New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1878-02-09


what school Miss Phelps learned her stylo, impecd
by what malicious influences her pen has hejugged
itself with mannerism the most offensive, and H.
yoyed itself in an obscurity the most intricate IL
would be hard to say. What VIC have TO be thank
full for is that the bcdevilmeDt has not concealed OF
distorted and has in only few less important mat
tiers touched the noble natural woman who moves
through her book from the first page to tne last
without false step. 1t is a character worthy the
contemplation of all women and the study oil all
meT.
There is nothing especially noticeable III the
youth of Avis. She hated Homework and sewing
and she loved to paint. She went abroad to study
and came home to practise her profession. Her love
for her art did not suck out her hearts blood, but
1t did prevent her from being interested in girsh
chatter about beaux, or in the beaux themselves.
Naturally. she had thought only of her art and bad
not thought of marriage, had thought or 1t rs
thing not so much impossible as alien to herself.
Tie utter surprise and final surrender OF love, the
slow difficult wooing eager on one side reluctant
on the other are rare and delicate touches al
nature. Her resistance to the approaches OF love
neither caprcious nor coquettish, but the Simple
consequence of her character and life. Her fearful
forced admission to her lover that she is afraid she
loves him. her terror at tn impending and mystic
rous change which at once beckoncd and threatened
her deeper terror at finding her own heart treach-
erous; her bewldered, truthful. ignorant an
swer to his eager, incredulous questioning,
Il do not know why. 1 am maze so
her absolute inability to present herself
to herself as marrying at all her utter lack OF wish
to marry, not from any objection to marriage Ill
the abstract but only its application TO herself her
naive inability to comprehend that this concrete
man of superior intelligence, standing before her.
should actually erpect her to marry him-are all as
true the Gospel. written not upon tables OF stone
but upon the human heart. Not less true is the
ready, reverent. but exQuisitely mdnnsh argument
of the lover, that marriage is really the best plan
God Almighty could contrive for us Ii is 50 easy
for man to vndicate the ways Of God to man III
marriage. And Avis, in solemn bewilderment, but
also with clear certainty. replies: but lie has
made me law unto myself-He made me 80. How
can help thati | do not say am better, or truer
or greater than other women when say IT is quite
right for other women to become wives, and not for
me- only say am not like that; am different.
And God did it,"
OF course there would he but one issue to such a
contest but the contest is as natural the issue.
All Aviss little ncoherent. passionate objections all
her broken pleadngs to Ostrander to help her IN her
opposition to him; her perfectly reasonable requests
that he should not rant her TO marry him, her en-
tirely logical statement that the more she loved HIM
the more unwilling she was to marry him, because
she could not DO any of the things men expect; be-
cause she was so unable to make him comfortable,
though she admitted she could make him happy-all ]
these arguments were. of course entirely thrown
away upon a man who had not the smallest inten-
ton or ability to change his wish
The married Avis fulhls well the promise Of Avis
the maiden. Even in the first fulness of her love
she vaguely resented the conventional expectation
.,o elo hpr 1's N
fore her own. She did it instinctivey, not from
principle or duty.
The downward course of her married love and
lfe--downward in point of satisfaction. never in
point of dgnty--is skilfully delineated. Her first
suspicions-which she refuses TO recognize--of the
quality both of his heart and of his head; the
silence and dignity with which she accepts and adj
iusts herself TO the situation as accurate rs biog
rapby No less significant is the slow awakening OF
her love than its tenderness and tcnacty when once
awakened. Both before and after marriage she Is
loyal to her art, and makes a good fight for its SER
vice; but submits without complaint but with full
recognition to the inevitable because love, all late
as it is and all disappointed and outraged. is
stronger than art she feared not so much the loss
of her art; she feared not so much the loss OF her
husbands love; what she shrank from as the fatal
blow was the loss of her love for him. which
Against that she struggled with nameless horror
She was dismayed to find that she could not be jea
GUS; that her heart knew sting sharper than
scorn She felt that all was lost when her husband
seemed to her small and far.
In the long and weary battle she could not rescue
her respect for her husband. hut she retained her
own. She equal to every sacrifice of taste and
ioy for his love. but she could not sacrifice one jo
or title of her loiness for his owness. She dwclt
alone but she dwelt on her heights There was no
elimination or recrimination scarcely talk She
made no scene. There was no open change. She
simply-and even that Observation-Disclosures from the
humiliation of his caress.
Through all the peeyishness and sclfshness of his
ill-health and l-succcss, AVIS cared for her hus-
band with the tenderness of superiority and pity.
She gave him srccor from whom she could receive
none. Now and then, with q noble incredulity of
his inferiOrlty. and noble hope that she might be
mistaken. she made some gracious advance OH the
assumption that they were peers; but she never
besought the love tenderness OF the man who had
fallentO his level far beneath her feet In waste
of solitude and silence she bore the burden of her
bafled life, and gave no sign. She was an unloyed
wife, but the ideal woman She could not WOO her
husband. Here is where the book is strong with
rare and noble strength. In literature there has
been much as essentially true in stuation-tlere
has never been anything more ideally true i'll treat
ment No extraordinary incidents or surroundings
are brought in to produce result. Avis rules by
sheer force of her sovereign womanhood. 1t is tie
pure gospel of personal dignity.
Failure and sickness came upon Philip and death
stared him in the face. He began to see, as even
weak man may through a glass darby, the desola-
ton his coming had brought upon her He began
to discern the value of the heart he had lost. He
began to feel the superior dignity of cOnstancy. He
had sufficient apprehension to see that his doom
lust. He knew that he was banislcd from her inner