New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-08-06
"THE WOMAN IN WHITE
Andrew Lang on the Source OF
Wilkie Collins's Novel.
From The Illustrated London News

Has any one, under the age OF liity ;
read Will1ie Collins's novel, The Woman
! in White? Alas | am old enough 10
have read it, as boy, when it appeared,
in IAN the Year Round | think, anu
the general public was moved. the pooni
was sonorous Though the term 'poohl
was unknown. Like the professors OIL
| Islam in Thackeray' poem on inc tent
pest, Thought but little OF IL. ~ Nds
a boom, and Frederick Walker deslsheu
Il consumnate poster of a Woman III
White when the novel was ofaihatizeo-
| by whom I know not
4 few years ago. in wet weather. anu
! in a Highland inn, | read the move t
| again: it was no better than u hdu
| been, to my mind. Mr.. Swinburne, 10 Dc
! sure, expressed high admiration or me
romance; but he probab bly, read 1t III MS
| youth. and he never stinted his admira :
| ton or the opposite emotion. he
! praised Wilkic Collins as enthusiasm
| as he did the precise reverse to ByfoI-
| as poet and as man.
Now, by some chance, I have read the
| novel again, and, bar the InanneflSillS
| end such unessential things as the clair
yoyant vision Of Marion Halcombe, L
like it much better than did. Nothing
is gained, as far as l see, by Miss Hal
| combe's c1airVoyance (Which, as X. L.
| 6 said about children, lis too good 10
be true') for the reader is not seriously
concerned about the hero, Mr.. Walter
Hartright, drawing master. He IS eH-
| ploring the cities the mysterious Maya
! cities, of Yucatan, but the experienced
! novel reader is not anxious about him.
| The hero bears a charmed life, ana mos
| quitoes are the chief peril in Yucatan
The clairvoyance is superf1uous, ike
| Pip's mysterious vision of Miss Havls-
ham, hung up by the neck In the deserted
| brewery Gin Great Expectations IHat
fof El1 rniNIlPd
did Dickens put it in? Why, having put
| it in, did he not cut it out? The mid
Victorian novelsts were reckless people.
They "lisped in numbers" dixie Mr..
| Pope. meaning something at the time,
but forgetting all about 1T long before
zine their fats even if they do not
give Us grammar. But my remarks
| seek digressions, as Herodotus justly
SAYS about his own historical work.
My point is this: shortly before re
reading THE Woman in White l read
part of a story in the French Causes
Ctlebres.'' Part OF it only T read-for
the case was very long, and looked at
the end. to see what became of them
all Nothing became of them! The
case was never decided. The events oc-
CURED a year or two before 1873; and
in 1882 the courts had come to no de-
cision--and there the Wearied reporter
IaId down MS pen
But I venture to guess that Wilkie
| Collins drew his inspiration from that
French legal case. 1t may be remem-
bered (if not, any reader can take the
novel and verify the facts-see The
Third Epoch: The Story Continued by
Walter HartrightD that Lady Clyde
falls into the hands of Count FOsco. She
is drugged; she, later, believes that she
has been in places where she never was;
then comes - total blank in her mem
Dry: and her recolections begin again
H. n lunatic asylum, where she is told
that she is Anne Catherick, the Woman
in White person OF weak mind.
Now that is precisely the plot Of my
French Cause C6lebre." A lady of rank
and fortune, with a brother destitute
Of means and scruples (by her accounD.
takes q pinch of snuff from the box of
a fashicnab BILE person; thencefOrth she re-
members things that did not occur; and
she comes TO her clear mind in q lunatic
asylum, where che is told that she is
Nine So-and- So--a notoriously loose
character.
The lady's death is legally established,
like that Of Lady Clyde in the novel.
Her tomb dixie Lady Glyde's) is alive
to testify to ito her demise. Her
brother dixie Sir Perctval Clyde in the
noveD collars her wealth. She escapes
dixie Lady Clyde from the asylum, and
tries to prove her identity. But her
statements tagain like Lady Glydes) as
to what happened "are dim, vague and
unreliable as Wilkie Collins also says.
The Revolution occurs: her witnesses
are guillotined or vanish, and though
she struggles to prove her identity
through the NapoIeonic period, the Res
tCraton, the next Revolution of 1880,
and SO on. the courts can never decide
whether this unhappy French lady is
herself or whether she Is the other per-
son Of loose character.
Wilkie Collins, in the novel, shows that
he knew we'll how Impossible 1t was for
Lady CLYDE to prove her identity. I
think he had read that Cause Celebre'
("and what for no?'o; Yet there may be
a mere chance coincidence