DINAH MULOCK (MRS. CRAIK)
In the small circle of women writers who shed literary lustre on theearly years of her present Majesty's reign was Dinah Mulock, best knownto the present novel-reading generation as the author of "John Halifax,Gentleman."
To appreciate fully the position that we claim for her, it will benecessary to turn back to the period when she began to write, and seewho were her contemporaries.
Pre-eminent among these stand out three names--names immortal on theroll of fame for so long as taste and critical judgment last; the booksof Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell, and George Eliot must beregarded as masterpieces of fiction. We, their humble followers, bowbefore their genius which time, fashion, or progress cannot dim or takefrom; therefore, to have achieved success and to have made an abidingfame while such luminaries were shining in the firmament was adistinction to be justly proud of--the result of talent, delicacy ofhandling, and grasp of character that were only a little below genius.
How vast the difference that one small step would have made it is notour purpose to show; our intention is rather to take a general view ofthe work of a writer who--now that close upon half a century has passed,since, in 1849, timidly and without giving her name, she launched on theworld her first novel, "The Ogilvies"--has never lost her hold upon thereading public of Great Britain, the Colonies, America, or wherever theEnglish tongue is spoken.
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Dinah Mulock was born in 1826 at Stoke-upon-Trent in Staffordshire. Herdisposition towards literature seems to have been inherited from herfather, who was connected--but in no very prosperous way--with letters,and was known to Byron and to the poet Moore, whose fellow countryman hewas. At the time of his daughter's birth, he was acting as spiritualminister to a small congregation who were followers of what were thengenerally thought to be his advanced and unorthodox opinions. Few whoforsake the established road for their own peculiar rut find thatprosperity bears them company, and the fortunes of the Mulock familyduring the embryo authoress's early years were unsettled andunsatisfactory. We are all given to rebel against the clouds whichovercast our youth, seldom realising that to this pinch of adversecircumstance we owe much of that power to depict the sorrows, joys, andperplexities of life in the setting forth of which Miss Mulock became soeminently successful.
Before she had reached the age of twenty, she left her home and came toLondon, "feeling conscious," we are told, "of a vocation forauthorship."
Now, in the present day, when novel writing has become an employment,profession, distraction, I might almost say a curse, there would benothing remarkable in such a conviction; but in 1846 the mania ofdesiring to see their names in print had not seized upon our sex;therefore the divine afflatus must have been very strong which sent atimid attractive girl, hampered by all the prejudices of her day, to trythe fortunes of her pen in London.
That she had not been deceived in her quality is shown by the success of"The Ogilvies," which not only was popular with novel readers, butraised hopes that the writer possessed great dramatic power, to be moreably used when experience had corrected the crude faults of a firstbook. The story, based on passionate first love, is written with theenthusiasm and vigour which comes pleasantly from a young hand, andmakes us disposed to view leniently the superabundance of sentimentwhich, under other circumstances, we should censure. The death of theboy, Leigh Pennythorne, is rendered with a pathos which calls foradmiration, and we are not surprised to see it ranked with the death oflittle Paul Dombey; while that of Katherine Lynedon, spoken of at thetime as possessing great dramatic force, strikes us now as melodramaticand sensational.
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Encouraged by having found favour with the public, Miss Mulock followedup her success with "Olive" (1850), "Agatha's Husband" (1852), "Head ofthe Family" (1854). Her literary reputation was now established; and,though her _magnum opus_, "John Halifax," had yet to be written, it maybe as well to consider some of the merits and weaknesses of her style,her treatment of her subjects, and her delineation of character.
In a short sketch, such as this, it is not possible to give a synopsisof the plots of the various books, or even, in most cases, extracts fromthem. We have to confine ourselves to the endeavour to realise theeffect they produced at the time they were written--the estimation theywere then held in, and to see what position they now command among thenovels of the present day.
Perhaps it will be only fair towards the faults we are about to findthat we should recall the forward strides made by women in the pastforty years. We who can recall the faulty teaching and the manyprejudices of that date must often question if women now aresufficiently sensible of the advantages they possess.
A reviewer of Miss Mulock's novels, writing in 1866, says: "It is one ofthe chief misfortunes of almost every female novelist that her owneducation, as a woman, has been wretchedly defective;" and further on headds: "the _education_ of the majority of women leaves them not onlywithout information, but without intelligent interest in any subjectthat does not immediately concern them." He then points out that itseems impossible for women to describe a man as he is--that they see himonly from the outside. "They are ignorant of the machinery which setsthe thing going, and the principle of the machinery; and so theydiscreetly tell you what kind of case it has, but nothing more."
Now, when the time has come that young men and maidens have otherinterests in common than those which spring out of flirtation andlove-making, we may feel quite sure that each sex will get a betterinsight and have a juster knowledge of the other. The general taste forexercise, and the development of activity and health of body, haskilled sentimentality and the heroines of the Rosa Matilda school. Notthat these were the heroines that Miss Mulock created. Her ideals are toa certain extent made of flesh and blood, although they are not alwaysliving figures. Even at the period when we are told that "In the worldof letters few authors have so distinct and at the same time so eminenta position as this lady," her judicious admirers find fault with heroverflow of feminine sentimentality, which never permitted her idealsufferers to conquer their griefs so far that they could take apractical and healthy interest in the affairs of the living world. "Theylive only 'for others'" says one critic, "'the beautiful light' isalways in their faces; their hands 'work spasmodically' at least once inevery two or three chapters."
Regarding the cramping influence of the prejudices which hedged in womenin Miss Mulock's day, is it not very possible that this flaw in theportraiture of her own sex may have been due to the narrowness of hertraining rather than to any deficiency in her talent? Nothing moreplainly shows how warped her judgment had become than many of thepassages in "A Woman's Thoughts about Women." This is a book with muchsound argument in it, and full of the desire to rectify the femininegrievances to which she was not blind. But when we come to a passagelike the following, in which she asserts that all who "preach up lovelyuselessness, fascinating frivolity, delicious helplessness, not onlyinsult womanhood but her Creator," we ask how is this to be reconciledwith the text which comes immediately after: "Equally blasphemous, andperhaps even more harmful, is the outcry about the equality of thesexes; the frantic attempt to force women, many of whom are eitherignorant of, or unequal for, their own duties, into the position andduties of men. A pretty state of matters would ensue! Who that everlistened for two hours to the verbose confused inanities of a ladies'committee would immediately go and give his vote for a female House ofCommons? or who, on receipt of a lady's letter of business--I speak ofthe average--would henceforth desire to have our courts of justicestocked with matronly lawyers and our colleges thronged by 'sweet girlgraduates with their golden hair'? As for finance, if you pause toconsider the extreme difficulty there always is in balancing Mrs.Smith's housekeeping book, or Miss Smith's quarterly allowance, I think,my dear Paternal Smith, you need not be much afraid lest this loudacclaim for women's rights should ever end in pushing you from yourcounting house, college, or el
sewhere."
On this showing, such crass ignorance is to be accepted in women, andis to be taken as a matter of course and as natural to them as cuttingtheir teeth or having measles or chicken pox. It is of little use toadvocate "Self Dependence," "Female Professions," "Female Handicrafts,"for those who cannot write a business letter or do a simple sum. MissMulock may have had, indeed I fear had, much reason to cast thesereproaches at her sex. But that she did not feel their shame, and urgeher sister women to strive for an education more worthy of intelligentbeings, proves to me how deeply her mental gifts suffered from thecramping influence of the time in which she lived. Could she haveenjoyed some of the advantages which spring out of the greater freedomof thought and action permitted in the present day, how greatly it wouldhave enlarged her mental vision! Her male creations would have been castin a more vigorous man-like mould. Her feminine ideals would no longerbe incarnations of sentiment but living vital creatures. Where the mindis stunted the mental insight must be limited; and strong as were MissMulock's talents, they were never able to burst the bonds which forgenerations had kept the greater number of women in intellectualimprisonment.
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In "Olive," the novel which immediately followed "The Ogilvies," MissMulock ventured on a very fresh and interesting subject. Olive, theheroine of the story, is a deformed girl, "a puir bit crippled lassie"with a crooked spine. To make this centre-character attractive andall-absorbing was a worthy effort on the part of an author, and we takeup the book and settle ourselves to see how it will be done.Unfortunately, before long, the courage which conceived the personalblemish gives way, and, succumbing to the difficulties of making mindtriumph over beauty, Miss Mulock commits the artistic error of trying toimpress upon you that, notwithstanding the pages of lamentations overthis deformity and the attack made on your sympathy, the disfigurementwas so slight that no person could possibly have noticed it. Naturallythis puts the heroine in a more commonplace position; and as severalminor plots are introduced which Olive only serves to string together,much of the interest in her with which we started is frittered away.
Finally, Olive marries and restores the faith of a religious sceptic.And here it is curious to read the objections raised at the time againstbringing into fiction "subjects most vital to the human soul." Onecritic, after describing the hero he is willing to accept--and, much toour regret, space prevents us showing this terrible model that we haveescaped--says: "But a hero whose intellectual crotchets, or delusions,or blindness, are to be entrusted for repairs to a fascinatingheroine--a mental perplexity which is to be solved in fiction--adeep-rooted scepticism which is to lose its _vis vitae_ according to theartistic demands of a tale of the fancy, this we cannot away with.Sceptics are not plastic and obliging. Would to Heaven scepticism_could_ be cured by bright eyes, dulcet tones, and a novelist's art oflove!"
Criticisms in this tone make more plain to us the difficulties whichnovelists in the fifties had to grapple with. So many subjects weretabooed, so many natural impulses restrained, while the bogey Proprietywas flaunted to scare the most innocent actions, so that nothing shortof genius could ride safely over such narrow-minded bigotry. That anextreme licence should follow before the happy mean could be arrived at,was a safe prediction; but many of the writers in that day must have hada hard task while trying to clip the wings of their soaringimaginations, so that they might not rise above the level marked out byMrs. Grundy.
Now, all these social dogmas must have had an immense influence on thereceptive mind of Dinah Mulock, and readers must not lose sight of thisfact should they be inclined to call some of her books didactic, formal,or old-fashioned. She never posed as a brilliant, impassioned writer ofstories which tell of wrongs, or crimes, or great mental conflicts. Inher novels there is no dissection of character, no probing into themoral struggles of the human creature. Her teaching holds high thestandard of duty, patience, and the unquestioning belief that all thatGod wills is well.
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The enormous hold which, ever since its first appearance in 1857, "JohnHalifax" has had on a great portion of the English-speaking public, isdue to the lofty elevation of its tone, its unsullied purity andgoodness, combined with a great freshness, which appeals to the youngand seems to put them and the book in touch with each other. Those whoread the story years ago still recollect the charm it had for them; and,in a degree, the same fascination exists for youthful readers at thepresent time. The theme is noble, setting forth the high moral truth of"the nobility of man as man," and into its development the author threwall her powers.
From the opening sentence, where you are at once introduced to theragged, muddy boy and the sickly helpless lad, you feel that these twowill prove to be the leading actors in the story--probably madecontrasts of, and perhaps played one against the other. This idea,however, is speedily dispelled. Possibly from a dread of failing whereit is thought so many women do fail--in the portrayal of the unseensides of character and the infinite subtleties it gives rise to--MissMulock, wisely we think, decided to place her story in theautobiographic form; and the gentle refined invalid, Phineas Fletcher,is made the _deus ex machina_ to unravel to the reader not only theromance of his friend John Halifax's history, but also the working ofhis noble chivalrous nature. Few situations are more pathetically drawnthan the attitude of these two lads, with its exchange of dependence andhero-worship on the one side, and of tender, helpful compassion on theother. A true David and Jonathan we see them, full of the trust,confidence, and sincerity young unsullied natures are capable of. Andthe story of the friendship, as it grows towards maturity, is equallywell told.
His energy and his indomitable faith in himself make a prosperous man ofthe penniless boy. We follow him on from driving the skin cart to beingmaster of the tan-yard; and throughout all his temptations, struggles,success, he maintains the same honest, fearless spirit.
It seems natural that when to such an exalted nature love comes itshould come encircled with romance, and the wooing of Ursula March, astold by sensitive, affectionate Phineas Fletcher, is very prettilydescribed.
For the reason that Ursula is an heiress with a host of aristocraticrelations, John believes his love for her to be hopeless. He strugglesagainst this overwhelming passion for some time, until the continuousstrain throws him into a fever of which his friend fears he will die. Inthis agonising strait Phineas is inspired with the idea of confessingthe truth to Ursula; and, after a touching scene in which this is mostdelicately done, she determines to go to the man who is dying of lovefor her. In the interview, which is too long to be given in its entiretyand too good to be curtailed, John tells her that owing to a greatsorrow that has come to him he must leave Norton Bury and go to America.She begs to be told the reason, and without an actual avowal he lets hersee his secret.
"'John, stay!'
"It was but a low, faint cry, like that of a little bird. But he heardit--felt it. In the silence of the dark she crept up to him, like ayoung bird to its mate, and he took her into the shelter of his love forevermore. At once all was made clear between them, for whatever theworld might say they were in the sight of heaven equal, and she receivedas much as she gave."
When lights are brought into the room John takes Ursula's hand and leadsher to where old Abel Fletcher is sitting.
"His head was erect, his eyes shining, his whole aspect that of a manwho declares before all the world, 'This is my _own_." 'Eh?' said myfather, gazing at them from over his spectacles.
"John spoke brokenly, 'We have no parents, neither she nor I. Blessher--for she has promised to be my wife.'
"And the old man blessed her with tears."
Abel Fletcher, grave, stern, uncompromising--as members of the Societyof Friends in that day were wont to be--is a clever study. He will notyield readily to the influence of John, and when he does give way it isby slow degrees. Yet one of the most winning traits in this somewhatover-perfect young man, given at times to impress
his moral obligationsrather brusquely, is the deference he pays to his former master and thefilial affection he keeps for him; and the author manages in thesescenes to put the two into excellent touch with each other--so that,through John's attitude to him, the hard close-fisted old tanner istransfigured into a patriarch who fitly gives his blessing to the bride,and later on, in a scene of great pathos, bestows his last benedictionon her blind baby daughter.
It was said at the time of its publication, and it is still said, thatin "John Halifax" Miss Mulock reached the summit of her power. That shefelt this herself seems to be shown by her adopting the title of"Author of 'John Halifax.'" Its publication was in many ways a newdeparture. It was the first of that numerous series of books brought outby her (after) life-long friend, Mr. Blackett. Those were not the dayswhen "twenty thousand copies were exhausted before a word of this novelwas written;" yet the book had a remarkable and legitimate success. Ofits merits a notable critic said, "If we could erase half a dozensentences from this book it would stand as one of the most beautifulstories in the English language, conveying one of the highest moraltruths." And that these few sentences, while in no way affecting theactual beauty of the story, are a blot and an "artistic and intellectualblunder--" the more to be deplored in a book whose moral teachingthroughout is so excellent--we must confess. "The ragged boy, with hisopen, honest face, as he asks the respectable Quaker for work, is nobeggar; the lad who drives the cart of dangling skins is not inferior toPhineas Fletcher, who watches for him from his father's windows andlongs for his companionship; and the tanner--the honest and good man whomarries Ursula March, a lady born--is her equal. Having shown that menin the sight of God are equal and that therefore all good men must beequal upon earth, what need that John should have in his keeping alittle Greek Testament which he views as a most precious possessionbecause in it is written 'Guy Halifax, Gentleman'? Are we to concludethat all his moral excellence and intellectual worth were derived from_ladies_ and _gentlemen_ who had been his remote ancestors, but withwhom he had never been in personal contact at all, since at twelve yearsold he was a ragged orphan, unable to read and write?"
Miss Mulock could not have meant this, and yet she lays herself open tothe charge, a kind of echo of which is heard in the adding to her goodplain title of "John Halifax" the unnecessary tag, "Gentleman."
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Her literary career being now fully established, Miss Mulock decided ontaking up her permanent residence in London; and, about this time, shewent to live at Wildwood, a cottage at North End, Hampstead. The nowubiquitous interviewer--that benefactor of those who want to know--hadnot then been called into being, so there is no record at hand to tellhow the rooms were furnished, what the mistress wore, her likes,dislikes, and the various idiosyncrasies she displayed in half an hour'sconversation. Such being the case we must be content with the simplefact that, charming by the candid sincerity of her disposition, and themany personal attractions that when young she possessed, Miss Mulockspeedily drew around her a circle of friends whom, with rare fidelity,she ever after kept.
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"John Halifax" was followed in 1859 by "A Life for a Life," a novelwhich, although it never obtained the same popularity, fully maintainsthe position won by its precursor. In it Miss Mulock breaks new groundboth as to plot and the manner in which she relates the story, which istold by the hero and heroine in the form of a journal kept by each, sothat we have alternate chapters of _his_ story and _her_ story. Thisform of construction is peculiar and occasionally presents to the readersome difficulties, but as a medium to convey opinions and convictionswhich the author desires to demonstrate it is happily conceived. Themotive of the book is tragedy, the keynote murder--that is murderaccording to the exigencies of the story-teller. Max Urquhart, thehero--who at the time the tale opens is a staid, serious man offorty--is the perpetrator of this crime, committed at the age ofnineteen in a fit of intoxication on a man named Johnston. Journeyingfrom London to join a brother who is dying of consumption at Pau,Urquhart, through a mistake, finds that instead of being at Southamptonhe is at Salisbury. On the way he has made the acquaintance of thepseudo-driver of the coach, a flashy, dissipated fellow, who by atissue of lies induces the raw Scotch lad to remain for some hours atthe inn and then be driven on by him to where they will overtake theright coach. By this man young Urquhart is made drunk, and when as abutt he no longer amuses the sottish company they brutally turn him intothe street. Later on he is aroused by the cut of a whip. It is his coachcompanion who pacifies him with the assurance that if he gets into thegig he will be speedily taken by him to Southampton. The lad consents,he is helped up and soon falls fast asleep to be awakened in the middleof Salisbury plain by his savage tormentor, who pushes him out and tellshim to take up his lodging at Stonehenge. The poor youth, with justsufficient sense left in him to feel that he is being kept from hisdying brother, implores the ruffian to take him on his way. "To thedevil with your brother," is the answer, and in spite of all entreaties,Johnston whips up his horse, and is on the point of starting, whenUrquhart, maddened by rage, catches him unawares, drags him from thegig, and, flings him violently on the ground, where his head strikesagainst one of the great stones, and he is killed.
How Urquhart manages to reach Southampton, and to get to Pau, he neverknows; but when he does arrive at his destination, it is to find hisbrother dead and buried, and the fit of mania which follows is set downto the shock this gives him. At the end of a year, hearing thatJohnston's death is attributed to accident, and being under theconviction that if the truth were told he would be hanged, he resolvesto lock the secret in his own breast until the hour of his death drawsnear, and, in the meanwhile, to expiate his offence by living forothers, and for the good he can do to them. He becomes an army doctor,goes through the Crimean War, and, when we are introduced to him, isdoing duty at Aldershot, near where, at a ball, he meets the inevitableshe, Theodora Johnston. If the hero is drawn dark, thin, with a spare,wiry figure, and a formal, serious air, the portrait of the heroine,with her undeniably ordinary figure, and a face neither pretty noryoung, forms a fitting pendant to it. These two are irresistibly drawntowards each other, and, notwithstanding that the lady bears the fatalname of Johnston, they soon become engaged. Dr. Urquhart's tenderconscience then demands that the tragic misdeed of his life shall beconfessed to the woman he is about to make his wife, and, in a letter,he confides to her the sad history, adding, as postscript, some few dayslater: "I have found his grave at last." Here follows the inscription,which proves the dead man to have been the son of Theodora's father,her own half-brother, Henry Johnston. "Farewell, Theodora!"
It is impossible here to give more than this crude outline of the plotof a book in which, far beyond the story she means to tell, the authorhas her own individual opinions and convictions to impress on us. Thetemptation to earnest writers to try, through their writings, to makeconverts of their readers, is often very strong, and in this instanceMiss Mulock undoubtedly gave way to it. She had not only a vehementabhorrence of capital punishment, but, to quote from her book, shemaintained "that any sin, however great, being repented of and forsaken,is, by God, and ought to be by man, altogether pardoned, blotted out,and done away."
As was at the time said, "Her argument demands a stronger case than shehas dared to put;" but so ably are the incidents strung together, sotouchingly are the relative positions of these suffering soulsdescribed, that their sorrows, affection, and fidelity becomeconvincing; and, full of the pathetic tragedy of the situation, we areoblivious of the fact that what is called a crime is nothing greaterthan an accident, a misfortune, and that for murder we must substitutemanslaughter.
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From the date of the appearance of "John Halifax," Miss Mulock's penwas never long idle. Composition was not a labour to her; and friendswho knew her at that time, describe her as walking about the room, orbending over on a low stool, rap
idly setting down her thoughts in thatsmall delicate writing which gave no trouble to read. She had beautifulhands; a tall, slim, graceful figure; and, with the exception of hermouth, which was too small, and not well shaped, delicate and regularfeatures. These attractions, heightened by a charming frankness ofmanner, made her very popular. Her poetic vein was strong. She publishedseveral volumes of poems, and many of her verses, when set to music,became much admired as songs.
Following "A Life for a Life," came, in somewhat quick succession,"Studies from Life," "Mistress and Maid," "Christian's Mistake," "ANoble Life," "Two Marriages." These in a period of ten years.
As may be supposed, they are not all of equal merit; neither does anyone of them touch the higher level of the author's earlier books. Still,there is good honest work in each, and the same exalted purity of tone,while much of the sentimentality complained of before is wholly omittedor greatly toned down.
"Mistress and Maid" is one of those good, quiet stories, full of homelytruths and pleasant teaching, in which is shown the writer's quicksympathy with the working class. The maid, Elizabeth, is as full ofcharacter and of refined feelings as is Hilary Leaf, the mistress, andher one romance of love, although not so fortunate, has quite as muchinterest. The opening scenes, in which these two first meet, areexcellent, giving us, all through their early association, touches ofhumour--a quality which, in Miss Mulock's writings, is very rare.
The picture of the rather tall, awkward, strongly built girl of fifteen,hanging behind her anxious-eyed, sad-voiced mother, who pushes her intonotice with "I've brought my daughter, ma'am, as you sent word you'dtake on trial. 'Tis her first place, and her'll be awk'ard like atfirst. Hold up your head, Elizabeth," is drawn with that graphicfidelity which gives interest to the most commonplace things in life.The awkward girl proves to be a rough diamond, capable of much polish,and by the kindly teaching of Hilary Leaf she is turned into anadmirable, praiseworthy woman. One has to resist the temptation to saymore about Hilary Leaf, an energetic, intelligent girl who, when shecannot make a living for herself and her sister by school-keeping,tries, and succeeds, by shop-keeping. The description of the strugglesof these two poor ladies to pay their way, and keep up a respectableappearance, comes sympathetically from the pen of a woman whose heartwas ever open to similar distresses in real life. To her praise be itremembered that to any tale of true suffering Dinah Mulock never closedher ears or her hand.
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Her next two novels, "Christian's Mistake" and "A Noble Life," in ouropinion, fall far short of any of her previous efforts. Yet they wereboth received with much popular favour, particularly the former, whichcalled forth warm praise from reviewers.
For us not one of the characters has a spark of vitality. Christian isnot even the shadow of a young girl made of flesh and blood. Herforbearance and self-abnegation are maddening. Her husband, the "Masterof St. Bede's,'" twenty-five years her senior and a widower, is nothingbut a lay figure, meant to represent a good man, but utterly devoid ofintellect and, one would think, of feeling, since he permits his youngbride, possessed of all the seraphic virtues, to be snubbed andbrow-beaten by two vulgar shrewish sisters-in-law. There is no interestof plot or depicting of character, and the children are as unreal andoffensive as their grown up relations. In "A Noble Life," also, there isnothing which stirs our sympathies. Even the personal deformities of theunfortunate little earl fail to touch us, and, when grown up andinvested with every meritorious attribute, he is more like the"example" of a moral tale than a being of human nature.
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As has been said, the portrayal of men is not this author's strongpoint. "Her sympathy with a good man is complete on the moral, butdefective on the intellectual side"--a serious deficiency in one who hasto create beings in whom we are asked to take a sustained interest.
That she could rise superior to this defect is shown in "The Woman'sKingdom." In this story Miss Mulock displays all her old charm ofsimplicity and directness, and is strong in her treatment of domesticlife. At the outset she announces that it will be a thorough love story,and takes as her text that "love is the very heart of life, the pivotupon which its whole machinery turns, without which no human existencecan be complete, and with which, however broken and worn in part, it canstill go on working somehow, and working to a comparatively useful andcheerful end." This question we shall not stop to argue, but proceedwith--we cannot say the plot, for of plot there is none; it is just anevery-day version of the old, old story, given with admirable force andsweetness. It is said to appeal principally to young women, and it ispossible that this is true, as the writer can recall the intensepleasure reading it gave to her nearly thirty years ago.
The book opens with the description of some seaside lodgings, in whichwe find twin sisters as opposite in character as in appearance. Edna isan epitome of all the virtues in a very plain binding. Letty, vain,spoilt, but loving her sister dearly, is a beauty. "Such women Naturemakes rarely, very rarely; queens of beauty who instinctively take theirplaces in the tournament of life, and rain influence upon weak mortals,especially men mortals." Two of the latter kind arrive as lodgers at thesame house, brothers, also most dissimilar--Julius Stedman, impulsive,erratic and undisciplined; William, his elder brother, a grave,hard-working doctor, just starting practice. The four speedily becomeacquaintances--friends--and when they part are secretly lovers. Letty,by reason of what she calls "her unfortunate appearance," never doubtsbut that she has conquered both brothers; but happily it is to Edna thatthe young doctor has given his heart; and when in time Letty hears thenews, "and remembers that she had been placing herself and Dr. Stedmanin the position of the Irish ballad couplet,
Did ye ever hear of Captain Baxter, Whom Miss Biddy refused afore he axed her?
her vanity was too innocent and her nature too easy to bear offencelong."
"But to think that after all the offers I have had you should be thefirst to get married, or anyhow, engaged! Who would ever have expectedsuch a thing?" "Who would, indeed?" said Edna, in all simplicity, andwith a sense almost of contrition for the fact. "Well, never mind,"answered Letty consolingly, "I am sure I hope you will be very happy;and as for me"--she paused and sighed--"I should not wonder if I wereleft an old maid after all, in spite of my appearance."
But to be left an old maid is not to be Letty's fate. Julius, alreadybewitched by her beauty through being much more thrown into her society,falls passionately in love with her, and for lack of any one else, andbecause his ardour flatters and amuses her, Letty encourages him,permits an engagement, and promises to join him in India. But on thevoyage out she meets a rich Mr. Vanderdecken, with whom she lands at theCape, and whom she marries. This is the tragic note in the happy story,the one drop of gall in the Stedmans' cup of felicity. Edna and herhusband are patterns of domestic well-being. The joys and cares ofevery-day life have mellowed all that was good in them, and the accountgiven of their home and their family is one we dwell upon lovingly.
Perhaps it is but natural that in our later reading we should note somesmall discrepancies that had formerly escaped us. We regret that thesisters had drifted so widely apart, and that each should seem to be sounconcerned at the distance which divides them. It is as if happinesscan make us callous as well as luxury. And although it was true thatLetty's desertion suddenly wrecked the hopes of her lover, it seemshardly probable that such an unstable being as Julius would have takenher falseness so seriously. A wiser man might have foreseen thepossibility.
Still, when this and more is said, our liking for the story remains asstrong as ever. We know of few books which give a better picture ofhealthful domestic happiness and pure family life.
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Although we have hitherto called, and shall continue to call, ourauthoress by her maiden name, she had in 1864 changed it by marrying Mr.G. Lillie Craik, a partner in the house of Macmillan & Co., and shortlyafter she removed to
Shortlands, near Bromley, in Kent. This change inher state does not appear to have interfered with her occupation, andfor many years volume followed volume in quick succession.
Unwisely, we think, for her literary reputation, she was led, throughher strong sympathy, to advocate marriage with a deceased wife's sisterin a novel, published in 1871, called "Hannah."
The novel with a purpose is almost certain to fall into the error ofgiving the argument on one side only. Its author has rarely anytoleration for the ethical aspect of the other side of the question, andit is to be doubted if such books ever advance the cause they desire toadvocate. In "Hannah" we are perfectly surfeited by those who wish tomarry within the forbidden degree, and we feel as little toleration forthe placid Bernard Rivers--one of those men who never believe in thepinch of a shoe until they want to put it on their own feet--as for JimDixon, who, after evading the law, speedily grows tired of the deceasedwife's sister, and avails himself of his legal advantage to take anotherwife.
The objections we feel to novels of this class are well stated by awriter in the _Edinburgh Review_, No. clxxxix. "We object," he says, "onprinciple to stories written with the purpose of illustrating anopinion, or establishing a doctrine. We consider this an illegitimateuse of fiction. Fiction may be rightfully employed to impress upon thepublic mind an acknowledged truth, or to revive a forgotten woe--neverto prove a disputed one. Its appropriate aims are the delineation oflife, the exhibition and analysis of character, the portraiture ofpassion, the description of nature."
In most of these aims Miss Mulock had proved herself an expert. Inaddition to her numerous novels and volumes of poems, she wrote a largenumber of tales for children, many of which, I am told, are exceedinglycharming. One cannot read her books without being struck by the intenseaffection she felt for children. She had none of her own, but sheadopted a daughter to whom she gave a mother's love and care. From timeto time there appeared from her pen volumes of short stories, studies,and essays; but it is not by these that her name and fame will be keptgreen. Neither will her reputation rest on her later novels. This shemust have realised herself when writing, "Brains, even if the strongest,will only last a certain time and do a certain quantity of work--reallygood work." Miss Mulock had begun to work the rich vein of herimagination at an early age. She took few holidays, and gave herself butlittle rest.
She was by no means what is termed a literary woman. She was not a greatreader; and although much praise is due to the efforts she made toimprove herself, judged by the present standard, her education remainedvery defective. That she lacked the fire of genius is true, but it is noless true that she was gifted with great imaginative ability and thepower of depicting ordinary men and women leading upright, often noblelives.
The vast public that such books as hers appeal to is shown in the largecirculation of some of her works, the sale of "John Halifax, Gentleman"amounting to 250,000 copies, 80,000 of which--the sixpenny edition--havebeen sold within the last few months. This shows that her popularity isnot confined to any one class. The gospel she wrote was for allhumanity.
As a woman, she was loved best by those who knew her best. "Dinah wasfar more clever than her books," said an old friend who had beenrecalling pleasant memories to repeat to me. She died suddenly on the12th of October 1887, from failure of the heart's action--the death shehad described in the cases of Catherine Ogilvie, of John Halifax, and ofUrsula, his wife--the death she had always foreseen for herself.
Around her grave in Keston churchyard stood a crowd of mourners--rich,poor, old and young--sorrowing for the good loyal friend who had gonefrom them, whose face they should see no more.
[Signature: Louisa Parr]
JULIA KAVANAGH. AMELIA BLANDFORD EDWARDS
_By_ MRS. MACQUOID
Women Novelists of Queen Victoria's Reign: A Book of Appreciations Page 7