FERNYHURST COURT.*
Tars is a rather dull book, with a rather poor story, by a very- sensible woman,—we take the sex for granted,—with very sound views. It appeared—with inexpressive illustrations from which we rejoice to find ourselves released in the reprint—in Good Words, which is a warrant for its moral tone, but which also may account; for the desultoriness of its style, a fault almost inevitable if a book is written, as well as published, in a series of short pieces. Nothing can be more unsatisfactory than the loose, sketchy, wandering story, only a tithe of which—the last thi,l-three out of three hundred and thirty odd pages—possesses any interest or con- tinuity ; and nothing more sensible, on the whole, than the opinions on " woman's work,"—the title of one of the chapters, and the key to the book—influence, vocation, &a., scattered through the pages ; though we object to the introduction of John Stuart Mill, and to cataloguing arguments in a novel with the word "again." There is the modified tone of the moderate strong-minded woman, which fits in with our own notions, but there is also the semi-indignant protest of a lady in an injured frame of mind. There is also a parade of much information which amounts to pedantry. Shakespeare and Shelley, Wordsworth and Tennyson and Carlyle are talked about ; and Latin, Italian, and French are quoted—the latter extensively— even a Greek derivation is discussed, while, inconsistently, the English does not always fall pleasantly upon our ears. As, for instance, in the constant use of " ain't," and in,such loosely con- structed passages as the following : " He read virtuously straight on,. leaders, correspondence, foreign affairs, and all ; during which performance his father fell asleep, and he went in search of his sister,"—a painful process to him, not compensated by usefulness to his father, and a marvellous feat of self-doubled life as regards the search for his sister. It is a pity that, with the evident desire to raise the general estimate of woman, our author's book should create no enthusisam for authoresses, and that she should only be able to find one, out of the ten or eleven ladies who come and go at Ferny- burst, who at all reaches her own ideal. While of the men, three— we may almost say six out of eight—are evidently admired. We sympathize with her love for her one favourite lady, the heroine,. May Dimsdale, and for that lady's father, the old English squire. But we have only a mild regard for cousin Lionel, born of our regret for his disappointment ; while we render very unwilling homage to what are called the " sterling qualities " of the rude, self-sufficient dogmatist—the radical philan- thremiet—Walter Scrope, who, but for his lonely, patient, sullen, sort of love for May, would be, we fear, an object of our un- mitigated dislike, notwithstanding his gallant rescue of the poor woman's child, and the slightly grazed shoulder consequent there- upon. Nor would Tom excite the least modicum of admiration if it were not for his affectionate and dog-like faithfulness to Scrape, to whom, at odd times, he keeps exclaiming " Dear old
fellow !" which gushing expression man-friends always use towards. each other in novels, though our acquaintance amongst them does
not authorize us to aay that this amiable habit is much indulged in real life. The story is simple. It is laid in old times when railways were a novelty, and when undergraduates and midship- men old enough to be appointed lieutenants, were kept in such * ferny/tura Court. By the Author of "Stone Edge." London: Strahan and Co.
order at home, as to fear the old nurse if a shirt were missing, and to creep stealthily out of the drawing-room like naughty boys if the disciplinarian mamma wero heard on the stairs. Oh ! that if such times ever existed, they could return, that fathers and mothers might not think with such dismay of the long vacations.
The dramatis personte are May, and her father, mother, two sisters, and three brothers ;—the brothers bringing, in due time, husbands, wives, and children on most undesirable visits, as a wise choice of helpmates was not a characteristic at Ferny- hurst Court, the father himself having set but an indifferent example. Besides these, are the rector and his sister and niece ; Lady Wilmot, a sister of Mrs. Dimsdale's, her son and two daughters, two other cousins,—an admiral's daughters,—and the hero of the story,—the grumbling Walter, son and heir of the Hon. and Rev. Philip Scrope, ultimately Lord Ardmore. It is significant that though our authoress says, " luckily no public-school boy thinks that it signifies who a boy is,"—a statement, by the bye, which we believe to be exactly contrary to fact,—and sets charac- ter very properly far above rank, she cannot make up her mind to deal with any but lords, squires, admirals, colonels, and the like, nor to marry her heroine to Walter, till his cousin the lord, whose heir is Walter's father, has died, when she triumphantly shows that May had yielded quite independently of this apparent advantage. And though Walter is made to preach with some rough eloquence, the immeasurable superiority of men who have made their own success, and the probably still greater superiority of men who have failed because they could not but be honest and sincere, yet the picture is reversed by our authoress, who introduces a self- made family to expose their ill-bred manners, and laugh at their vaunted title—the newest creation in the peerage, and obtained by a tailor's son. So that the moral effect of Walter's character and opinions is almost wiped out. Indeed, our authoress is a Con- servative at heart—though there is a well-deserved hit at Disraeli and Lothair—as her long panegyric on English landed proprietors testifies. Probably we could say something of the neglect of duties—of very solemn duties—by this influential class, but we have not space to argue the many questions touched upon, and we disapprove upon principle of novels as a vehicle for polemics. A high moral tone is a most essential desideratum, but a definite moral purpose is an infinite nuisance in a book meant for amusement.
While the brothers and sisters are young their gatherings are cheerful, and we have some tolerably lively talk and arguings and badinage, and Tom touches up Walter with some humour ; as when he offers him a horse which Walter, ostentatiously parading his poverty, declines, saying, " I've got two legs given me by nature to walk with, and I wasn't born to four horses." Tom exclaims, "Humble toddler I but I didn't offer Diogenes four horses, only an old pony ;" or when he imitates his sister-in-law the honour- able Alicia's ignorant vulgarity, sitting down in an elegant attitude, with a handkerchief for a fan, and drawling out, " My brother was saying to the Duchess-Countess one day, the heat of the weather really makes me very warm,' and Lord Bugaboo, who happened to be present, observed," &c. But unfortunately Tom is subsequently reticent of his humour, and no one else takes to it, so that, save the sprightly remarks which emanate directly from the authoress, and which unhappily are not frequent, we grow dolorous and flat as time passes and the incon- siderate brothers, from very low motives and with very sordid views, marry most objectionable wives. Story there is none after this break-up begins. We have a number of short sketches of visits, first from one couple and then from another, or—after Mr. and Mrs. Dimsdale's deaths—of those paid by May, first hero and then there, in which little talks—not conversation—take place about people and principles. During this time she tries living with Tom at his rectory, but his wife quotes " my uncle the Canon," and sides with the new mistress at the Court, who, for her part, is horrible, who resents everyone's love for May, and quotes " my father, Lord Canondale," and " the Dowager- Duchess." So May moves to London, to her kind and refined, but thoroughly worldly, sister and brother-in-law, from whom she is shortly taken by the future Lord Ardmore. As the various characters hunt thus in couples, being neither congenial in taste nor gregarious by instinct, it follows that their history must rather come to grief as a story, and drop away into the unconnected sketches we have spoken of. Most of these sketches, however, are clever ;—of the agreeable characters notably May and her father, of the disagreeable ones the Honourable Alicia Dimsdale and Lady Wilmot. The former show the authoress's appreciation of real refinement, for the characters are beautifully and truly drawn, though they do not pretend to any originality. We seem both to know and love the thoughtful, cultivated, sby,
old man who is at the same time so courteous and so honourable,. and his unselfish and gentle, yet high-bred daughter, with spirit. to hold her own but too refined to put down or pay back the im- pertinence of others with a good snub. Here is the Squire, who. is being compared to his more worldly-minded wife :—
" With the Squire it was different. It never oven occurred to him that there was material for a vaunt in possessions or position ; they were. accidentals, not him. Even his estate he always regarded as something that had come from his father, and was to go to his son ; in the entailed, not the personal, light. He was too simple-minded—too high-minded— for this to be any virtue in him. His perfect simplicity gave him the. appearance of very high brooding, though it sprang from a different. cause. He was unconscious of self ; ho cared nothing for opinion ; he had always been an acknowledged chief wherever he had lived ; and, as Madame de Stael said of the Italians, "Il no faisait rien parcequ'on le. rogardait, of it ne s'abstenait do rion parcequ'on le regardait." This gave. a sort of ease to his manner, in spite of his shyness, which, with his. exceeding courtesy, had a groat charm."
And here is Lady Wilmot when she first learns from her daughter- that her son Lionel had proposed to May :-
"' What is that you are saying about May ? ' said her mother, as they, passed the book-room window, appearing unexpectedly, as was rather her wont. hope you aro not getting up any absurd nonsense about her with your brother. I know how perfectly he agreed with me in. his opinion of her, for I spoke to him about it the very evening she was- hero last with him.'—' Why, mamma,' said Clara, bursting out laughing, is it possible you haven't got farther than that ? I remember asking him that same night what ho meant by seeming to agree to your attaoka, on May, when I know he thought so differently ; and he said he had only just nodded his head, and hadn't heard a word you'd been saying—ha was so cut up by hor refusal.'—' Refused by May ! he was a great deal too sensible to offer to her. I don't believe a word of any such thing," said Lady Wilmot angrily, as she walked majestically away ; and indeed it Is much the best thing to be done; when facts are so impertinent as to to obey infallibility, the only thing left for infallibility is to ignore, tho foots altogether. . . . . . . That it should bo about May, too, of all people she repeated to herself. It was more convenient to com- plain of their duplicity than of her own blindness, which she did to her own perfect satisfaction. It is hard, on mamma, when there has never boon so much as a daisy about the place that she didn't give it good advice how to open its buds,' Clara declared,-laughing. She was now beyond' Lady Wilmot's power, who indeed was a little afraid of her daughter's. tongue when they did meet. Poor Amy was, however, worried to an almost intolerable degree during the whole of the next week her mother's aphorisms, and reflections, and axioms going on with remarkable vigour."'
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