WHAT WILL THE WORLD SAY?*
WHAT a pity it is that an advance in art does not always imply an advance in popular favour ! Here is Mr. Gibbon, in whose novels hitherto we have had to regret the presence of conflicting elements—a tendency to sensational incident injuring in some measure quiet, idyllic pictures—with a piece of work which should do much to give him a high place among delineators of character, * IT hat Will the World Say ? a Novel. By Charles Gibbon. 8 role. London: Bentley and Son. pure and simple, but which we are somewhat afraid will not secure all the attention that it claims. Besides containing several very masterly studies, it is f till of humour, of quaint, wise remark, and may be taken as a reliable picture of certain aspects of life in the district where the scene is laid. Mr. Gibbon has heretofore been, too apt to rely on incident—sometimes of a very sensational kind—to forward the action ; in this instance, he makes his action entirely subordinate to the development of character and dependent upon it. Not that the story is void of plot-interest, but that the main turning-points are determined more by the necessities of the characters, than. by a chain of circumstances wholly unusual and external to them. An old ironmaster—purse-proud, vain, yet easily wrought on in some ways—who, not much to his regret, as it is hinted, has lost an Indian wife on the voyage home, now keeps house with his sister Janet ; his daughter Bess, who transmits only the better traits from her Indian mother, and a niece, Coils, are the principal characters; and these are supported by an old poacher and braggart turned gate- keeper—fit companion every way to some of Mr. Gibbon's previous creations in that kind ; a soldier-of-fortune Major, who at last turns out to be a son of the adventurous one-legged gate- keeper ; and a young doctor, who has been the boyish companion of the two girls before they went to France to a boarding-school, and returning, received such kindness from Major Hector Kilgour as led the old ironmaster to invite him to Ravelston, where, of course, he duly appears. The cross-purposes of the love-making soon suggest themselves, and are admirably managed. Dr. Murray is in love with Coils, who is artless and single-minded, and prone implicitly to trust her instincts ; while Bess, full of finesse and skilful in expedients, is deeply in love with him, and determined to supersede her cousin in his affections. When the Major appears upon the scene, he is very frankly told by Bess that he need not fall in love with her, but ought to devote himself to her cousin Coils, which, however, he soon sees reason not to persevere in, and against warnings so frankly tendered, has the audacity to woo and to win the heiress herself, and cause her to elope with him,—only to find that she is disinherited, which gives oppor- tunity for some vivid and humorous sketching of genteel poverty, and the companions they bring to struggling people in London. The Major goes off at length to fight for Don Carlos, and a report comes of his death. Bess, in the crisis, when her father's sympathy is excited, is allowed to return to Ravelston, to which, before very long, the Major finds his way, not having been killed after all ; and things are in train for righting themselves when it is discovered that he is the gatekeeper's son, —the one weak point, we think, in the story. But through a series of circumstances, things are put in proper train for the lovers at last ; the old ironmaster is glad to receive the brave soldier of fortune for his son-in-law; and Dr. Murray, in spite of his practical mother's plannings for his success with the heiress, finds his prize in Coila. We should not omit to mention that the strange tangle of tendencies in Bess—her Hindoo-like scheming, her love of ease, her dashing frankness, her admiration of self- denial in others, which was so brought into relief by the magna- nimity of Coda in relinquishing Dr. Murray for her—are gradually disclosed with great power and faithfulness ; nor that Aunt Janet, always losing things, and expressing her sorrow for troublingevery- body, and her wig constantly shifting its place, look very like careful sketches from life. Though we must confess that we miss any such striking specimen of pathetic humour as that of the meeting of the heroine in ./n Honour Bound with thegipsy family in the wood, yet we have abundant illustration of Mr. Gibbon's faculty in that direction, some of the talk between the Major and Bess being really spirited, while hardly anything could surpass the fun of the situation when Bess, finding Dr. Murray dismissed the house at Ravelston, suddenly discovers that the gatekeeper is unwell, and that the secretary must needs be asked to summon the doctor to see him, she herself appearing on the scene just in the nick of time. "It's the heart, it's the heart that's affected !" the patient might well breathe into the doctor's ear, as the two were leaving after he had been prescribed for.
Of Mr. Marjoribanks, we believe that his original might once have been found in the west of Scotland,—perhaps is still to be found there, and elsewhere. Mr. Gibbon thus briefly sketches him :—
" Thera were those, however, who, whilst bowing before him, laughed at him behind his back, and told all sorts of queer stories about what they playfully calleti his eccentricity. This was one of them. When fitting up thedibrary atitavelston, a bookseller's assistant attended. to learn with what works he desired to fill his shelves.—' Oh! anything from six inches to a foot and a half,' was the answer. The man was astonished, but made a note of the order.—' Will you have them bound in russia or morocco, Sir?'—"Confound you, what should I send the tiller from home for ?—get them bound in Glasgow.' He was munificent in his charities, which the wicked ones said were his fire-insurance ; he was shrewd and careful in business, every penny of income and ex- penditure was faithfully set down ; and it was one of his sayings that he could leave the world to-morrow and the state of his affairs might be definitely settled in an hour. He accomplished much good ; he con- ferred many favours, but he had an unfortunate way of letting every- body know what he had done, and that robbed his benevolence of much of its savour. Those who would have been most grateful felt that he had deprived them of the highest privilege of gratitude,—that of being the first to acknowledge the debt.'
Incisive remarks showing increasing knowledge of human nature and of the world are scattered up and down, quiet and significant, for the most part ; but it is something that Mr. Gibbon's deepening knowledge has not led him to assume the role of the cynic ; he is as sympathetic and as ready as ever to allow verge for qualifying motives—a most promising point, we are inclined to think. Mr. Marjoribanks, in spite of his hardness and vulgarity, was often after all a tool in the hands of Bess, who moved him frequently to fine issues, and on the occasion of a pit- explosion—which gives Mr. Gibbon room for some powerful de- scription—he acts magnanimously. Again, Major Kilgour is a "poor, but honest sodger," and nothing at all of the villain, and the whole development of his character is masterly. We have derived no little enjoyment from this novel, and we trust that Mr. Gibbon may not be moved by any immediate temptation from the new course on which, as this novel tells, he has entered. His work has always been most thorough and conscientious, and never more so certainly than here, with the added qualities of greater firmness of touch and more consistent artistic proportioning. To say that the plot is thin is a criticism without point, for this is professedly a novel of character, as we have said, and not of plot.
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