BUT YET A WOMAN.* Tins is a very taking book.
The author, of whom we have only
-beard that he is a young American mathematician, Las at least produced a story which tests his imaginative insight into the
genius of a country yery different from his owr, and satisfies us that that insight is genuine. Several of the French characters are Isketched in with a firm and delicate hand, and though the plot is hardly on a level with the dialogue, and seems to be rather mechanically pinned on to the group of characters sketched, than developed out of their relations to each other, the book is one which seems to promise a future to the man who has written it. It is, too, animated by a thoroughly pure taste, and shows -a wide knowledge of that higher side of French character which has recently been too little represented in the literature -concerned with French life and character. Whether the writer is or is not a Roman Catholic, we can hardly gather from the book. If not, be treats the Roman Catholic religion with a sympathy and respect which are rare in a Protestant writer, and which show that he identifies it with what there is that is noblest in France. In this we entirely concur. There is, no doubt, a limited amount of French Protestantism,—that, for instance represented by M. de Pressense,—which is doing noble service in France. But, speaking generally, the best elements of French genius are still identified with devout Catholicism, and the ignoblest with the French scepticism and materialism.
Mr. Sherburne Hardy, whatever his own convictions may be, perceives this, and has given us a most beautiful sketch of two or three genuine Catholics, and a very skilful though bitter sketch of one Romanising journalist, who, himself belonging by birth to the Legitimist party, is supposed to have done for that party all the good or all the evil service,—whichever you may
call it,—that the late editor of the Univers did for the Ultra- montane party in the Church. The mordant sketch of M. de Marzac is a set-off, as it were, against the admirable *ketch of -the good priest, Father Le Blanc, which is the best in the
book. Take the following, as an illustration of the skill with which the priest's character is drawn. We should premise that he is not by any means a priest only,— hardly, perhaps, principally a priest, though he is a genuine priest, and full of the faith which he preaches, and loves to preach. Still, the artist and critic in him is usually more predominant than the priest. In the following conversa- tion the priest sketches and criticises the character of Mr. Sherburne Hardy's heroine, Madame Milevaki. Me is in a railway-carriage with a young doctor, and they are on their way together to spend a week with M. Michel (Madame .Milevski's brother), at Beauvais :—
"Ah! there is a lake? Yes, we shall enjoy ourselwes.' said Father Le Blanc, with evident satisfaction.—' We have a charming party.'—' You are an old friend of M. Michel's.'—' Yes, since he first came to Paris. That is saying much and little; much, because ho is the most agreeable of- friends; little, because he makes friends of every one.'—' That is an art few possess.'—' True. Only with N. Michel it is not an art at all. That art by which one never disputes the qualities which those about ns pretend to possess, and, on the other hand, never asserts any for one's self, like other arts, requires calculation ; and M. Michel has none. He fulfils its conditions without suspecting it.'—'Perhaps it is a family trait. I should think M. Michel's sister possessed the art also.'—' Madame Stephanie ? Oh, she is quite another person.'—'Yet she appears to make friends • But Yd. a WOMAN, a Hovel. By Arthur Sherburne Hardy. London Kamilla& and co. easily:—'Yes, but in a different way. And, against what odds!' said Father Le Blanc, lifting up his eyes with an expressive gesture of his bands. 'For woman the art of pleasing is a kingdom for which all her sex are pretenders ; and as for ours, with such a woman as Stephanie Milewski, one is not content with friendship.'—' You have arraigned the whole world against her,' said Roger, laughing.—' Yet I take the world only as I find it. Women make friends like princes, by gaining thrones and dispensing favours. Only, more generous than princes, finally they surrender their thrones also.'—' And M. Milevaki ? I do not bear of him.'—' M. Milewski is dead. M. Michers father married, late in life, a second time, in Russia. Of this marriage Stephanie was the only child, and to M. Michel she has been much like a daughter. She was educated hero in Paris under his supervi- sion, after which she returned to Russia, to live with her mother on her estates near Kief.'—' And her mother is dead ?'—' Also. But, before dying, she married St6plianie to a Russian nobleman of the new school, who, shortly after, became compromised with the Emperor, and was exiled to Siberia.'—' Then mediums has a title ?'— ' She had one, but it was forfeited on her husband's exile. It is said that the estates were also confiscated, and that madame was for- bidden to reside in Russia. On receiving the Czar's orders, she drove alone, in the dead of winter, from Kief to St. Petersburg, with a single servant. Notwithstanding this defiance, she obtained an audience, and kept her estates. There is a story that the evir gave her a cross set with diamonds, as a token of his good-will, and that she asked per- mission to have the cross changed to a dagger, "lest your majesty's clemency make me forget my husband," she said. The. Count Milevski was already dead ; he died on the journey to Siberia. But thee, we cannot believe all that is said. Still,' added M. Lo Blanc reflectively, I would believe many things of her. She puzzles me ; and, for an old man, that is saying a good deal. The young look into women's eyes to see their own reflections; the old, to see the woman.' —' You make a very agreeable definition of age,' said Roger. ' Most men, in that classification, die youug.'—Father Le Blanc laughed, which lie did with his shoulders and trunk. As a laugh it was not infoel ions, but conveyed a sense of satisfaction. As Renee said, When Father Le Blanc laughs, I feel happy myself.'— 'Yes, she puzzles me,' lie resumed. Now, with Mademoiselle Renee it is different. She is like the brook at its source ; one 8Qe8 the bottom. But Stephanie !' and lie shook his head,—' it is the river ; one sees the reflection of everything, but of what is beneath the sur- face, nothing—except that there is something: Roger was not averse to giving M. Le Blanc the reins of the conversation ; Partly because he was interested, and partly because he was curious. She is cer- tainly very beautiful.'—'Ala!' said the priest, holding up his hands, 'and what beauty.! I am a bit of an artist, M. Lando ; indeed, I was an artist before I was a priest. I will tell you why she is beau- tiful. Do you know ?'—' I have not studied her,' said Roger.—' Well, do so. It will repay you. Her beauty is not faultless ; that is, it is not absolutely regular,--not the style magnifique, as the Greeks have it. They knew what they were about, those Greeks, and gave such to the gods alone, and to certain of them only. Such beauty pleases the judgment; it is too correct for the heart. But of Madame Milewski, my friend, the judgment must beware. She does not please it ; she destroys it,' he said, with a little shrug, ' for in her beauty is that factor of weakness and incompleteness which touches the heart.'—' She does not appear to know all this. At least, no one would suspect her of Nonsense,' exclaimed Father Le Blanc. There is a spirit which whispers in the ear of every beautiful woman as she leaves Paradise. But, as you say, she does not appear to. Now, I will prove the contrary. Have you noticed her dress ?'— ' Hardly ; except, possibly, that it was simple.'—' Exactly, but designedly so. It fulfils the condition of a perfect dross, which is only an accessory, having little value in itself, covering what it dues not conceal, and calling attention to that which it embellishes. But, without. beauty, such a style would be frightful ! What are all the eccentricities of fashion but the devices to conceal and supplement nature ? Madame Stephanie flies in the face of all these follies; first, because she knows she can dare to; and second, because, like a king who has the air of one, she has the good-taste to dispense with her decorations.' At this instnut the train emerged from the forest, disclosing the valley of the Seine. Ala ! /a belle France !' cried Father Le Blanc."
That is a skilful passage, as it manages to give us a pretty clear glimpse of four of the principal characters of the story, — M. Michel, his niece R6n6e, . Madame Milevski, and Father Le Blanc,—and a hint or two as to a fifth, the young doctor, who is Father Le Blanc's companion. Nor do any of them,—except, perhaps, the heroine,—fail to satisfy the reader as their characters are more fully developed by events. In the sketch of M. Michel, the kindly and absent.. minded student and scholar, who is so amiable to everybody that he has no room left for any special or personal attach- ment to anybody, Mr. Sherburne Hardy has painted a very pleasant picture of a somewhat pallid, though genial character. Father Le Blanc, the humorous old priest, who Las so much of the artist left is him still, and who betrays, nevertheless, the kindly coarseness of a confessor to whom the evil and the good of the world have become so familiar that he has lost a good deal of the delicacy of his naturally fine insight, is a more powerful study still. The picture of the simpler heroine, 1-41n4e, with her eager desire for something of the infinite in her life, and her subdued impatience of the calm affection of her uncle, is a very engaging one, and, on the whole, more successful, we think, though it aims at less, than the picture of the heroine for whom the title of the book is meant, Madame Milevski, who, interesting as she is made, is not made very clear to us,
and has, indeed, too much of complexity, restlessness, and ambition in her for the small space of canvas which Mr. Sher- burne Hardy has devoted to her. To the hero, again, the young doctor, Mr. Sherburne Hardy has given hardly any care. We
rather agree with M. Michel, when he passes judgment at the close, that R6n6e was much too good for him. In truth, how- ever, we hardly learn enough of him to find out whether she was too good fur him, or not.
The remaining interest in the book is in the very severe but very profound analysis of the character of the self-seeking Legitimist journalist, M. de Marzac. We have not read a keener analysis of the self-deceptions of a thoroughly selfish character for many years back. How subtle, for instance, is the following I-
" The ceremonies terminated with a ball, at which M. de Marzac was, of course, present. As he drives away from the fête in his carriage, a conscience long since subdued, the very clank of whose fetters has become applause, sets his mind at peace with all the world. Once thoroughly mastered, there is no better slave ; for none knows better the rough places that need smoothing and the sore spots that need balm. It was a pleasure in which he often indulged, to go on the witness-stand before this conscience, to play the criminal in order to be acquitted; and, on his way home, he amused himself with this game of solitaire In the subjugation of conscience, M. de Marzac wore gloves and avoided brutality. His was the in- stinct of perversion, not of murder. Instead of slaying that inward monitor outright, he confronted it with expediency, and taught it to doubt its own dictates. He thus managed to preserve the fountain of fine emotions and noble sentiments, although the waters were soon contaminated and polluted."
" A conscience long since subdued, the very clank of whose fetters has become applause," is as fine an epigram as any this age has produced, and moreover, not one after the manner of this age. And wherever we meet with M. de Marzac, we meet with some little additional touch which increases the effect of this sketch. On the other hand, the story of which M. de Marzac is the hero is so entirely supplementary to the chief interest of this tale, and it is so difficult to make out the reason why Madame Milevski, who never felt the smallest regard for him, should have asked him to wait a year before she finally refused his suit, that we can hardly help smiling at the very inartificial connecting-link between the little bit of melodrama with which Mr. Sherburne Hardy embellishes his tale, and the characters with whom chiefly we are concerned.
What we have in this book is a series of delicate vignettes, clumsily bound together in a single novel, of which the chief plot passes outside the sphere of most of these characters, though it touches one or two of them here and there. What we really care about is the love of Roger and 116nee, the self-
' devotion of Stephanie, and the intellectual malignity of M. de Marzac, the mild benignity of M. Michel, and the moral humour of Father Le Blanc. Yet the story turns on the early life of M. de Marzac, when he was nearly as self-confessed a villain as he is throughout the story a reputable villain. His assassina- tion at the close cuts no knot, and forwards no interest. It is simply the retribution of a secret sin of his youth, and makes no difference to the fate of any one of the persons of the story except his own. Mr. Sherburne Hardy, however, is a writer of ranch promise, and we shall hope that his next story will be one as good in its plot as this is in its dialogue, and also not less excellent than this in dialogue.
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