SUSAN FIELDING.* WE do not exactly see how to convey
to our readers our opinion of this book without exciting expectations which the story will unquestionably disappoint. The main plot, it is true, is original, and so well worked out that we shall, if we can, avoid indicating the daouemeng ; but it is mixed up very inartistically with a subordi- nate one which is very old, and where not exceedingly poor ridiculously unnatural. The dialogue, though sharp and lively, is not much better than that of a hundred young-lady novelists ; and the situations are, as a rule, much less dramatic than those which many an authoress, say, for example, Annie Thomas, is accustomed to invent by the half-score. We cannot say that it is excellent as a study of character, for of the five persons who are carefully drawn, four are either poor or absurd ; Susan Fielding, who gives her name to the book, being a fool, with a face and a conscience, and nothing else, but intended to have a great deal more ; Blake, a man of sense who does not often display it, except by being sensible when other people would be excited ; Tom Collinson, an ordinary selfish ruffian ; and Teddy Josselyn, the well-meaning, pleasant dandy, though well drawn, being sketched in from careful study, not of nature, but of that kind of man as he appears in men's novels, Thackeray's more particu- larly. And yet, if we are not utterly mistaken, there is a wealth of power in the book which, if the authoress could but bestow it on all her characters alike, would raise her to a front rank among her tribe. It has been spent on one figure, Portia French, and of its kind we have not, for a long time, seen anything quite so good. The portrait is perfect, and the reason of its perfectness, as in all good portraits, remains a perplexity to the spectator. One would say that a well-born girl who
• Susan Fielding. By the Author of "Archie Lovell," dc. 3 vole. London Bentley. 1869.
goes to Cremorne for a spree, who is always hunting for a rich husband, and yet marries a poor one whom she scarcely loves, and is quite contented with him ; who is by no means careful of her honour, yet is determined not to slip ; who tells lies by the score on system, and yet is somehow transparent, must be a most unnatural and disagreeable figure ; yet Portia French is both natural and, up to the measure of her strength, pleasant to the beholder. By a hundred little touches, so trifling that it is almost impossible to quote one of them, the authoress lets us see that Portia, though a "Dysart," that is, a shallow coquette, with great vanity, little heart, and no principle, is redeemable through the one quality in which she has any depth, an intellectual truthfulness towards herself, which, though it sometimes makes her cynical, more often enables her to see the gulf she is preparing for her- self, and to take the only step which, as she clearly sees, will save her from her almost self-created temptations. The sort of way in which able women look into their own lives, and study to turn their insight to profit, has often been described— never so well, perhaps, as in the portrait of Becky Sharpe ; but here is a woman doing it who has no ability, except a talent for somewhat petty intrigue, and for looking sharply at facts ; who has no particular evil about her except a selfish desire for luxury which yet is not a passion, and no particular good except a desire to put herself out of harm's way, even at some risk, if she can only do it finally and quickly. A good steady fight with Satan is beyond her, but if she can beat him by throwing a pinch of snuff in his eyes, she has the decision to do it and the courage to stand the unknown risk. She makes a tre- mendous venture, or what she feels to be one, in the rashest man- ner, because she feels that if she does not she is so shallow- hearted and has so many bad tendencies she shall in the long run go to the bad altogether, marries a man she only half loves be- cause, on the whole, that will suit her best, and ultimately looks at her fate half-content, but clearly aware that she has got the beet she could manage to get for her own nature. Girls of that kind, with those thin, clear natures, skim-milk characters, are common enough, and must sometimes have the temptations, and wrestlings, aud spiritual adventures of their betters, and must get through them, when they do get through them, by virtue of thoughts, and hopes, and aids, which are as thin as themselves, or they could not operate on them. High relief in shell as thin as an eggshell is very difficult work ; but the authoress has managed it, and no artist can, we think, look at Portia's figure without admiration for the skill which has compelled a shape so poor to look so thoroughly human to the eye. Portia has hardly a good quality definite enough to redeem her cha- racter, yet the strictest will leave her with a feeling that there have been worse people, that there was vitality enough in her character to keep the good alive, that as the woman of the world intent on worldliness she would come to no harm, but would somehow content alike her husband and her friends. That one character is as real, as life-like, and as interesting as if she were a member of the reader's family, and in spite of the gushing fool who is the nominal heroine of the book, we may recommend "Susan Fielding" to our readers.
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