Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1853-05-28

rival train has whrled across their path and now like
rampant devil plungng down abyssmal precpices leap
ing into bridgeess chasms the securely to craunc
the hecatomb of victims offered up by Heedlessness AM
Avariee to glut this than ancient Moloch In va
do our journals TEEN with thrilling tales Of ships tina
have gone down at placid inland lake. witt
their hundreds Of living souls quenched in the CUR
Cling waters. Such moving accidents by food an'
field" will time to move. They pail upon thu
taste by reason Of surfeit new agony must be had
an ideal one will quite as well as that Il
over true; and such is the generation Of the novel
It no sooner wanted than forth comes the genius to cater
for the craving If in Paris the want Of new "inferna
machine" should come to be extensively felt his
Majesty Napoleon III may depend upon it that an inven
tor will not long be wanting. And in literature, you
may predict that when the popular taste demands more
hghspiced BROTH there viii always be plenty of cooks
to brew it.
Now, blood has long since refused to eurdle over
the ghosty pages of Mistress Anne Radcliffe. Ghouls
and phantoms eanking chains floors that suddenly give
way mysterious noises issuing from subterraneors pas
sage doors that opened and closed unseen hands
all these like Schiers fairies shave vanished from the
faith of reason" Religious novels, like that loye of
book, the Lady Of the Manor whose devout prayers
aud feeling loveetters lie atop of each other like sand
witches, have long since been voted bore Aegcrical
novels like that Mrs Edgeworth perperated where
made sorry learn that the hero is capital and
that the heroine represents the three per cent consos
grown positively insuerabe The historical novels
which Scott poured out if from the cornucopa Of Fan
cy longer appear except few which come out at
the little end of her horn in the hands of Mr. james or
Harrison Ainsworth. Dickens, with all his play upon
gentle sympathes is becoming too voluminous, and
maudn folk begin to fear that he has lost the power to
unseal new fountains of tears.
In view Of all these facts we are justified in making
what the French critics would pompousy call "agene-
ralization 1t being evident that the reading public,
under the above circumstances, must experience
craving it is equally evident according to the prsestab
shed harmony between supply and demand that certain
roancists must arise to crafty this craving and herein
behold the necessity of Mr. Thackeray, Miss Bronte,
and Mrs Stowe. Quod erat demonstrandua. Mr.. Thack
cray that the literary world needed change of diet
Other noveists had taught love- admire to fear
weep Mr. Thackeray teaches him to sneer, to mock,
point the finger and lo out the tongue He shows
that the world is all a sham Vanity Fair the big
SCALE and that Mephstophelean skepticsm the best
safeguard against deception He rips up all the DISCUSSES
with which hypocrisy pays homage to virtue, until we be-
gin to doubt whether virtue be any thing more than
He dsenchantsus of a our boysh illusions about
honor generosity benevoence delcacy and dsnterest
eunesS ne SHOWS US now SelnSnness
unsefsh characters are always either fools or sneaks 1t
thus that he has opened for of literary
emotion-painfu it true but dear because it broke out
in a new spot.
Of Miss Bronte we have already spoken enough She
diyerts from sagnsnt state of feeling by eggng
to pick quarrel with nature, society and the laws
because the marriage prospects of her goyernesses
quite SO good as could be wished. She has no pa
thence with Nature repose; she loves paint life
struggle Ind strife If she practsed the scuptor art
LAGOON wrestling with the snakes would be the first
fruits of her chse She has not much faith in goodness
She has but faint hope in providence She keeps her
favorte characters in constant PAIN and gives them
thing better than stocism with which bear it, She
dows them with large capacities for blissfulness but
very slender means and contingent hopes of enjoying it.
Now such portraitures the furthest from
being agreeable considered works Of art We have
quarrel present with their truthfulness They may be
taken from life but this does prevent them from be-
ing painful pictures To suffer without any better soace
than your self-sucing is the great moral Of
Miss Bronte's fiction.
Mrs Stowe is the third whom we have named in this
literary triumvirdte Let the reader be shocked by
the mascunty Of the word for genius is impersona and
literary ladies generally supposed be Of epicene
gender The success Of Uncle Tom has been, as the
play bills express it, immense Mrs. Stowe had the
sagacity perceive that heroes Of the white race and
with European features, had become decidedly
place Thesagacty Of this conception only surpass
ed by the wonderful vgor Of her executionn supplying
succedaneous order Of heroes Emerson had written
Representative Men" but strangely overlooked the
negro race as though Africa had been any thing
more than what Horace calls her, the dry Of
lions" 1t left for Mrs Stowe to do justice to the
neglected African. Uncle Tom" appeared partly the
representative man" Of his race, and partly living
contradiction Of the high Calvinstie dogma that
In Adams fall
We sinned all.
Uncle Tom fact is black jeremiah, not certainly by
Of his lamentations, for he always renders bless
ing for cursing, and Thanksgiving for fresh arup
ping, but because he "was sanctfed from the womb.
The idea, it must be admitted was novel; Ike execu
ton effective. new literature begotten in
day Genius for once reaped its reward in dollars AND
cents. uncle Tom took like wild6re." The "resdne
public found new excitement and made the most Of It
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