NOVELS.
DARWELL STORIES.*
ADMIRERS of Mr. Cornish's Sunningwell will welcome another volume from his pen. The qualities which mark his work do not make for a wide appeal, but they will win him a hearing
from all lovers of good style and level thinking. He is a scholar who wears his learning lightly, a humanist, and a humorist. With this equipment one might have expected
that he would have chosen his dramatis personae from the class to which he belongs. As a matter of fact, they are, with few exceptions, drawn from the small farmer or peasant
class in the Midlands, and they are set before us with a sympathy which has not a trace of condescension. The talk of the village gossips is admirably done, and in one of the many reflective passages in which Mr. Cornish excels he indulges in a suggestive comparison between the conversation of educated and uneducated people :—
" If my readers think they are brought into low company, let them consider that the talk in the smoking-room of a country house is not always refined. It is often dull and sometimes vicious. The difference between that and taproom conversation chiefly consists in the fact that rustics say plain things to one another ; their betters discuss the absent, with less risk and more amusement. The ideas of the rustic speakers are few, they know each other familiarly, and talk without artifice. They are like boys at school, who speak their thoughts freely, and quarrel to-day to be friends to-morrow. Hodge and his neighbour, who have to meet to-morrow in the same field or workshop, cannot afford to be enemies, and must put up with each other. Education does not necessarily mean refinement of nature ; it is connected with taste rather than morals, and in more instances than we care to acknow- ledge good manners are but the use of a common language, a convention of speech and action, which goes just so far as not to offend our taste. And taste, not what is good for the world, determines our choice of companions."
This wide tolerance reappears throughout Mr. Cornish's kindly pages. A scholar himself, he contrasts the ineffectual
ministrations of a shy, scholarly vicar with the evangelical fervour of a Wesleyan minister. Or, again : "Poor folks' love justice as well as their betters. Their prejudices may be stronger, but their sense of right and wrong is less swayed by convention." The action of these stories is spread over fifty or sixty years, but Mr. Cornish contends, and we think with
• Darnell Storiss. By B. Wane Cornish. London : Constable sod Co. [Ss,]
truth, that the essential features of English rural life remain unaltered. "It will be a long time before the British rustic thinks an antiquary as good as a foxhunter ; though the House of Commons does not meet on horseback like the Polish Diet." But Mr. Cornish is far from being a laudator temporis acti. On the contrary, he welcomes the breaking down of social barriers and "the repeal of obsolete conventions." The charming heroine of " Darfield Hall" is the daughter of a Scotch bailiff, who wins a scholarship at Newnham, narrowly misses a First in the Classical Tripos, and by sheer force of character rivets the wandering affections of her high-born lover, and conquers the opposition of his parents. As to the vexed question of the equality of the sexes, however, Mr. Cornish has no doubt whatever :— " When Nature made men and women, she did not take counsel with Reason. Reason would have said, 'Make them alike—like draws to like.' But Nature knew better, and made them unlike. There is not a line in a woman's mind or body which is not different from the corresponding line in the man. She cannot wash her hands or tie here shoe-string with the same action as a man, and it would be a loss to the world if she could. Nature made Adam first ; but she sent him to sleep, and Eve was awake first, and so it has been ever since. Every woman has the first thought, and the last word. Every man wants the best he can get; every woman wants the ideal."
But the romance of Effie Hartley, charming as it is, is less impressive than the short but beautiful study of constancy and self-renunciation which bears the homely title of "Eliza Jennings,"—the story of a farmer's daughter who sacrificed her chance of marriage rather than abandon her bedridden grandmother. Another fine portrait is that of Martha Frost, who was moved by remorse to save the life of the lover who had caused the death of his favoured rival. This, like "Stepping Stones," the story of a gamekeeper's daughter, is a tragic idyll, but the tragedy is not gratuitous. Nothing, in conclusion, is more engaging in Mr. Cornish's outlook than his attitude towards the claims of youth. We may end our notice of this delightful volume with the eloquent passage in which he condemns "the purposeless industry of country- house hospitality, where the hosts and guests are middle-aged, and, where there are no young people to be amused" :— "Elderly and middle-aged people like to get together : they tolerate each other and escape the criticism of the young, which we like less and less as we get older and need it more. They are not called upon to exert themselves, they like to be dull together. One would think that it should be the delight of those who have horses and carriages, motors, rivers and moors, to pour out their wealth for the enjoyment of the young people, who enjoy without experience but keenly. Think of the golden day when you came home as a boy with six brace of trout, and compare it with your feeling now when you have shot well and received the middle-aged compli- ments of your friends. The right employment of middle-age, and its true pleasure, are found in business, not in play ; those who make play their business turn life upside down, though they do not know it; but if they must play, let them call in the young men and maidens to share it. 'Girls are so tiresome,' says a matron who has disposed of her own. These young fellows spoil the shooting,' says her husband, and so they fill their houses with predatory colonels who farm a few acres and play golf, bores who shoot for their livelihood, spinsters who make up a party for bridge, important people who have to be enter- tained, rich people who will make them a recompense. I say nothing against hosts and hostesses who hunt lions, or play the game of politics; nor those who spend themselves upon their relations, nor others who give time and trouble to organise parties for social functions, the local race-meeting, the Primrose League, the County Agricultural Show, the County Musical Festival. All wholesome activity issues in fruit ; but there is no fruit in mere deliberate civilities for civility's sake. The most you can hope from them is the change for the money you lay down. These country-house meetings should be like lists set for the young people's tourneying, open to all, at covert-side, garden party, play-actings, and dances. The jousting there is not only between the knights, for the possession of passing ladies : the ladies also enter the field. Sound trumpets, and advance, heralds: proclaim the lists for all corners! Let the champions pitch their pavilions to challenge and be challenged. The ladies will ride as well as the knights: Beatrice will unhorse Benedick, Rosalind slay Orlando, and you shall see the duke fall by the hand of Viola. Some will couch sharp spears a entrance, some prelude lightly aim armes blanches, when each is questioning the other, and neither is touched to the quick. There is danger in this preluding, as there was in the tourney; but without danger the finest game in the world cannot be played ; and the young people are quite aware that hearts are playthings."
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