Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/135

Rh and sustained pride of the injured Ethel, or at the wit and selfishness of Lady Mary; at the hidden consciousness of Mrs. Courtenaye, or not least, the true affection, elevating and giving winningness to a coarse nature, that renders Lavinia Fenton one of the reader's chief favourites. All these characters, heads or full lengths, are portrayed with a hand bold to execute what the eye sees in life or in life's visions, and what the heart feels to belong to the mysteries of our nature.

The approach to the end is too painful; the fearful poisoning scene, the madness worse than death, the poetical aim and the moral hope struck down in the midst of a blighting and squalid poverty—these have the stunning effect of a blow. But the general effect is not painful—the person ages of the story are not "sad as night only for wantonness"—our most sacred feelings are not sported with—tears are not set flowing out of an ostentatious sense of the pathetic, nor is humanity fastened on the rack merely to show us what it can endure, and how high the torture can be screwed up. The book will keep its readers "heart-whole" with the world, while it unsparingly exhibits its follies and its vices.

"Ethel Churchill," moreover, contains a little volume of verses, beautifully scattered through the work as mottos to the chapters; a liberality denoting, perhaps, that L. E. L.'s activity of thought and keenness of feeling could create, where other minds reposed on a quotation; and could produce a sweet song, while another novelist was turning over her own poetical pages for an appropriate extract. It has been deemed right to collect some of these mottos in the present work, and the series will not be lightly regarded by the reader who