The Express.
London, England, 1849-10-31 00:00:00

LITERATUBE.

Shirley. By Cvaasa BILL, Luther of
.." lams Eyre." 3

wrls. Smith E:der.

1919.

There aro few things more forbidding than the
commece*ment cf a novel by the author of " Jane
Eyre." Like people who put dwarfs sad ministers
to keep their gates, or ugly dogs to deter mils folk
bon catering, so doth this writer manage to bays as
ocifi chapter or two of the most deterrini kind.
se disgusting as the family in the midst of
whom Jane Eyre is first discovered? The three cu-
rates and their )uokettiug, with whom " Shirley"
commences, it quite as vulgi.r, as unneoeseary, sad as

wti -
•
if you do not mind these monstrosities at the en-
trance, you will be both welcomed and repaid by the
i and the beautiful, when you enter the man-
sion. Palace it is not. The abodes haunted and
peopled by Mr. Curer Bell's imalcination are middle-
class ones, with the peculiar kind of refinement,
purity, and feeling which pervade them: gentility
without its nonsense, industry without its coarseness.
Tte story is in keeping with the scenes
and the class in which it is laid. The ad-
ventures are simple, brief, and few : scarcely culled
indeed, but almost carelessly taken from every-day
life ; a love story of the simplest, chequered by the
very smallest of obstacles, and solved by the most
awkward of devices. If the adventures are not the
most stirring, the characters are not of the mole
striking. But what is striking is the ceatiment.
" Shirley "is the anatomy of the female heart. By
" Shirley" we mean the book, and not the
personage; for the true heroine is the rector's
niece, the history of whose heart is one of
the most beautiful chronicles ever set down by a
female pen. For that Curer Bell is petticoated will
bi as little doubt. d by the renders of her work as
that Shirley Keeldar is breeched.
The merit of the work lies in the variety, beauty,
and truth of its female character. Not one of its
men are genuine. There are no such men. There are no
Mr. Holstoms, Mr. York.,, or Mr. Moores. They are
all as unreal as Madame Tonsaud's waxworks. And in
tenth the mind of the writer mast have been darkened
by the sbadeof some lay figure,eome wooden man stuck
up between the light and the easel used in painting.
Toe sentiments of this man, or men on womankind,
are all factitious, and evidently thrust therein by
a woman's imagination or resentment. Let Carver
Bell get some one else to paint men, and himself do none
but the female figures, or dialect at least none cave
female hearts.
Although the lucid nts of the book be few, they
are powerfully imagined and well told. Moore, the
hero, is a mill-owner, who perisista in introducing
machinery. He makes: sore enemies of his
hands, who plot against him, break his frames,
and at last attack his mill. The York-
shire rioters are sketched with a pencil
of truth. But the author cares not to dwell upon
them. Mr. Bell prefers establishing a microscopic
opening into the breast of some young lady, and
writing all the phenomena of that wonderful and
delicate work of nature or of art.

We shall not indulge in many extracts of a work.
in the perusal of which we with to fores'al no one's
plessare. In the following word•, the author intro-
duoes his heroine : _

Caroline Helstone was just eighteen years old; and at
eighteen the the narrative of Me is yet to be commenced.
Before that time, we sit lis.ening to a tale, a marvellous fir.
tioo ; delightful sometimes and sad sometimes; almost
always unreal. Before that time oar world is heroic ; its
inhabitants half divine or semi-demos ; its scenes are dream-
eases.; darker woods, and stranger bills; brighter skies,
11101* dangerous waters; sweeter towers, more tempting
traits; wider plains, drearier deserts, sunnier fields than are
,found in nature, overspread our enchanted globe. What
• moan we psi oa before that time! How the trembling
of oar hearts at bee aspect bears witness to its unutterable
beauty ! As to our sun, it is a burning heaven—the world
of goth,
At that time—at eighteen, drawing nor the confines of
illusive, void dreams, Elf-land lies behind us, the shores of
Heathy lies in front. These shores are yet distant ; they
look so blue, soft, gentle, we long to reach them. In sun-
shine we me a greenness beneath the 'sure, as of spring
meadows ; we catch glimpses of silver lines, and imagine
the roU of living waters. Could we but reach this land, we
think to hunger and thirst no more • whereas many a wil-
denier, and open the flood of Deith, or some stream of
sorrow as cold and almoat as black as death, is to be crossed
ere true Wl,' can lot tasted. Every joy that life gives must
be earned ere it be secured ; and how hardly earned, these
only know who have wrestled for great prizes. The heart's
blood must gem with red beads the brow of the combatant
before the wreath of victory rustles over it.
At eighteen, we are not aware of this. Hope, when she
smiles on us, and promises happinees to-morrow, is implicitly
believed ;—Love, when he comes wandering like a lost
angel to oar door, is at once admitted, welcomed, embraced ;
his quiver is not seen ; if his arrows penetrate, their wound
is like a thrill of new life ; there are en han of prison,
none of the barb which CO leech's hand can extract;
that perilous passion—an agony ever in some of its phases ;
with many, an agony throughout—is believed to be an tin-
qualifi4 good; in shirt, at eighteen, the school of expe-
rience is to be entered, and her bumbling, crushing, grind-
ing, but yet purilying and invigorating lessons are yet to be
learnt. _ _

Alas, Experience! No other mentor leas so wasted and
s-n a faro as yours : none wears a robe so black ; none
bAurs a rod so heavy, none with hand so insurable draws
the novice so sternly to his task, and forces him with autho-
rity so resistless to its acquirement. It is by your instruc-
tions alone that man or woman can ever find a safe track
through life's wilds: without it, how they stumble, how
they stray ! On whit forbidden grounds do they intrude,
down what dread declivities ars they burled
Here is mom of her, evally beautiful : the passage
gives the key to the aenttment of the book :
She sought " bonnie Robert's" presence speedily. For his
part, when she challenged his sight, I believe he would have
from before her eyes like a phantom, if he could ; hut
EZd
as a tall fact, and no Action, he w obliged to stand the
greeting. He made it brief :it was °oasis-like, brother.
like, friend-like, anything but lover-like. The nameless
charm of lest night had left his manner: he was no longer
the same man ; or, at any rate, the same heart did not boat
in his breast. Rude disappointment! sharp cross! At first I
the eager girl would not believe in the change, though she
saw and felt it. It was &dealt to withdraw her hand from
his, till he had bestowed at least something like a kind pres-
sure ; it was Jiff, elt to tura her eyes from his eyes, till his
looks had expressed something more and fonder than that
opal weleome.
A laver masculine so disappointed can speak and urge ex-
planation, a lover feminine can say nothing: if she did the
result would be shame and anguish, inward remorse for
self treachery. Nature sr( uld brand such demonstration es
a rebellion spinet her instincts,and would vindictively repay
It afterwards by the thunderbolt of self-contempt smiting
suddenly in secret. Take the matter as you find it; ask no
questions ; utter no remonstrant*, : it is your bnt wisdom.
You expected bread, and you have got a stone; break your
teeth on it, and don't shriek because the nerves are martyr-
ized : do not doubt that your mental stomach—if you have
such a thing—is strong seen ostrich's—the stone will digest.
You held out your hand for an egg, and fate put into it a
scorpion. Show no eonsternation ; close your Sneers firmly
upon the gift ; let it sting through your palm. Never miad
in time, alter your hand and arm have swelled and quivered
long with torture, the squeezed scorpion will die, and you
will have learned the great lesson how to endure without a
sob. For the whole remnant of your life, if you survive the
trot—tome, it is said, die under it—you will be stronger,
wiser, lees sensitive. This you are not aware of, perhaps, at
the time, and so cannot borrow courage of that hope. Nature,
however, as keen intimated, is an excellent friend in such
cases' sealing the lips, interdicting utterance, commanding a
plecid dhodmulation ; a dissimulation often wearing an easy
and gay mien at first, settling down to sorrow and palettes
in time, then passing away and leaving a convenient stoi-
cism, not the less fortifying because it is half-bitter!
Half-bitter! Is that wrong? No—it should be biller:
bitterness is strength—it is a tonic. Serset mild force follow-
ing acute suffering, you find nowhere; to talk of it is
delusion. There may be apathetic exhaustion after the rack ;
if energy remains, It will be rather a dangerou energy—
deadly when confronted with Mitotic*.
And here we take leave of " Shirley," a book which,
like its predecessor, indicates exquisite feeling, and
very great power of mind in the writer, though he too
much disdains art, has too much tolerance for common
place, and dilates too much not merely on what is
conventional, but what is real vulgarity, too trivial to
expose and too trifling to condemn. The women,
however, are all divine, and " Shirley" is indeed an
intellectual harem.

Past-Orrin CHANOES.—SpeCiaI instruction were
lamed Iron the General Post-aloe late but week to the
deputy postquetan that no alteration was to be made in the
oiradation of letters on blank days, so that onereepondence
to sad from the north and north-wee, and the south and

south west should be sent by way of inter as heretofore.
The only correspondences that was to b. seat through
Lowden was that going to sad host the east sad the south,
week end month-west. These instructions did not reach
the distant oases in tau, sad consequently • net
=miof the aorrequatienos that ought to ha,.
sat through Easter wu sent through Ludas.
If linter is stall to be the groat forwarding elk*
on black days, and the untotgankese forwarded in
the Loadeatarouttztah.oee days is to Imo Ifink•d to haters for
Louden sad which era =by mugs the fall
letter rates the y duties ht
waits lii. the fugMeese es. Is dose notu.se to bengiliftasse-
ra4 known that palms to ihe mum h was
only poem Whig is the asseeea protest that were
Wally en earespeadhe wish these Ilvlog la
tie watt esd easth-west IS link days. Parties &lap lb
the Id. et Wight, hi 111001114 maid seal • letter to Uwe-
pool es Saturday the wee si asy etherbyway it would
INA the laWas flue sal/Jody useslag nimater.