With growing wealth comes to John Halifax the 
 thought of growing duty. Very beautiful is the episode 
 of the self-denial which induces husband and wife to 
 move from 'happy little Longfield' to Beechwood 
 Hall. Not for the sake of a place in the county 
 society, for what might have been ambition in John 
 has, by the grace of God, become perception of the 
 highest duty and faithfulness in fulfilling it. The eager 
 cry of the eldest son that they will found a family and 
 make an honoured name is met by the gentle reproof 
 that there is one Name only which men should live 
 to glorify, and that the only founding of a femily for 
 which the father hopes is that he may be able to say, 
 ' As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.' 
 
 One tender memory remains at Longfield. There 
 sleeps one child — one sweetest faded snowdrop flower, 
 born in winter snows, born to blindness of the out- 
 ward eyes, but also to utter peace of spirit ; the child 
 whom Abel Fletcher solemnly blessed in dying, and 
 who wa$ blessed — Muriel Joy Halifax. 
 
 1S9 
 
John Halifax, Gentleman. 
 
 For the other children, cares on their account must 
 needs come into the prosperous and honoured life of 
 John Halifax. As he ruled his workpeople, so he 
 ruled his household — tenderly, but firmly, too — 
 checking with no weak ' Nay, my sons,' when 
 checking is needed. Rather than that his Maud, the 
 one daughter left to him, should wed an unworthy 
 suitor, rather than give her to a life of high position 
 but to a husband whom he does not trust, John would 
 see her heart break, would bear even the pang that 
 wrung that tender heart of his when Muriel was laid 
 to rest. So his wise and tender training bears good 
 fruit, and his children are the glory of his old age. 
 
 So much I have told of the story of John Halifax, 
 but this is little, for, apart from the exquisite 'cha- 
 racter-study,' the story is interesting, and in parts 
 even most exciting. If so much as has here been 
 written will tempt readers to get the book for them- 
 selves, most surely they will not be disappointed. 
 
 Some who read these lines may have seen in the 
 New Gallery Exhibition of a recent year, the portrait 
 of an old lady in whose face sweetness and strength 
 were wonderfully blended. That was the portrait of 
 Dinah Muloch (Mrs. Craik), who is remembered by 
 much good literary work, but by nothing better than 
 this book — good not only to amuse a leisure hour, 
 but to cheer the heart for the work and trials of life — 
 the story oijohn Halifax, Gentleman. 
 
 190 
 
Hilda. 
 
 TRANSFORMATION. 
 
 By Nathaniel Hawthorne. 
 
^0/air! purest i be thou the dove 
 Thatfihi alone to some sunny grove^ 
 And lives unseen and bathes her luing^ 
 All vestal luhite, in the limpid spring. 
 There, if the hovering hawk be near^ 
 That limpid spring, in its mirror dear, 
 Reflects him ere he can reach his prey^ 
 And ivarns the timorous bird away, 
 
 be like this dove I 
 Ofair ! purest ! be like this dove ! ' 
 
 T. Moore. 
 
Hilda. 
 
 ^Haivthorne exactly hit! the point -when he calls Trans- 
 formation a moonshiny romance,^ , . . , 
 
 Courtney — ' Studies New and Old.' 
 
 H 
 
 AWTHORNE'S Transformation is a book 
 by no means of an ephemeral kind, either 
 for the sake of its beauty or its depth. It 
 is at once a poetic sketch of Rome as she was in the 
 days of the Second French Empire, so that Corinne 
 and Transformation are the great handbooks of modern, 
 not present, Rome ; and it is also a study on the effects 
 of evil, and how repentance of a sin may form a con- 
 science and raise a character. 
 
 Hilda is the character of the tale, who stands aloof 
 from evil. She is an American maiden, gifted with 
 talents for art, who has come to Rome to study, and, 
 with the freedom of American habits and artist life, 
 dwells alone in a tall old tower, in a chamber high 
 aloft, the tenure of which is to keep a lamp, in honour 
 of the Blessed Virgin, continually alight, and though 
 strong in her anti-Roman opinions, and holding with 
 her Puritan ancestry, she enjoys paying this homage 
 to the pure being in whom womanhood was ennobled ; 
 and, as an appropriate setting, her tower is haunted by 
 a flock of white doves, who flutter round her, sit on 
 her shoulder, and feed from her hand. 
 
 o 193 
 
Hilda. 
 
 In contrast with Hilda is her friend Miriam, a beau- 
 tiful woman with a mysterious past ; and whereas Hilda 
 prefers not to attempt originality, but to copy, study,, 
 and interpret, by her wonderful spiritual intuition and ex- 
 quisite work, the higher meanings of the greatest sacred 
 painters, Miriam seems able to produce nothing that 
 does not finally wear a sad and even mocking expression. 
 
 The character who is really the central one of the 
 book is Donatello. There was a belief in the old 
 heathen times of Greece in creatures who combined in 
 themselves the man and the beast, some repulsive, some 
 beautiful, who haunted the woods and glades, and were 
 represented in sculpture as fauns and satyrs. The 
 most noted of these figures is an exceedingly beautiful 
 statue at Rome, known as the Faun of Praxiteles,, 
 which bears nothing of the beast-form except that the 
 ears are prolonged into points, and the whole counte- 
 nance, though far from dull and full of good nature and 
 brightness, has no more expression or soul than the 
 aspect of a free and joyous animal. 
 
 Now, to the society in which Hilda lives there 
 joins himself a young Italian count, Donatello, of a 
 mountain family who are reported to be descendants 
 from a Faun, and the youth himself seems to have the 
 undeveloped soul, and the joyous affinity with nature,, 
 of a semi-animal. He is a delightful being, full of life 
 and mirth, able to gather birds around at his summons,, 
 dancing with exquisite frolic, but unable to think or 
 apply himself, and there are reports that' his fore- 
 
 194 
 
Hilda. 
 
 fathers always became ferocious in their latter years. 
 Moreover, he never wrill let his ears be looked at 
 beneath his thick curls. 
 
 Donatello followrs Miriam much as a faithful dog 
 might do, with the same entire and instinctive affection, 
 and when he sees her followed about and persecuted 
 by a mysterious enemy for whom she evidently feels a 
 horror and aversion, the same instinct of defence and 
 protection as the dog might feel is aroused, and he 
 hurls the wretch down the Tarpeian Rock. 
 
 The only witness to the deed, herself all unseen, is 
 the gentle Hilda. To her soul the perception is not 
 only a frightful one, but the first revelation of the 
 depth of sin, as though an abyss had suddenly opened 
 before her. For though the act was Donatello's, all 
 unprompted, Miriam's face of hatred, and then of 
 relief and even triumph, could not be forgotten, and 
 made her a partner to the deed in her own conscience 
 as well as in Hilda's mind. 
 
 Hilda remains, sleepless, as though paralysed with 
 horror, in her tower all night, and by-and-by is visited 
 by Miriam. There is an unspoken understanding of 
 the barrier between them. Hilda is cold and still, 
 with the crystal-like hardness of innocence towards 
 guilt beyond the pale of sympathy ; and Miriam feels 
 the judgment and does not try to soften her, but goes 
 away, committing to her charge a packet to be delivered 
 at a certain place in four months' time if she herself has 
 not been heard of 
 
 '95 
 
Hilda. 
 
 Then Hilda is left alone with her dreadful secret 
 pressing on her, and taking from her all the joy of life. 
 
 The story then carries us to Donatello's tower to 
 trace the way in which the weight and consciousness 
 of his crime work upon him. Nothing is more 
 touching and beautiful than the scene where he finds 
 that he has lost his perfect relations with the wild, 
 innocent things of nature, and that the birds and wood- 
 land creatures which used to gather round him at his 
 call now shrink away from him. Remorse turns to 
 devotion and repentance, and the soul begins to be 
 developed. Miriam joins him again, for it is to be 
 understood that her stronger and fuller nature is needed 
 to aid him in the struggle. It is then made known 
 that Miriam, half Italian, half English, had been married 
 when a mere child to a man of evil and vicious nature, 
 who had forced her into participation in some horrible 
 crime, which is never revealed, and of which she feels 
 the involuntary guilt. This had separated them, as 
 she hoped never to meet again, but the man had sud- 
 denly come on her in the catacombs, dogged her steps 
 like an evil spirit, and always with some fiendish sug- 
 gestion. But, though Donatello's hand had freed her, 
 is is not for joy and bliss. One or two flashes are 
 allowed us while he is gathering strength for his resolve, 
 and a graver, fuller happiness — that of pardoned sin — 
 is reflected in his countenance, ere finally, as we are 
 given to understand, he completes his expiation by 
 giving himself up to justice. 
 
 196 
 
Hilda. 
 
 Meantime Hilda had remained at Rome, restless 
 and unhappy under her secret, unable to apply herself 
 to her art, or to study the saintly countenances that 
 once had breathed peace on her, but wandering from 
 church to church, trying to find rest in the sacred 
 atmosphere. At last, in St. Peter's Church, the 
 impulse of sharing her burden and pouring out her 
 grief is so strong that she kneels down in a confessional, 
 and tells her whole history to one who proves to be an 
 American priest — a kind old man — who comes forth to 
 speak to her face to face, and to tell her that as she 
 was not of his Church, there was no seal of the confes- 
 sional upon her avowal, but that she need not fear him ; 
 and, indeed, that he believed that the fact was already 
 known to the authorities. She is soothed and refreshed, 
 and the weight is taken from her heart, but she re- 
 members Miriam's charge, and the appointed time being 
 come, she sets ofF to deliver the packet. From that 
 time she vanishes, her tower is empty, but her desk 
 has gone from it. She finally reappears, placed on a 
 balcony in the midst of the carnival. We are not 
 told, but we infer that she had been subjected to an 
 examination upon the confession that Miriam's letter 
 contained, and, likewise, that attempts had been made 
 to win her to the Romish Church, and these not suc- 
 ceeding, she is set free in all her sweet purity and 
 constancy to return to her lamp and her doves. We 
 are told that she rewards the affection of the sculptor 
 who has been the friend of Donatello and her lover 
 
 197 
 
Hilda. 
 
 throughout. On Hilda's wedding day a precious gift 
 from Miriam is laid on her table, but the fate of 
 Miriam is left a mystery, and as to Donatello, we are 
 only told that Hilda's hopeful spirit saw sunlight on 
 the mountain side. 
 
 It is a wonderful book, and leaves the thought on 
 our minds whether the great mystery of Evil, Re- 
 demption, and Repentance be meant to work out the 
 highest development of human nature. Hilda shrinks 
 from the idea, but it remains as a question. 
 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne's style is one of great beauty 
 and vividness, and there are exquisite thoughts scat- 
 tered through the book. Thus the author says of 
 Hilda becoming a copyist : — 
 
 'It strikes us that there is something far higher and 
 nobler in all this, in her thus sacrificing herself to the devout 
 recognition of the highest excellence in art, than there 
 would have been in cultivating her not inconsiderable share 
 of talent for the production of works from her own ideas. 
 She might have set up for herself and won no ignoble name; 
 she might have helped to fill the already crowded and 
 encumbered world with pictures not destitute of merit, but 
 falling short, if but by ever so little, of the best that has 
 been done; she might thus have gratified some tastes that 
 were incapable of appreciating Raphael. But this could 
 be done only by lowering the standard of art to the com- 
 prehension of the spectator. She chose the better and loftier 
 and more unselfish part, laying her individual hopes, her 
 fame, her prospects of enduring remembrance, at the feet of 
 those great departed ones whom she so loved and venerated ; 
 and therefore the world was the richer for this feeble girl.' 
 
 We have chosen this extract because it so well 
 shows woman's mission of being an interpreter. 
 
 198 
 
Mara: the Pearl. 
 
 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 
 
 By Mrs. Beecher Stowe. 
 
' Many the gemz of the Church that she hath in eternal remembrance^ . 
 yeiveis of siher and jewels of gold^ her virgins and martyrs. 
 Each hath the pearl in their hand, ivhick the Prince in His lonje- 
 
 hath prepared thenZj 
 Each hath the pearl you may bring, and the Prince in His love • 
 ivill accept it," 
 
 J. M. Neale. 
 
Mara. 
 
 ' I'here are^ both of men and ivomen^ beings horn into this 
 luorld in tvhom from cMldhood the spiritual and the reflective 
 predominate over the physical, .... They are the artists j the 
 poets, the unconscious seers, to luhom the purer truths of spiritua. 
 
 instruction are open Multitudes of them pass aiuay in 
 
 earlier years, and leave behind in many hearts the anxious 
 wonder, why they came so fair, only to mock the love they 
 kindled, They ivho live to maturity are the priests and 
 priestesses of the spiritual life, ordained of God to keep the 
 balance betvjeen the rude but absolute necessities of physical 
 life and the higher sphere to tvhich that must at length give 
 place.' — H. B. Stowe. 
 
 T 
 
 HE rare and exquisite personality which Mrs. 
 Beecher Stowe has created for us in Mara 
 Lincoln is less familiar to the general reader 
 than many of the other characters drawn by the same 
 hand, because for some unaccountable reason The 
 Pearl of Orr's Island appears to be so much less 
 known amongst us than her other writings. 
 
 Uncle Tom's Cabin and Dred are, as everybody 
 knows, not mere books of fiction, but works of great 
 national importance, written from the heart's depths, 
 in the service of the great cause to which Mrs. Stowe 
 devoted her life ; but we do not think that for grace 
 of style, power of word-painting, and a certain delicate 
 
Mara: the Pearl. 
 
 mingling of humour and pathos, never exaggerated, 
 but always kept within the limits of true art, the story 
 of the Pearl has ever been surpassed, even by the 
 great American authoress herself. 
 
 When we speak of Mara's personality, we use the 
 term advisedly, for, unlike some other characters, hers 
 was expressed in that outward form which enshrined 
 the soul within. 
 
 The offspring of a grave, pure-minded mother and 
 a manly father — born in sorrow and baptized in tears 
 — the orphaned child grows up before us, in the pages 
 of this charming story, from infancy to womanhood, 
 watched over by her grandparents, the old fisherman 
 and his wife, as she plays about the quaint brown 
 house on Orr's Island, and lights up the little kitchen 
 with her pretty presence — a slender child — ' small of 
 stature, beyond the wont of children of her age, and 
 moulded with a fine waxen delicacy that won admira- 
 tion from all eyes. Her hair curly and golden, but 
 her eyes dark like her mother's, and the lids drooping 
 over them in that manner which gives a peculiar ex- 
 pression of dreamy wistfulness.' Quite out of char- 
 acter, it would seem at first, with the homely sur- 
 roundings in which her lot is cast, only that all who 
 knew her loved her — and love, true and real, even 
 under the roughest exterior, can harmonise all things 
 to itself. 
 
 But the little Mara, even at this stage of her history, 
 was no inanimate doll to be disposed of at the will of 
 
 202 
 
Mara: the Pearl. 
 
 another. From her earliest years she displayed that 
 strength of character which co-existed with, and formed 
 so remarkable a contrast to, the gentleness of her 
 nature. One of the most characteristic and humorous 
 scenes in the whole book is that in which the tiny 
 ' Pearl ' objects with all her might to the excellent in- 
 tentions of ' Mis' Kitteridge,' who desires to replace 
 the ' pitty boo dress and pitty shoes ' in which Mara 
 is sent to visit her with a suit of her own Sally's work- 
 a-day clothes to play about in on the shore, and failing 
 this, to cover them with a ' checked apron ' to pre- 
 serve them from damage. The intensity of decision 
 with which the almost baby insists on wearing her 
 best for ordinary use, and revolts from the touch of 
 anything ' common or unclean,' is not only comic, but 
 symbolical of her whole future life. All her days 
 Mara loved the dainty and the beautiful, and made them 
 part of her home surroundings — crammed the old- 
 fashioned cottage with the wild flowers that were so 
 like herself in their fragile beauty and sweet approach- 
 ableness; strove, self-taught, to paint their colours 
 from nature ; worshipped the sea that encircled her 
 island home, and the golden clouds, and the mysteries 
 ■of the silent forest, and communed as much with 
 jiature as witli the friends around her whom she loved 
 «o dearly. 
 
 All her days, too, Mara would work at one object 
 ^th an infinite pertinacity, until she attained to it. 
 •* How long you do think about things ! ' said Moses, 
 
 203 
 
Mara: the Pearl. 
 
 her boy-companion, to her once, with true masculine 
 impatience, and this accusation exactly expressed the 
 chief quality of her soul. 
 
 ' When an idea was presented to her, she carefully folded 
 it up and laid it away on the inner shelves of her mind, till 
 she could think more about it. Pliable as she was to all 
 outward appearances, the child had her own still, interior 
 world, where all her little notions and opinions stood up 
 crisp and fresh, like flowers that grow in cool, shady places. 
 If anybody too rudely assailed a thought or suggestion she 
 put forth, she drew it back again into this quiet inner 
 chamber, and went on. There are some women of this 
 habit ; and there is no independence and pertinacity of 
 opinion like that of those seemingly soft, quiet creatures,, 
 whom it is so easy to silence and so difficult to convince 
 Mara, little and unformed as she yet was, belonged to the 
 race of those spirits to whom is deputed the office of the 
 angel in the Apocalypse, to whom was given the golden rod 
 which measured the New Jerusalem. Infant though she 
 was, she had ever in her hands that invisible measuring-rod 
 which she was laying to the foundations of all actions and 
 thoughts. There may, perhaps, come a time when the 
 saucy boy who now steps so superbly, and predominates so 
 proudly in virtue of his physical strength and daring, will 
 learn to tremble at the golden measuring-rod held in the 
 hand of a woman.' 
 
 And the prediction was fulfilled. The time came 
 when, after many foolish vicissitudes on his part and 
 much silent misery on hers, the liking which had 
 always been between these two as boy and girl play- 
 
 204 
 
Mara: the Pearl. 
 
 fellows blossomed out into the true and pure love 
 which can only come once into any life. 
 
 But here, again, the strength of Mara's character 
 was felt in the nature of the affection which she be- 
 stowed on Moses. Growing up with him from a child 
 in the same home, there was a kind of protecting, 
 almost maternal character in her love, which made it 
 differ from that rush of mutual feeling which generally 
 knits together hearts that God has made for each 
 other. Moses needed her, in fact, more than she 
 needed him. He had been given to her, as it were, 
 out of the mysterious ocean and from the arms of 
 his dead mother; she had been his good angel, un- 
 known to him, at the very turning-point of his career. 
 Even at the risk of her life's peace she must now 
 be his, that she may learn how to lead and influence 
 this daring, wayward boy, who believes in no present 
 God, but only in purity and devotion as he sees them 
 in her eyes, and who reverses the poet's lines so that 
 they read thus : 
 
 ' She for God only ; he for God in her.' 
 
 In the subtle working out of this problem and in 
 the unexpected solution of it, lies the story of The 
 Pearl of Orr's Island. 
 
 In death instead of life lay the solution, in sorrow 
 instead of joy, in the training of another soul to 
 minister instead of her own to the one only love of 
 Mara's life. Nothing can exceed the delicacy and 
 
 205 
 
Mara: the Pearl. 
 
 the art with which the character of Mara's friend^ 
 the saucy, bewitching Sally Kitteridge, is gradually 
 moulded, as it were, before our eyes, in the closing 
 chapters of the story — moulded and touched and 
 softened simply by her love for Mara, and also, all 
 unconsciously to ' herself, by the dawning affection 
 for Mara's lover which began at first in thoughtless, 
 coquetry, and was so resolutely crushed down in loyalty 
 to her friend, who was then far dearer to her than any 
 lover. 
 
 Mara was one of those creatures who never seem 
 to have any mission except just to be^ and who there- 
 fore make pure womanliness so much more lovable 
 than those whose natures are more self-conscious and 
 whose efforts after influence are more apparent ; she 
 was always her own gracious and beautiful self' — ' a 
 creature not too bright and good for human nature's 
 daily food' — yet all her words and thoughts flowed 
 from a heart given up to Christ, full of innocent trust 
 in her Heavenly Father, and also full of love to all 
 around her, and of that faith in human nature which 
 was so well expressed in old Captain Kitteridge's 
 homely words : ' She never said much to me, but she 
 
 kind o' drew me She's so kind, good, and 
 
 innocent, she thinks I'm good — kind o' takes it for 
 granted Fm one of the Lord's people, ye know. It kind 
 o' makes me want to be, ye know.' And it was this 
 winning power that wrought the change in Sally, and 
 made her the fit instrument to carry on Mara's work 
 206 
 
Mara: the Pearl. 
 
 when she herself had become only a faithfully treasured 
 memory in the heart of her betrothed. 
 
 Day by day, as Mara drooped and faded, we find that 
 
 ' Sally Kitteridge was almost a constant inmate of the 
 brown house, ever ready in watching and waiting ; and one 
 only needed to mark the expression of her face to feel that 
 a holy charm was silently working upon her higher and 
 spiritual nature. Those great, dark, sparkling eyes, that once 
 seemed to express only the brightness of animal vivacity, and 
 sparkled like a brook in unsympathetic gaiety, had in them 
 now mysterious depths and tender, fleeting shadows ; and the 
 very tone of her voice had a subdued tremor. The capri- 
 cious elf, the tricksy sprite, was melting away in the immortal 
 soul, and the deep, pathetic power of a noble heart was being 
 born. Some influence sprung of sorrow is necessary always 
 to perfect beauty in womanly nature; we feel its absence in 
 many whose sparkling wit and high spirits give grace and 
 vivacity to Ufe, but in whom we vainly seek for some spot 
 of quiet tenderness and sympathetic repose. Sally was, 
 ignorantly to herself, changing in the expression of her face 
 and the tone of her character as she ministered in the daily 
 wants which sickness brings in a simple household.' 
 
 When we see her again it is as a new being, 
 softened and mellowed by the discipline of suffering — 
 the devoted daughter, the constant, unforgetting 
 friend, the faithful consoler. 
 
 And so the pure ' Pearl ' remained, as always, 
 single and alone in her shining whiteness, ready to be 
 counted amongst the Master's jewels ; and the tender 
 
 207 
 
Mara: the Pearl. 
 
 old fisherman who had guarded her earthly life took 
 comfort from the dream which came to him after she 
 had passed away, and which he thus confided to Miss 
 Roxy, the quaintest of all the living characters that 
 peopled Orr's Island — roughest outside and softest- 
 hearted within. 
 
 'Well, ye see, I thought I was out a-walking up and down, 
 and lookin' and lookin' for something I'd lost. What it was 
 I couldn't quite make out, but my heart felt heavy as if it 
 would break ; and I was lookin' all up and down the sands 
 by the seashore, and somebody said I was like a merchantman 
 seeking goodly pearls. I said I had lost my pearl — my pearl 
 of great price ; and then I looked up, and far off, on the 
 wet sands, shining softly like the moon, lay my pearl. I 
 thought it was Mara, but it seemed a great pearl, with a 
 soft moonlight in it ; and I was runnin' for it, when some 
 one said, " Hush ! " and I looked and saw Him a-comin' — 
 Jesus of Nazareth — ^just as He walked by the sea. It was 
 all dark night round Him, but I could see Him by the light 
 that came from His face, and the long hair was hanging down 
 on His shoulders. He came and took up my pearl, and put 
 it on His forehead, and it shone into my heart, and I felt 
 happy ; and He looked at me steadily and lovingly, and rose 
 and rose in the air, and melted into the clouds, and 1 awoke 
 so happy and so calm. Our pearl is safe.' 
 
 208 
 
Molly Gibson. 
 
 fVIVES AND DAUGHTERS. 
 
 By Mrs. Gaskell. 
 
' Tet is this girl I sing in naught uncommon^ 
 
 And 'very far from angel yet ^ I tro'w ; 
 Her faults, her szveetnesseSj are purely human ; 
 Tet she's more lo'vahle as simple •woman 
 Than any one diviner that I knaw^ 
 
 Mrs. Craik. 
 
Molly Gibson. 
 
 ' All right doing has its ground in sacrifice,' 
 
 T was a very hard day for Molly Gibson when 
 she heard first that her father meant to marry 
 — again. She had had a very happy childhood 
 and early youth. Her father, a doctor in a country 
 town, was a man of culture and refinement, with 
 intellectual tastes, devoted to his child. In those long- 
 ago days, when country people had few interests and 
 fewer changes, those few interests were very strong, 
 and Molly was much loved by the kind ladies of 
 Hollingford. Then, too, the great people at the 
 castle. Lord and Lady Cumnor and their daughter, 
 Lady Harriet, had shown her kindness, and her 
 father's patient, Mrs. Hamley, loved the girl almost 
 as her own child. This lady was a delicate invalid, 
 and it was pleasant to her to have Molly to stay in 
 the quiet old country house, where the rough though 
 loving squire was out all day ; and of the two sons, 
 Osborne, the handsome, elegant heir, was rarely there, 
 while Roger was a plain and simple fellow, glad to 
 have a sister-like companion. Molly was an honest, 
 straightforward girl, with fine perceptions and a loving 
 heart — with the promise, too, of beauty to come in her 
 
Molly Gibson. 
 
 black-lashed grey eyes and curly black hair ; but a 
 child still at sixteen. When Mr. Gibson came over 
 to Hamley, where Molly was staying, and told her 
 that he was going to marry Mrs. Kirkpatrick, Molly 
 recollected Mrs. Kirkpatrick once when she had spent 
 a day at the Towers, and the recollection was not to 
 her mind. One thought only was attractive. There 
 was a daughter, Cynthia, at school in France, and 
 when she came home Molly would have a companion 
 and sister. The Hamleys were good friends, and they 
 did not encourage Molly in useless regrets, but sent her 
 over to the Towers in the simple white frock, which 
 was so much more becoming than her ' best silk,' to 
 make acquaintance with the new mamma who had once 
 been Lady Harriet's governess, and was still a favourite 
 at the great house. Molly was a good girl, and she 
 went prepared to like and to be liked. This graceful, 
 blue- eyed, soft-voiced lady was charming, but why 
 need she have told Molly ' Your papa is so fond of you.' 
 Molly had long known that. But she was very kind, 
 and Molly prepared herself to like her. 
 
 Molly's story is short and simple. We know that 
 Cynthia came home beautiful, attractive, and mysterious, 
 that Roger Hamley lost his heart to her, and Molly 
 suffered, not so much because she herself was not his 
 choice, as because Cynthia was careless of the prize she 
 had won. Molly was burdened, too, with the know- 
 ledge of Osborne Hamley's secret marriage, saddened 
 by the loss of his kind mother, and oppressed by an 
 
Molly Gibson. 
 
 uncongenial home. The only event that had happened 
 to her, the only out-of-the-way thing she ever did, was 
 when she secretly met Cynthia's former lover, Mr. 
 Preston, and got from him the letters, which he was 
 making a cruel use of towards the girl whom he had 
 once courted. Molly bore all the blame of this secret 
 interview, bore it willingly for the sake of Cynthia and 
 Roger. And then, while Roger was away, Cynthia 
 turned him ofF for a nearer and richer suitor, and Molly 
 broke her heart because his heart might be broken. 
 Then at last Roger came home, and we are permitted 
 to hope that his eyes were opened, and that he recog- 
 nised the worth of Molly's faithful love, and fully 
 returned it. 
 
 This is all the story, and we can only study this 
 delicate character by comparing it with others. Molly 
 lived amid the surroundings of Miss Austen's heroines. 
 We know her as well as we know Emma Wood- 
 house and Elizabeth Bennett ; but commonplace sur- 
 roundings ' did not make this noble and innocent 
 creature commonplace. Her love-story, so far as it 
 is told, was sad enough, and only too common. In- 
 nocently and inevitably, in the first dawn of her woman- 
 hood, she gave away her heart to the best man she 
 knew, and her love met with only kind friendship in 
 return. This is the more pathetic because Molly 
 hardly knew that it was pathetic at all. As long as 
 Roger had his heart's desire, she could not be very 
 unhappy ; but when Cynthia failed him, then her 
 
 213 
 
Molly Gibson. 
 
 spirits and strength gave way. By the effect produced 
 on this charming, perplexing, secretive, but warm- 
 hearted Cynthia by Molly's crystal truthfulness and 
 single-heartedness, we learn to know Molly herself; 
 all her stepmother's wiles and self-deceits and affec- 
 tations — affectations so ingrain that they were far more 
 natural than sincerity — only serve to show that the girl 
 was honest and candid. She lived among people who 
 flattered and toadied the great ladies, who, on their side, 
 patronised and laughed at them. But Molly could be 
 Lady Harriet's favourite, and still hold her own ; she 
 could stand without injury the puzzling flattery of a 
 superior who felt that she could do as she pleased with 
 a favoured protegee. She would be a true friend to the 
 handsome, delicate, unhappy Osborne, and treat him 
 with tenderness in which there mixed no touch of 
 foolish sentimentality. She lived in a day when the life 
 of girls of the middle class was simple, effortless, and 
 uninspiring, confined to small duties, and heightened by 
 very small pleasures ; and yet she was free from every 
 failing by which such limited lives are marred. No 
 petty jealousy, no small-minded spite, no vulgar gossip 
 spoiled her direct simplicity. It did not occur to her 
 to try to do anything very hard; but she had some 
 very hard things to bear, and she bore them perfectly 
 well. 
 
 Thousands of girls have lived, and do live, in little 
 country towns ; they are under the sway of uncongenial 
 relations, have hardly any 'interesting' friends, are 
 Z14 
 
Molly Gibson. 
 
 subject, perhaps, to annoying misconceptions, hare 
 minds capable of more occupation than the course of 
 Hfe allows to them. There are many who, like Molly, 
 find their deepest affections unreturned, and we hope 
 that among them there is a fair proportion who ennoble 
 these common trials by an uncommon absence of 
 common faults. 
 
 The story of Molly Gibson's life is so uneventful, 
 and at the same time her character is so fully and 
 delicately described, that only the most careful analysis 
 can do it justice. There is the same minute realism in 
 the picture of daily life as we find in Jane Austen ; but 
 there is, we think, a finer perception and deeper insight. 
 Not only is every shade of conduct and character noted 
 and described, but subtle and tender feelings are 
 discerned, and the atmosphere is no longer that of 
 genteel comedy. 
 
 Molly is a younger sister of Fanny Price, whom in 
 some ways she resembles ; but though Fanny was as 
 silent and faithful a lover, she could hardly have been 
 •so brave a friend. The situation in which Molly, 
 Roger, and Cynthia are placed recalls slightly that of 
 Edmund Bertram, Fanny Price, and Mary Crawford in 
 Mansfield Park ; but it is lifted to a much higher level. 
 Even sweet Anne Elliot, who goes the deepest and rises 
 the highest of Miss Austen's heroines, was made of 
 weaker and narrower stuff. Miss Austen could have 
 described the life of Hollingford ; Osborne and Roger 
 are something the kind of young men who woo her 
 
 ai5 
 
Molly Gibson. 
 
 gentle and sprightly Heroines ; but we think that there 
 is nothing in all her delightful volumes equal to the 
 tenderness of the scene where Roger lights his father's 
 pipe, and coaxes the sore-hearted old man into good 
 humour with himself. She could have given us a great 
 deal of Mrs. Gibson ; she would have observed how she 
 rearranged the poor doctor's household, and substituted 
 ' elegant trifles ' for his bread and cheese. She would 
 have delighted in showing how she took Molly and 
 Cynthia to the ball, and joined the ' Towers party.' 
 But we are not sure that she would have known that 
 Mrs. Gibson felt that there was an impropriety in 
 talking about your duty on a week-day (when it was 
 inconvenient), and the memory of her early struggles 
 would have been deprived of the tragical touch which 
 makes us tolerate her after all. 
 
 We do not think she would have recognised that 
 Cynthia could be at once honest and untruthful, 
 shallow and sincere, or that, while she treated her 
 lovers so badly, and allowed Molly's self-sacrifice in. 
 her favour, she, nevertheless, gave her a warm and 
 genuine love. We should hardly have seen Osborne's- 
 excuses, and Roger never would have thought it right 
 to keep his secret. The one writer, it seems, took 
 portraits with unerring fidelity ; but the other looks at 
 the life behind the painted faces. This is, perhaps, a 
 bold comparison; but we do not think that it is possible 
 to study Molly Gibson without feeling that her story 
 shows us that there were lights and shadows, depths and 
 216 
 
Molly Gibson. 
 
 heights, in that old humdrum, comfortable, restful 
 world, which are levelled by the even, cheerful day- 
 light that guided Jane Austen's pen. And this com- 
 parison inevitably suggests that there is a part of Molly's 
 life which we do not see. The joys and the sorrows, 
 the peace and the struggle that come from religion, 
 or from the want of it, lie in the quiet background of 
 her life. It is a yet higher degree of insight, a yet 
 nobler intuition, that can see in quiet country circles 
 Dinah Morris and Dorothea Brooke. 
 
 ' It takes a deal of sorts to make a world,' and ' a 
 deal of sorts ' also to describe one. And, on the whole, 
 it does seem that, inclined as we are to think that a 
 past age must be a golden one, the chance of a wider 
 outlook does greatly diminish the risk to character of 
 this old-world small pressure of small things. 
 
 Molly had nothing to think of but the tew people 
 with whom she lived. Her cargo was all in one 
 ship. Being what she was, there was a finish and 
 perfection about her, perhaps from this very cause; 
 but if she had been a trifle more one-sided, a shade 
 less true, how poor a thing she might have made of 
 life. When there was so little to be, it would have 
 made worth of character more possible if there 
 had been a little more to do. When we feel the 
 restlessness and the hurry and the incompleteness 
 of our own day, we are a little inclined to idealise 
 the limitations of that more ' finite ahd finished ' one 
 
 that is past. 
 
 217 
 
Molly Gibson. 
 
 It is not, however, so entirely past as is sometimes 
 supposed, only it has dropped a little in the social 
 scale. Let us remember that circumstances did not 
 make such girls as Molly. It was Molly who con- 
 quered circumstance. 
 
 zi8 
 
Kenelm Chillingly. 
 
 KENELM CHILLINGLr. 
 
 By Lord Lytton. 
 
* Slight is the tale^ and simply sad^ my soul 
 Hath 'vo(yven from, some memories deeply stoPdy 
 Which should not voiceless die /' 
 
 Lord Lytton. 
 
Kenelm Chillingly. 
 
 ' He rideth easily enough ivhom the grace of God carrietK^ 
 
 HE Story of Kenelm Chillingly : his Adventures 
 and Opinions, by Lord Lytton, is so simple, 
 
 the plot so slight, that any one who takes up 
 
 this novel hoping to find exciting adventures in it will 
 be disappointed ; but, on the other hand, we know of 
 more than one habitual novel-reader who has cried 
 before reaching the end, and no one can lay this 
 book down without feeling the better for the pictures 
 ^hown us of an upright country gentleman and his 
 quaint, original son, of a noble woman who bears a 
 secret sorrow bravely and patiently, and of one of the 
 prettiest, most lovable heroines which an author of the 
 male sex has ever drawn. 
 
 Sir Peter Chillingly, of Exmundham, was the owner 
 of a good fortune, a large estate, a suitable if not con- 
 genial wife ; but for eleven years after his marriage no 
 child had blessed the union, and a distant cousin, by 
 name Chillingly Gordon, considered himself the heir. 
 Suddenly his expectations are dashed to the ground by 
 the appearance of the unexpected but much-desired 
 son ; and when the baby is brought before a family 
 
Kenelm Chillingly. 
 
 conclave to be inspected, the cousin refuses to kiss the 
 infent, and shows other marks of his disappointment. 
 
 One of the baby's aunts remarks : ' What a hea- 
 venly mournful expression ! it seems grieved to have 
 left the angels ;' but the Rev. John Chillingly answers, 
 ' That is prettily said, cousin Sibyl, but the infant must 
 pluck up its courage, and fight its way among mortals 
 with a good heart if it wants to get back to the angels 
 again, and I think it will : a fine child.' 
 
 The keynote of the book lies in this sentence, and 
 it is the Rev. John who chooses the baby's name of 
 ' Kenelm,' as the Chillingly family is related to Sir 
 Kenelm Digby, who ' fought as well as he wrote ; 
 eccentric, it is true, but always a gentleman.' 
 
 Certainly Kenelm takes after his namesake, for he 
 is very eccentric, and yet always a gentleman. The 
 first time he comes back from school he confides to 
 the Rev. John that he has challenged a big bully to 
 fight him again the next half, and, says he, 'unless 
 you can help me to lick him, I shall never be good 
 for anything in the world — never; it will break my 
 heart.' Thereupon Kenelm takes lessons in boxing, 
 but suddenly remembers it is not fair to take this 
 advantage over his enemy without letting the bully 
 know. He accordingly writes a quaint letter to his 
 enemy beginning with, 'Mr. Chillingly presents his 
 compliments to Mr. Butt ;' but he receives for answer, 
 ' You are an insolent little fool, and I'll thrash you 
 within an inch of your life.' 
 
Kenelm Chillingly. 
 
 Kenelm goes back to school, licks Butt, and writes 
 to tell this news to his relative, adding this P.S., ' Now 
 I have licked Butt, I have made it up with him.' 
 
 From this time the boy prospered. He did well 
 at school, at college, and with a private tutor, but 
 'something was amiss. There was about him a tranquil 
 indifference which puzzled his friends, and was the 
 despair of his aristocratic mother ; he had no vanity 
 and no ambition, and he looked with disdain upon the 
 pleasures of the world ; in fact, Kenelm had grown up 
 a philosopher. 
 
 When he comes of age he makes such a strange 
 speech to the tenants that he startles his parents into 
 settling to send him abroad in order to rouse him, and 
 to make him more like other people. Before starting, 
 Kenelm casually meets a travelling artist and minstrel, 
 and this makes him think he, too, will go and seek 
 for his own amusements in his own way ; so, taking 
 no luggage, and leaving a note behind him for his 
 father, he sets out on his voyage ot discovery. 
 
 Now follow his adventures, the history of the 
 friends he makes, the village bully he fights, because 
 of this man's unmanly persecution of a village girl 
 who will not return his mad passion, the reform he 
 effects in the person of this same Tom Bowles, and 
 all the secret kindness he accomplishes : all these are 
 delightfully described. But during all this time 
 Kenelm remains unable to believe in happiness for 
 himself, and he cannot be touched by love, though 
 
Kenelm Chillingly. 
 
 he finds himself involved in the escape of a pretty 
 girl from her guardian. The girl has dressed herself 
 as a boy to seek out a strolling actor whom she had 
 fallen in love with ; but Kenelm, discovering this, 
 shows her how foolish she has been, and then escapes 
 himself from the uncle, who tries to make him marry 
 the young madcap. After a time he is recognised by 
 a family friend, and for a short period returns into 
 ordinary society life whilst staying in the house of this 
 country squire. Cecilia Travers, the daughter of his 
 host, is in every way charming, and before she is 
 aware of it falls in love with Kenelm, but the hero, 
 fearing to be misunderstood, again disappears and 
 resumes his disguise. He once more meets the 
 wandering artist, and by a word in season saves him 
 from making shipwreck of his life ; but all this time 
 Kenelm the philosopher is still callous and heart-whole, 
 nothing excites his love or his ambition. 
 
 At last, in a remote village, he meets his fate, and 
 Lily Mordaunt — ^young, beautiful, childlike, and sur- 
 rounded with mystery — is the one woman who makes 
 his pulses beat quicker, and who calls forth all that is 
 noblest in his character. His philosophy melts like 
 morning dew, his disbelief in the weaker sex dis- 
 appears, and he falls desperately in love. 
 
 Lily is a tamer of butterflies, a lover ot nature, 
 
 animate and inanimate, a fairy creature, ' born in May 
 
 with the flowers,' as her lover says ; but besides this 
 
 she possesses a beautiful soul, and, like a tiny pool, is 
 
 224 
 
Kenelm Chillingly. 
 
 capable of reflecting brightest sunshine. This is what 
 she says to Kenelm when they have been talking of 
 a native self, deep hid beneath the ordinary self one 
 shows to the world : — 
 
 ' " How true ! You have felt that too. Where is that 
 innermost self, so deep down, so deep, yet when it does 
 come forth, so much higher, higher, immeasurably higher 
 than one's everyday self? It does not tame the butterflies, 
 it longs to get to the stars ; and then — and then — ah ! how 
 soon it fades back again ! You have felt that. Does it 
 puzzle you ?" ' 
 
 So the two drift happily and beautifully into love, 
 till suddenly Kenelm discovers that the wandering 
 artist is no other than Lily's guardian, and that he, to 
 whom she and her aunt owe everything, loves the 
 pure Lily, and that his whole life-long devotion has 
 been made easy by the hopes of some day winning 
 her. Kenelm also discovers the mystery of Lily's 
 life, which the artist, Mr. Melvill, has sworn never to 
 reveal to her. 
 
 Then comes the turning-point. Shall these two 
 lovers be ruled by love or duty ? Shall passion, as in 
 so many of our modern books, excuse everything, or 
 shall duty triumph ? 
 
 We will not disclose the beautiful ending. We 
 want those who have not read Kenelm Chillingly to 
 study it for themselves, and see how the young 
 Englishman conquers self, and how in defeat he wins, 
 not, perhaps, what he most wished to gain, but a new 
 
 <j. "5 • 
 
Kenelm Chillingly. 
 
 motive power, which will make the perfect gentleman 
 'also the perfect Christian. 
 
 The kst chapter shows us an ideal picture of a 
 father and son. The father who has patiently waited 
 for the early promise to be fulfilled, and trusted his 
 boy all through, and the son who has trusted and 
 loved his father so much that at last he is able to 
 ofFer him his best powers and all his future in return 
 for all his past trust. With ' his whole aspect eloquent 
 with a resolute enthusiasm too grave to be the flash of 
 a passing moment,' he says, — 
 
 ' "Aye, aye. Victory or Westminster Abbey. The world 
 is a battlefield, in which the worst wounded are the deserters. 
 .... My choice is made, not that of deserter, that of 
 soldier in the ranks.'" 
 
 And at the end we are allowed to see, though it is 
 not said in so many words, that Kenelm does rise to 
 victory, and that in the future joy as well as glory 
 comes to him ; but he must always have remained a 
 delightful, quaint, original philosopher, as well as a 
 perfect English gentleman. 
 
 LONDON : 
 Printed by STiUNaEWATS & Sons, Tower Street, Cambridge Circns W.C.