The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-10-09
THE LONDON PRESS ON MRS. STOVES
NOVEL.
From the Examiner.

From the Examiner.
Mrs. Stowe in this ook ascribes to one of
her heroines "that straight-out and generous
indignation which belongs to women, who, gen.
orally speaking, are ready to follow their prin-
ciples to any result, with more incousiderate
fearlessness than men," Such indignation is
her own, when she speaks of the slave system,
and of the decentralization it engenders. In her
first story she depicted, in woman's way, the
fallen position of the slave; in this story she
dwells more especially on the position of his
master. 1t is much to say of the book, that it
is worthy of its predecessor, but it would be
unjust to say less. 1t does not fall off in the
delineation of character, or in the power of in
teresting its readers; and the witness it bears
we honestly believe to be most true witness, to
the state of society it describes.
Uncle Toms Cabin was discaimed for its
exaggeration; whereupon Mrs. Stowe publish
ed the Key, giving an authentic parallel to
every incident; and, as she now observes, not
one fact given in that Key has ever been dis
puted. The former book showed what the law
allowed and what therefore could happen, and
did often happen, among Christian people. 1t
was first appeal, made with a noble woman's
entire energy, and it showed hard truth from a
woman's point of view. Its one highhanded
fault was obvious enough in the fact that sympa.
thy with the oppressed had no doubt led to over
statement Of the present merits of the negroes.
1t appears to be, in truth, the strongest part Of
the case on their behalf, that they are greatly
debssed by the working of the slave systeri,
the great Christianizipg institution" Other
faults alleged against that book, we cannot
admit to have been such. That the whites in
the tale were good and bad, pretty much in
proportion to their sympathy with slaves, was,
we need scarcely say, necessarily part of the
conception of work of art meant to produce
such sympathy as its particular effect; and we
of European feeling, it is really hard to con-
ceive that men and women can be otherwise
than good and bad in pretty close proportion
to the amount Of humanity they show toward
other men and women who are subject to their
absolute control.
In the new tale now before US, the case is
stated with less passion than before. There is
less OF the old generous exaggeration and the
book of course cannot create the sensation
caused in the former instance, when a new
flood of thought was suddenly let loose upon
our idle world, and from writer until then un-
known, there came fiction unexampled in all
previous literature, for its earnestness of pur.
pose, remarkable for its humor and its pathos,
and delightful even for those very defects-the
Americanisms and the frequent negligence of
style-which made it appear less like piece
of authorship than frank outburst of true
genius and noble feeling. bred appears under
precisely opposite conditions. The authoress
herself has so made her topic one of the most
familiar in England, that it might almost with
certainty be predicated that she can but here
have come as a cleaner to the field from which
OH hoe 1rootp o1 tho horvauf hnrna nd
instead of now appearing as a nobody whose
worth it is every mans merit to discover, she
necessarily appears as a somebody who has
enormous credit to maintain.
We find in bred, nevertheless, all that we
had right to expect from Mrs. Stowe. 1t
was, in the nature of things, impossible that
she could startle the reading world again as
with her first novel, because as to her public
course she has but one strong purpose in life,
and, having once surprised us with its strength,
she can but 90 on adding line on line. More
over, she has-as must necessarily happen in a
case of this kind-put already her best foot
foremost. But there is in bred the voice of
the same woman of genius, who has dramatic
instinct in conceiving characters, and a power
of appealing to the heart with pathos, and to
the head with shrewd or humorous suggestion,
which belong to her best nature and cannot be
separated from it. The readers Of the book
are strongly interested, and the quick wit of
the author has even power enough to keep them
well amused through dialogues, on sundry parts
of the slave question, which we must admit to
be both lengthy and didactic. There ia in the
present story no impossibly angelic negro from
the mould Of Uncle Tom. The central figure
of the book, bred, is an athletic, half-insane
African, son of father executed for attempted
instruction, who has broken from his bonds,
and lives as fugitive in the great dismal
swamp, near thoee plantations of South Caro-
lima which are the scene of the tale. he ap.
pears at critical times uttering, in the language
of the Hebrew prophets, warnings of wrath on
the land of the oppressor, and crying also to the
men OF his own race to come out end be free.
There is, moreover, a simple and steadfast
house negro, Milly, who works patiently, suf.
fering little in her state of slavery, and having
living faith in the hereafter for her consola-
ton. But except these, the negroes in bred
are no more than various forms of the sensuous,
afectionate, thoughtless, childish, indolent, odd
ly.religious African. There is Tomtit, who may
be roughly estimated as Topsy of the other
sex. There is Dulcimer, good for nothing, ex-
cept when he is at music. And there is Old
Hundred, family coachmsn, who can always
demonstrate why he must not bring the horses
out and never does bring them out except on
the most rare occasions.
The merely sentimental part of the story has,
of course, its defect; but it is also ull of feel
ing and power. A Quadroon, who is his late
masters son, and, unknown to her as such, the
brother of his mistress, is depicted as a natural
man, strongly rebelling against wrong. When
his inistress dies and her (also his own) tyran-
nous brother becomes the Oppressor, he sum-
marily knocks him down, and flies into the
swamp. On the other hand, there is little said
in this novel of open cruelty in the plantations
the slaves are almost throughout the book treat
ed indulgently, and enjoy all the physical ad
vantages upon which advocates Of the slave
system are used to dwell. Almost the sole ty-
rant is Tom Gordon, who is represented, not as
Legree, but rather as Preston Brooks. The
novel, as we have said, is meant to show what is
the state of white society in slave State-say
in South Carolina-and that the picture it pre-
SCENTS is true, we have Of late had ABUNDANT
testimony. Mr.. Brooks himself, With the help
of his constituents, has supplied Mrs Stowe
with an argument not easily to be resisted.
The very least that can be said of the work
is that it is one of the most interesting novels
Of the season.
From the Press TORY Organ)
Mrs. Stoves new tale is of much the same
material and texture as "Uncle Tom.n Like
that production, it b various in its matter, and
very unequal in its parts. Much of it is written