15 OCTOBER 1881, Page 21

ADAM AND EVE.*

"FIND a man," says Carlyle, "whose words paint you a like- ness, you have found a man worth something. He could not have discerned the object at all, or seen the vital type of it, unless he had sympathised with it,—had sympathy in him to bestow on objects. A man without worth cannot give you the likeness of any object ; he dwells in vague outwardness, fallacy, and trivial hearsay, about all objects." Believing in the truth of this, the "worth" of Mrs. Parr may safely be inferred from the vigorous, lifelike, and excellent picture she * Adam and Eve. By Mrs. Parr. London : Bentley and Bon. •

has drawn in Adam and Eve of the domestic life of Cornish smugglers. If she has not lived amongst them and known them intimately, she must hq,ve a rare gift of sympathy and dramatic talent, to enable her to enter into the minds of these people and identify herself with them as she has done ; she is able not only to perceive and understand their peculiar attri- butes for herself, but also to become the medium whereby the rest of the world may do the same. The reader feels as if he had received a card inscribed "Smugglers at Home," and had accepted the invitation. Right good company does he find these modern representatives of the Vikings, who sally forth upon illegal expeditions, and return to carouse upon squab pies, potted conger, cakes, pasties, and spirits. These dainties may be con- sumed out of the silver plate, rare china, aria glass that abound in the houses ; whilst the womenkind sit by and wait, attired in elegant chintzes and caps and ruffles of priceless lace. The walls are hollowed with hiding-places for men and kegs, and at any moment the feast may be cut short by the news of the approach of the strong arm of the law. Jolly, rollicking, hos- pitable, open-handed, simple, and brave are these men of Pol- perrow, and well fitted for the wild and hazardous life they lead. They glory in their feats of daring and drinking, have barbar- ous virtues and barbarous vices, and are especially addicted to brawling and tippling. These qualities, however, are considered by no means disreputable, for one of the characters, who describes the Pascals as "a drunkin', fightin' cnssin' lot, drunk from mornin' to night, and from night to mornin'," adds shortly after, "There's none of 'em but what's respectable and well-to- do. What I've bin tellin' of 'ee is their ways, you knaw ; 'taiu't nothing agen 'em." As for the idea that there is any- thing wrong or dishonest in their infractions of the law, such a ridiculous notion never enters their heads :—

"'There's nothin' that I can see to hide from 'ee, nor to be ashamed to tell 'ee of. What uncle brings he buys and pays honest money for, and if there's a risk in bringin' it, why he takes that risk; and if that isn't Lavin' a right to keep it if he can, why I don't know nothin' about it, that's But what is it that be does bring ?' said Eve. —` Why, sperrits, to be sure. 'Tis like this : they says, "Here yoa must pay dooty." "No," uncle says, "1 won't—I'll bring it dooty free." Well, he does so, and if ho can land it safe, well and good ; 'tis his to sell or to drink, or to do what he likes with. Bat if the Excise gets scent of it, down they come and tries to seize it all ; and if they do seize it, 'tis gone, and so's the lives of any they catches with it. So no blame to 'em, if they'm took hard, when each man knows the bit o' hemp's ben growed to make the rope his neck's to swing by.'"

Thoroughly suitable mates for the men are the women,— rough, strong, well able to hold their own with both tongue and hand ; and yet hearty, kindly, genuine, and with a strain of religion mingling quaintly amongst the wild elements of their nature, as is depicted particularly in the Methodist, Mrs. Tucker. They are outspoken, humorous, shrewd, homely, and ready for any emergency that may arise. Here is how one of them laments over a lost parent, and bears her testimony to the inestimable boon of a mother's love :—

"'You've a lost somebody, my dear, haven't 'ee ?' she asked, looking at Eve's black gown.—' Yes, my mother,' said Eve, surprised at the tone of sympathy the questioner was able to throw into her voice. Ah, that's a sore loss, that is. I've a lost my awn mother, so Jean tell. Poor old sawl ! I thinks I see her now ! When we children had bin off, nobody knows how low", and her worritin' and thinkin' us was to bottom o' say, heed come out with a girt big stick and her'd leather us till her couldn't stand, and call us all the raskil rogues her could lay her tongue to. I often thinks of it now, and it brings back her words to me. "You may find another husband," her'd say, "or have another chield, but there's niver but the wan mother." ' "

But let it not be supposed that these people are mere lawless savages. In that case they would be repulsive, which they cer- tainly are not. They possess qualities (especially that of staunch loyalty to their friends) which cannot fail to make them interesting and attractive. Their standard of education is not very high, since it is the opinion of Polperrow that,—

" A man who didn't, seemingly, care much for badger-baiting, dog- fighting, rat-hunting, wouldn't drink, and seldom fought, what rational enjoyment was there left for him ? So well not make money at all, as not to know how to spend it when you had made it 'For to stick by his boat and kind by his cargo, fight fair and die game, was all the larnin' a Polperro lad needed ; and if that tachin' didn't make a man of him, nothin' to be larnt out of books would.'"

But in spite of this, all the conversations are fresh, racy, and amusing. From first to last there is something in the book that appeals to the love of enterprise, salt water, and open air that larks in our British nature, and causes it to have a more than sneaking kindness for smuggling.

All the characters are careful studies, and deserving of

praise; but our particular favourite is Joan Hocken, niece to. the smuggler, Zebedee. Fan-loving, affectionate, eminently practical and business-like, true as steel, bright, clever, ready to sympathise with every one, helpful, doing her duty without effort or thinking about it, with a fund of shrewd common- sense, genuinely single-hearted and unselfish, she is always- charming, even though, perhaps, somewhat unrefined for the ideas of polite society. Whether engaged in household duties ; baffling a party of soldiers in search of con- traband goods ; trying to keep contrary tempers straight ; good-humouredly chaffing her sour and puritanical mother ; tumbling into a flour-cask, and venting her anger at the calamity on an unlucky admirer who chances to be at hand ; concealing her own love for Adam, and crushing down every atom of ill-will and bitterness at seeing him devote himself to Eve; spoiling the men with whom she lives and into whose varying moods she has an almost instinctive insight ; or what- ever else she may be doing or saying, she is always delightful,. natural, and original. And whilst living only for others, and putting herself and her own wishes entirely aside, she is almost absurdly unconscious that there is any merit in the self-abne- gation which seems to her the merest matter of course. The heroine, Eve, is a London girl of great beauty, whose ambition is "to go out into the world, to see people she had never seen before, to live some life other than the daily routine of dull respectability, to have joys and sorrows springing out of un- foreseen accidents and strange emergencies, to be the centre of hopes and fears." A born coquette, she evidently agrees with Moliere's Armande that,— "L'on pent, pour epoux, refuser on merite Que, pour adorateur, on vent hien it sa suite."

Her first lover is a rather priggish, but good-hearted young watchmaker, whom she will not dismiss because she covets his love, though not himself. At her mother's death she goes to- live with her wild relations in Cornwall, where there is cer- tainly none of that "level of respectable routine" which she had feared. Here she meets Adam, a hot-tempered, masterful, well-intentioned, jealous, young fellow, who has never learnt "the toons they play on second-fiddles," and who is made un- happy by a consciousness of superiority to his mates, and inability to raise them to his own standard as he wants to do. Both he and Eve being proud and passionate, and dreading the humiliation of unrequited affection, at first struggle against the mutual love that they feel overcoming them. Their half-fierce love-making, their quarrels, jealousies, and misfortunes, are capitally drawn. For these, and also for the catastrophe that Eve was the means of bringing upon Polperrow, readers are recommended to search the book itself. Having ourselves read it twice, we will express our opinion of it in the words of a small nephew to whom, when he complained of a stomach-ache, some elder said cheerfully, " Oh ! you've got a bit of pain, have you ?" To this the child assented, but presently added, as the discomfort increased, "I've got it all now !" So after the first reading of the book, we had a good bit of a mind to like it, but felt sure of having got it all after the second perusal. We think the lady who has written Adam and Eve and Dorothy Fox promises to rank high amongst modern novelists, and hope that she will give us some farther insight into smuggler's life, and—above all—another Joan Hockeu.