Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1873-06-12
MISS BRADDON.
An Esglisn Critics opinion OF H,


An E0gIish Critics Opinion OF Her.
From the London Saturday Review.l
This merriment Of parsons is might
ily offensive" said DR.. johnson one day,
when several clergymen, thinking they
would appear to advantage in his eyes,
assumed the lax jollity of men of the
world. This vulgarity of women is
nightly offensive, we might also say, as
we come across the writings of author
esses who think that they will stand
well with the reading public by assuming
coarseness which would be unpleasant
even in a man. We should have thought
that, at time when there are so many
male writer's quite ready to push vulgar
ity to its utmost limits and to trade in
the very coarsest Of wares, women might
have had the wisdom to stand aloof from
market which would seem to be already
oyerstocked, and where one would ex-
meet they must be surely overmatched.
Unhappily this is not the case; and,
running in close rivalry with the men,
we find them dealing in the same disa-
greeable incidents, using the same vul-
gar words, and aping them in the same
silly slang How long this school OF
sensational writer's, as they are called,
will last it is impossible to say. 1t will
not, we fear, have seen its downfall till
it has done the English language mis-
chief that can scarcely be cured, and
till it has gone far to render the minds
of Englishmen as unhealthy as they
once we're sound. For, at the present
time, it is the novel and not the song
that forms the nation. What can we
look fer from generation that feeds on
unhealthy excitement and weak sem
timentality, and that takes pleasure in
seeing its own noble language twisted
and abused2 "Unsex me, we may wch
believe that many an authoress calls out
as she begins to write. We have indeed,
happily, many woman writer who writes
like a woman, aud who are so utterly
careless Of woman rights as not to try
to initiate men in that wherein they are
least worthy OF imitation. We trust that
none of them will be dazzled by the lite
rary notoriety which those Of their sex
obtain who are most forgetful of their
sex, or will be misled from their woman
hood by any foolish hopes of aping man
hood. For, after all, there are still
seven thousand left who look upon
fast women with loathing, and who,
while despising slang in young man
abhor it in young woman; and w0
cannot but hope that the day is coming
again for those who when they write,
never forget the respect that they owe to
their readers. The stage seems to have
taken healthier turn, and the stage is
as good q gauge as we can have OF the
way the current of popular taste is set
ting. Meanwhile Miss Braddon and
writer's like Miss Braddon still have their
day. end as yet have scarcely begun to
: 81 the ebb of the tide which is, we
te :. if not turned, at all events on the
erGs' # turning. When the tide once
po,Hv ,rrn ed, it will run strongly we have
ua' 1"nbt .S We other way, and will leave
10 uo U .hole mass Of these sensational
ene l. I;Le so much refuse stranded
nov hoye' The next generation will find it
- 20 understand how the genera
tion before us delighted IN the hlghrhown
sentimentality of the Minerva FTess' Fr,S
Lady Audley's Secret Will teilow Ipau-
deus of Warsaw to the grocer shoP,
and. like it, will be employed to wrap up
ouidouid Charts amieitur inephs.
We must acknowledge that, if Miss
Braddon' s language is often vulgar, and
at times coarse, yet she does all she can
IN balance it by an excess of fine words.
She is certainly well up in the slang OF
the day. She writes of "nameless csds,
''tbe genus swell" an hour and halfs
snin" in a dog-cart, the later CesaFs
who were polished off so quickly, the
most dufing game" loahng with
g;Tl" down any amount Of pit," "up
~, and of a tree" none of your ghosts
of that kind of rot, and so on. On the
other hand, we find "supernal splendor'
"aureole of pale golden hair, scion
of the house, the chatelaiEe Of the
sbbev." " the welkiu ringing, mental
nsbuium," while in the ghost story we
are told that ''the light was as unearthly
as the sound-phantasma as the ignus
1s;c1 fatuus that play amidst the rigging
of a shin upon a storm-swept sea.
Iadvis toilet is q ceremony, just as re-
nnneration is the Latin word for three
9,rtbinrsn A room that was built IN
Stsnhen' time is said 10 have been " eK-
tent In the time Of Stephen" the cigar
S,comes -, The social weed" whenever
tbsre are roses there is a wealth OF
roses y and soda water and brandy are
pleasantly disguised under the initials
8. and b.
citizen of he World, every man can
be an author that can write, for they
have bv Law liberty, not enly Of saying
~bst thew please, but Of being also as
anil as tbey please" At the present
day, not onlv every man, but every Eo-
man, enjoys this liberty, MISS braaaoni
however. has carried the liberty OF saying
What she plesses. and being as dun a.
she pleases, 70 the very verge OF license.