MISS PENNEFATHEB'S HELEN TALBOT. * THE first element of a novel
is a story. So essential is this, that if there is a succession of incidents striking in themselves and eliciting passion or force of character in the dramatis persons°, the reader will overlook a good deal of improbability, unskilful- ness, and even poverty in narrative and dialogue. Matter is an- other requisite, but very subordinate to the story ; although, per- haps, without a certain degree of substance a story can hardly exist. Helen Talbot illustrates these principles in a very striking way. It is remarkably deficient in story in the sense of incident or event ; the scenes which follow one another to bring about some loves, marriages, or separations, are too like those of the very com- monest life to have either substance or interest for fiction. The most prominent incident only springs from the kick of a horse, and involves little more than surgical attendance and nursing ; yet the sense of danger and suffering, the action—though it is of a phy- sical kind, to avert a physical evil, and the bustle which Lord Montague's danger involves, form one of the most rapid and indeed interesting parts of the book. There is, however, the under purpose of strengthening an attachment, and exhibiting the high qualities of the heroine.
This heroine gives the title to the book, and the object of the writer seems to be to exhibit her ideal of a woman. In this she fails, from *overdoing—from introducing too much of the patient Grizzle into Helen Talbot's character, without Grizzle's excuse. Lord Montague is deeply in love with Helen, and his attachment is returned. She declines an engagement, on account of her duty to her father and younger sister. As this arrangement is quite voluntary on Helen's side, too much is made of it; the reader is called upon to watch a misery in part self-created, and disproportioned to the occasion. In the mean time, Lady El- lesmere, Lord Montague's mother, becomes alarmed lest her son should be entrapped, and intimates by letter that neither herself nor his father would sanction a marriage with either of the daugh- ters of Sir Reginald Talbot. The obstacle of family duty on both sides, though in different shapes, and a separation as far as India, whither Lord Montague goes with his regiment, would produce a " nodus " worthy of disentanglement, though the general theme is not very new. But so plain and simple a subject for the display of Helen's excellence does not satisfy Miss Pennefather. She "doubles chains on chains." After the marriage of Helen's sister Madeline, she makes Helen listen to the addresses of a Mr. Ad- dington, solely to please her father, who wishes on account of his failing health to see her settled; and though still attached to Lord Montague, schools herself to "do her duty" by Mr. Adding- ton. Great reverses of fortune, however, render the marriage im- prudent; Helen releases her suitor, and shines with all the virtues of a single woman, long after both her swains have taken wives unto themselves.
From the plan and execution of Helen Talbot, it may be doubted whether the author has the qualities requisite for a novelist; but she exhibits elegance of style, and novelty of thought in several disquisitional passages that are scattered through the volumes in the form of dialogue. The following, on an inherent idea of beauty, is of this kind.
• Helen Talbot; a Novel. By Mies Pennefather. In three volumes. Published by Colburn and Co.
"Then I suppose," said Lord Montague, "that you and my sister Ellen Douglas would agree in your theory of beauty ? She maintains that there is a something within each of us which may be cultivated and cherished, or extinguished, that tells us when a thing is beautiful. That it is neither com- parison of fitness, nor smoothness, nor any of those properties that one reads of in theories of beauty, that enables one to know when a thing is beautiful, but that we bring into the world with us an idea of the beautiful. That this is a remnant of our unfallen nature, and that as our minds become more and more raised and cultivated in connexion with what is high and beauti- ful, the more we shall retain that ideal in its original purity."
The same subject is continued on another occasion.
"That mountain is particularly suited for such a scene," said Lord Mon- tague, "for its outline is uncommonly beautiful." " Yes," said Helen, "there is great repose about it. So much beauty consists in harmony—harmony in its various parts and effects which meets the response from a certain feeling within one—that where there is nothing to disturb that, its power is great. I have often thought so, as my eye fol- lowed the form of that mountain against the sky, or rested on the view be- fore me here.
"it is the same in everything, I believe," remarked Lord Montague. "There must be harmony and oneness in beauty, whether it be of form, or sound, or colour, or even of mind and spirit ; and the nearer the approach to perfection the greater the harmony ; discords or strong contrasts may serve to display or heighten the beauty by comparison, but cannot add to the es- sential beauty." "Beauty in music is somewhat different, I suppose ? " said Helen. "It is, however, another gift that is left to us to suit the higher part of our na- tures, and the expression oftentimes of the inmost feelings of our minds. 1a this way it seems to be part of the same higher nature that in one person finds a vent in art, in another in music, like the same ray of light that, by being divided, appears in various colours. There are few if any persons, believe, who have not that within them that responds to one or other of these by a sensation of pleasure or appreciation, until, either from want of ever having it called forth or its being extinguished by the predominance of
evil, they lose it altogether."
What do you make, however," asked Lord Montague, "of those people, painters and musicians, for instance, who have the highest power of giving expression in their works to what is so exquisite, and yet whose lives are notoriously bad ? "
"I do not think," replied Helen, "that, however high that part of our nature may be, and however it may be cultivated, that it has the power of renewing the spiritual life that was lost at the fall of Adam. That, we know, is given in quite another way.' For the remembrance of the Garden of Eden, with all its delights and beauties, however vividly they may have re- mained in Adam's mind, or however dearly he may have prized and cherished them, could not have restored him to Paradise. The image and remem- brance of all he had known there, must have soothed or embittered many a year and hour of his life ; it could not have been wiped out by his having been driven out. He must have been endowed with far greater powers of en- joyment than we are, being directly made in the image of his Creator, though not free from the power of temptation."
"But," said Lord Montague, "he had not only that chord within him which echoes so truly to every touch of what is beautiful, but he had the ac- tual remembrance of perfection."
"I cannot wonder at your love of mountain scenery and of the country, if such are the ideas they give rise to ; but I think you seem to derive the same kind of pleasure too from pictures. I can quite understand why. I remember being struck very much while watching the various copies that were being made of a beautiful picture in the Louvre, by seeing how various were the ideas that the same picture gave rise to. Each painter had caught a different idea, and gave expression to that idea in the face, whilst the fea- tures and figure were like the original. At first I was inclined to think the differences arose from the different degrees of ability in the copyists, who, I thought, might perhaps see what the original conveyed, yet could not man- age their materials. But what changed my opinion, was seeing the copy which a young man was making, that was nearly the worst among all the performances as to execution, but who had caught the idea of the original most strikingly ; I mean, the predominant idea. I felt an interest in that painter spring up immediately, quite different from what was excited by any of the others. I watched him for several days ; and when his picture was finished, I asked him how he liked it,. The expression of his own face I shall not easily forget "'That picture, sir,' said he, looking up at what he had been copying, 'is all I love in this world. I come here to look at it, and to let it think to me, till I seem to hear how its master's heart beat, as he worked at it daily, and put down his thoughts upon his canvass, till they produced it in perfectness. I look at it ; I watch if I can find out what all those thoughts were. I know a great deal of what he meant, but I cannot,' said he, with a sigh, work it out properly. I catch it often, as I have done now, but when I try to paint better, I spoil the effect.'"
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