A BASIL PLANT.*
Miss ETHEL COXON takes for the motto of her second novel one of the most striking sentences in Middlemarch, perhaps the one that gives the reader the truest measure of the meaning which the creator of the character of Rosamond attached to it. The sentence is,—" He once called her his basil plant ; and when she asked for an explanation, said that basil was a plant which had thriven wonderfully on a murdered man's brains." There is a depth of significance in this image respecting the nature of the woman, and an intensity of implied suffering on the part of the man, that almost startle the reader of the sombre history in which it occurs. It furnishes the young novelist who has chosen it with a theme susceptible of many-sided treatment, and one which she has developed well, though not in any very ambitious style. Miss Coxon's Basil Plant reminds us of the mad dog which henceforth belongs equally to Goldsmith and Caldecott
" The man recovered of the bite, The dog it was that died."
We are very glad that it is so, that the Basil Plant does not go on to the end thriving on the dead man's brains, because Miss Coxon succeeds in doing a very difficult and unusual thing ; she makes us feel an interest in a man who is not strong, either really, or according to the ordinary novelist's notion of strength. Roland Trench, the young artist who is to be preyed on by the beautiful, graceful Basil Plant, is a character so well drawn as to mark a very decided advance in the exercise of those powers which revealed their existence in Monsieur Love. He is attractive, clever, and natural ; most of us know, and like, a bright young man of the Roland-Trench • A Basil Plant: a Present-Day Story. By Ethel Coxon, Author of "monttiens Lore." London: Richard Bentley.
pattern, and this particular one, who might have done great things, but does not, is a familiar type to many.
"There is a picture," says the writer, "in the National Gal- lery, which many of us know well,—the portrait of a young man with a pale face, a sensitive month, and sad, dark eyes, that look out mournfully through the dead years. Something wist- ful is in their gaze, as though the man pleaded dumbly for pity and sympathy, telling us that the facts of life were hard, and he too weak to fight against them Sad as this pic- ture is, there is another yet more sad, a second portrait of Andrea, also painted by his own hand in later years, and telling, only too plainly, the end. Life has proved too hard ; the task of being true to his nobler self has been beyond him."
Miss Coxon's Andrea comes to a better end, because he ulti- mately marries the right woman. So much we may say, with- out risk of spoiling the reader's interest in the events, but he has a good deal to suffer in the interval. The story, which is not a complicated one, is well told, and the general effect of it, produced by little touches of description, and bright, pertinent remarks, is, on the whole, very bright and pleasant, although the hero is crossed in love in the first chapter. It is senti- mental, but not in the least morbid, and we heartily like its
tone, its spirit, and the purpose, which, without intruding it, without any sacrifice of the artistic character of the novel, it indicates. The luxurious life, the life of praise and petting, of society and self-indulgence, the life that is passed in wsthetic drawing-rooms and the atmosphere of mutual admira- tion, is fatal to the higher aspirations and purposes of Art. Modern luxury, even modern bien4tre, are antagonistic to them ; the lovely woman who marries Roland Trench, and plays, quite unconsciously, and adoring him all the time, the part of " basil plant," is antagonistic to them ; the artist who just falls short of genius, misses by so far greatness. All this is admirably worked out, and in the meantime the girl who has refused Roland Trench, but who unconsciously loves him, reads aright that wasted life of his. Evelyn Goring is a very sweet character, less complex and less common than Gertrude Anley (the " basil plant "), but, happily, within the experience of us all. A woman of cultivated mind, elevated soul, and entire unselfishness is not so rare, if our novel-writers would only believe it, as the heartless and brainless creatures whom they endow with boundless fasci- nations, dress up in gorgeous tea-gowns, and make to talk the " fast " patter of so-called " society," to the disedification of their young lady-readers, are plenty. We give Miss Coxon great credit for the delineation of Evelyn Goring ; her hesita- tion, her inability to recognise the truth about her own feelings, her noble and successful struggle with them when she has recog- nised them, the strength of character which she gains from her great trial, her tenderness of conscience, her strict justice to- wards the poor, pretty butterfly (with a ten-thousand-hornet- like power of doing harm), who has unconsciously supplanted her ; her true, womanly conduct in every scene of this unex- aggerated history, testify to the author's unusual judgment and self-restraint. She has the faculty, which so few writers possess, that of " seeing fair " between her people. She is always the teller of the story, as impersonal as any raconteur from the time of the chronicler or chroniclers of the doings of Haroun Alraschid until now ; she is not an ad- vocate. The beautiful girl, born and reared in an atmosphere of careless, soul-destroying luxury, who is to be the basil plant of the story, and thrive on Roland's brain, to its diminution and detriment, is made charming ; she acts after her kind. What would you have ? The artist, who has many gifts, but not that of self-abnegating strength, is as attractive as he ought to be, to reconcile us to his winning the hearts of two such women as Gertrude and Evelyn, without our being permitted to feel any contempt for either ; the minor persons in the story, and notably Mrs. Field (in whom it is easy to detect a portrait from life), are all drawn with a frank kindliness that is not common in the novels of the day. Here is a conversation, taken almost hap-hazard from those sprinkled about the book. It occurs when Roland is a very "rising " painter, and when his beautiful wife is "in the vortex," and especially renowned for her amateur acting. The speakers are Mr. Goring (the father of the right woman), and Mr. Breyuton, a well-drawn per- sonage, an Art critic, and friend of Roland's What do you think or Roland Trench's pictures this year ?' said Mr. Goring. I don't think they are like his work,' answered Max. Poor ?'—' It isn't what they are, so much as what they mean."—
Well, here's a grand opportunity for you. Tell him what you think.'
I couldn't do any good,' said Max, with beautiful inconsist- ency. What he is doing now is just what the public likes, and so does his wife.' Goring looked sharply at his companion.—' You think it's she who is at the root of it I don't think about it,' said Breynton ; you see it yourself as plainly as I do; it began almost from the first. Such a perfect wife,' he went on, changing his tone, so sympathetic to him ; so proud of him; such a charming house; such delightful evenings ! The whole thing makes me sick. That woman will be the death of the painter in him. Then one hears that ass, Dayrell, as I did the other day at the club, speaking of the " perfection of union."' Here Max's patience gave out, and his speech ended in a growl.—' I never knew you observed it,' said Goring. But you should consider one thing ; he might have married a woman whose existence was centred in Mantegna, as a young lady informed me her's was, the other day, and who would not have cared for him as his wife does. Affection and home-life are great things to any man, artist or not, and especially to Roland:— Home life,' repeated Breynton, contemptuously, a precious deal of home life Roland has ! She's seldom at home, and since she's taken up these confounded theatricals, he sees less of her than ever. "At home !" that's what his life consists of. " Mrs. Trench at home, music." "Mrs. Trench at home, dancing." "Mrs. Trench at home, Thursday evening, nine o'clock ! " How is Roland to paint ? I wonder how he manages what he does.'—' He slaves at his work,' said Goring; but I have fancied for some time his old pleasure in it does not help
How should it P' Max sighed, weary of the subject.—' They are all the same,' said Mr. Goring. 'It's very well to talk of a man
giving hostages to fortune, but it depends what kind of soul and mind the hostage has. If a man marry such a woman as Caroline Blake,
or better still, Jane Carlyle, it is well enough. But look at the painters round you, and see how they marry so soon as or before they have made their names. Then the old story begins ; big houses, artistic dresses, little dinners, large afternoons, two more pots in the swim. Mrs. Jones dines with Mrs. Brown, and sees that the Browns have a service of Powell glass for their table. The consequence is that Jones, who is overworked already, has to paint a pot-boiler to pay for a like set of Salviati glass, wherewith to shine down the Browns.'—' Bat all women aren't like that,' said Max. Your daughter No, nor was her mother before her,' said Mr. Goring.
I wonder what the young fellows of the present day would think of the first home of my wife and myself after our marriage. She married me against her people's will, and we had not a penny beyond what I made to bless ourselves with. It was blessing ourselves, though, in that first-floor in Tottenham Street, where I made out our income with drawing lithos for fashion-plates, and she kept up my pluck. I remember now how she always wore a fresh white gown to meet me in, when 1 came home, after a long day's sketching in the fields round Willesden. A couple of fools, and as happy as fools are. When better days came, she died. Better days ?—no, there are no better days than those."
Very bright, humorous, and caustic are the sketches of society in this pleasant book, always touched, too, by feeling. The Dalrymples, a prosperous artist and his second wife,—" not that one who had climbed the steep hill by his side, and believed in Dalrymple when nobody else did ;" the aesthetic and asinine Dayrell, the sketch of whom, being free from exaggera- tion, is as fresh and amusing as if Patience and The Colonel were not; and the right woman, Evelyn Goring, are all capitally drawn. We are sorry for Gertrude, when the basil plant has no more power to do its work, for she is a bright, sweet creature, quand-Ing me, and a lady, for all her frivolity and vanity. This novel exhibits valuable qualities ; conspicuous among them are self-restraint and good-taste. We have a good word to say for the binding of the book ; a pretty drawing on the cover of a basil plant in a pot, bearing a device from the " Dance of Death," is a clever and appropriate design. We have a bad word to say for the printing ; the text is disfigured by mistakes which are evidently not to be imputed to the author. Where the accents on French words (which she uses rather too freely) are not suppressed, they are misplaced.
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