The Press. — London, England, 1858-08-28 00:00:00

Nittraturt. APPRENTICE FICTIONISTS. 1. Laighton Manor House ; or, Love and Its Shadows. London : Saunders and Otley. 2. My Three Aunts ; or, Lowminster. By the Author of " Long, Long Ago." London : J. and C. Mozley. TIIE most troublesome part of professional criti cism is attending to the claims of youthful or inexperienced literary candidates. The successes or the thilures of known reputations possess a certain stimulating effect ; but it is otherwise with regard to the immature productions of fledging intellects and budding authors. Yet the duty of giving fair play to the pretensions which are unaided by the whispers of coteries in the profuse puffs of "the row" is an imperative one in any critical journal ; and since the estab lishment of THE PRESS no small pains has been taken with this special department of practical criticism. One reason of a philosophical kind ought to make professional critics more attentive than is their custom to young authors ; for it is in this branch of literature one can most easily measure the effect of fashionable reputations, and at the same time discern some of the tendencies of the rising age. In Fiction, as in Poetry, young talents try to strike new chords of emotion. Their notes are weak and uncertain, but occasionally there is promise of future strength. Thus in most of the attempts at poetry during the last twenty years, after omitting the professed imitations of Byron and Wordsworth, we may discern in the crude attempts of our poetasters a desire for a school of poetry which should realize effects of reflection and sensation, and which should be at once profound in its thoughts and views of life, and at the same time should be melodiously poetical in its ut terances. This aspiration of the age is best realized in verse by the Laureate ; though, in spite of his rare sweetness, his exquisite finish, and his wealth of poetical language and ideas, I Mr. Tennyson has not that vehement energy of all-enibracing expression which can rivet a vast national audience to his strains. In Fiction, judging by the countless efforts which constantly come before us, there is a rising taste for strong sentiment, with sonic poetical colour. The cynicism of Mr. Thackeray is begin ning to tire; Diogenes in tears, and weeping in one page for the pain inflicted in another, is a striking sight for a time, but it becomes monotonous. And great as are the resources of 11r. Dickens, many wish for more accurate deli neations of close reality; and his grotesque cha racters are beginning to impart a tone of delibe rate caricature to his writings. The fountain of thought opened by the authoress of "Jane Eyre " Was soon closed ; and the world has no new effects to expect from Mrs. Gore, or Mrs. Marsh, or Mrs. Gaskell. A male novelist, Mr. Anthony Trollope, has given reason to think that he will btcome an able practical fictionist, with a neat and rapid style of "telling" execution, though without any inventiveness of new or original types of character; and a few other novelists give hopes of looking for brilliant perthrinances from them. On the whole, however, the conviction which remains most strongly impressed upon us is that writers of fiction do not take as much pains as they ought. Labour at Fiction will repay trouble. The Drama (in original writing) is Virtually extinct, and a conscientious novelist, who writes to instruct and to elevate, and who will zealously study his subject, has a great mis sion to realize. I Inman nature is the same now, though seen under other lights and shadows,. as it within the days of the Great Dramatists; and it is not too much to ask for thought, and time, and study from those who profess to assuage our pains and to elevate our hearts in the pages of a novel. What nobler subject can be proposed for study than the human heart ? Are not the vices and the virtues of the old Adam as glaringly manifested now in this far-advanced society of England in the nineteeth century ? Immediate and widespread fame is given to a successful novelist, and the pecuniary reward is far from be, contemptible. With such temptations, it re a ll y • • • . Purpritung OW Vim are !lot greqtef T . H E PRESS, AUGUST 28, 1858. successes in novel-writing. Season after season a new crowd of writers come forward, ill-prepared and ill-trained; their books are printed with sonic trouble and expense ; they fail decisively, and they have not courage to repeat the attempt again. Ilere and there a few succeed, and on the fitith of an accidental triumph they repeat them selves again and again, exhausting themselves and their readers. Thus the manufacture of novels falls after all into a few hands, and there is less of variety in English current fiction than could be anticipated. Idle men and idle women have the leisure to compose novels, while artists, and journalists, and musicians have not the quiet hours at their command for describing their views of life, or giving utterance to their social convic tions. When the careless young novelists find that their works arc not successful, they never care to study harder, or strive to make their pro ductions better. In short they never consider themselves as literary apprentices, and they expect to become masters of the art of writing all at once. If they would write under the idea of pupilage, they would finally do more, and might achieve a permanent success. 1. In " Laighton Manor" we have a striking instance of the truth of the foregoing observa tions. It is a tale in which cleverness and care lessness are equally blended, and in which much spirited drawing froni real life is spoiled by the scandalously ungrammatical language of the writers. It seems to be the production of two sisters, one of them taking the English, and the other the German scenes; and it is a pity that they did not obtain the aid of a professional " reader" to correct their letterpress. They have vivacity of conception, and they can quickly appreciate character, but they have neglected the arGilin - ry rules of syntax, and the odd mixture resulting from their natural liveliness and inco herent grammar is extremely queer. For ex ample, Lord Mamby is sketched as follows : Lord Mamby was one of those gentlemen who know very well indeed how to take care of themselves. He was an eminent " coddle." A tit of severe illness had at one time Drought him to the verge of tho grave, and he did not make his escape from doctors' pill-boxes and cod-liver oil, till his confidence in his constitution was shaken, and an imaginary valetudinarianism had given him an almost effeminate address, which with the nervous fear he had of catching cold, rendered him occasionally an object of ridi cule among his more athletic companions. With an un pardonable weakness and want of trust, he suffered that terrible nigh , mare a dread of consumption ever to haunt him, like the skeleton at a banquet to be concealed in the background of every scene, and to drive the little manliness the doctors had lett out of him. In the last sentence, the metaphor " like the " skeleton at a banquet to be concealed in the " background of every scene," is incoherent. The writers heard of " the skeleton in the closet," and they had read of apparitions at banquet scenes, and they jumbled the two together ; but the use of the future tense, " to be concealed," and the "background of every scene at a banquet," makes a most incongruous metaphor. The cha racter is thus continued : Some of his lungs were always wrong, and his head and his hesrt never seemed able to agree as to the precise number of beats the latter might to give a moment. He never left the house without all accumulation of great coats, under which another man would have fainted, and was a perfect connoisseur in respirators, cheat preservers, and wollen 'unifiers. Night air was his abhorrence, a shower of rain sudden death, and the accidental leaving open of the church door on Sundays effectually destroyed his devo tion and his equanimity for a week. As he would almost as soon have thrown himself downstairs and broken his neck, as endangerAl it by hunting, and was partial neither to guns nor greyhounds, lie never engaged in field sports, and found his principal amusements in reading green covered novels of questionable morality and bad taste, and in loitering about pastry cooks' shops, buying kisses and bonbons, the papers of which he opened, and having read, I sorted into packets to throw across the table to the young ladies of his acquaintance. " Some of his lungs" may have been intended as a touch of humour ; but several grammatical blemishes occur in the remainder of the passages ; " as"-es are scattered with forgetfulness of their absent friends "so " and " since," and pronouns arc " cut" altogether. The Misses Melrose are thus described : They were the best dressers, best coquettes, best pianists and polka dancers in the neighbourhood in which they lived ; handsome, larly-like girls, distinguished fur an ease and gaiety of manners, and a talent for animated though common-place conversation. 111-natured maiden ladies and gentlemen, who were innocent enough to think that a pretty, lively girl ought to bare wore than two ideas iu her head, i. e. herself and her conquests. What about those " ill-natured maiden ladies and gentlemen "? Did they my anything parli• 823 cular of the Melroses ? It is plain that an entire sentence has been omitted. The writers then proceed : IJlred, the eldest and best, thought Miss Florence rather more flighty than was quite in accordance with a feminine reserve they had read of in books : but in society she was generally called " u capital girl ; one who was sure to make an evening piss off well ; " while her sister was pronounced a very nice girl, but far inferior, having at one time been reported as about to enter a convent immediately, as a Sister of Mercy, subsided into the somewhat languid assistant of an Evangelical Minister, seeking in the reli— gious dissipation of Bible meetings, missionary soirees , &c., something of the same thing which attracted Miss Florence into a gayer round of balls, parties, and concerts. Under the guidance of her reverend friend, Miss Edith had been a much more quiet person than ever during the last few months, and seemed to delight in the contrast which appeared between herself and her sister, and con triving, unconsciously, to deepen it by a much plainer mode of dress than Florence usually adopted. here are good ideas and conceptions of character spoiled by ridiculous and culpable want of syn tax. "As a Sister of Mercy, subsided into," &c., cannot be made sense without the interposition of omitted words, " though she afterwards," &c. Then Miss Florence Melrose's portrait is taken thus ----- - Many persons would have thought this necessary, had they seen Miss Florence's costume, as she entered thw drawing•room; she seemed to be dressed with minute carefulness, and in much the same materials as a French doll, and gave the idea that her exquisitely fitting blue silk dress, with its wide flounces, and large bell-shaped sleeves, must have been sown on, so impossible was it to discover a single hook or eye. A. band of blue velvet passed across the top of her forehead, seeming to confine a shower of very light curls, and depended in long ends to her waist. It was a standing joke, that. a wag had once attempted to count the number of bows Miss Florence Melrose carried on her person, and found the number thereof to be thirteen; to wit— _ _ 1 in her hair. in front of her "jacket." 1 at the back. 3 one at the close of each flounce. 2 depending in streamers of hull a yard from her shoulders. 2 at the elbows. 2 at the wrists. 13 Which last hal a troublesome habit of dipping into her soup plate and tea-cup, and invading her neighbours' favourite dishes ; even at this hour she hail not thought it necessary to wear a pair of under•sleeves, but seemed rather fond of displaying the white rounded arms, profusely covered with glittering bracelets. The finish" to her cos tume was given by the gold chain, to which was attached a Geneva watch, too small to go well, and the Chatelaine, where hung the miscellaneous collection of little gold charms and counter-charms, miniature fire-arms, an arm chair, a gribiron and a watch key, a Cross, and a tea-kettle, and half* dozen lockets filled with hair of every possible colour, and engraven with nearly all the letters of the alphabet, as initials. There are vivacity and good sketching talents there shown, and what the writers want is a careful study of syntax, and a close perusal of Blair's judicious advice on the art of constructing sentences. A practised fictionist would make a capital novel by retouching the composition, and omitting some of the chapters in " Leighton Manor." The numerous mistakes of the work are thus explained in the " L'Envoi" : Dear readcrs,fitrewell ! We have brought our little book to an end ; and it has been a great source of amusement to the family of a Manor House—its Authors—as each has in turn seized the pen and written whatever occurred to them, often conveying the favourite characters of each other into situations from whence they could scarcely be extri cated without some difficult adap:ation of circumstances. But how, we would ask of those who will think it their duty to crush this our poor little butterfly upon the wheel of severe criticism, was it possible for us to produce a more elaborate performance? We took for our watchword the French proverb, " ['our porter legereruent la vie 11 faut glisser stir Bien des chores," and applying it to authorship, went on as fast as we could with the stream of events sup posed to occur in the very retired family of Leighton Manor House. We could not stop to enter into the minutia; of our scenes—the assemblage of gentle critics gathered night after night round the blazing fire ; and no time was allotted to those who wrote, as " the book " was among the amuse ments, not the duties, of the Christmas Holidays. The explanation here almost disarms criticism, but we should advise the authoresses not again to rush into print without more care in grammar and syntax. Let them consider themselves as apprentice fictionists, and they may succeed in future attempts. They have much liveliness of mind and pleasantness of fancy, and they have talent for perceiving character. With judicious aid they might be highly improved. 2. "My Three Aunts" is not a first attempt, and we rather think that the authoress has im proved on " Long, Long Ago," She has still teiglenc7 to itlclulge too much in rctrospiOTFl ~~►-~ A