Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/84

84 diversities—all written with freshness and piquancy, and illustrated with sufficient point and anecdote to season twice the number of pages. Amongst the sketches, real and imaginary, we trace resemblances to many of her literary contemporaries; of whom several had to acknowledge in her commentaries the candid critic, or the partial friend. From these gay and sprightly delineations of life, the work deepens, in the last half of it, into a tale of sorrow and sensibility, exhibiting a quick insight into much that is most hidden, as well as a high appreciation of all that is most lofty, in the character of her own sex—a tale written in its lighter parts with natural grace, and in its more elevated passages with earnestness and power. "Romance and Reality" did not, perhaps, exactly fulfil the expectations that had been formed of it; but it did more than this, by giving, not a promise, but the assurance, of greater and stronger powers to penetrate into the philosophy of actual life, than had previously been suspected to exist in companionship with her rich fancy, and her sympathies with the romantic.

To show that the superabundance of simile and illustration, which is, incontestably, a fault in these volumes, was less the result of an excess of anxiety to fill the page with brilliancies, than of an inveterate habit, it was only necessary to hear her converse for five minutes, or to read an ordinary note of five lines about the merest trifle. Here is one, written while this novel was in the course of composition; and, being about the length specified, contains, nevertheless, three distinct similes. With the exception of "My dear Madam," "and yours sincerely,"—this is the entire note:—

"We have a young friend staying in the house,