T t1E REVOLUTION IN TANNER'S LANK* BOOB without a plan is
sure to arouse adverse criticism, and when one small volume contains two distinct stories, both without plan and very slightly related to each other, it requires many good points to counteract the inherent weakness of the position. But for careful thought and close analysis of character, "Mark Rutherford" is always worth reading, and added to these, there is a certain vividness of portraiture and quality of flavour which make his books stand out from the ordinary run of stories. For observation of life and knowledge of human nature—within marked and very narrow limits—he equals Mr. Henry James, while his stronger grasp of ideas and greater intensity of feeling produce on his readers a far more lasting impression. At the same time, the area of observation is rigidly limited. In the two former volumes which this author has written, the main line is the same as in this. The Calvinistic theory is the thesis in both ; and its stern teaching, merciless in its inexorable logic, furnishes the pathos, not to say tragedy, of the circumstances. Not that Calvinism is represented in pleasing colours—far from it; "Mark Rutherford" has been too com- pletely immersed in it to paiot it with any sentimental glow. Still, as a rule, what there is of good in his characters springs mainly from the force of its teaching. They see how futile its theory is to do more than state one side, and that the darkest, of the mystery of life ; they writhe under its uncompromising deduc- tions and pitiless justice; they even learn to distrust its limited logic ; but they never completely shake themselves free of its in- fluence, and the strange power it exerts over minds which have taken kindly to its teaching when they were plastic enough to receive indelible impressions, comes to their aid even while it slays them.
In The Revolution in Tanner's Lane, the same stern note is in- troduced. In the former stories, the interest was concentrated upon an introspective and naturally religious mind struggling to free itself from the grasp of a religion which satisfied neither its tastes nor its aspirations. In the present volume, the interest takes rather a wider range, while the breaking-up of old grooves caused by the French Revelation leaves the more active mind of Zechariah Coleman free to embrace and further the socialistic tendencies which were coming into play at the beginning of the century, in which time the scenes of the first part of the book are laid. The second part is placed some twenty years later, and it is in the faint relation of the parts to each other that the weakness of conception shows itself. Looked at from the artistic side, the arrangement of the book could not well be worse. It is mainly a series of pictures held under a mental stereoscope until the reader shudders at the moral features coarsened and distorted under the remorseless light. At the same time, their terrible truth to nature intensifies the interest, and makes us forgive the want of art. These very features, blurred and deformed as they are drawn, axe a true picture of hundreds of our fellow-creatures,—nay, it might be of each one of us, if we found ourselves limited to the same circumstances. The very simplicity of the motives—transparent in their self- seeking—brings them within a calculable distance of us alL It is ourselves and our neighbours as we should, or at least might be, if we belonged to a narrow, self-centred circle in any small town where Dissent, and all that Dissent so often brings in its train, constituted the religions and intellectual atmosphere. To those brought up among larger influences and living in the impersonal life of a large city, such a picture may seem over- drawn and coarsely painted ; but to those who know anything of the narrow, oppressive outlook of human beings living in small country towns, and finding their ohief mental nourishment in the study of the lives of their neighbours, know that, far from exaggeration, the author of Tanner's Lane has gone below what might truthfully be drawn.
But apart from these strongly depicted photographs, the book contains frequent passages of great beauty and insight. Zaohariah has married a woman the very personification of conventionality, never rising above a spotless cleanness of person and house,—a woman all propriety and order, with no soul and no passion
• Ths &solution in Tannin's Lane. By Mark Rutherford. London Trabner lad 0o.
beyond an all-absorbing and small-minded jealousy. The daughter of one of the Socialist leaders, a bright girl, half-French, half-English, gives a very slight cause for the expression of the feeling which produces a quarrel between husband and wife, and finally reveals to Zechariah the nature of the woman he bad married
What a revelation ! By this time he had looked often into the soul of the woman whom he had chosen—the woman with whom he was to be for ever in this world, and had discovered that there was nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing, which answered anything in him- self with a smile of recognition ; but now he looked again and found something worse than emptiness. He found lurking in the obscure darkness a reptile with orael fangs, which at any moment might turn upon him when he was at his weakest and least able to defend himself. He had that in him by nature which would have prompted him to desperate deeds. He could have flung himself from her with a curse, or even have killed himself in order to escape from his difficulty. But whatever there was in him originally had been changed. Upon the wild stem had been grafted a nobler slip, which drew all its sap from the old root, but had civilised and sweetened its acrid juices. lie leaned over his wife, caressed her, gave her water, and restored her."
What could be a more forcible picture of the shallow-hearted wife, comprehended, despised, and yet not wholly rejected, by the stern disciple of Calvin's stern creed Then, again, how delicately the magnetic influence of friendship is shown in the following
parting of Zechariah with his two French friends I-
" Cailland and Pauline lingered too. The three were infinitely nearer to one another than they knew. Zechariah thought he was so far, and yet he was so close. The man rose up and reached out arms to tonoh and embrace his friends. a Good-bye, Contend ; good-bye, Pauline May God in His mercy bless and save yen. God bless yon!'— Cailland looked stedfastly at him for a moment, and then, in his half- forgotten French fashion, threw his arms round his neck, and the two remained for a moment locked together, Pauline standing by herself apart."
In the second part, the characters are far less subtle and unusual. There is a sleek-tongued, somewhat hypocritical minister, with his wife and children, in whom are intensified the faults of father and husband ; and there are the ordinary bickerings and jealousies of the provincial town. More marked characters are those of Isaac Allen and his large-minded wife, the description of whose way of life is most interesting; and if we could believe that there were any considerable number like them among the smaller tradesmen, it would indeed be a hopeful sign for the future of English trade :— " Mrs. Allen was not a particularly robust woman, although she was energetic. Often without warning she would not make her
appearance till 12 or 1 o'clock in the day It was well understood when she was not at the table with the others, that the house was to be kept quiet. After a cop of tea—nothing more—she rose, and sat reading for a good two hours. It was not that she was particularly unwell,—she simply needed rest. Every now and then retreat from the world and perfect isolation were a necessity to her.
She knew Sir Walter Scott from end to end, and as few people knew him. He had been to her, and to her husband too, what he can only be to people leading a dull life far from the world. He had broken np its monotony and created a new universe ! He had introduced them into a royal society of noble friends. He had added to the ordinary motives which prompted Cowfold action a thousand higher motives. Then there was the charm of the magician, so sana- tive, so blessed, felt directly any volume of that glorious number was opened. Kenilworth or Redgauntlet was taken down, and the reader was at once in another country and in another age, transported as if by some Arabian charm away from Cowfold cares."
And for the pathetic, picture of a mother's love, we have seldom read anything more simply true to nature :—
" She answered by taking his cold hand in both her own and putting it on her lap. Presently he disengaged himself and went to the window. She eat still for a moment and followed him. She looked up in his face 1 the moonlight was full upon it ; there was no moisture in his eyes, but his lips quivered. She led him away and got him to sit down again, taking his hand as before, but speaking no word. Suddenly, without warning, his head was on his mother's bosom, and he was weeping as if his heart would break. Another first experience to him and to her; the first time he had ever wept since he was a child, and cried over a fall or because it was dark There was no reason why she should make further inquiry ; she knew it all."
With this quotation we must end; but although The Revolu- tion in Tanner's Lane can own little artistic merit, and has none of the excitement of the ordinary novel, it is a book which will leave its impress long after other more stirring stories are for-
Previous page
