The Sun.
London, England, 1865-06-09 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Alec Forbes, of Howglen. By George Mac Donald,
M.A. Author of " David Elginbrod." 3 Vols.

Hurst and Blackett.

A pleasant story-teller is George Mac Donald,
and we close the last volume of his book with regret.
We are loth to part with the group of very various
but very original characters to which it has intro-
duced us; we miss the earnest tones of the narrator's
homely voice, but many a happy recollection lingers
pleasantly in the memory. As a story " Alec
Forbes" is a great improvement upon " Adela
Cathcart. The interest is more concentrated,
and the characters are very forcibly and naturally
developed. The first volume is principally devoted
to the childhood of the hero and heroine, of Alec
Forbes and gentle Annie Anderson. Alec Forbes,
although holding that honourable position is, iu fact,
anything but a hero. He is, when we first know
him, a gay, careless, high-spirited, generous-hearted
Scottish laddie, not gifted with any great intellec-
tual powers, and at the close of his recorded history
he is still much the same, but Annie—how shall we
describe her, the simple loving child, with earnest
anxious heart, and restless inquiring brain. Very
few such heroines as Annie Anderson are to be met
with in the pages of romance. In her isolation and
her unworldliness she is like some tenant of a
better world, who is only here as a stranger seeking
for her home—a description which should per-
haps apply to all the inhabitants of earth.
In the opening chapter we find Annie, a
lonely child of nine, on the day of her father's
funeral, seeking for comfort and companionship
with the dumb inmates of the farm-yard—" Nae-
body mindit me, an' sae I came to you, Broonie,"
and she laid her cheek—white, smooth, and thin—
against the broad, flat, hairy forehead of the friendly
cow." These innocent consolations are speedily in-
terrupted, the little country lassie, the playmate of
the farm-yard, is sent to live in the town in most
ungenial companionship. Here she attends the day
school ; and here, among the scholars, she becomes
acquainted with Alec Forbes, the only son of the
widowed Mrs. Forbes of Howglen. The character
of the schoolmaster, his severe discipline, and his
cruel brutality, is perhaps naturaFand typical of a
class now, let us hope, extinct, but the description of
his doings is singularlyrevolting. Alec, the favourite
of the schoolboys, by whom he is styled " General,"
constitutes himself the champion of little timorous
Annie, and the grateful devotion of her tender
heart repays his services with interest. Alec goes
after a while to a distant college, and becomes sepe-
rated from the companions of his boyhood; even his
dearest friend " Curly"—a capital specimen of
honest, faithful friendliness and fealty—recognises a
difference in their relationship. We must not fol-
low the history step by step. It is in the inner
rather than in the outer world, however, that the
chief trials and difficulties of both hero and heroine
take place. As the Scottish dialect plentifully per-
vades the pages of Alec Forbes, so also does the
strong religious feeling of the North hold a
prominent place in the history. One Sunday
evening the little earnest-hearted maiden goes to
the missionary church so heartily commended by
honest Thomas Crann, the stonemason, himself one
of the most religious but intolerant of mortals.
Here poor Annie is overwhelmed by the awful de-
nunciations to which she listens. Once before,
when in want of a book, she had fearlessly called,
though then unknown to him, on the clergyman of
the parish—to him she goes in her new perplexity.

When Annie descended from her hateful eminence, just
before her final prayer, it was with a deeper sense of de-
gradation than any violence of the ta wse on her poor little
hands could have produced. Nor could the attentions of
Alec, anxiously offered as soon as they were out of school,
reach half so far to console her as they might once have
reached; for such was her sense of condemnation that she
dared not take pleasure in anything. Nothing else was
worth minding till something was done about that. The
thought of having God against her took tho heart out of
everything. As soon as Alec left her, she walked with
hanging head, pale face, and mournful eyes, straight to
Mr. Cowie's door.