Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 095.djvu/406



the generic title of the Novel, are congregated many and diverse species. Its unity is a huge syncretism. Its catholicity is a comprehension of sectaries. Its articles of faith, broad as they may be in definition of doctrine, will always have some subscribers who adopt a non-natural sense. The Novel is a title bestowed on, or claimed by, a mass of opposing forces; it is supposed to sanction alike the toryism of one man and the sans-culottism of another—pathos in extremis, and folly in cap and bells—argument in linked flatness long drawn out, and desultory description ever flying off at a tangent—severe didactic morality and lawless indecent ribaldry—the experiences of retired maidenly innocence, and of cracksmen on their last legs—the tendencies of Oxford tractism, and of Straussian a-theology—the sober sadness of earnest souls, who write every lino under a present sense of grave responsibility, and the flippant dilettantism of those who descry no under-current in life, and hurry adown the surface stream, reckless as to the how and the whither. To whichever of these classes—and the enumeration might be extended beyond compute—the author of "Olive" may belong, it is not to the last. She is not one of the frivolous, light-headed, empty-hearted school. Fashion is not her first and last, and midst and without end. Let others, as they list, chronicle the soft nothings of boudoir sentiment—the subdued smartnesses of boudoir sarcasm: so will not she.Let accomplished gentility write itself weary on such themes; they shall have no aiding and abetting from one who reveres the soul of man, and believes that its "beauty is immense," and who seeks to inspire him with a desire to weave no longer, as Emerson phrases it, "a spotted life of shreds and patches, but to live with a divine unity." She has imbibed deeply the "life in earnest" philosophy popularised by Longfellow and Tupper: her tales seem to embody the appeal of the latter—She recognises the heroic beneath the broadcloth of contemporary common life, and extracts the romance of a heart that knoweth its own bitterness, and would fain let none know besides. Her novels are the records of inner life—narratives of spiritual struggles—memorials of lowly affection, such as would, but for such a scribe, find no acquaintance half a mile from home, but fade with the light of common day—live, and make no noise—die, and make no sign. In giving form and motion to her characters, she exhibits considerable skill in observation, delicate insight into motive, and a happy tact in the application of illustrative details. It is to be regretted that she indulges in a frequent and