OTHMAR.* " Our ," whatever one may think of her
stories from other points of view, is a past mistress of picturesque description, both of persons and places ; no phase of natural beauty escapes her notice, and all through her pages the changing glories of earth, sea, and sky are faithfully reflected ; we see the sun shine and the woods wave, the spring flowers blossom and the autumn leaves fall red and sear ; we feel the heave of the sea, and the fresh breath of the winds. Her fair peasant heroines stand out glorious in form and colour before landscape backgrounds as artistic, and far more real, than most of those represented in the exhibitions of the Royal Academy, and she dowers these maidens with the splendid vigour of mind and body which usually accompanies perfect health and development. Frequently, also, she bestows upon them a sweet and simple nobility of nature which invariably brings them to hopeless grief when they enter upon the complications of artificial life and nineteenth-century civilisation. The doctrine of original sin,—however much some of her stories may illustrate it,—certainly cannot hold good in " Ouida's " creed ; she shows us everywhere the natural, inborn aspirations of noble souls struggling vainly against the sinful con- ventionality and utilitarianism of society, which passes relent- lessly over their lives, crushing out all their hopes and joys, and killing their love and innocence as surely and remorselessly as the foul water from the collieries defiles the pure mountain stream, and destroys the fish that swim in its clear waters. Those who have seen the fair, wooded valleys of a mineral district suddenly invaded by railways, mines, and works, who remember the con- tented and religions peasantry that once dwelt in the land and loved it, and can compare their manners and morals with those of the rough hordes that crowd the endless rows of mean houses which spring up around the collieries, will appreciate " Onida's " feeling concerning the first sharp shock of the con- test between Nature and civilisation. The effect will be much the same on human nature as it is on the vales of the coal counties.
This novel bears the name of a man, but its chief interest consists in the analysis of a woman's character. It is a con- tinuation of Princess Napraxine, which ought to be read before Othmar can be fully appreciated ; both books deserve perusal for their careful and artistic realisation of a very original conception of female character,—whether drawn from life or evolved out of the depths of the authoress's inner consciousness, we are puzzled to determine. Can Circe exist without the faintest trace of sensualism, and can a woman breathe absolutely without the instincts of passion and of maternity ? Princess Napraxine, afterwards Countess Othmar, is made to do so, and her personality is so vividly rendered in these pages, that notwithstanding her ap- parent incongruities and impossibilities, she lives and breathes and interests us far more than either of her rivals can do, lovely, innocent, and loving women though they be. She is the spoiled child of fortune, the queen of society, beautiful as a flower, brilliant as a diamond, with a keen intellect and a powerful understanding, a woman's wit and a man's courage, chaste as an icicle, and proud as Lucifer. In spite of her coldness (or, perhaps, because of it), men are attracted to her, as moths to the
Winer. By " (Nada," London Chatto and Windua.
candle ; she rejoices in her power, and amuses herself with the adoration of her slaves, but feels no more pity for them than the senseless flame can do for the singed wings and shrivelled corpses of its victims. Partly cosmopolitan by birth, entirely so by education, she is equally devoid of patriotism and of reli- gion. To her, all creeds, all countries, all prejudices, are alike sources of curiosity and objects of contempt ; she neither loves, nor hates, nor believes, but coolly analyses every emotion and every passion that crosses her path. A careful but unloving mother, a cold but faithful wife, tolerant of folly, indulgent of weakness, impatient only of sentiment, she yet possesses noble instincts, which occasionally flash up through all the selfishness, cruelty, and cynicism which distinguish her. She is a woman " fashioned like a sword "—a most courtly rapier doubtless, cold, true, and cruel as steel—one who might have played a great part in life, if fate had brought her the occasion of heroism, but whose finer qualities have been left to rust in the lap of luxury until her life is full only of the weariness of satiety. She is a female Solomon, weary of all things and wise in all things, more especially in the science of love, much as Solomon himself must have been. How profoundly cynical is the following passage !- "' Love is a volatile precipitate, and marriage a solvent in which it disappears. If we are exceptions to that rule of chemistry and life, we are so extraordinarily exceptional that fate must have some dreadful fate in store for us.'—' Or some exceptional reward.'—' Is not virtue always punished ?' she said, with her enigmatical smile. Yoa are a very handsome man, and have been the most poetic of lovers. But in the nature of things I grow used to your good looks, and in the nature of things you do not make love to me any longer. Love may be the most delightful thing in the world, but it cannot resist the pressure of daily intercourse. It is doomed when it has to look over a common visiting list, and scold the same house-steward about the weekly expenditure. "Ah—oniche, Madame !" said one of the peasants at Amydt to me once, " where is love when you dip two spoons in one soup-pot ?—you only quarrel about the onions." That is always the fault of marriage. It is always putting two spoons in one pot. Whether it is an earthern pitcher or a Cellini vase does not make the least difference. Poor Love runs away from the clash of the spoons.'—Othmar laughed, but he was irritated. ' I should be miserable if I believed you were in earnest,' he said impatiently. But I know you would sacrifice your own life to an epigram.'—' I am entirely in earnest,' she replied. But if you do not believe me, that shows that you are a less changeable man than moat, or I a wiser woman. Ab, my dear,' she added, with a smile and a sigh, ' when men do not admire me any longer, then you will not admire me either, I imagine ; I wonder you do as it is—you see so much of me !'
' Penelope thinks that no object in all created nature is more lovely and important than her distaff ; naturally Ulysses gets
sick of the sight of it,' she said once. Why are all women, in love with their husbands, much more miserable than those who detest them ? Only because they insist upon giving so mach of themselves, that the men grow to view them with absolute terror, as the Stras- bourg goose views the balls of maize paste. Love is an art, and ought to be dealt with artistically ; in marriage, it has to contend with such insuperable difficulties that it needs to be moat delicate, most sagacious, most forbearing, most intelligent, to surmount them. Instead of which, women, usually, who have any love for their husbands at all, look on them as so much property inalienably assigned to them, and treat them as Cosmo dei Medici treated Florence : "Mi piece pies distruggerla the perderla ! " " The history of this ice-queen's awakening is told with some art, and the dgnouement shows much dramatic power. When she finds reason to believe that her husband's neglected adoration has been transferred to another woman, the passions of ordinary female humanity suddenly awaken in her own breast, much to her own surprise and disgust :— " All her life she had laughed at the love of men and derided it, and starved it on graceful philosophies and ethereal conceits, and dismissed it with airy banter and disbelieved its truest words and its hardest pains : and now a love which she had lost escaped her, and she found no comfort either in her wit or in her scorn. Certain of the words which he had said to her remained in persistent echo on her ear. Some sense that she had been cold to him and too capricious, and too negligent of what he felt, came to her It might even be that he had sought the warmth of other affections because she had left his heart empty herself. He had always been a sentimentalist ! Had she not called him Werther, Obermaun, Rene, Rolla i' Ile had wanted the impossible, the immutable, the eternal. He had asked of love and of life what neither can give. He had expected a moment of divinest rapture to be prolonged through a lifetime. He had expected the song of the nightingale to thrill through the year. Senseless dreams and hopeless !—but had she been too cruel to them ?"
When she discovers that she has made a mistake, she thaws into something almost like love. It is but a partial change, yet the south wind breathes on the snow, and two or three tiny flowers spring up in her heart, and with their appearance the book finishes, leaving us still inquisitive as to the further development of so uncommon a character.
Othmar is scarcely as interesting as his wife ; few female writers are thoroughly successful with their leading male character, and
" Onida " is no exception to the rule. Still, she has not made him either a prig, a fop, a fool, or a hero; he is essentially human, a far more ordinary kind of person than his wife—the sort of man who might be expected to secure the cool preference of Nadine Napraxine. Strong women usually like a man with a weak fibre running through his character. All through these pages there breathes a certain sentimental and melancholy philosophy which reflects the sadness of middle age, and contrasts curiously with the keen pleasure in life and natural beauty which distinguishes the authoress. She feels how much there is to enjoy in life, and how difficult it becomes to enjoy it when once the effer- vescence of youth is over. The champagne is the same that appeared to us to be the finest brand when first we tasted it ; but it has stood too long :— ." How wilt thou hear from pity to implore
What once thy power from rapture could command
This is the question which every woman has to ask herself in the latter half of her life. A woman is like a carriage-horse; all her beaux jours are crowded into the first years of her life ; afterwards every year is a descent more or less rapid or gradual ; after being made into an idol, after living on velvet, after knowing only the gilded oats and the rosewood stall and the days of delight, she and the horse both drift to neglect, and hunger, and rainy weather, and the dull, plodding world between the shafts. The horse comes to the cab and the cart; the woman comes to middle age and old age ; he is ungroomed, she is unsought ; he stands in the streets dumbly won- dering why his fate is so changed ; she site in the ball-room chaperons' seat silently chafing against the lot which has becomes hers. Men are so fortunate there. The very best of their life often comes in its later years. If a man be a poet, a soldier, a statesman, all the gilded laurels of fame are reserved for his later years ; honours crowd on him in his autumn as fast as the leaves can fall in the woods."
There are few tragedies more pitiful and less pitied than the slow decadence of beauty, from the "queen rose" to the wall- flower. A ci-devant beauty may not even lament her loss ; and if she vainly endeavours to avert her fate by artificial means, she becomes the laughing-stock of society, and serves to "point a moral and adorn a tale." " Onida " pities her. We cannot hope that her compassion will console the fallen queen as effectually as this novel will amuse her.
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