THREE NOVELS.* POWER to arrest interest, like that displayed in
The Triumph of Theresa, is a gift to rejoice the reviewer's heart, and make him hope again to meet the name of Jeffrey Arden amongst novelists. During the first volume this power is latent, and one does not know whether it exists or not. But there is no more doubt about the matter in the second (and final) volume, where the deeper feelings of even the most unimpressionable readers will hardly fail to be stirred by the spectacle pre- sented of a supreme victory won by love in a man and woman who, though hitherto untouched by its influence and wholly free from any trace of mawkish sentimentality, are yet seen offering up to it the most cherished and ingrained part of their respective beings,—the very flesh of their flesh, and bone of their bone, as it were. When, in order to show what a man will risk for a woman in whom he has perfect trust, Colonel Farquhar places unreservedly in Theresa's bands the honour that is dearer to him than life, he sacrifices not only honour but also duty ; for his action jeopardises a stake which is not his, but his country's, and however noble and chivalrous may be his motive, and however fully the event may justify his rashness, he must yet certainly be held guilty of breach of trust in delivering an important political secret confided to him, into the keeping of a person against whom he has been rightly warned as a hostile emissary and spy. And the sacrifice made by Theresa is first ambition, and then the overmastering emotion itself that has prevailed over ambition, and conquered the well-nigh impregnable fortress of her heart. For the discovery that Farquhar's passion is able to outweigh prudence and honour, to sweep away his previous landmarks of existence, and to make one who is in all else a man of sense and discretion believe in her with the blind, unreasoning belief of a fool, reveals a depth of trust and love which calls up all the good in her hard, unscrupulous character ; and then, roused to reciprocal affection, she manifests an intensity of feeling unknown to smaller natures, and renounces for his sake the two things without which life is no longer endurable to her,— that is to say, her career and her love. It is noticeable that in both hero and heroine the concentrated force of character they possess is never felt fully until the manifestation that constitutes also a proof of weakness ; and the power shown in depicting love's victory over them, will, we think, atone for the sadness of the book's conclusion, notwithstanding the well-known preference of the British public for a happy ending to its novels. "If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men the most miserable" seems to rise to the lips involuntarily as the tale is laid aside.
The title of Upper Bohemia is in itself sufficient indication that the book records the sayings and doings of " society " * (1.) The Triumph of Tema. By Jeffrey Arden. London : Sampson Low, Marston, knd Co. —(2.) Upper Bolumia. By F. 0, Walpole. London : Digby, Long, and Do.—(3.) A Stager from the Sou. By Amelia E. Barr. London : lintobiueon. men and women, who heed not the Ten Commandments, and regard liaisons and disreputable behaviour in general as quite a matter of course ; and readers with a taste for this style of literature will detect hopeful possibilities in several of the dramatis persome—especially the lady who is galled at the idea of one of her friends being deemed a more accomplished liar and better devil than herself, and so annoyed at the superiority attributed to her rival by the eulogy : "Oh, the Sabaroff !—what a goddess of perfection ! The very devil may envy her. In fact, at times, when the Sa.baroff is at her best, there seems to be no use in having a devil"—that we cannot help suspecting a desire to rehabilitate herself in the Baron's eyes, and prove herself a devil of the first water, to have been at the root of her subsequent attempt at assassina- tion. Unfortunately, however, these lively anticipations are doomed to disappointment; the expected sparkling effer- vescence goes off in fatness; what promised to be racy proves tame and insipid ; people intended to portray actually-existing types are at any rate not very successful, considered as repre- sentations of human nature ; and we fear the general verdict pronounced on the book will probably be "Absurd rubbish," notwithstanding the exhibition of a sort of quirkish cleverness and cynically intelligent appreciation of the astuteness where- with some people turn to account the weaknesses of their fellow. creatures, which seem decided qualifications for writing on the subject chosen by the author, and induce a belief that Mr. Walpole'a pen is capable of better work than this. Before undertaking another, however, we recommend him to devote a little time to the study of an English grammar and a dic- tionary; for there are one or two sentences in Upper Bohemia which it is impossible to parse, and it does not need much con- sideration of the signification of words to show the frequent mistakes he commits in applying them metaphorically; as, for instance, in comparing fear, remorse, and misery to dazzling diamonds ; calling "sacrifice" and " risk " emotions or speaking of a spell as having "taken root," fire being "melted," people being "associated with strata," an obscura- tion of conscience "subsiding," &Lc.
That part of A Singer from the Sea which tells of simple Cornish fisher-folk gathering-in the sea-harvest, and living (to judge by the story) mainly on fish-pies and clotted cream, is breezy, healthful, and invigorating, like a whiff of fresh ozone. And Miss Barr is so obviously at home amongst these people, and the strong, gentle, God-fearing John Penelles and his wife Joan are so much more lifelike and capable of inspiring interest than are Roland Tresham, who robs them of their "little maid," or his equally selfish siste Elizabeth, who contributes involuntarily to this calamity, that one is inclined to grudge the author's frequent excursions away from the St. Penfer villagers to other surroundings. It is the tale of a village girl with a "wonderful, haunting voice," who is tempted away from her peaceful home by the honeyed words of a heartless young gentleman, firing her with visions of glory and gain to be won by her singing, and who, after tossing awhile on the great world's troubled waters, and finding no rest for the sole of her foot, returns at length, like the dove to the Ark, to the loving, sorrow- ing parents from whom she bad flown,—only without bringing the dove's olive-branch, be it observed, since her child had died abroad. Though it cannot be denied that she behaved undutifully in eloping, yet she was, at all events, Roland's wife ; and as it seems a pity to represent a run- away marriage as exciting a degree of grief and anger befitting a seduction, we think her father and mother took her going-off rather more deeply to heart than there was any need for, thereby producing a sense of disproportion between cause and effect, that is felt in another place also, where the bitterness of Derma' resentment against Elizabeth strikes one as being in excess of what the provocation warranted. The worthless, idle young fellow who persuades Denas to elope, chiefly because he thinks that her voice will prove an unfailing source of income to keep him in cigars and other luxuries without his having the trouble to work, is a mere gay deceiver of conventional type, whose description is given concisely and accurately by his mother-in-law when she tells him he has "a sight of ghastly, mean old ways—more than either big or little devil means a young man to have." But it seems inexplicable for so luxury-loving an individual to have endured poverty, when the remedy was in his own hands and he owned property worth some two thousand pounds, which might at any time have been realised.
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