Page:Mrs Elwood 1843.pdf/19

Rh enter, though she had, in addition to the mental sufferings which she endured upon the occasion, a severe fit of illness in consequence. In 1830, Miss Landon commenced her first novel, entitled "Romance and Reality," which was published in the following year. The plot of this novel is, perhaps, somewhat deficient in interest; a young lady, a beautiful, spoilt, and petted heiress, comes up from the country to be domiciled with a handsome and agreeable young man, with whom she falls in love, though his affections are placed elsewhere, and she eventually dies of a broken heart in consequence. We can all feel for a heroine who is deceived, betrayed, or ill-used, but not so easily do we sympathize with one who volunteers an attachment with out any sufficient grounds for so doing. The story, moreover, is burdened with a number of scenes, that have no reference to the plot, and with conversations and descriptions of living characters apparently only introduced as vehicles for some piquant remark, witty allusion, or mournful and half-moral reflection. In the following passage she probably describes her own bitter experience: "Enthusiasm is the royal road to success. Now, call it fame, vanity—what you will—how strange and how strong is the feeling which urges on the painter or the author! We ought to marvel less at the works produced, than at the efforts made. Their youth given to hopes, or rather fears—now brightening and now darkening, on equally slight grounds.

hours of ceaseless exertion in solitude, of feverish