The Press. — London, England, 1858-09-11 00:00:00

B§l rather more like a nd some of the mind us of the tt A n gela." She the most chanuit to inspire more than her lover NI au thor's greatest stowed on the cl liar circumstanct racy, tenderness, she meets them, rated with a pi show her to hav The character, think, a novel o be sufficient to run of fictions, mentioned. Th bestowed on thi tsin tone of idt stele, would alm had met the aut still wearing the different purpos tine to Isabella, : She had not yet exists but one logo one recollection ala mast be renouncei; succession of years great grief—no rea of the soul to whirl yet for which it wet coil from the existi. feature? The thoi feeling of her soul as with a deadly si justice. At what p conld she have Ste here passion begin remember no such less front the mot dearer was it to he sink into nothing And she must h non was, when ! object on which to for lack of some su was imprisoned. long idle, there wil irregular spriamodi creeping languidly day be swollen to it. They are happ SONO, secure alit storms of winter, ] in all seasons alike cite in the ties furl rouse of every-day sons, that to them the safe ground of from an abstract within. But of tl Maurice was the her father, whom lunch inspire her that lay ready dor There is trot reminds us ye our readers ma Clouds," on t 1 female charact occupations ant The fulness am good sense and would lead us however, we h as anything bt be correct, it 'o which the wri learning, both observable, ant of most female the author to 1 pronoun hur dealing with worthier gelid( Whether of shall be glad t 16 0 Hall" on inconsistencies it i s a goveri Powers, valid Yell:Ted may i ih° ll esomer f r 2. There is a dal about critic their c o pi es of are most likelt "me, indigi re gards oursel that Without THE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 11, 1858. like a ebtiception of Mrs. Marsh's, scenes in which she appears re- Le incomparable first volume of ie herself must be reckoned among tanning of recent heroines, and worthy lore determined efforts to obtain her was inclined to make. Hut the greatest skill seems to have been be character of Isabella, whose pecu- Aces, together with the pride, deli less, and self-abnegation with which ,em, are finely conceived, and elaho patience and a distinctness which ive been the writer's chief favourite. as it here stands before us, is, we one, and ite execution alone would raise the book above the common .., without the other merits we have The great pains which have been this personage, together with a cer ideas and certain peculiarities of almost induce us to imagine that we lthor of " Framleigh I iall" before, le veil of the anonymous, but for a trpose. The following extract, rela lla, is an instance of what we mean : , passel the age when, for a woman, there igredient in life. Ono thought, one hone, alone absorbed her whole being, and these .need! To look forward through a dreary years, and see nothing but the shadow of one -• rest from suffering, except in a stagnation licit any suffering seemed preferable, and was her duty to strive—who would not re existence of which this was to be the sole thought that the most intense spontaneous lilt was one with which she must struggle • sin, overwhelmed her with a sense of in• point was it in her own power—when stopped and said, " Here esteem ends, gins ; I will go no farther "? She total point. She knew her love was hope winent it had had life, and yet 'so much her than any other joy that she wished to rather than survive it have loved at some time—the only qnes- All through life she had longed for some to expend the energy of affection, which, such vent, consumed the heart where it Where such a capacity exists, and is _ill come a time when it awakens to some spasmodic exercise. The feeble thread of water, on through a dusty torrent bed, will one a devastating flood, sweeping all before happy with whom the stream, fed by hidden alike from the heat of summer and the r, holds un its tranquil, fertilizing course Tike,—whose affections find sufficient exer _ formed earliest of all and the quiet inter every-day life ;—happy for this, among other rea ' them love, if it comes at all, will come from Ind of a distinct personal preference, and not ;tract craving for something to fill the void of these favoured ones, Isabella was not one. the only maul she had ever known, except tom it was possible to love; lie did not so her with a strong passion as awaken one dormant iu her heart. something in the above passage that very strongly of an excellent book may have met with, called " Morning the subject of the formation of character, and especially directed to the and habits of such minds as Isabella's. and smoothness of the style and the and depth •of many of the reflections us to• a similar conclusion,—which, have no intention of putting forward but a hypothetical one. Should it . would account both for the practice writing betrays, and for a degree of literary and scientific, occasionally _, and which is rather beyond the tether female novelists. For a woman we take be, though until the Welsh personal is generally adopted, we must, in the nameless, perforce use the gender. our surmise be correct or not, we to meet with the writer of " on another occasion. In spite of the I nconsistencies and improbabilities we have noted, iperior novel, and bears evidence of hid' if carefully cultivated and de ' hereafter produce still richer and fruit. a somewhat antiquated piece of scan tics,—to the effect that if you examine of the books they have reviewed, you Aely to find the leaves uncut. We, of indignantly repudiate the slander as ourselves, yet every one must be aware doing more than glance through the pages of a book, especially of a novel, it is possible to form a tolerably correct estimate of some of its not least important qualities. Such a rough survey usually enables us to discern the amount of esprit and originality possessed by a writer, however necessary a further examination may Le in estimating the probabilities of a plot and the naturalness displayed in the develop ment of character. We say to ourselves, " This will do," and sit down to the deliberate perusal with a confidence similar to that which we feel when formally introduced to a person whose general appearance is prepossessing, and whose remarks, casually overheard, have inspired us with a wish for further knowledge. And, from the chance expressions, the scraps of dialogue, the paragraphs which we inevitably read through here and there, and even from the proper names occurring, the calibre of a writer and the kind of fare we are to expect may be pretty accurately tested. Any one who should look through " Rita " in the way we have mentioned, would probably feel a strong desire to cultivate that young lady's acquaintance. Neatness of style, pointedness of expression, and cleverness of remark, are observable in almost every page; and the descriptions which occasionally arrest the attention show a realistic tone and air, and argue that the book has been preceded by much more study of life and observation of character than the " ruck " of novels usually display. The following passages, for instance, would certainly tend to excite curiosity. Rita is the daughter of an invalid, well-meaning, once beautiful mother, and of a handsome, dissipated, - unfaithful, extravagant father, who live in earls, in a shabby-genteel sort of way, waiting for " something to turn up." Something does turn up : I was alone in the drawing•room, when my father burst open the door Papa, what is it? Is Uncle Rossborotigh coming?" This was the event to which I knew my parents were always anxiously looking forward, and I could conceive no other cause fir my father's elation. He laughed aloud. " Better than that, old Queen of Tarts ! better than that! The old curmudgeon's dead. Fetch me my slippers." And he kicked his boot to the other end of the room. I ran for the slippers, then flew to my mother's room, and such was my anxiety to be the first to communicate the intelligence, that it oozed out before I got half• way to the bed. " Mamma! mamma! Uncle RORSboronsch is dead l " She started from her pillow. " Good God, child ! what do you mean ?" I repeated the words, and my father, following me, cor roborated them. She pressed her hands to her eyes. "Poor old Uncle John!" Then after a pause, raising them to my father's lace, she looked into A eagerly, inquiringly. ")bur thousand pounds ! " • • • • Over us lived a little old French general and his wife, with whom I very coon struck up an intimacy. Ile hail belonged to Napoleon's army, and had been present on every battle-field, from Lodi to Waterloo At what period of her existence this gold and faithful ally [i e. his wife] signed the solemn treaty that united her to her general, I know not. Her antecedents were shrouded in mystery : and there were not wanting ill natured stories. Some said she had been a vivandiere, and knew quite as much about the general's battles as he did himself. Some declared that she had heen the personal property of several generals in turn, until, at last, she married a commissary, and that it was with the wealth of that deceased functionary she endomed the general upon her second marriage. The latter part of this I believe to have been true: but I always thought her personal appearance the most powerful refutation of the scandal. Ihe irregularities of her face forbade the thought o. any in her conduct. She was deeply pitted with small pox: her complexion more like a coarse cheap sponge than anything else; the features having lost all clear articulation of outline, and presenting a generally in distinct an I bruised appearance. She dressed rather with an eye to strong colouring than pleasing combination, and, altogether, I must confess there was a decided flavour of camps in her aspect and demeanour. lint one could not see her, as I saw her, without knowing what a kind, generous heart beat beneath this unpromising exterior. Rita grows up, at first perfectly wild and un educated, afterwards under the tuition of an ex cellent pedant in petticoats set over her by an aunt who desires to save her from the paternal influences. She shows a talent for drawing, and finally takes to selling her works to get rid of her father's most pressing creditors; meeting, in the course of these negotiations, with a rich and bene volent Jew agent, and an equally benevolent and magnanimous picture-dealer, through whose somewhat apocryphal merits the first part of the story is worked out. llerc, too, she meets with the thoughtful and exemplary young gentleman who is to play the part usually assigned to such heroes relatively to beauty in distress. lie, with the aforesaid aunt, and another very forbidding old person, are her good angels throughout the story. The bad ones are, her father, her father'll —not exactly kept, mistress, because it is the other way,—and a certain Lady Greybrook, who has been a sort of fashionable George Sand. The latter is rather powerfully described : The lamp was now brought in, and while Lady Grey brook proceeded with Russian sangfroid to examine we from head to foot, I will do the same by her, fur the reader's future recognition. I remembered a woman fair and brilliant; I beheld one faded, withered rip, and worn, with eyes whose fire seemed to have burnt down into their sockets, and to have con sumed, as it were, the whola upper part of the face, though still the embers mouldered at the further end of those dark caverns, sending out sparks ever and anon, and lighting up the sharp, but still handsome features, with a feverish flash. Those features were seldom in repose ; a sort of restless eagerneas possessed the mouth, even when she was not speskiog ' • and though the eye no longer gleamed and shone and sparkled with the brilliancy that had been so remarkable in youth, it was never still an instant; the most fatiguing eye to watch, and giving one an impression that it never could relax its vigilance for a single moment, or succumb tinder the influence of sleep. She talked with a hit-or-miss kind of cleverness, which, while it is less alarming than actual wit, often passes for such, when assisted by a natural olf•hand manner. Hers, which was partly natural to her, partly the result of the atmosphere in which she lived, was par ticularly agreeable ; it was said, indeed, that her " success " had always been greatly owing to this charm. What this " success" was, I shall presently inform the reader. I will only add now, that she was magnificently dressed ; and I had time to observe that her hands and feet were remark ably small and well-shaped. There is also one of those characters of whom lady novelists are so fond—a gloomy, Byronic, sarcastic, diabolical, disappointed, Englisli noble man, who shows his eccentricity by making a hypothetical proposal to Rita the instant he is introduced to her, who bestows on her the accu mulated treasures of his cynical observation, and ends by falling desperately in love with her. Meanwhile her mother dies, and her father, having married the woman in whose power he is, and for whom his wife has been neglected, tries to force his daughter to espouse an old marquis (of the regular "old marquis" stamp), on whose fortune he and his ally count for future relief from their embarrassments. Mr. Rochford, the lover whom Rita really prefers, is not at hand, havin ,, been deceived by false reports about her, and having seen her in an apparently equivocal situation. No help is at hand, and Rita reluc tantly throws herself on the repeatedly offered assistance of Lord Rawdon. They fly together; but at the end of the first stage Rita meets with an English family whom she has known in better times, accompanies them on the instant to Lon don, leaving her lover, who had gone out on business, plaittei lei on his return. Then, by a concatenation of circumstances, at the nature of which every experienced novel-reader will easily guess, she is again brought into the society of Mr. Rochford, who on his part has supposed her married, and has through pique become engaged to a country neighbour, his cousin. Hence, of course, ensues another entanglement— which, however, we shall leave to the curiosity of our readers to elucidate for themselves. They will be able to judge front the preceding sketch whether there is as much in the book, as we think there is, to induce them to send for it. The favourable opinion we have expressed of the quality of the writing and vivacity of the scenes could hardly be applied with similar jus tice to the whole conduct of the story, or to the delineation of all the characters. In the working out of the former there is a good deal that is im probable; in the conception of the latter there is a deal that is conventional. The father of ra, Colonel Percival, seems to us the best done. In the character of Lady Greybrook, also, there is much that is natural and striking. But such a being as Lord Rawdon exists only in the imagination of young lady writers. The goter ness, Miss Lateward, is not very successful--her goodness and prudence not having much injivi uality about them, and her pedantry being ex= hibited in letters, the Johnsonian style of which appears to us quite forced and staey. There is also a certain degree of perversity about the authoress's views on minor ethics. She is nob exactly of the " self-sacrifice" school of novelists, but her heroine shows an over-scrupulousness on some occasions and an over-forwardness on others which seem inconsistent with the general cha racter ascribed to her, and sometimes to be not altogether ladylike. Thus, we do not think that a real Rita would have solicited a flirtation in tbb -4 , .