SIX NOVELS.*
THE ten short stories entitled Miss Armstrong, and other Circumstances are—as usual in works of this kind—not all of equal merit, and comprise some which are probably only included in order to supply sufficient material to swell the volume to requisite size. Al], however, are more or less readable, and the three best, "Miss Armstrong," "Alison Hepburn's Exploit," and "Some Poor Folk," deserve special praise, the latter for its vivid, clever sketches of humanity, and the two former for good delineation of a couple of talented, out-of-the-common girls, whose fermenting im- patience of an every-day destiny and desire to find expression for their individuality produces a sudden helter-skelter dash into the unknown; whose exalted aspirations collapse with equal suddenness at failure to achieve instant escape from the commonplaceness whereat they revolt; and who take final refuge (apparently as much from disgust as anything else) in the haven of extremely commonplace matrimony. Provided only with a few biscuits and a copy of Byron, Alison runs away from her home in Edinburgh to London, convinced that by so doing she proves herself to be one of the "souls who dare use their immortality," and buoyed up by absurd (and brief) day-dreams of exciting envy and admiration for thus—at the age of nineteen—taking her life into her own hands. Miss Armstrong, at the still less mature age of seventeen, having come to the conclusion that everybody and everything is a circumstance, and that people are divided into those who are circumstances without knowing it and those who are conscious of the fact, resolves "not to submit tamely like a solution or a salt, which is boiled with this, and burned with that," and rushes off in a hansom to endeavour to become "a cause" (instead of merely an effect), by getting her musical and poetical com- positions published. Though she does at length succeed in becoming "a cause," she does it in a manner ludicrously different from that by which she originally contemplated attaining her object. Courage, brains, and forceful in- dividuality impart interest to both girls; but they lack the charm of loveableness ; seem animated rather by whim than by fixed purpose; and the explanation of much of their erratic conduct is perhaps to be found in the fact that they are (as far as is shown) as deficient in any sense of restrain- ing principle as the Anarchist in another of the stories who asserts, "I know of nothing that can impose duty on me." The number of whimsical metaphors, ideas, and actions in the book makes us half-inclined to say that whimsicalness is one of its notable features.
The preface to Denis says that its aim is, by relating actual occurrences, to throw light on characteristics and circum- stances 'which are often unknown and ignored, yet none the less vital factors in the difficult problem of the Irish question. And as Mrs. Field's varied and interesting scenes illustrating Irish traits and manners and customs have every appearance of being drawn from life, her work is for this reason worthy the attention of those who are called upon to try and solve the aforesaid problem, while it also contains attractions of other kinds to suit the tastes of novel-readers pure and simple. It is a study at once of a nation and of individuals, and two of the most conspicuous of these are Denis and Mervyn. The former is a fine, generous young fellow, a noble specimen of the youth and strength of the lower classes; but his fair promise is blighted, and he ultimately becomes a murderer,
• (1.) Miss Armstrong, and other Circumstances. By John Davidson. London: Methuen and 00.—(2.) Denis. By Mrs. E. M. Field. London : Madthiflan and Co.-13.) Bernicia. By Amelia E. Barr. London; Sampson Low, Mareten, and 0o.—(4.) A King and a Few Dukes. By Robert W. Chambers. London : Pntnam's Sons.—(5.) Katie's Wise Woman. By Clara L. Burnham. London : Gay and Bird.—(6.) An Bosy-going Pillow. By O. J. Wide. tandem Matta And Windim solely through the guilt of Mervyn, one of "the rale quality," and a philanthropically disposed landlord whose earnest efforts to improve his tenantry's condition, and gallant per- severance in a vain struggle against invincible prejudice, ignorance, and superstition, would win him hearty admiration and esteem were it not for his behaviour towards a peasant girl. But the liking one would gladly accord him is rendered impossible by the grimly matter-of-course fashion in which he plays the villain by Mary, contemptuously indifferent to her after-fate, and untroubled by any pangs of remorse for a sin whose consequences eventually prove fatal both to himself and others. The book is not without power, and has plenty of amusing bits of quaint humour and happy-go-luckiness, and pleasant instances of warm-hearted, unselfish kindliness, to relieve the shadow cast by the nature of the story and the darkness of its surroundings, amongst which there is a pre- ponderance of such elements as famine, squalor, real and unreal grievances, and the two virtues of religion and patriotism represented in distorted forms, the first as super- stition, and the second as a passion that can make a man rob his family of food to supply funds for political agitation, and actually boast of having "paid the Repale rint on a day that the childher cried for bit and sup." Notwithstanding the many welcome gleams of brightness in the work, yet its general effect is depressing because it depicts unmerited suffering and a failure of noble aspirations that renders pathetically applicable the closing words :—" We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind, we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth."
As the adventures of a gallant foreigner unexpectedly called on to assist a liquor-loving hereditary ruler of a small Continental principality constitute the foundation of A King and a Few Dukes, its theme will inevitably bring to mind that of A Prisoner of Zeilda ; but though, therefore, this portion of the book can hardly be considered original, yet its manner of treatment differs widely from that of the prototype, and the extremely romantic love-affair introduced terminates much more satisfactorily than in Mr. Anthony Hope's work. A young American named Steen has retired to a remote valley in the Carpathians to hatch trout and breed pheasants, when suddenly his tranquil pursuits are disturbed by the invasion of the brandy-sodden exiled King Theobald of Boznovia and two equally drunken Dukes, who calmly quarter themselves upon him, and are joined next day by his Majesty's aunt—a grenadier-like Dowager Duchess—who brings in her train the fascinating Princess of Marmora, renowned for beauty and escapades, commonly spoken of as Witch Sylvia, and just at that moment masquerading (for political purposes) under the disguise of a lady's-maid. Passages of love and war, intrigues and counter-intrigues, ensue in quick succession. Steen becomes enamoured of, and proposes to, the supposed lady's- maid ; the King of Caucasia is summoned to King Theobald's aid ; armies appear on the scene; the designs of Bismarck and Russia are important factors ; and a heterogeneous mass of characters, real and fictitious, and of imaginary events that, though wildly improbable, yet seem suggested by realities, are cleverly jumbled together into a romance whose absurdities do not prevent it from being lively and amusing, and very good reading of a light kind. It leaves on our mind a general impression of a sort of historical travesty wherein real and false are so confused together that sometimes we can scarcely distinguish which is which.
The chief figure in Bernicia is a young lady who can only be described honestly as an arrant coquette, and the final
destination of whose wayward affections is concealed so skilfully until quite the end as to excite a momentary alarm lest she be doomed to old-maidhood,—a termination that we should have sincerely deplored, because her petty vanities and follies are so far counterbalanced by love for her family and shrewd appreciation of men and things, as to engage our sympathies and make us wish her happiness, and we feel certain that single blessedness could never have been a joy to her. There is solid, careful work in the book, and into
its pictures of society in the reign of George II., are intro- duced sundry historical matters,—e g., the struggles between Stuarts and Hanoverians, and the great social influence exercised by the preacher, George Whitefield. The story affords sound and wholesome mental food, and is likely to be much enjoyed by readers who have an unlimited appetite for
all that pertains to love-making, even though it may possibly not escape the charge of an occasional tendency to prosiness from those whose interest in novels depends upon abundance of incident.
Since the title-page of Katie's Wise Woman contains no mention of previous work by Clara Burnham we assume it to be a first attempt, and think it shows promise enough to lead us to hope for future performances from the same pen. It is an American story giving a graceful and pleasant account of how a charming young milliner and her brother stormed the heights of society at Montaigne, partly by dint of their own merits, and partly by aid of the benevolent Wise Woman who—herself one of the crfline de lie ci
extended a kindly hand to raise them to her own exalted level. The book is in no way exciting, but yet sufficiently interesting ; and from first to last contains no wholly un- likeable character,—not even the snobbish, worldly, and scheming Mrs. Ormond, whose reprehensible lapses from truth are euphemistically described by saying that when satis- fied of having a just cause of complaint, she "could not bring herself to weaken her cause by a slavish adherence to facts."
Though there is nothing particularly despicable about a straw floating at the mercy of the tide, because one knows the poor thing cannot help itself, yet it is an altogether different matter to see a human being drifting hither and thither on the waters of life, guided only by whatever current happens at the moment to be least troublesome and most agreeable. And as this is the condition of the hero of An Easy-going Fellow, whose easy-goingness is simply another name for absolute selfishness and self-indulgence, the sentiment he chiefly excites in us is disgusted contempt, and also the sense of irritation, that is always caused by fictitious personages, for whom their author appears to have a sneaking kindness, and who fail to inspire that feeling in other people. We do not think readers will find much in this book save a trashy, unprofitable tale about more or less sordid and vulgar- minded individuals ; attempts at smartness and cheap cyni- cism represented as knowledge of the world ; and a style of writing not wholly free from slanginess and touches of false sentiment.
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