The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1900-01-10
THE DAUGHTER OF THE ELH'
Tn. higher Meaning Of the Story
niscnssed By q coErespondent.

sIR:-I have been reading the new
Yves. virginia novel. the Daughter Of
IN. EIr.p and have even been making
a little study Of 1t to see II could PEN
citrate the motif that underlies the
work. For fancy the author has not
meant to merely give Us an entertain
inc narrative about the offences Of
rough gang that lived on the banks Of
the Monongahela some forty years ago.
True. the story itself and the manner Of
telling II. make this notable book;
hut did not the author intend US to
and something more2 1t seems to me
he did. and want to tell you what
think It is.
The title of the book is well chosen,
for the heroine is the great and central
figure In the story. She enters in the
arst chapter with her girlish impa'
tIence for the coming of her lover, an
xIous about him and eager to warn him
against the evil lines laid for him. She
blds us farewell under the starlight on
,hs noreh of her Kansas cottage; and
sho il the one character with a moral
purpose all the way through. She parts
with the reader a wife and mother,
who despite this relation in which she
"a as faithful as integrity can make
human being, has made "the great
saerIHee," as many, like her, do, in the
.uo,oo ~ ,,neomplainInE submission to
the DEGREES Of fate. against which pro-
tent is vain. wherever she appears in
the story, between that advent and
this farewell, she Is the pure, true
hearted girl end woman; living her
lonely, companionless, almost loveless
life, faithful to her obligation though 1t
conslgns her to-an existence in which
the most fragrant flowers Of the soul
can never come TO their efiorescence.
Here Is girl born into a home and
family. in which. by the very fiber of
her lofty and virginia. spirit, she can
never have any lot or part save as
soiourning stranger. BY one Of those
fateful providences that result in hui
man mIsats-the author calls It a
freak Of heredity"-thiS girl grows
nm In q, household where she is per-
force a stranger from the time she
reaches the age and development to
realize the gulf that divides her from
those around her. OF love and COM
panionship, beyond and after the age
Of childish affection, she has none. She
Isin her soul as much alone as Crusoe
on his island. Beautiful as she was,
she. could mot but have admirers among
the young men who came around her;
but ''she was separated from them by
an infinite space which they had no
conception of, nor she any power to
cross" The first love, and the one
that shapes her life, comes to her by
force Of circumstances, Her aftectlon
for young Holmes grows out Of pity
for lad who needed the firm direction
OF a mother more than he did sweet
heart; and without experience to warn
her against such a sacrifice. she gives
him all the affection he has capacity to
awaken in her and pledges an unreserv-
ed troth, from which when later she
comes to realize what an adequate love
would be to her. she never for mo-
ment thinks of withdrawing. Faithful
unto death she truly Is, though 1t must
have wrung the tenderest and secretest
heart-strings Of her soul.
Her meeting with St. George is like
the meeting Of the dropping flower
with the vernal sun and the shower.
There bioorned in her at once a con-
seriousness Of what life would be with a
noble, congenial spirit; and at the
same time she was awakened to a re-
nllzatIon Of her own untoward fate.
With fine skill the author develops
the state Of the case between Lorraine
and st. George-the mutual recognition
Of kindred souls; st. Georges percep-
ton of her terrible position, worse than
an alien in her own home" andherper-
ception that he understands 1t. Had
there never been any meeting but the
first, the poor girls fate would have
been less tragic, for her dream would
have passed like baseless vision. But
the second meeting completes the fatal
initial Of the first; It warns and quick
ems what each had been feeling and
medltating, consciously or unconscious
ly, in the interval.
Love at hrst sight is not the ridicu
lous phantasy some would have US be-
lleve. Nature prepares the mated souls
for instant recognition. We see this in
the meeting on the lawn, where st.
George finds Lorraine taking up the
plants; in the impulse that prompts
him to ask for the walk to the river
and in her preparedness for the re-
quest. We feel 1t as much in their con-
seriousness Of each other as in their COM
versation-he impuIsive and glowing
with an ardor that might have carried
him to any length: size profoundly af-
fected hut crushed with the conscious
ness Of her relation I, another which
compels her to put aside the love st.
George is eager to proffer her. How
keenly he feels the chill when he sees
that her words had not evoked in her
face the warmth he had expected to
see bear them company" how deeply
she is moved by the consciousness OF
It and his endeavor not to show his
hurt: and in parting with him hastily
at the moment when his impulsive
speech threatens to break down the
barriers of her reserve. she cannot but
let him see in her eyes that her heart is
his. while drIvan IN hnn,, hIr,nnnIG my