Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18.djvu/390

382 hands are tied from first to last They are not to act out their characters: they are to act out the plot; and the author's designs are accomplished in defiance of their several natures. Some of the minor persons are not so ruthlessly treated. The Pedgifts, father and son, are free agents, and they are admirably true to their instincts of upright, astute lawyers, who love best to employ their legal shrewdness in a good cause. Their joint triumph over Miss Gwilt is probable and natural, and would be a successful point in the book, if it were conceivable that she should expose herself to such a defeat by so much needless plotting with Mrs. Oldershaw. But to fill so large a stage, an immense deal of by-play was necessary, and great numbers of people are visibly dragged upon the scene. Some of these accomplish nothing in the drama. To what end have we so much of Mr. Brock? Others elaborately presented only contribute to the result in the most intricate and tedious way; and in Major Milroy's family there is no means of discovering that Miss Gwilt is an adventuress, but for Mrs. Milroy to become jealous of her and to open her letters.

It cannot, of course, be denied that Mr. Collins's stories are interesting; for an infinite number of persons read them through. But it is the bare plot that interests, and the disposition of mankind to listen to story-telling is such that the idlest conteur can entertain. We must demand of literary art, however, that it shall interest in people's fortunes by first interesting in people. Can any one of all Mr. Collins's readers declare that he sympathizes with the loves of Armadale and Neelie Milroy, or actually cares a straw what becomes of either of those insipid young persons? Neither is Midwinter one to take hold on like or dislike; and Miss Gwilt is interesting only as the capable but helpless spider out of which the plot of the story is spun. Pathos there is not in the book, and the humor is altogether too serious to laugh at.

is sometimes difficult to believe, in reading this book, that it is not the production of Major Gahagan of the Ahmednuggar Irregulars, or Mr. Barry Lyndon of Castle Lyndon. Being merely a record of personal adventure, it does not suggest itself as part of the history of our late war, and, but for the recurrence of the familiar names of American persons and places, it might pass for the narrative of either of the distinguished characters mentioned.

In dealing with events creditable to his own courage and gallantry, Colonel Gilmore has the unsparing frankness of Major Gahagan, and it must be allowed that there is a remarkable likeness in all the adventures of these remarkable men. It is true that Colonel Gilmore does not fire upon a file of twenty elephants so as to cut away all their trunks by a single shot; but he does kill eleven Yankees by the discharge of a cannon which he touches off with a live coal held between his thumb and finger. Being made prisoner, he is quite as defiant and outrageous as the Guj-puti under similar circumstances: at one time he can scarcely restrain himself from throwing into the sea the insolent captain of a Federal gunboat; at another time, when handcuffed by order of General Sheridan, he spends an hour in cursing his captors. The red-hair of the Lord of the White Elephants waved his followers to victory; Colonel Gilmore's "hat, with the long black plume upon it," is the signal of triumph to his marauders. Both, finally, are loved by the ladies, and are alike extravagant in their devotion to the sex. Colonel Gilmore, indeed, withholds no touch that can go to make him the hero of a dime novel; and there is not a more picturesque and dashing character in literature outside of the adventures of Claude Duval. Everywhere we behold him waving his steel (as he calls his sword); he wheels before our dazzled eyes like a meteor; he charges, and the foe fly like sheep before him. And no sooner is he come into town from killing a score or two of Yankees, than the ladies—who are all good Union women and have just taken the oath of allegiance—crowd to kiss and caress him; or, as he puts it in his own vivid language, he receives "a kiss from more than one pair of ruby lips, and gives many a hearty hug and kiss in return." In his wild way, he takes a pleasure in evoking the tender solicitude of the ladies for his safety,—eats a dish of strawberries in a house upon which the Yankees are charging to capture him, and remains for some minutes after the strawberries are eaten, while the ladies, proffering him his arms, are "dancing about, and positively screaming with excitement." At another time, when the bullets of the