THE NOVEL OF THE WEEK.*
• The Benefactress. By the Author of "Elizabeth and her German Garden." Loudon : Macmillan and Co. [de.] A ROMANCE from the pen of the author of Elizabeth and her German Garden is a thing rather to rejoice the heart of the reader and reviewer than to further the aims of those who labour to establish an entente cordiale between England and Germany, —or, to put it in another way, a thing to be intellectually and aesthetically rather than politically thankful for. This author's opportunities for studying the German at home have been evidently unusually extensive, and her portraiture is as relentless as that of Mr. Sargent. Her victims—we mean her subjects—are quite fascinating in their unconscious unloveli ness. A cynical character in a recently published novel is made to remark : " Blood may be thicker than water, but it is a great deal nastier," and that is the sentiment that is suggested by a good deal of The Benefactress. When cousins or brothers or sisters fail to hit it off inter se, it is very often due, as we think Oliver Wendell Holmes has remarked, to the painful spectacle of seeing their own peculiarities or weaknesses writ large in another,—projected, as it were, into the plane of the non-ego. And that is perhaps the reason why the English and Germans find it so hard to express their cousinly relation by any genuine affection. They are too like to love each other. This unfortunate family likeness between the nations is the un- failing stimulus of " Elizabeth's " satire. The domestic atmosphere is more patriarchal, the official more infected with the Bumbledom castigated by Dickens, but the essential qualities are indistinguishable from those traditionally ascribed to John Bull by his detractors,—cant, snobbery, gluttony, avarice. " Elizabeth "—if she will pardon us the convenient device of identifying her with her former heroine—is certainly no lenient critic of her fellow country men and women. The most thoroughly odious character in the whole book is an Englishwoman, just as the finest is a German. But Axel Lohm—the ingenious coinage of this name for a gentleman farmer is worthy of Thackeray—is an exception, and un- travelled readers will probably rise from the perusal of these pages wholly immune to the " temptation to belong to " one foreign nation.
The story of The Benefactress may be described as a comedy of philanthropy, the reductio ad absurdum of sincere but ill- regulated idealism. Anna Estcourt at twenty-five is at her wits' end to escape from a situation intolerable to a high- minded and self-respecting woman,—that of pensioner on the bounty of a rich but snobbish sister-in-law. Lady Estcourt —nee Dobbs—finding Anna's youth and beauty a convenient passport to social recognition, is bent on still further con- solidating her own position by engineering a good match for her sister-in-law. But Anna neglects her opportunities, the seasons pass, and Lady Estcourt's hospitality has become yell-nigh unendurable, when an old German uncle, attracted by his niece's generous disposition, though disapproving of her emancipated ways, leaves her a small estate and 132,000 a year in Germany. Anna hails her release with rapture, and on going over to Kleinwalde determines to signalise her • gratitude by throwing open her house to, and sharing her fortune with, twelve distressed German ladies. Lady Estcourt is goaded to fury by this wanton generosity, but condescends to leave her daughter Letty, a lumpish schoolgirl of sixteen, in Anna's charge. Of course the guileless Anna falls an easy
prey to the rapacity and envy of parasites and impostors. She is fleeced by her agent, her motives are misconstrued by the neighbourhood, her high-born but impecunious " guests " regard their sojourn under her roof in the light of a sublime act of condescension, and a silly practice) joke played off by her niece at the expense of an amorous theological student leads to the imprisonment, on a charge of arson, of her only friend and adviser.
But, after all, the plot of The Benefactress is of secondary importance, though we admit that it is admirably devised as a means of illustrating various types of German womanhood: the Hausfrau who makes herself a doormat for her husband; the smart officer's wife—" Trudi's new friends always thought her delightful ; and she never had any old ones "—a witty, selfish, cosmopolitan type ; various representatives of the minor noblesse ; idolaters of the conversances, of precedence, etiquette, and all " the petty decalogue.of Mode "—all drawn with a merciless minuteness. As a specimen of "Elizabeth's" method of dealing with the materialism of the German middle class we cannot do better than quote the passage in which her agent Dellwig dilates on the excellences of the Kleinwalde pigs I have no children,' he said, with a resigned and pious upward glance, 'and my wife's maternal instincts find their satisfaction in tending and fattening these fine animals. She cannot listen to their cries the day they are killed, and withdraws into the cellar, where she prepares the stuffing. The gracious Miss ate the cutlets of one this very day. It was killed on pur- pose.'—' Was it ? I wish it hadn't been,' said Anna, frowning at the remembrance of that meal. I—I don't want things killed on my account. I—don't like pig.'—'Not like pig ? ' echoed Dellwig, dropping his lower jaw in his amazement. Did I understand aright that the gracious one does not eat pig's flesh gladly? And my wife and I who thought to prepare a joy for her 1' He clasped his hands together and stared at her in dismay. Indeed, he was so much overcome by this extraordinary and wilful spurning of Nature's best gifts that for a moment he was silent, and knew not how he should proceed. Were there not concentrated in the body of a single pig a greater diversity of joys than in any other form of pleasure that he could call to mind ? Did it not include, besides the profounder delights of its roasted ribs, such solid satisfactions as hams, sausages, and bacon? Did not its liver, discreetly manipulated, rival the livers of Strasburg geese in delicacy? Were not its brains a source of mutual congratulation to an entire family at supper? Did not its very snout, boiled with peas, make an otherwise inferior soup delicious ? The ribs of this particular pig were reposing at that moment in a cool place, carefully shielded from harm by his wife, reserved for the Easter Sunday dinner of their new mistress, who, having begun at her first meal with the lesser joys of cut- lets, was to be fed with different parts in the order of their excel• lence till the climax of rejoicing was reached on Easter Day in the dish of Schweinebraten, and who was now declaring, in a die- away, affected sort of voice, that she did not want to eat pig at all. Where, then, was her vulnerable point? How would he ever be able to touch her, to influence her, if she was indifferent to the chief means of happiness known to the dwellers in those parts ? That was the real aim and end of his labours, of the labours, as far as he could see, of every one else—to make as much money as possible in order to live as well as possible; and what did living well mean if it did not mean the best food And what was the best food if not pig ? Not to be killed on her account I On whose account, then, could they be killed? With an owner always about the place, and refusing to have pigs killed, how would he and his wife be able to indulge, with satis- factory frequency, in their favourite food, or offer it to their expectant friends on Sundays ? He mourned old Joachim, who so seldom came down, and when he did ate his share of pork like a man, more sincerely at that moment than he would have thought possible. Mein seliger Herr,' he burst out brokenly, completely upset by the difference between uncle and niece, `mein seliger Herr—' And then, unable to go on, fell to blow- ing his nose with violence, for there were real tears in his eyes:' There is something almost uncanny in " Elizabeth's" insight into the " mean streets " of the human, and especially the feminine, heart; indeed, the book would be intolerable were it not, first, for the writer's unfailing sense of the ludicrous, and second, for her real appreciation of genuine goodness and sincerity. Anna, her heroine, though lacking in logic, and a lamentably poor judge of character, is a generous and lovable creature, while let German readers remember that the Germarrhero is the sole character in the book who never once makes himself ridiculous. If "Eliza- beth's" satire is somewhat cruel, it is in the main justified by the situation and the results. For the moral of the story is as sound as the wit is mordant. The Benefactress, in a word, combines the rare qualities of being at once wholesome, agree- ably malicious, and in full accord with i.:13 principles of the
Charity Organisation Society.
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