The Press. — London, England, 1858-09-18 00:00:00

with the novel office of grand-almoner, and clad in a r od dress, but unarmed except with a great silver cras s (which, however, proves not wholly useless as as offensive weapon), he leads his column in seve ral skirmishes and attacks. After the extinc tion of the I lungarian revolt he escapes to France in disguise and with dyed hair, a costume - w hich gives rise to a rather whimsical mishap, not altogether in accordance with the popular notion of the personal habits of distinguished foreigners : I know not how it happens, but persons habitually ill washed never feel dirty, whereas those who bathe regularly, if they are deprived of water for twenty-four hours imagine they are incrusted with dirt, although this phenomenon could not possibly hive occurred so soon. However this h a ppens, is a question 1 leave to philosophers, while I recommend the fact to their observation. As soon as I had found a room at an hotel, and left my portmanteau, my ,nest thought was to seek for a vapour•bath. Having found one, I exulted at the idea of being again clean, without recollecting that my hair had been dyed. 1 was reminded of the circumstance by feeling black drops fall on my f ve- Iheel, and vecing that I was half-dark, half fair. The tuaiwfonnation once begun, it was impossible to stop half was,and in an hour I returned to my hotel quite another minsand foreseeing that my identity would be questioned. ilapply, my passport made no mention of my complexion. As I imagined, on asking for my room, I was told it was kept for a gentleman who had gone out. I claimed my identity, describing the things I had left in the room. At baigth, after much dispute, my assertion that the sleepy rater bad made a mistake iu supposing me dark, and that II hal always been as fair as I undoubtedly was on my Ireton from the bath, was believed. I escaped evil con xepeaces ; but I learned then, and still better since, that imistlle in disguise should not be so scrupulous as to clean• lineet Had this adventure happened in Austria, I should ..... 'base been taken. 'On arriring in France he betakes himself to some relatives in Lorraine. Here he is obliged to re •sume his priestly functions, and as he is rather more than a sceptic in religious matters, his mental sufferings are great. Wearied with a life of con stant deception, and bored by the ugly toilettes and dull conversation of the province, he proceeds to Paris and lives for some time a gay and plea sant life. His money, however, becoming ex hausted, he is again obliged to officiate, and with .nany scruples to take up the priesthood simply .as a trade. Not less repulsive to him than the ,deceit he practises, are the ideas and lives of his !dim-priests have lived in camps, at the mines, I have traversed many countries, I have heard soldiers exhaling their fury , on the field of battle, or their anguish in hospitals by ;blasphemies; I have seen the miners of the antipodes, a race certainly unaccustomed to elegant language ; I have Ammo sceptics and atheists of every clime and rank,—that isita say,—that I was not brought up in cotton in a convent of wins, like Vert•vert. I have been a soldier, and I am a man of the world, T am therefore not unnecessarily prudish, hat never in my life, in the camp or the mines, have listen 4 to such blasphemies and indecent words as I have heard from priests behind the very altar, just after saying ...bass. I was shocked ; they thought me one of their gang, mad dill not conceal themselves from me. To live I was maliged to stay anti hear them, unable to throw off my !Piesily robe, and reproach them loudly with their infamy. 1 atm them naked, hideous in their hypocrisy, displaying .all their vices, of which they dared to boast but two steps from,the altar they profaned, and I knew that some among them lad the reputation of saints. I was so much humbled at being counted among these men, that it is not too much to say that my character changed to such a degree, that I never recovered the pure and lofty spring of enthusiasm which hail guided me, till fatal want forced me to enter this sacristy. There is much more to the same effect. The French clergy in the provinces are described as sincere but narrow-minded, but those of Paris are painted in the blackest colours of profligacy and infidelity. During the year 1851 our Priest forms a second attachment. Mathilde R—, the daughter of a family of the middle class, sympathizes with Hungarian exiles and likes to hear their adven tures. The Othello is fascinated, and exerts equal fascination ; the lady's parents have no objection, and it is settled that if the Priest's family also consent he shall throw off his orders, become a I'rotestant, and marry Mathilde. Of course his mother refuses, and the Priest, who has overcome so many scruples, is vulnerable to this. His marriage is delayed, and he writes innumerable letters to Hungary vainly entreating permission. His next move is still more incom prehensible. A commercial company is formed to trade with Australia, and he becomes its agent, trusting that his mother will yield rather than drive him t o so d espera t e a step . The family of his intended vainly strive to alter his resolution ; he disdains to be indebted to them for the . assistance they proffer to enable him to get rid of his comm erc i a l friends, and shows such joy at a THE PRESS, SEPTEMBIR 18, 185 R. meeting with his mother that she fancies his attachment a mere caprice. Ile persists in his intended voyage, but determines to discharge hi s obligations immediately and return to claim the hand of his betrothed. On his arrival in Australia his merchandize proves to be completely spoiled, and he goes to the diggings to collect money enough to return home. When on the point of sailing he is shot in the bush by a robber, loses his arm, and is only enabled to return to Europe through the generosity of an acquaintance. Ills journey has had not the slightest effect on his mother, who now fancies (as most people would do) that he would not have left Mathilde had he really loved her ; and Mathilde herself, wearied by the delay, seems inclined to adopt the same opinion—for which we find it difficult to blame her. 'Thoroughly morbid in feeling, with a con sciousness of impaired strength, and fancying Madill& alienated from him, he releases her from her engagement, and goes to Ilyi!res and Nice in search of health. At the latter place his health improves, and he falls in love with a married lady, who makes a catspaw of him to cover her intrigue with a French nobleman. He threatens to challenge him ; is cajoled out of this resolution ; then threatens to shoot himself. The coquette " fears the scandal of a duel and my suicide " (feared also, probably, for her new lover); and the following scene takes place : I was long obstinate, I had so much reason to think my jealousy well founded ; but Mme. de S— saw that I loved her even to madness, and profited by it. As though overcome by her agitation, she let fall tender expressions ; and, perceiving the effect they produced, vowed that if I disliked d'E—, she would never see him again, and offered every proof of love and attachment I could desire. Intoxicated by her words, by the sight of this adored woman supplicating at my feet, imploring me to live for her, I let myself be conquered. I gave her my word of honour not to shoot myself. Radiant with her victory, but wearied by the struggle, she sunk on my arm, thanked me impetuously, hut, at the same time, entreated me to leave her alone, to recover from so much emotion. I clasped her to my heart, and left her. The Priest (whose experience of the confessional ought, one would think, to have led him to dis trust such demonstrations) is thoroughly taken in, and has the satisfaction of next day seeing the lady, after denying herself to him on pretence of illness, walk out with his rival, " with whom she " conversed in that indescribable manner that " marks complete intimacy." This is of course an overwhelming blow, and produces the follow ing specimen of morbid logic. The Priest argues that his promise not to molest his rival was un conditional, but his promise not to destroy him self was conditional on the lady's performance of her part of the contract. As she has broken it, he is free to suffer in his own person, and lest he should " become ridiculous," he takes poison, which he has long carried concealed about him, and, to use his own expression, seeks repose in the bosom of the Universal Cause. Few who read this painful story will be in clined to disagree with the manner in which it is characterized by the preface, as "a tale of exile, "of woe, and of weakness." Weakness, indeed, is apparent in every line the author writes—in every action he either does or &its to do. Who but a man of intense moral weakness would think of expressing himself in the following gushing style ? The passage is the very first in the book : An exile ! why did I become an exile ? When my country was bound, stretched at the feet of the execu tioner, why did I fly the vengeance that overpowered my people? Alone, far from my country, on the distant shores of the southern sea, away from all that. I love, I bow my head like a flower that perishes for want of light—bent under the load of a chain that every day weighs more heavily upon me, becoming more entangled by the efforts I have made to east it from me, I shall never again behold the plains and the streams of my native land. An exile! why did I become an exile? " An exile ! why did I become an exile ?" is, in fact, the burden of the story, and is repeated at the close of almost every chapter. " Why did I become a priest ?" would have been a much more pertinent question. If the narrative teaches anything, it is the not very novel truth that a man had better not commit himself to a profes sion which requires the abandonment of all earthly ties until he knows that he is stron g enough to do without earthly ties altogether. It also teaches us that there are men with so false an estimate of comp arative duties that, though they may be willing to place themselves in a free position by the violation of the most sacred oaths, they may, on the other hand, refuse to make that freedom ava ilable b y using the emancipation from parental control to which every man of mature age is entitled by the law o f nature. The only feeling which the narrative excites, besides that of wonder, is a sort of com passionate contempt ; and, whatever may have been the Priest's own intention in writing it, we cannot think highly of the judgment of the friend who gives it to the world. The editor requires us to believe that Mathilde has in her lover's account been treated with "too much for bearance," and that her enthusiasm for him " veered round with the changing breeze of " public interest." 'We arc, of course, unable to judge how far this is true, but it seems to us that the Priest's own perversity was quite sufficient to alienate the affections of any woman. Indeed, as the lady (though she formed an engagement which was broken off) is after all left unmarried, we have no reason to suppose that she is other wise than faithful to the memory of her betrothed up to the present date.—So much for the ethics of the book. If we put out of sight the irrita tingly effeminate nature of the sentiments and expressions, its literary execution is unquestion ably good, and there are some passages of real eloquence. The part relating to the Ilungarian insurrection is interesting and graphic, and many of the scenes of social life show a vigour which would have enabled the author to write a good novel if he could have managed to divert his mind from the perpetual contemplation of his own real and imag►nary wrongs. There is a certain psychological interest in the view of such a character, but it is certainly not one which the generality of readers can be expected to treat with sympathy, much less with admiration or regret. Eva Desmond ; or, Mutation. Three Vols. London: Smith and Elder. " EVA DESMOND " is one of those works which really merit the title of a very pretty story. The heroine—a pretty, lively, clever Irish girl, not over-burdened with this world's wealth—is intro duced to us at the house of her rich English uncle, Mr. Clifton, owner of Oakstone-hall, on the banks of the Kennet. She has five cousins— Ernest, destined for the Church, with whom she is inclined to be in love ; Edward, for the army, who is inclined to be in love with her; Agnes, Myra, and Arlette. As the first-named gentle man plays a most important part in the history, we shall give his portrait as it occurs in the thirteenth page : He was young—had but jnst attained his twenty-second year; but he might have been t ken for at least three or four years older, for he was one of those in whom manhood developes itself at an earlier period, and in a stronger mea• sure, than in the usual order that nature deals with man kind. His limbs, clothed with ail the roundness and plumpness of youth, were heavier and more muscular than is generally seen at his age ; and that, combined with the expansion of his deep chest and square well-formed shoul ders, showed that his great natural strength had been increased by c..ntinual athletic exercise. His step, though elastic, was firm ; his attitude, erect, but natural ; his head well and even proudly set. The bead itself was eminently handsome: classically formed, it was adorneu with a pro fusion of black glossy hair, which fell more in waves than curls (and would, in itself, have been enough to constitu:e the beauty of any head;, and large, black, and well kept whiskers. His white ferehend was high and broad enough for beauty, though perhaps not sufficiently so for what our ideas associate with great intellectual powers. The portion immediately above the eye, where the perceptive organs he, Was prominent; which, with the clink eyebrow npon it, gave the well-set eye a depth of expression it would not otherwise have possessed. The eye itself was of that dark grey colour, midway between blue and hazel, which, when too bright to be examined closely, looks black ; and he had a certain quick impetuous way of glancing at any one who advanced an opinion he deemed erroneous, or expressed a thought he recognized as just or clever, that made it seem to look you through. In repose, there was it steadfast con centrated look in the eye, an d in the compression of the full handsomely formed lips, which told !hat the owner would throw his whole mind and body into any enterprize he undertook, and once undertaken, would pereev carry it through : though that such enterprize would I.e of a practical rather than of an imaginative or sentimental nature perhaps a physiognomist would determine. His smile was very charming : there was something so sincere and frank—such manly kindness in it. But he did not often smile : his more habitual expression was grave ; and not unfrequently his eyes appeared to smile without his lips bearing them company. Altogether, without so close a scrutiny as the foregoing, take him as lie was, wholly independent of the adjunctive auxiliaries of dress, no one could fail to pronounce him a singularly bawd some man. ---- After Edward's departure Ernest becomes gradually more and more alive to the charms of his beautiful cousin, and the first volume and a