The Sun.
London, England, 1862-08-28 00:00:00

LITERA7 URE.

Measure for Measure. A Novel. By the author
of " Greymore." 3 vols. Hurst and Blackett.
We find here, under an old title, a very clever
and interesting novel, of which the plot is contrived
with great skill—the reader's curiosity being largely
excited, and true poetical justice is done in the end.
The scene is laid in a quiet country village, called
Wynthorpe, in which the chief residence, once an
episcopal palace, had been taken by a wealthy
London merchant named Clyde, whose daughter
Beatrice, the heroine of the story, is thus intro-
duced :—" She was not exactly tall, though deci-
dedly above the middle height, and her figure was
slight and elegant. Her head was remarkably
well-formed, and beautifully set on; and her abun-
dant dark hair was so arranged as to show the tips
of her delicate ears, and to mark the outline of her
face in a graceful line, harmonising exactly with
the perfect curve of her neck and shoulders. Her
complexion was fair and clear, but not brilliant;
her features small and regular, and her eyes large
and dark, slightly shadowed by her broad white
brow; the eyebrows almost straight, and forming
a clearly-defined, slender line. Her mouth was
flexible, and capable of relaxing into the most en-
chanting smile; but at present the lips were firmly
closed, and an expression of mingled restlessness
and discontent hovered over them." Of the society
in the neighbourhood she soon monopolises the
chief attention, not merely from her beauty and fas-
cinating manner, but from a certain air of mystery
about her which is difficult to unravel. By turns
reserved, or recklessly gay, she piques curiosity,
gains numerous admirers among tile opposite sex,
and incurs the censure of the prudent among her
own. Her mental state is thus described:—" It
is in real life, as in books," thought Beatrice,
" nothing but marrying or giving in marriage ;
or, if not the realities, the shadows of them."
They sickened her heart, yet she could not fly from
them. Were they so pleasant, these realities, that
people caught at the shadows and played with
them ? tiow, if she, too, joined in the game ? It
had been a dangerous one to many, she had been
told, but there was excitement in it. Excitement
and life ! and Beatrice thirsted for life, and chafed
in the narrow prison in which she felt her whole
being, outer and inner, fettered—and at the fate to
which chance, or her evil genius, had bound her.
Freedom ! Life ! Joy ! for these she longed. These
she knew to be unattainable. But, oh ! to feel for
one moment the reflected light of them ! To fancy,
even for a little time, that which could never be
real. To guess what happiness was like. To taste,
but for an instant, the highest bliss that earth
could give, though conscious all the while that the
bliss was hollow, the imagination of it fleeting !
The secret of her unhappiness is that although
ostensibly free, she is really fettered; whilst neither
of her parents have sufficient force of character to
thoroughly sympathise with or aid her. One
result of her position is, that she receives an offer
from a Captain Denbigh, whom she is forced to
refuse.
He hurried from the room, and left Beatrice sitting,
resting her arms on the table, her head bowed over them.
She was wretched and humiliated. She had misled—if not
wilfully, yet thoughtlessly—a man whose generous for-
bearance overwhelmed her with shame. Be might forgive
her ; but she could not forgive herself. Her love of
amusement and excitement had led to this. Oh ! that the
last two months could be blotted out of her life I Better
the blank gloom she had endured before, than the feverish
pleasure which had ended thus, in sorrow and disappoint-
ment to another—in dissatisfaction to herself. She had
sought to catch a fleeting shadow, forgetting that what
were shadows to her might be realities to others.
Beatrice did not know how long she had been absorbed in
her own thoughts, when a footstep in the room made her
raise her head. It was her father's ; and his glance, as
she met it, was fixed upon her in agitation and displeasure.
" Beatrice ! what is the matter ?"
" Nothing, papa ;" and she began, in confusion, to open
her desk.
" There is something," said Mr. Clyde, drawing a chair
to the writing table, and sitting down exactly opposite to
her, " and I can guess what it is. I met Captain Denbigh
as I came through the lodge-gates. I asked why he was not
staying luncheon, and received scarcely any answer. He
had a look on his face which I never saw there before, but
which I have seen on other men's faces, and generally found
No has been disappointed, and
to mean the same thing.
you are the cause, Beatrice."
" Papa, this is hardlY fair—"l
want no. confessions. But I our
ed
"Perhaps, and
griev-
ously shocked and disappointed. I have given warn-
ings,you,e.and
but you have received them with u
8;11 pride
Ott as
Beatrice,
some fathers might do, I have endeavoured
knowing that I have forfeited the right to
to
rest
satisfied
with my confidence,
starting up, with
with your assurances. But you have
and you have used the privilege mr" .
acec'cuse me of anything
gip.lpeeakpsa
aln"dingltietrjeurinptgedelle,atri,,
and selfish, but I have never
glowing
but that. I have been wilful
I
despised your authority ; and cannot bear that you should
as to let any circumstances—"
think me so ungenerous
" Whatever your stations may have been, you have acted
in a way in which I trusted a child of mine would never
have done. Perhaps
I have no business to speak to you of
honour ; but I did hope that, as a Clyde, you had some
hens, of it. You have shown you have not, by leading on
a young man to propose marriage to you—to you—
,
Peps, spare me !
Enlist say what I think, this time. I know that there
are girls who pride themselves upon the number of offers
they receive; but you, Beatrice, I believed superior to
vanity of that kind. You need no assurances to convince
you that you are beautiful and attractive ;and yet you have
acted as the weakest of vain girls—you, too, who ought to
have felt yourself shut out, by an impregnable barrier, from
anything of the kind.
clasping her hands passionately. 4, My chain
" Papa, you need not remind me of this," said.
for ever Beatrice,
only too real and present, God know s!"
•
So much of the interest of the story is dependent
on the mystery connected with Beatrice's position,