Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1859-07-09

and oil tleldinB IN Joseph Aurews,
ovcrpowered the narrow speciality Of her design,
and expanded a local and temporary theme with
the cosmopolitan Of g%enius,
1t is a prover5 that there is great deal of hui
man nature in men," but it is equally and sadly
true that there is amazingly little Of it IN books
Fielding is the only English novelist who deals
with lie in its broadcast sense. Thackeray, his dis
ciple and congener, and Dickens the cougener of
Smollett, do not, 50 much as treat of Life, as the
strata Of so,iety-,hc one studying nature from
the club-room window, the other from the report
ers box in the Police Court. 1t may DO that the
general obli,eration of distinctions of rank in this
country which is generally considered a %detFiment
to the novlist. will in the end turn to his advantage
by compelling him to depend for his effects on the
contrasts and collisions Of innate character, rather
than on those shallower traits superinduced by
particular social arrangements or hereditary asso-
Citations. Shakespeare drew his ideal, and Field
ing natural men aud women; Thaekeray draws
either gentlemen or snobs, and Dickens either I'M
natural men or the oddities natural only in
tho lowest grades of q highly artificial sys-
tenn Of society. The first two knew human nature
of tic latter two, one knows what is called the
World, and the other the Streets Of London. Is
it possible that the very social democracy which
here robs the novelist of so much romance, so
much costume, SO much 10 short, that is purely ex-
ternal, will give him a se.-of in making it easier
for him to get at that element of universal human
ity which neither of the two extremes Of an aris-
tocratic sytem, nor the salient and picturesque
points of contrast between the two, can alone lay
open to him?
We hope to see the problem solved by Mrs.
Stowe. That kind of romantic interest which
Scott evolved from the relations of lord and vassal,
of chief and clansman, from the social more than
the moral contrast of Rcundhead and Cavalier, Of
far descended pauper and noureau richie which
Cooper found in the clash of savagery with civil
ization, and the shaggy virtue bred on the border
land between the two, Indian by habit, white BY
tradition, Mrs. Stowe seems in her former novels to
have sought in q form of society alien 20 her SYM
pathies, and too remote for exact study or for the
requirement of local truth, which is the slow re-
suit of unconscious observation. There can be no
stronger proof of the greatness of her genius, of
her possessing that conceptive faculty which be-
longs 10 the higher order of Imagination, than the
avidity with which "Uncle Tom" was read at the
South. 1t settled the point that this book was
true to human nature, if not infinitely so to plant
alton life.
If capable Of so great a triumph where success
must So largely depend on the sympathetic insight
of her mere creative power, have we not a right to
expect something far more in keeping with the re-
quirements of Art, now that her wonderful eye is
to be the mirror of familiar scenes, and of a soci-
ETY. in which she was bred, of witch she has seen
iii. - 49, L. - ~ oo,,t,.
where it is most naive and original? 1t is a great
satisfaction to us that in the ministers Wooing"
she has chosen her theme and laid her scene amid
New England habits and traditions. There is no
other writer who is capable Of perpetuating for us
in a work of Art, a style of thought and manners
which railways and newspapers will soon render as
palpozoic as the mastodon or the saurians. Thus
far the story has fully justified our hopes. The
leading characters are all fresh and Individual ere
ations-Mrs. Katy Scudder, the notable Yankee
house-p life Mary, in whom Cupid is to try con-
illusions with Calvin James Marvyn, the adven-
turous boy of the coast, in whose heart the wild re-
ligion of nature swells till the strait swathings of
Puritanism are burst DR.. Hopkins, the conscien-
tious minister, come upon a time when the social
prestige of the clegy is waning, and whose indie
penOeDCe Will TEST tue FOluutaEy eyoten VI Ahibio-
terial support Simeon Brown, the man of thoo-
logical dialectics, in whom the utmost perfection of
creed is shown to be rot inconsistent with the
most contradictory imperfection of life-and all
these are characters new to literature. And the
scene is laid just far enough away in point of time
to give proper tone and perspective.
We think we find in the story the promise of an
interest as unhackneyed as it will be Intense
There is room for the play of all the passions and
interest that makes up the great tragi-comedy oil
life, while all the scenery and accessories will be
those which familiarity has made dear to US. W,
are a little afraid Of Colonel Burr, to be sure, it il
so hard to make a historical parsonage fulfil thu
9 conditions demanded by the novel of everyday life
o He is almost sure to fall below our traditional con
4 ception of him, or to rise above the natural ant
easy level of character necessary to Keeping, int
e the vague or The melodramatic. Moreover, we d.
Q not want a novel of society from Mrs. Stowe sh,
is quite too good to be wasted in that way, AM
her tread is much more firm on the turf of tn,
= 'door-yard' or the pasture. and the sanded floor o
g the farmhouse, than on the velvet of the salon. w
have no notion how she is to develop her plot, Blu
we think we foresee chances for her best power il
the struggle which seems foreshadowed between
Mary's conscientious admiration of the Doctor ant
her halfconscioUs passion for James, before sh,
discovers that one of these conflicting feeling
means simply moral liking and approval, and TIT
other that she is a woman and that she loves
And is not the value of dogmatic theology as
rule of life to be thoroughly tested for the Doctol
by his slaveholding Pensioners? Is he not tt
learn the bitter difference between intellectual &C
ceptance of a creed and that true partaking of thu
s~acrament of love and faith and sorrow that makei
Christ sAe very life blood of our being and doing
And has not James Marvyn also his lesson to b.
taught? We foresee him drawn gradually bacl
by Mary from his recoil against Puritan Journalism
to a perception of how much charm there may b.
in an hereditary faith, even if it have become al