HESS EMILIE °ARLEN'S NEW STORY.*
WE scarcely know why this lively novelette was not thrown into what seems to us its natural form,—a comedy, rather than a tale. Perhaps it is that tales suit the taste of modern readers better. There is certainly evidence in our own literature, in Mr. Thackeray's Lovel the Widower, for example, that tales clearly conceived in the dramatic form have been per force worked out in the form of the novelette because drama has little attraction for the reader, while yet the particular play had too little clap-trap in it to find favour with the managers of our theatres. This little tale of Miss Carldn's seems to us as much a comedy drawn out into narrative as did Mr. Thacke- ray's Lovel the Widower. It is not indeed so near the borders of farce, but its structure, expedients, and move- ment are much more those of light comedy than of lively narrative. In a tale, the incident is narrated, and the dialogue used chiefly to develop character and to interest the reader in character. In drama, on the contrary—especially in comedy— dialogue is used as much as possible as a mode of practical experi- menting on the nerves and intentions of others, in order that the audience may have the amusement of seeing as much of the actual growth and change of purpose in the faces and demeanour of the actors as will unroll the plot without intermitting the action of mind on mind. In fact, one of the great difficulties of drama is that so much more living and immediate practical effect has usually to be given iu it to conversation than, in modern times at least, conversation usually has. Hence the necessity for the little conspiracies, and make-beliefs, and conversational fictions which are the conventional interests of half our comic dramas, and which yet are so absurdly unnatural in real life, where disguises, and attempts to impose upon others by assuming imaginary characters and detailing fictitious situations, are scarcely ever used between relatives and friends, or, indeed, between strangers, except in the various expedients for cheating people of their money. But if you are to make a lively and humorous tale develop itself solely by dialogue, it is almost impossible not to have recourse to these little intrigues and plots between gentle- men and ladies, which nobody ever hears of in real drawing-rooms from the age when practical jokes lose their charm. It is essential to the liveliness of the play to have some interesting ex- periment in moral chemistry going on before the very eyes of the audience; and as this is exceedingly unusual in life as we know it, there are necessarily a number of conventional expedients introduced which any one concedes as appropriate to the usages of a comedy, but knows to be exceedingly inappropriate to the usages of life.
Miss Carldn's lively novelette is constructed, then, on the basis of a somewhat atagey assumption. A beautiful young widow, who has come to mourn apparently in deep affliction for her husband's death, is seen by two brothers in a lonely district of Sweden, and they make a bet with each other as to which of the two can gain most ground with her within six weeks. One after the other they force themselves upon her in scenes not without humour, and the widow, who has her own reasons for disliking and fearing their forwardness, makes up her mind to play them off against each other, and keep them quiet for a time by affecting to feel a certain interest in, and friendship for, each. There is a falsehood in the conception of the widow herself. Miss Callen has attempted to combine
• The Brothers' Bet, or Within Six Weeks. By the Sxedieh Autboleas Emtlfe Flygere CarlOu. By the TAanalstor of The Guardian, Nollebo Parsonage, So. London: Bootle'. in this character the passion of girlish romance, with that sly mischievousness which is attributed to the conventional pretty widow of our comedies. Nor is this all. It is not really for her husband that she is grieving. There was a lover before the hus- band, her engagement with whom was broken off by her parents, and throughout the period of her married life she had kept the token which he had made her swear never to return until another had really supplanted him in her heart. Marriage on these terms was itself, of course, an offence against both love and duty, and to retain through marriage before her eyes not only an evidence of her own guilt in having consented to marry, but a mute protest against ever becoming a true wife, marks her out as something different from the lively widow of conventional comedy, who looks upon marriage as a senti- mental diversion, as well as from that romantic heroine of ideal purity for whom we at first take her. Yet Miss Carlen tries to combine in her all three characters,—the pure romantic,— the French romantic with a certain falsehood worked up into the sentiment,.--and the lively, modern widow, who rather enjoys playing off one admirer against another. We cannot, therefore, congratulate Miss Carlen on her principal heroine. She is a ma& of incompatible elements, and is naturally not painted very livingly in any one aspect.
But the brothers are much better done. The character of both is intended to be a little frivolous. Both are conceited young men,—one of the quiet, obstinate, rather literary kind of conceit,—the other of the bumptious, impulsive, high-spirited kind of conceit, and both likeness and contrast between them are admi- rably drawn, and very amusing. The successive scenes in which they present themselves to the heroine as Comforter No. I. and Comforter No. II. are drawn with real humour ; and, perhaps, still better are the second receptions, when the widow has made up her miud to the ruse of slightly encouraging them in turns, whereas in the first interviews she had dismissed them very brusquely. The first attempt, however, of the bumptious brother to be a comforter, and his discomfiture, is the most within the limits of possible extract, and as it will give our readers a fair notion of the vivacity of the story, we lay the latter part of it before our readers :—
31athilde turned slightly pale at Victor's allusion to leaving the field open by his departure. and he had scarcely finished speaking when she said, with almost timid emotion, "Sir, you just now requested ten minutes to speak of something else besides your brother's errand. I grant you these ten minutes."—" Thanks, a thousand thanks !" Victor, who had been standing all this time, now took a seat, at such a distance, however, from the widow, that even the most ill-natured eyes could have seen nothing to find fault with. Otherwise his manners and whole appear- ance were more those of a man who wished to confer a favour, than a man who was bent upon gaining an advantage for himself.—"I am waiting, Sir." The lovely Mathilde looked exceedingly interesting.— "What I intended to have added, madam, is this : You are in sorrow, you are alone, and you wish to be so. Well, I have determined, with or without your permission, to come to cheer you. Human beings are seldom so in love with their grief, that in certain moments they may not be influenced by other impressions, and thus diverted. Such a moment is now before you. You are astonished at my boldness in inter- feting in your affairs. You are wrong to think it boldness—but that is of no consequence, if only you are diverted."—" I must confess that your originality, which one might almost be tempted to designate pre- sumption, really does amuse me ; but when I tell you that I cannot per- mit you to continuo your endeavours any longer—"—" If you permitted me to continue them, they would lose their worth; they would then become a duty. But I know you will not give such a permission, there- fore all my thoughts and endeavours confine themselves to convincing you that there exists a being, who is disinterested enough to believe himself richly rewarded by the knowledge of having been useful to so charming a lady."—" Then you think— —"That, henceforth, in your solitude, my image will often dwell in your mind, that consequently your thoughts will be partially diverted—quite against your will, of course ; but that, again, does not signify, if only your sad hours are somewhat cheered."—" You are exceedingly amiable to take all this trouble for a person totally unknown to you. But, as it is very un- likely that wo shall see each other soon again, I must tell you that—"— " Oh, ' cried Victor, "I pray you do not profane your lips by malting an assertion which is not quite the fact! Do not tell me that when I am gone I shall not occupy your thoughts a single moment !"—" I did not intend to say that, on the contrary, I am sure I shall think of you ; but these thoughts, I can assure you, will never assume a romantic form, which doubtless, in secret, you imagine must be the consequence of your introducing yourself here."—"You are a good Christian, madam, I must say, to favour me with this warning before, to my knowledge, I have given you any cause for it," answered our young judge, blushing deeply.—" Yes I hope I am a good Christian ; but, above all, I am a straightforward person. If you choose to rush into adventure, that is your own affair. I have warned you, and I add, that I shall never con- sider you in any other light than that of an extremely conceited, pre- sumptuous young man."—" You might, at least, have been pleased to say eccentric !"—" Then, at the expense of truth, I should have been pleased to have chosen a milder and more agreeable expression. You are very peculiar, sir, because, notwithstanding your pretensions to being eccentric, there is not a particle of eccentricity about you."—" Very good, madam, you have a right to look upon me as you please; I have
a right to comfort myself with the certainty that you will not forget me."—" The ten minutes," replied Mathilde," have been prolonged to fifteen, therefore, I beg you to communicate as briefly as possible your real business."—" Alt, to be sure ;—my brother's errand !' Just then Ma'amselle Sophie opened the door again, and announced, "The Rector, Mr. Wallenberg."—" What now?" exclaimed Mathilde.—" The devil !" muttered Victor to himself, " down goes my sun now ; but still, I think it has done its work tolerably;" while aloud he said, "As Edward is coining himself, I feel I am de trop, I shall therefore take mydeparture." And while the Rector and his hostess were still exchanging the usual ceremonious bows and salutations, the young lawyer vanished from the scene, without paying the slightest attention to the astonished glances cast at him by those he was leaving behind, more particularly by Mrs. Bendelvik.
Of the two cousins, Hilda and Bertha, whom these conceited young men are supposed eventually to marry, the romantic one, Hilda, is not very interesting. Miss Carlen evidently succeeds best when she has full play for her liveliness, and nothing can be better than Bertha's high-spirited vivacity, and the intense love for acting a part which enables her to screen her si'ster's grief so cleverly from impertinent curiosity when she is first introduced, and to fall in suddenly with the impudent fiction of Victor in the closing scene,—the scene on which the curtain drops. On the whole, we may call the novelette, though not one either of a high moral or high art, an exceedingly lively comedietta in a narra- tive form. It is a pity, in the dearth of modern comedy of any literary merit, that some one should not try whether it could not be adapted to the stage.
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