Page:Maria Edgeworth (Zimmern 1883).djvu/202

190 man in all outside seeming, the old-fashioned perfect tone of high-breeding marks him, and he is even capable of a certain generosity that seems more an inherited instinct than a part of his individual nature. Esther, the General's sister, is one of the quaintest and most delightful characters in the book, drawn with kindliness and humour, a girl with the power of a noble woman hidden under the crust of a gruff and abrupt, exterior, which springs half from shyness, half from a defiant love of truth and hatred of conventional chains. The purpose of Helen is to show how much the sufferings and dissensions of social life arise from the prevailing digressions from truth, often due in the first instance to small society politenesses. Its key-note lies in the ejaculation of Miss Clarendon: "I wish that word fib was out of the English language, and white lie drummed out after it. Things by their right names, and we should all do much better. Truth must be told, whether agreeable or not." Most perfectly and naturally is the imbroglio brought to pass, the entanglement caused by the love-letters, the way in which every fresh deceit on the part of Cecilia, meant to be harmless, tells in her husband's mind against the friend behind whom she is basely hiding her own fault. With Cecilia, whose failings were of the kind with which Miss Edgeworth had least mercy, she is singularly gentle. For once she lets us pity the offender while we condemn the crime. Life had probably taught her that consequences are so surely unpitying, that she no Longer felt the need to insist on this as she had done in former years, when she would probably have sketched for us the whole course of Cecilia's punishment, whose nature she now only indicates. Helen is a charming heroine, no wax doll of impossible