Year: 1866

NOR ever penetrates into the pages that
are devoted to the chronicling of her ex-
ploits. She would find herself more in
place in romance which turned upon
human passion. Passion stands nearer
to crime than humor or sentiment does,
and Medea or Clytemnestra or Lady
Macbeth would serve as heroines either
in passionate or purely sensational
piece.


But the authoress who deals in homi-
cidal heroines is met here again by the
old difficulty. To draw any passion in
a refined way requires refinement. 1t
is no use dressing up lust or vanity or
revenge in crinoline, or in uniform, and
calling it a human being. To be sue
cessful picture, the lust or the vanity, or
whatever, in short, is the passion to be
portrayed, ought to obesuperinducedu
a real substratum of human character
not to be made i'm naked sort of way,
to stand as the whole of the character
itself. Othello is not jealousy, nor is
Ophelia love. The former is Il man
overwhelmed with jealousy, and the
latter is woman, if not lady, under
meath all her affection. TO make good
passionate romance, one ought accord
ingly to be able to construct man or a
woman, after doing which one may put
the passion on. The homicidal heroine
schools have not shown that they can
draw man or a woman, and no at
tempts ut giving with fidelity the shrieks
or the eXtravagant gestures of passion
would ever make up for the deficiency.
They are thrown back, accordingly, on
the last remaining resource-that of sup
plying in incident what is wanting in
sentiment, humOr, and passion. And
when they are thus driven to incident,
and incident alone, they ought not per-
haps be severely blamed for liking to
have their incident of a good, downright
startling kind. As the firing is to con-
sist entirely of blank cartridge, they
prudently put plenty of powder in, or
else there would be no bang.


The least examination of the sensa-
tional romances which we are discussing
will show even superficial critic that
theyare devoid Ofthe qualities that are to
be found in better works. 1t is not mere
ly that they are sensational. They arc
withouthumor, and unfinished as sketch
cs of character and life. 1t is to cer-
tain extent providential that it should
beso. Heaven, which tempers the wind
to the shOrn lamb, also fits the workman
for his task. Homicidal heroines could
not be turned out by humorous writers.
Such writers would be shocked at the
extravaganza of their own conceptions,
and common sense and humor would
tone the heroine down till she was hard
| ly homicidal, or at all events hardly
sensational at all. Becky Sharp, in evan.
ity Fair" is an instance in point. Mr.
Thackeray's humor enabled him to put
her into a novel without making the
novel ridiculous or sensational. Take
away Mr.. Thackeray's humor and
knowledge of character, and Becky
Sharp would soon approximate to the
Aurora Floyds or the Miss Gwilts of the
day. AS it is, she is as unlike them as
a human being is unlike a ghoul. A
strong proof of the inferiority of the
modern article is afforded by the blum.
dcrs in matters of detail into which the
hOmicidal heroine-maker almost invari
ably falls. Having to do with murder,
erS and murderesses, he has naturally
something to say to the police and to the
law.


Now it so happens that the proceed
urc of criminal court of justice is by
no means complicated. A very little
trouble and attention would be enough
to familiarize anybody with it. Yet the
homicidal heroine-maker never seems
able to take this simple trouble, such as
it is. His judges and his counsel and
his attorneys are as little like the real
thing as his murderers and murderesses
are like the murdererS and murderesses
that figure in the dock. Balzac would
have been twenty times as careful over
details that playeda far less striking part
in his story. The accuracy of Balzac in
minutiW is often overrated, but, taker
at its lowest, is wonderful enough, con.
sidering the range of subjects which ht
has handled.


] The result is that the homicilal hero
Inc cannot even succeed in being brought
to justice with decent regularity. De
privc her Of this last accessory, and n
she is not set off humorously or char
acteristically, or even lis real criminals
are set off, with proper legal formalities
what is she, and what is the novel that
tells Us about her, ut the best? 1t ha,
certainly plot, and often an ingeniOu.
one. But for this it would be a simple
WaXwOrk show. Two kinds of amuse
ments are, however, to be derived from
Iit-tirst, the amusement deducible from
a clever conundrum or charade; and
secondly, the amusement that can bt
had for shilling at Madame Tussaud',
Chamber of Horrors. If Madame Tus
saud could contrive a series of waXworl
figures which would begin by looking
like yirtuouS and lovely waXworks, anC
end by turning into wax murderesseS
she would have accomplished in WAY
all that homicidal heroine-makers ac
complish ordinarily upon paper. As {
plRtter of taste we prefer the waXwork,
to the murderesses with balmoral boot
and deyiish ayes that stare ut the pub
lie out Of so many works of fiction
They are quite AS natural, gnd they dc