Litchfield enquirer., 1871-08-10


 novels, fiirts with an old lover, and is al- together as abominable butterfly as could be. The husband undergoes the stereotyped businesss failureI she ''takes on" frightfully; suggests fraudulent bank ruptcy, collaspses into confirmed invalid ism, and is mercifully removpd by death after undergoing the usual tFinge of re- pentance without which Mrs. Stowe couldn't have been so unkindas to extin- guisb her. This character, and Franco. Shoddy-American female named Follings- bee, are all there is of the boof. The hus- band, absolute mush and milk, the two good girls and their p6ky ldvers, one of whom vibrates with his squeezed lemon of heart between the butterfly wife and his legitimate inamorata, are out of place anywhere outside of Sunday School book. A family of genuine New York aristocrats she introduces to us have less of the grand manner than any aristocrats we ever saw or heard of. The action of the book is depIorably glow, and the amount of preaching done by the Sabbath School characters is enough. we guess, to dis courage even the regenerate reader. Now and then bits of conversation remind one of the bright, shrewd talk that is the chief charm of Mrs. Stowe's old novels. and an occasional hard-hitting Beecherism shows what she is still capable of.
 It is the prevailing vice of the current novelist to overweight his powder with too much ball. Mrs Stowe is an especial sin ner in this regard. She. once planted 8 shell right in an enemy's magazine and it's explosion made her famous. Since then she has taken more and more vehemently to mortar practice, and, of late, loads her piece with so much lead by way of moral, and puts in so little of the gunpow. der of passion and incident, that the mis- sile falls lamentably short of it's mark. Be. ing inspired with the material of tract, she sits down and of malice express and aforethought dilutes it into ''story with a moral" Inasmuch as this moral is the motive of the book, and a quite different one from what the unassisted reader would have drawn for himself. we give it in the authors own words:-
 ''We have brought our story up to this point. We informed ous readers in the beginning that it was nai : novel but a story with moral; and, ;sS people pick all Sorts of strange morals out of stories, we intend to put conspicuously into our story exactly what the moral of it is. .uo
 "Well, then. it has been very surprising to us to see in these our times. that some people who really at heart hate' the interest of women upon their minds, have been so short sighted and reckless as to clamor for an easy dissolution of the marriage con. tract, as means of fighting their wrongs Is it possible that they did not see that this liberty which, once granted, would always tell against the weaker sex? If the woman who finds that she has made mis. take and married man uncongenial. may. on discovery of it, leave him and seek her fortune with another, so also may man !. And what will become of women like Lil- lie, when the first guiding begins to wear off, if the man who has taken one of them shall be at liberty to cast her off and seek another? Have we not enough now of miserable broken winged butterflies. that sink down, down into the mud of the street? But are women reformers going to clamor for having every woman turned out helpless, when the man that has married her, and made her a mother, discovers that she has not the power to interest him. and to help his higher spiritual development? It was because woman is helpless and weak, and because Christ was her great Protector that he made the law of mar. riage irrevocable. 'Whosoever putteth away his wife causeth her to commit adnl. tery.' If the sacredness of the marriage contract did not hold, if the chul oh and All good men and good women did not uphold 1t with their might and main, it is easy to see where the career of many women like Lillie would end. Men have the power to reflect before the choice is made; and that is the only proper time for reflection. But. where marriage is made and consummated. it should be as fixed fact as the laws of nature. And they who suffer under it's stringency, should suffer as those who suf- fer for the public good. He that sweareth to his own heart and changeth not. he shall enter into the tabernacle of the Lord" @ @
 Taking Mrs. Stowe at her own word we have renewed occasion to admire her pluck at the expense of her judgement. To the unfortunate victim of Pink and White Tyranny she says, consolingly; s.I have shown up your wife in her true colors. Don't deny that! She is monster of sell fshness, extravaganza and frivolity, and only wants opportunity to be monster of vice. Stick to her, though! If you don t, she will break the Seventh as we'll as oth- CTS of the Commandmentsl' To Society she cries, "The institution of marriage is in danger. Don't you see what fizzing there is out of the safety valve? If all of you don't come up here and sit on it there won't be a particle of steam left in the boiler!" Now the best sermons from such texts are simply eloquent despair. We are happy in believing that the marriage re- lation is in no such desperate case as Mrs. Stowe would represent. and that its worst difficulties are capable of mitigation if not of entire relief. #
 Mrs. Stowe makes the common blunder of confounding two diametrically opposite