The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1872-01-19
BOOK NOTICES.
BY non. W. G. M'Apoo. |
MY ROSES; THE ROMANCE OF
AJUNE DAY, by Mrs. l.. VR-

This is y strange anu daring beoks
Its success will be as signal, and its
achievement of good as splendid, as
its heroism deserves.
IL is The thrilling story of reclama-
ton from vice ofone woman by anoth-
er. To achieve her purpose, the hero
inc in the disguise of male sttire,
plunges into palalial abode of vice
in New Orleans, and encounters per-
lis which would have overwhelmed a
weaker spirit. But she succeeds. The
brilliant young being who was endan-
gered is happily rescued ere the blight
of sin had shed its bale upon her soul.
Mrs. French has well executed a
difficult task. Hitherto this gifted
woman, a resident of MeMinnville,
Tenn, has been known To the literary
world only as a poet. For the last
few years her poems have frequently
attracted the attention of the public,
and she may safely be said to have
achieved, in that line, national reml-
taticn. In the recent elegant volume
edited by ida Raymond entitled
"LiUiag Female Writers Of The south, ]"
Mrs. French occupies the most COLI
spicuous place among the Etter1teurs
OF Tennessee. The biographical
sketch of her which appears there re-
veals well the pure and philanthropic
character of the author, and sheds los
light on her lofty aim in the produe-
ton of "bIy Roses" -.H
We would not be surprised if that
class of persons styled 10y Robert
Burns 1.-The unco guild, or the rigidly
righteousn should indulge in mucn
acelic fault-finding over tie volume
before US. There are many III this
imperfect world of ours who shy so
virtuously at what st. Paul does in
deed advise us generally TO ''avoid, ~
to-wit: 1.-The appearance of evil,o
that they stumble biindly over the
precipice of s. real sin on the opposite
side of the highway: Sin, in this, that
they fail to snatch from destruction
the innocent who are entering the
threshold of ruin, and when a good
word, or a helping hand would rescue
the faIling-yea, even sometimes the
fsIlen-frOm the pit! 0ver-much
care in avoiding sins of commission
may readily lead us into sins of OpaiS-
sion.
any Roses' is capacitsted to do
great good for class OF human beings
who should long since have attracted
an appropriate share of the reformato-
nv eXeTtions of woman: eXertions
well guarded, In be sure; still ecer-
dORS-nOt Indifference, and blighting
indiscriminate condemnation. The
noblest and purest of Mrs. French's
sex must applaud her motives-those
who are competent TO think for them
selves, aud dare to adopt the recon-
mendation of Lord Bolingbroke that
"When We come to determine, let
nothing appear SO venerable as our
understanding"
1t is true that Mrs. French's book
may be used for an evil purpose by
the silly-romantic, or the already vi
tiated, of her sex in "high-life' who
seize greedily on a preteXt for dis
guising themselves in the habiiiments
of the stronger seq, and seek in such
disguise haunts generally forbidden to
virtue. But every candid reader of
only Roses" must COncede that such
would be a peTUersiOn of the inten-
ton of the writer of the true logic of
the book. Mrs. French is no more re-
sponsible for the result liz such case
than the druggist who vends an ounce
of opium to suicide unkuowing Of
the suicidal intent.
To guard her work against becoming
too ready a preteXt for the viciously
inclined, Mrs. French has chosen to
present a cOmbinaiiOn-picture not of
cUeyy ddpJ life, but OF highly ideaiized
possibilities Of human existence and
action. To those who would perveIt
the volume TO evil conclusions, she
would quietly say, "when you find
yourself placed in the same circum-
stances precisely as Henrietta de Haul
terive-with French blood cOursing
through your veins who has said there
are firo Kinds Of nature, Human ma
ture and French naiure?) and in TO-
mantle old New Orleans-thea you
NAV 90 what she did, "My Roses"
presents a very uncommon combina-
zion of character and circumstances;
and vet the boundaries of the impossi-
bic, and even the improbable arecare.
fully summed. In so doing the au-
thor has shown herself an "Artist in
words'-sO Sir Henry Bulwer Lyttop
STYLES himself in cODtradistiDction of
John Gibson, the Sculptor, whom he
characteriZes as "Artist whose ideas
sneak in marhle.n Lord Bacon re-
marked IN the taste fer fiction evidence
of the greatness and dignity of the
human mind, adding ingeniously that
"the objects of this world, and the
common train Of affairs which we be-
hold going on i'm il, 90 not fill the
mind nor girc 1t entire satisfaction.
An accomplished writer of Georgia,
Miss Fannie Andrews ("Elzie Hay"
Ia :, recent able article ON ''rhe Novel
as work of alt,n which appeared in
the best of the Southern periodicals,
''The Southern Magazine" says at
is humiliating fact that human ma
ture in its Unvarnished state, never
fuliils our ideal.n And BulyeT-Lyt-
ton in that most wonderful OF all the
productions of his fertile genius, Tan
OH, says that every critic in art
from Aristotle and PIiny-from VIM
kelman and Nasari, 10 Reynolds and
Fuseli, has sought to instruct the
painter that nature is not to be copied
but erdHod-that the Hottest order of
art, selecting only the loftiest combi-
nation, is the perpetual struggle ofhu-
mainly To approach the Gods" This
eXaltation and idealization of the COM
monplace is strikingly visible in "My
Roses and while it records an eX-
treme case, it presents an extreme
remedy: leaving the irresistible con-
clusion lehind ii that minor modifica-
tons of the mischief demand milder
or different remedies; and that REM
edy, or an attempt at q remedy, of
suitable kind TO the particular case in
hand is a solemn duty which should
take the place of that scoruful and un-
womanly inhumanity which theS SCI
fishness of man has designedly i'm
planted in the breasts of the softer sex
towards their erring sisters.
"My Roses" in its picture of the
gorgeous and empoisOned 'Masion
ies BiiouX" presents a wonderfully
accurate glimpse at one lamentable
phase of female life which has always
existed and perhaps always will exist.
Hitherto man has not only not effect
ed, but he has not really attempted to
effect a reformation. Man never will /;
man is pre-eminently a selfish beng. |
His selfishness, and naught else, has !
debarred woman from such attempt. |
If, as the gifted authorcss of My |
Roses remarks, reform ever reaches !
those g!itIering, yet fearful haunts, !
woman's pure and brave heart must |
carry it thither. How this may be |
done, how varying means are To be |
adapted to varying eases, we cannot
here pause to argue. my Roses" is
not intended to point out a common
way. 1t seeks an extreme case for
presentation, IS the sixth command
meut in lis Sinaical thunder ''Thou
shalt not KILL" embraces a prohibit
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