Hedged In. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. (Sampson Low and Co.)
—A. tale on a painful subject, but told with the best possible taste and feeling. A young girl, living in one of those dens of misery and crime, in which Now York rivals the cities of the Old World, comes to shame ; and we read with an interest which never flags how she rises out of the
slough of evil into something very pure and noble, the associations of her old life rising up from time to time to trouble, in fact "hedging her in." There is no false sentimentality about the book ; the difficulties of the question are not shirked. Mrs. Purcell, the good and brave woman by whose help Nixy redeems herself, sees what these difficulties are, and deals with thorn wisely and honestly, meets, for instance, the difficulty of allowing one who has fallen to associate with the ignorant and innocent. The book is a fine one, written with a perfect simplicity which is often very powerful, as, for instance, in the scene where the father of Nixy'a child comes with the idea of "making an honest woman of her,"
and stands amazed to find what she has grown to. The agony of the pure refined woman at the meeting, and the fortitude with which she bears herself, are given with much ability. We have no fault to find with Miss Phelps for giving the title which she has to her book, yet, after all, " Nixy " was not " hedged in " as many women in her case are. She had a friend who stood by her with most uncommon courage; and she had a singularly brave and high temper of her own. Most of all, she was not "hedged in" with those worst of barriers, the innate ingrained proclivities to _indulgence that make the work of reclaiming so terribly difficult and discouraging.
Previous page
