Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 127.djvu/325

Rh me alone for a bit, like a good fellow." Then as Mrs. Peart, candle in hand, and with a scared face, was traversing the building, some one told her that her husband was found, and then that he was dead, and that they were burying him in the garden.

When the party returned, Falkland sought out Mrs. Peart, and told her that her husband had fallen while gallantly doing his duty, and patting Kitty Peart on the head as she stood by looking up at the colonel, told her to be a brave girl, and help her mother to bear the trial. It was one of the strangest scenes of those strange times: the group of officers, flushed and hot from their labours, telling the story to such of their comrades as were free to join them; a little in advance of them Falkland talking to Mrs. Peart, behind whom were assembled the other ladies, who had come to hear the news; the one lamp suspended from the ceiling throwing a dim light over the big room, the candle Mrs. Peart still carried bringing into stronger relief Falkland's grave face and the scared aspect of the poor widow, while the daughter, with Falkland's hand resting on her head, had burst into tears. "Come away, dear," said Olivia, gently; and, putting her arm round Mrs. Peart's waist, led her away to the ladies' room, whither the sobbing girl followed them.

Spragge had had a narrow escape with his life, the bullet which hit him having glanced off, making a flesh-wound and breaking a rib. He was put to bed in the sick-room and tended with the other patients, and warmly commended in the morning by Falkland for his behaviour in keeping his place in the line till the fighting was over, notwithstanding his wound. The sepoy hit by the stray bullet while filling up the mine was less fortunate. He had been shot through the body; and although he did not feel much hurt at first, and was able to walk back, he died in the morning.

 

 From Macmillan's Magazine.

all the curiosities given to the world by America, the national heroine of romance is, to our mind, one of the most singular and interesting. She speaks for more than herself; she throws a light on American social institutions and ideas, such as not even the travelling notes of observant and philosophical members of Parliament give us; and through her we are constantly getting deeper insight into the working of the wonderful social and political fabric that those energetic and fearless descendants of ours are building out of old-English manners. If we examine the American heroine as she appears in the pages of the earlier novelists, and compare her with those of to-day, we find that she has undergone a gradual development and change from the flashing-eyed squaw of Mr. Fennimore Cooper's tales, up to the completed type in the hands of Mrs. Stowe, the younger Hawthorne, or Miss Alcott. She has grown with the growth of her country, and strengthened with its strength, until now she appears before us in full bloom, as one of the most striking of national phenomena. We have her treated by master hands. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes makes Elsie Venner into a philosophical study; he puts her through a process of accurate and careful analysis, favouring his readers with all the results, and giving us not only the colour of her hair and eyes, but also the component parts of her blood. Mr, Julian Hawthorne, following in the same path, subjects his characters to a scrutiny which, though there is little trace in it of what the great master calls "the modesty of nature," may be supposed to give us facts — facts which, however disagreeable, are, it is supposed, only supplied by such-like vivisection. In the elder Hawthorne, on the other hand, we have the heroine spiritualized, and supernaturalized into an etherealness of texture only equalled hitherto by Richter.

We can, too, see our heroine under various shades of attendant incident, from Indian adventure, to life in social communities, or in the Fifth Avenue Hotel; but in all circumstances and in all hands she carries with her an unmistakable nationality; whether she is described well or ill, whether she is treated of philosophically, religiously, or sentimentally, the heroine of American tales is a new being, and must be accepted as a new type of woman. Mr. Darwin must account for her as he can. She is no daughter of the old-fashioned Eve. Freitag's Lina speaks German, Victor Hugo's Minette has French manners; but they are still of the old type — we still recognize them as belonging to the race. But this American girl is an essentially new creation. It is not that she does not speak our tongue, that she is not graced with feminine attributes, that she is not gifted with beauty, golden hair, small feet and a bewitching smile, attributes which are happily common to heroines of all countries; but as one reads