no one not gifted with clairvoyance would recognise in the
author of Genevra the Mr. Charles Marriott who wrote The Column. The earlier work, for all its cleverness, was so disfigured by mannerisms of diction, so signally illustrated the influence of the exemplar ritiis imitabile, that there
seemed little prospect of the author's emerging from the phase of over-faithful discipleship. To admit that he has done so, and must be reckoned with as a writer of genuine individuality, is the first duty of a reviewer who failed to join in the chorus of acclamation with which Mr. Marriott's first
venture was greeted. In Genevra we are no longer tormented by epigrams or preciosity; the element of bravura is reduced to a minimum ; in fine, Mr. Marriott has acted on the
excellent principles laid down in the advice of the old school- master Titer Penrose to the heroine :— " Well, Jenny,' he said loftily, from the few bits of things I've read, I believe your poetry is real singing '; immediately qualifying the admission by adding, though I'd a deal rather see you about something more solid; a history of Cornish families, or a glossary of the language, which is ,wanted badly enough. However, you know your own talents best ; but if you'll take an old schoolmaster's advice, you'll keep a weather-eye on yotir parts of speech. I was down to Beard's shop the other day. John Beard always shows me anything new he's got—except poetry, which he knows I cannot abide,' corrected Penrose hastily. He was to school with me. I taught him all he knows about books, and he's got the sense to be grateful. . . . Well, well ! these modern writers ! ten sloppy adjectives to one little starving noun, like a pot-house bill of Jack Falstaff's. Sack ? Oceans of it. Remember this, Jenny ; literature, prose or poetry, stands or falls by the verb and the noun. They are the ribs and the bones of it; adjectives are the clothing—the plum flesh, if you will—pretty onough but not proof against time. It's by the bones you know the shape of a thing, and it's the bones that last. . . . So much for your composition ; for your subject go to your heart, and your head will take care of itself. There's plenty of cleverness nowadays, that I'll allow. Brains ? Any amount ; but brains alone don't make literature any more than a schooner's headlight makes a stout ship. It's heart—heart of oak and the sails of imagination."
It is not, however, in his manner and mode of presentation
alone that Mr. Marriott shows that he has extricated himself from the overshadowing influence of a puissant but dangerous exemplar. As an observer of Nature and of human character, as a landscapist and portrait painter, he has struck out a line of his own, and claims attention by the strength and uncon- ventionality of his work. Here, however, it is the plain duty of the reviewer to emulate Mr. Marriott's own frankness. Genevra is eminently a book which cannot be recommended without reserves. For while in the main void of suggestiveness and incapable of hurting any well-balanced grown man or woman, it treats the relations of the sexes with a candour which can- not fail to repel fastidious natures. To put it bluntly, there is a good deal of strong meat in the book ; and while the realism is logical and never long-drawn, it is expressed with an outspokenness verging on brutality.
The scene of Mr. Marriott's story is laid in Cornwall, and his heroine, Genevra Joslin, is descended from a once famous county family, now sunk to the level of farmers. She lives with her only brother, a weak, amiable, inefficient man, married to a vulgar, shrewish wife, assisting them with her wits, her purse, and her hands, for Genevra resumes in herself all the finest qualities, mental and physical, of her race. She has already gained an audience, fit though few, for her verses, but her only congenial companion in the neigh- bourhood is an old pagan named Penrose, a retired school- master, and the author of the advice quoted above. Up to the age of twenty-nine her affections have not been touched, though she had been assiduously courted by a local solicitor
Gr By t'Wles lifarrI64. London : Methuen sad co. [6e.]
of oppressively genteel manners, but she had written of love "with the full knowledge of the imagination." At this juncture, when her brother has already mortgaged his property to Sampson Oliver, the solicitor, and is hard put to it to prevent his foreclosing, Leonard Morris, a painter of genius, comes to stay as a boarder in her brother's house. Genevra, resenting the intrusion, which impairs her opportunities for creative work, adopts an attitude of antagonism towards the stranger, a strong, silent man, only capable of expressing himself freely with his brush. Morris, on the other hand, attracted by G-enevra's Junoesque beauty, begins by resenting her presence as a hindrance to his work. After some preliminary sparring, be finds her intelligent as well as beautiful, and drifts into an alliance of good-comradeship, which on her side soon ripens into a stronger feeling. In an unguarded moment of expan- sion, Morris, without meaning it, induces her to show her hand ; and Genevra, suddenly realising that she had mis- understood his attitude, in a fit of pique promptly accepts the much-enduring solicitor on condition that be renews the mortgage on her brother's property. But Genevra is far from resigned to her act of self-sacrifice, and continued proximity with so desirable a mate breaks down the artist's stubborn selfishness. A mutual edaircissement, largely engineered by the crafty old schoolmaster, leads to Morris's proposal of immediate marriage. But Genevra doubts the persistence of his love ; she feels that his art will always come first; moreover, she is loth to imperil the position of her brother by going back on her bargain. In a word, she develops scruples which are not allayed when old Penrose offers to buy up the mortgage. Up to this point the action of the heroine is logical and coherent enough. Her sub- sequent behaviour, if it reflects greater credit on her moral sense, is far harder to reconcile with her antecedents, though it may be contended that, being an artist herself, the nearer she was brought to a union with a man of artistic temperament the more fully she was bound to realise its drawbacks and dangers. Still, the fact remains that with the parting of the lovers the story abruptly declines in interest, that Genevra's seven years' residence in London is treated in a decidedly perfunctory manner, and that the inconclusive and enigmatical nature of her last word to Morris will provoke some resentment in that large body of readers who, having had their interest excited in the fortunes of hero and heroine, are old-fashioned or unregenerate enough to expect a clear indication as to their ultimate relations.
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