A COUNSEL OF PERFECTION.*

A Counsel of Perfection has not the power of Colonel Enderby's Wife, but in finish and delicacy of workmanship, it contains, we think, the most perfect art which Lucas Millet has pro- duced. It is a much more agreeable tale than either Mrs. Lorimer or Colonel Enderby's Wife, and though much slighter in every way and embodying less power and passion than the latter, yet it has much less of the flavour of cynicism which a little disfigured that very impressive story. A Counsel of Perfection does not aim very high ; but it is such a perfect piece of execution, and works out with so fine a touch all that it does aim at, that it would require us to go back to Miss Austen to find anything that better deserved the praise of fine form, fine grouping, fine colouring, humorous delinea- tion, and precision of design. In the sketch of the selfish scholar, Dr. Casteen, who appropriates his daughter so unre- lentingly and so coldly to his own service, we fancied at first that there was something too much of a reminiscence of George Eliot's sketch of Mr. Casaubon. But there is very little real likeness. Dr. Casteen has all the excuse of a really learned and able man who has himself taught his daughter all she knows, and has become accustomed to think that she really takes the same pride in his work which he himself takes in it, so that there is in this case none of the disgust which the reader necessarily feels when Mr. Casaubon takes advantage of the enthusiasm of a. beautiful girl who does not know the world, to obtain a wife whom he expects to waste herself in assisting a confused-minded old pedant to believe heartily in himself, which he had never succeeded in doing, and which Dorothea * A Counsel of Perfection, By Lucas Male. 1 vci. London : Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co.

Brooke certainly does not contrive to help him to do. The selfish absorption of Dr. Casteen in his work, and his complete un- consciousness of his daughter's pallid life, fading youth, and great need of living interests, is not, of course, a pleasing picture, but it is a natural picture when we compare it with Mr. Casaubon's fretful monopoly of his beautiful young wife's time and devotion, and his jealousy of her wish to interest herself in the advancement of his own nephew. And the very fact that Lydia Casteen is by no means so voluntary and self- immolated a victim to her father as Dorothea Brooke was to Mr. Casaubon, the very fact that she is quite conscious of her father's selfishness and coldness, and that the whole interest of the book depends on the issue of the controversy which arises in her own heart as to whether she should or should not break away from his exacting claims upon her, makes the story much more natural and tolerable than the story of a self-immolation which began in the eager cravings of a noble heart very ignorant of itself, and then engaged in a much less natural enterprise than Lydia Canteen's work of filial devotion. On the whole, we find Dr. Casteen a much less disagreeable character than Mr. Casaubon, and Lydia Casteen a much better defined as well as more refined character than Dorothea, though, of course, we do not mean to suggest that this delicate little story bears any com- parison in general power to the most powerful of all George

Eliot's works. Lydia Canteen is a study in pale and liquid colours of the most transparent beauty, and very seldom have we met with a greater success. One might almost say of her character, indeed, as Nathaniel Hawthorne said of his Twice- Told Tales,—" If you would see anything in it, it requires to be read in the clear, brown, twilight atmosphere in which it was. written ; if opened in the sunshine, it is apt to look exceedingly

like a volume of blank pages ;" but then, that would be only a vivid way of explaining how delicate is the shading, how soft the tints, how tender the whole substance of the sketch, and that you must not compare it in imagination with any- thing massive, rich, and passionate, on pain of certain dis- appointment. Nevertheless, the study of Lydia Casteen is singularly beautiful, and in spite of the faint tone of the colouring, in spite of the deficiency of vitality in her career, there is more of genuine though delicate strength in her, than in almost any heroine of our recent literature.. She knows herself, and is perfectly clear as to what she intends to do, and she does it. It would be difficult to surpass the dignity of gentle self-assertion in the words in which she declines to work any more for her father on the day on which she receives the news which appears to attribute not only faithlessness, but immorality as well as faithlessness, to her lover.

Nor would it be easy to surpass in skill the picture of that middle-aged man of the world who has the insight to see the beauty of Miss Canteen's character, and the self-possession and savoir faire which,—partly no doubt because she was sa little accustomed to anything of the kind,—enabled him ta make an impression on her somewhat extreme reticence and inexperience. Antony Hammond's pleasant self-satisfaction.

in his own acuteness, the irony, levelled chiefly at himself, with which he breaks through Miss Casteen's reserve, the selfish- ness tempered by really fine taste and fine sentiment which keeps him vacillating between the wish to gain her and the fear to find her too great a restraint upon his love of ease, and also that general shallowness of his nature which.

lowers the effectiveness of his unquestionable talents, are all painted with singular force and skill. Here is part of the scene in which Antony Hammond first makes acquaintance with Miss Casteen :—

" Then he leaned forward and began fingering her silks as they lay on the table. 'Frankly, now,' he said, 'I feel quite kindly towards the rain. I derive great satisfaction from knowing that if it rains down here it almost certainly rains very much more up

in the mountains. If you have never experienced the joys of a. mountain hotel in wet weather, Miss Casteen, your state is the more gracious. Nature is vile under such circumstances, but man is viler still. The wise people rush down into the valleys ; the unwise ones stay. You are shut up tight with them. Everybody is cross. Everybody—except me—is self-assertive. Everybody thinks everybody else wants to get the better of them, to take precedence, to impress. There is nothing to do but quarrel. I

never quarrel but I suffer. Que diable il fairs dens setts galere ? I ask myself that twenty times a day. And the answer usually is that I have been weakly amiable. I am there to please my little sister. And that is why the present aspect of nature appears to me positively cheerful, I had almost said hilarious. This time I have not been weakly amiable. My sister is up in the mountains, and I am safe down here. And it must be supremely horrible up in the mountains.'—Hammond's im- penetrability to snubbing was very disarming. Lydia could not help listening to him, and yet she was somewhat suspicious of him. She looked up now inquiringly. I don't think I quite follow you,' she said.—' I dare say not,' he answered, still fingering the silks. 'I don't see how you could very well without knowing my sister, and without an acquaintance with the family history.'—Lydia -coloured slightly. 'Oh, I did not mean that ! I did not mean to inquire into—to ask any questions about—to—'—She paused in 'evident embarrassment. Hammond was charmed. He rejoined, with his best smile and extreme alacrity := Pray don't apologise, Miss Casteen. To begin with, you did not ask any question ; and if you had, what greater pleasure could I possibly have than in answering you ? There could be no indiscretion in my doing so. My sister is the least secretive of young women. And she has a small army of charming confidantes into whose sympathetic ears all—all is poured. So, as you may imagine, the family history is pretty well common property by now. But to answer that unasked question of yours. My sister is employed in a most foolish specula- tion. Or rather, for there really is nothing mercenary in the business—I could find it in my heart to wish there was—rather, I say, she has adopted a new form of religion. She is a renegade. She has become the devout worshipper of a false god.'—Lydia's suspicions increased. Picturesque statement did not obtain greatly at Marston Rectory, and so this last announcement -appeared to her little short of astounding. She let her work rest on her lap, and regarded the speaker with some severity. I do not understand,' she said.—' It is almost incomprehensible,' Ham- mond returned, with feeling I have great difficulty in compre- hending it myself, I own, Miss Casteen. She used to be such a good, devoted little girl. But the change has been creeping over her for some years. Now it is complete.' He leaned back in his -chair and began fondling his right ankle again. I feel it terribly, Miss Casteen, for she used to worship me. That was the faith in which I had reared her, and a very commendable sort of faith— specially, perhaps, in my sight—it was. I thought it was abso- lutely ingrained in her. I assure you, I took a lot of trouble with her religious education. I counted on her being a thorough-going disciple through life. I leave you to imagine what an awful blow it was to me when I first observed this falling away, backsliding, lukewarmness. And it all began in one of those villainous, little mountain hotels.' Hammond whirled the silver string of his eye- glass round his forefinger as he sat watching Miss Casteen. He is an Alpine Club man, he went on ; quite detestably strong, and able, and virtuous, and enduring, and athletic. In fact, he is exactly the reverse of me. I have thought a great deal about it, but I have never yet been able to decide which is the biggest—his appetite -or his boots. He is a younger son, with a remarkably limited income, by profession an Assistant School Inspector. Fancy what

calling! And my sister adores him. She is up in the mountain adoring him now, with my aunt, Mrs. Cumberbatch. And that is why I End this wet weather gratifying, Miss Casteen. I revel in the wicked hope that it may wash a little of the gilt off the gingerbread. The young man's holiday is limited, like his income. And is it not -conceivable that even he may display a seamy side to his character, and turn slightly rusty at spending it in a damp wooden inn of primitive proportions, with nothing more lively to do than listen to the devout cooing,s of my poor little sister ?'—Lydia turned her head, and looked out at the splashing I hope they will be very happy,' she said softly.—' Happy ! they will be blissful !' Hammond exclaimed. A sort of select society for the promotion 'of permanent rapture. Oh, distinctly they will be very happy, for they are both such good creatures that they will never discover when the temperature of their affections sinks from boiling point to moderate—as of course it is bound to sink eventually. Even my little sister must cease to boil some day, and merely simmer. But she won't know it. She will sing upon the matrimonial hob, through any number of years, like the most comfortably contented

kettles.'—Hammond smiled very pleasantly as he spoke—so pleasantly that Lydia's suspicion was for the moment dissipated. 4 He seems to laugh at everything ; but he is really very kind- hearted,' she thought."

Then Miss Casteen goes on to express her sympathy with the love-making, and to say that she has "always supposed it must be very beautiful ;" but adds immediately,—" But I have no right to speak on the subject ; I know nothing about it, except

through books, of course." The naivete of this confession on the part of an elderly young lady, whom Hammond under-

stands well enough to see that she is not speaking coquettishly, but in the perfect simplicity of her inexperienced mind and heart, makes, of course, a great impression upon him, and from this point one may say that the contest begins in him between a rather superficial love for Miss Casteen, and anxiety as to the effect which might be produced upon his life by marrying a woman whom he feels to be so much simpler and nobler than himself. The little drama is depicted with extraordinary subtlety, and the figures of Mr. and Mrs. Denison,—the friends with whom Miss Casteen is travelling, the one a good, ungainly, true-hearted, clumsy-minded reformer of the old Radical type, much given to both physical and moral wriggling, the other a self-occupied, insincere, unsatisfied woman who .calls her husband "the Sultan" or "the Grand Lama" in conventional playfulness, and really looks down upon him as a man who is not properly speaking a man of the world

at all,—are so drawn as to add greatly to the piquancy of the piece. But the triumph of art is in the close, where Lydia refuses Antony Hammond without denying that she loves him, partly because she feels certain that they could not be happy together,—which is no doubt true,—partly because she feels that her duty to her father outweighs any duty she owes to the man who has managed, in spite of his super- ficiality of nature, somehow to touch her heart. The end is, to our thinking, perfectly satisfactory, the more so that the only fault we have to find with Miss Casteen is that she has been accessible to the attentions of such a man as Antony Hammond, who, with all his talents and kindness of tempera- ment, is a poor creature after all. Indeed, it is part of Lucas Malet's intention to make him so. She is never quite satisfied unless one of her principal characters,—either the hero or the heroine,—affords a striking illustration of the poverty of human nature. Perhaps after that remark we ought to add that Lucas Malet makes up in some degree for the cynicism of her picture of Lydia Casteen's only experience of love, by the softening of Dr. Casteen's demeanour in the closing scene of the story, when he becomes sensible of the sacrifice that his daughter has made for him, and indicates his gratitude for it. That touch is not entirely in her manner, and is some set- off against the hardness, not certainly of its gentle and beautiful heroine, but of its chronicler.