Lady Laura. By Mary Elizabeth Christie. 3 vole. (Strahan and
Co).—We may consider this novel as a contribution to the controversy now going on about the bearing of Agnosticism on morality. The hero, Maurice Home, who has resigned his fellow. ship and tutorship for concience' sake, is an agnostic, his cousin Cassandra, who has some claim to be considered the heroine of the story, is another agnostic, and Lady Laura herself is strongly inclined to follow their example. The incident of a man loving a woman who is not his wife is common enough in fiction, especially in the fiction which wo owe to female lanthorship ; here it is com- plicated by the existence of a particular form of belief or unbelief, and we watch the result with interest. On the whole, it is satis- factory. The parties concerned in this matter talk to each other at great length, and in very eloquent language ; but they conduct themselves, on the whole, with commendable propriety, and set an ex- cellent example to persona less scrupulous indeed about morals, but probably willing to sign the Thirty-nine Articles. Passion is con- siderably restrained, when it has to be exercised in philosophical language and continually referred to first principles. It has been suggested that a general substitution of Mr. Matthew Arnold's formula for the Divine Name would check profane swearing, because the impulse of anger would abate during the time required for its utterance. The passion of agnostic lovers would have time to moderate, while they are seeking to express their feelings with pre- cision and to justify them philosophically. Miss Christie's story, as a story, is very poor, and is indeed almost wholly without interest. But she has considerable skill in drawing character, though the minor personages in her book, such as Lady SL Asaph, Lady Sarah, tier daughter, and Lord Rhooe, are more interesting than those which play the principal parts. For the most part, the book is excellently written, though there are some defects of taste, as, for instance, when she speaks of a voice "that might have driven an archangel to despair," a phrase which suggests the idea that an archangel is a primo tenors in the celestial concert. But there can be no doubt about the vigour of this :—" That doubt should work out the ends of faith, that genies should fetch and carry for common-sense, that gifts once grudged to any work short of the higheat and completest, should in the end be used to patch and darn the common-place of an obscure fishing village,—all this was but M keeping with the general irony of things, in a universe of which the story was an involved paradox, and the end a blank negation."
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