" Vie Opectator," November 3, 1849
CURRER BELL'S " SHIRLEY "
IN several respects this " tale " exhibits a considerable improvement upon the novels that under the name of Bell with several prefixes have excited so much attention. There is less coarseness than was displayed in all of them, somewhat less questionable propriety than appeared in the best of them, lane Eyre, and nothing of the low and almost disgusting characters and circumstances that disfigured the rest. Shirley has more variety of persons, and in a certain sense more of actual life than was found in lane Eyre; but in essentials we observe little difference. That part which forms the story of the novel still depends less upon incidents than upon metaphysical delineation of character, executed with more power than skill or naturalness ; a sort of ingrained rudeness—an absence of delicacy and refinement of feeling—pervades the book ; and above all, we have small sympathy with either the principal or the subordinate characters. It would seem as if the writer's mind had a peculiarity which defeated its genius, compelling it to drop something distasteful into every idiosyncrasy, that increases in proportion to the importance of the character to the fiction. The only exceptions to this arc two old maids and a clergyman, who rarely appear, and who do nothing. These faults coexist with great clearness of conception, very remarkable powers of delineation both of internal emotion and outward scenes, much freshness of topic, scenery, and composition, with a species of vigour, which rather resembles the galvanic motions of a " subject " than the natural movements of life. But Currer Bell ha; yet to learn, that in art the agreeable is as essential as the powerful, and that the reader's attention must be attracted, not forced.
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