IDEALA.* How far the author of this remarkable book has

drawn what he has called a "Study from Life" from an actual personality, living through actual or possible circumstances, and how far the • Ideala : a Study from Life. LoLtbn: E. W. Allen; WarringOn: Gt ardian Ooi. 1358.

character of his study is the result of the accumulated experi- ence and impressions gathered from intercourse and contact with many phases of life and character which have found their expression in the portrayal of one leading character, we cannot, of course, tell. Ideala stands to us in the light of a real living character; and in so far as that result is attained, the writer has, so to speak, fulfilled the chief part of the unwritten contract which exists between a good author and kis readers. Whether the heroine is a portrait, and how far she is a true or a natural one, is a matter for the author and his intimates alone, and beyond our concern. To concentrate the whole interest of a story upon the delineation of a single character, and this, so far as the reader is concerned, a fictitious one ; to make this interest sufficient, even intense and absorbing, without the aid of any incident except that which is wholly subordinate, or of any other character, save one, which is intended to be of the slightest importance, argues a very uncommon power and capacity in the line which the author has taken up. There is something defective in the manner of narration, and there are certain inequalities of pro- duction which seem to us at times carelessly and aggressively barn and inartistic. These, and the impression left by what appear to us one or two slight inconsistencies of character and perhaps of jarring speech, are all of which we have to relieve ourselves in the spirit of fault-finding, before coming to dwell upon the main features of the book. And then we find our- selves left with little but that to which the expression of very high praise is due.

Far as we seem led into a knowledge of Ideala's nature, we reel in the end that there remain depths which we have not sounded, and much is still vague to us. All we learn of Ideala, is either expressed in her own words or judged

of from the impression which her character and conversation have made upon one, the truest of her friends, who tells the story of a certain period of her life, and who possesses much, though not all, of her confidence. The disadvantage, of course, of thus learning so much of a heroine, real or fictitious, from her own lips is that what one gains in actual knowledge is often at the expense of that respect for the reserve and want of self-consciousness in her character which, in the case before treat least, the author is evidently anxious we should retain. The extract we subjoin will show, we think, where he has gone a step too far in allowing Ideals, to enlarge upon herself, and

will give, too, a slight example of her absent-mindedness, of which the earlier chapters are so amusingly full :—

" But, although she spoke so positively when taken out of her- self by the interest and importance of a subject, she had no very high opinion of her own judgment and power to decide. A little snore self-esteem would have been good for her; she was too diffident.

• I have not come across people on whose knowledge I could rely,' she told me. 'I have been obliged to study alone, and to form my opinions for myself out of such scraps of information as I have had the capacity to acquire from reading and observation. I am, therefore, always prepared to find myself mistaken, even when I ant surest about a thing—for

" What am I?

An infant cry ing in the night: An infant cryinz for the light : And wi'h no language but a cry ! "

In practice, too, she frequently, albeit unconsciously, diverged from her theories to some considerable extent; as on one occasion, when, after talking long and earnestly of the sin of selfishness, she absently picked up a paper I had just cut with intent to enjoy myself, took it away with her to the drawing-room, and sat on it for the rest of the morning—as I afterwards heard."

We have advanced some way in the story, and are familiar with many of her opinions and many little traits of character peculiar to her, before we know in the least who Ideala is.

Gradually we rather infer than are directly told, that her childhood has been an unusual and an unhappy one, that she has been early married to a man uncongenial to her in every way. When the book opens, some years of gradual recognition of the gulf which lies between them have helped to make the spirit in which she meets her trial a hard and somewhat reckless one, while preparing her for discoveries in regard to him which render her position unnatural and degrading. That this spirit is contrary to her nature, which is as loving and noble as it is impulsive and unconventional, is shown partly by the intimate and affectionate relation existing between her and her friends, and partly by the peculiar fascination and charm which she seems to have exercised over her inferiors in social position. Having learnt so much of her nature and circumstances, it is not hard to guess what will prove the temptation and the tragedy of her life. What we know of her hitherto has been leading up to our appreciation of the kind of spirit which she puts forth to meet it.

We cannot enter into the circumstances of Ideala's meeting with Lorrimer, which, together with the intercourse which follows and the mutual attraction of their natures, brings about the inevitable result. Her subsequent suffering and tempta- tion, the temporary yielding of a mind which seems to have satisfied its higher promptings while yielding to its passionate impulses, the constantly recurring struggles which, without being directly told of them, we infer from the slightness of the guiding impetus which brings her right at last,—all this can only be fully understood by one who will follow out the working of the story for himself. It would be impossible by any extract to give an example of the successive stages of the growth of her feeling for Lorrimer ; and we are half-afraid of detracting from the completeness of the chapter which tells of the crisis of her life by giving the closing page :—

"This was my last argument, and when I had done she sat there for a long time silent, resting her head against my knee, and scarcely breathing. She was fighting it out with herself, and I thought it best to leave her alone—besides, I had already said all there was to say ; repetition would only have irritated her, and there was nothing now for it but to wait. Outside, I could hear the dreary drip of raindrops ; somewhere in the room a clock ticked obtrusively ; but it was long past midnight, and the house was still. I thought that only the night and silence watched with me, and waited upon the suffering of this one poor soul. At last she moved, uttering a low moan, like one in pain.—' I do see it,' she said, almost in a whisper; and I am willing to give him up.'

God in his mercy help you!' I prayed.—' And forgive me,' she answered, humbly.—She was quite exhausted, and passively sub- mitted when I led her to her room. I closed the shutters to keep out the cheerless dawn, and made the fire burn up, and lit the lamps. She sat, silently watching me, and did not seem to think it odd that I should do this for her. She clung to me then as a little child clings to its father, and, like a father, I ministered to her, reverently, then left her, as I hoped, to sleep. My sister opened her door as I passed. She was dressed, and had been watching, too, the whole night long.= Well ?' she asked.—I kissed her. It is well,' I answered; and she burst into tears.—' Can I go to her now 's she said.—' Yes, go.'—I went to Claudia's room, and waited. After a long time she returned.—' She is sleeping at last,' she told me, sorrowfully. And so the long night ended."

To appreciate fully the nature of the struggle through which Ideala is passing, the reader must understand how far she .has justified to herself—of course wrongly—the step which she had been about to take. This perhaps too easy justification,

and her entire ignorance of ordinary conventionalities in one of her experiences of life, strike us as somewhat inconsistent.

We share in the perplexity of one of her friends, who says somewhere in the course of the book,—"How a woman can be at once so clever and such a fool as you are, Ideala, puzzles me."

The hopeless apathy which succeeds Ideala's self-conquest is the beginning of what might have been a striking close ; but we cannot help thinking that there is a bathos about the chapter which precedes the closing scene. The long harangue about Chinese women and tight-lacing is inappropriate, and Ideala's aspirations, though impressive, are very vague. We find the same kind of inappropriateness earlier, in the descrip- tion of the Great Hospital, a marvellously impossible building, where the accumulated treasures of art and science minister to the needs of tired minds, but where the chief con- sulter, as we have it three times forced upon our attention, cannot even get his lunch without going out to the refresh- ment-room of a neighbouring railway-station.

We have not space to dwell upon Lorrimer's character. In many respects, though incomplete, it is a very striking one. It is impossible to read a book of such undoubted power, and given to us in so agreeable a form, without some guesses about its author, whose name nowhere appears. That it is a woman's work, we have little doubt. The slight inconsistencies and want of artistic finish do not seem sufficient to mark it as the work of a young writer, a conjecture which the style and subject likewise forbid, though we should say that there is something of the fierceness of youth in the wording of the attack upon the "decently clad devils of society" in the preface. We should rather say that the con- ception of the book had so strong a root in actual observa- tion or experience, as to make a successor to it improbable, one of equal merit impossible.