Through the Stage Door: a Novel. By Harriett Jay. (F.
V. White.) —This is a regrettable book. The coarse vices of bad men are not material whereof women should weave their fictions. If they know anything about the matter by experience in their own families, they ought to conceal that sad knowledge ; if they have to draw on their imagination for the facts, they render themselves unpleasantly ridi- culous. The "Mr. George" of Miss Jay's novel, who is a married Duke, and the relation to him of two of the female actors in the story, are exceedingly repulsive features of a novel which has no attractive ones. The writer does her work so carelessly that she makes Mr. Fane, the father of her heroine, when he wants to escape the sounds of household contention, " stuff his fingers into his ears, and continue his writing ;" describes a room as " luxuriantly furnished," and a young lady as being "fully as elated as if she had known, &o.,"writes of "invitations pouring in fast and furious" on a fashion. able young man, who is blest with "an overflowing card-basket," and of young ladies' "drinking down" champagne. The very vulgar company of this novel is, however, preferable to its fine company ; a lady who intercepts letters, and bribes her nephew to ruin the reputation of her brother's betrothed wife ; and another lady who tells her husband that she is sure their expected guest "will come to their house in the finery of a street-walker," are much more offensive persons than the Fane family. The latter are not at all original ; we have met them in many trashy novels, in which grave and gallant English gentlemen—mostly military—select their wives from "the juvenile lead ;" although it must be admitted there is something remarkable about Miss Lottie. It is not every young lady who figures in tights of whom it can be said, "The necessary stage training bad added to her manner a nalvetd which she might not otherwise have possessed." We have hitherto regarded stage training as a potent corrector of nalvete.
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