The Portland daily press., 1875-10-29
The American Heroine.

Agne Macdonell, contributor to "M'Mil-
lan's Magazine, has been reading American
novels and as might be expected, IS deeply
interested and considerably mystified by the
women described therein. "Of all the curl
osities given to the world by America" she
says, and it IS to be presumed that she has ir
mind Niagara, the Mammoth cave, and
George Francis Train, "the national heroine
of romance is one of the most singular ami
Interesting. She is essentially new crea-
tion." Oar author appears to regard the
American woman as akin to the headlight oil
a locomotive, throwing a flood of light
on American social institutions, pro
gress and tendencies. One would natu
rally suppose that in the wide range oil
American novels the English writer would
find variety of types, and SO meet with
some difficulty in making an analysis which
would cover the ground. But she avoids this
difficulty by at once ruling out, for various
causes, all the male writer's of fiction, and
confining her attention to the young women
who figure in the works of Mrs. Stowe and
Miss Alcott. She does rot claim, however,
that the American heroine has sprung full
grown and Athene like from the brains o.
these authors, but insists that the remarkabl.
production ''has undergone gradual devel
opment and change from the fashipgeye,
squaw of Fennimore Cooper" An exposi-
tion OF this new Law OF literary selection and
Survival of the fittest by which Miss Alcott's
"Jo' for example, has been evolved from
the anthropoid heroines of Cooper, would be
curious and interesting. 1t is not Offered
however, and we are forced 10 content our
selves with the bare and blind statement.
From its limited range the paper becomes
in sense valueless as criticism of the
average heroine of the American novel. Its
author might have broadened her field, and
found among the charming women whom
Mr.. Howells has pictured for US, or in th
creations of others of our novelists, the gra
cious woman of Zone Summer" for example,
types OF American womanhood worthy o.
her attention and certainly far better repre-
sentatives of our girls than the amiablt
idiot who walks through the pages OF "Pink
and White Tyranny" These pictures Ger
tainly are not open to the objections whict
she brings against Hawtholne's Priscilla as
a 'Desdemona in Puritan cap and kerchief,"
or his Hilda as "a Madonna OF Fra Angelica
conjured into the form of New England
GIRL" But her comments on the herones
OF the TWO writers she has chosen are ap'
aud entertaining.
She finds in the American girls of the nov
ell tact, readiness, and amiable audacity. They
lack the violet-like bashfulness of the English
heroine, but they are exquisitely and uncon-
sclously truthful. In English tales the good
advice and moral sentiments are left to th
rector of the parish OF given from the mouth
OF the author himself in the pauses of conVer
sation, but all these good things are served
up to US by the heroine herself in American
tales. She is the best and most agreeable ex-
and young. She has much to do in the wa,
OF giving advice, has opinions Of her OWL
about everything, which she is consistent il
carrying into action, and about which sht
speaks freely. She has been taken from he
old artistic place as the passive, though per
haps central figure, in the drama, and put Il
the rank OF active agents in the scene. He
highest charm is no longer in her "eyes o
meek surrender" and cher constraininI
grace Of rest" but rather in her playful ant
shrewd supremacy over society. The Eng
| lish writer thinks that the woman has gaine'
in uprightness and courage, but that she ha
| lost in passion and tenderness and pensiv
| charm, and that the American novelists hav
lost for their heroine something of that NOR
subtle and hidden power which the poets AM
writersof the Old World have ascribed to heI
We apprehend that American women ar
content TO exchange ''pensive charm'' 10
truth and courage, and ''subtle and hidde
power'' for an opportunity of fair field fo
life, and labor, and ambition.
Two traits, however, which arrest the al
tention of the foreign critic, and which sh
comments upon, are not altogether unol
jectionable in American eyes. These are th
extreme youth of the American girl whe
she appears on the scene as an active and il
tiuential agent, and the uncommon convers
tional powers which keep her going at fu
vocal speed through three volumes. AS tt
Englishwoman says, "The female voices
the chorus chant the melody, the basses ar
tenors fill in the parts"