The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1868-05-20

Nor WISELY But Too WE'LL. A novel BY the
: Author OF Cometh Up as q Flower. New
York: D. Appleton & Co. Charleston John
Russell.
The author Of these two novels is certainly
q clever woman in her way. We doubt whether
any Of our readers would like that way to
be characteristic of their wives or sisters,
but, such hSss'it is, it cannot be denied az her
due. But her genius is decidedly of the
flesh, Aeshly. "Cometh Up as Flower"
was very nasty book; but its successor far
outstrips it in that attractive quality.
What Mr. 4swIsBuRsE is among poets, what
.sthe girl Of the period" typi6es to the "sat-
surday Review among women Of society,
the authorof s1Not Wisely but Too Well"
is among the novelists Of the day. More
obtrusively sensual than "ouida," more
coarssly unscrupulous than the author of
EaGuy Livingstone" she has initiated those
ljwriters, without acquiring the pictorial
power Of the one, or the epigrammatic Vi
vaoity ii The other. Her books will be at
tractivs, to q large class Of readers because
| Of their scarcely yelled sensuality, and they
will be read by others for whom that fault
is atoneaa by q certain tawdry olsverness
which.i .ib not without its merit. There is:
| not much difference in style and material
between the present novel and its prede-
cessor. Both depend for their interest on
what the author calls .1ove," but which
| may be more ftly designated as passion, or
| by still more suggestive name, in its most
feshly and sensual form. She rings the
changes on this interesting theme with mar
vellous variety of illustration. The hero
inc, Kate Chester, is, to borrow the authors
description of another character, "the sort
of woman about whom Mr.. ALGERNoN SWIM
BURNE would write pages Of magnificent
uncleanness' feat, by the way, which
the author contrives to accomplish very sue
cessfully herself, excepting the magnif-
cence This interesting young person who
is described with great gusto as having
ssfuzzy hair and green eyes" meets the
military hero who is to play the Othello to
her passionate DeSdemona, at dinner
party, and straightway sit falls out that
they fall I'M love with each other, the lady,
however, considerably in advance of the
gentleman, as ladies of that sort very often
are. This gentleman Colonel Dare Stamer,
is one of the most unmitigated scoundrels
we have ever had the pleasure Of meeting,
even among the muscular heathens who
have been of late the fashionable heroes.
The author, we must admit, confesses that
he is rather wicked, but in that style which
inverts the famous phrase, and praises with
faint damning. The effect of his appari-
ton at dinner-table upon our green-eyed
heroine is to make her betake herself next
day to the woods, where she soliloquizes
after this fashion: .Oh, such q minute as
that would overpay centuries in hell :"
.If could only have Dare all to myself for
lust one month, and then to die and live in
tortures for all the countless ages Of eter-
nifty, why I'd do it this second!" And SO
on for pages more of frantic passion, cul-
minating at last in a proposal from Dare
that she should elope with him, regardless
of his own trihing incumbrance of a wife,
which proposition, however, she very consis-
tently rejects. We cannot follow her and her
pleasant lover through their various adven-
lures. Suffice it to say that after long
separation, during which Dare goes more
rapidly than ever to the bad, and Kate
keeps her hand in by flirting desperately
with every available man, they are both
finally dispatched to more sppreciative