MISS TYTLERIS LAST STORIES.*
OUR popular modern novelists appear to possess the art of writing much and also well. Instead of being contented, like some of their illustrious predecessors, with four or five tales as their life-work in fiction, they produce year by year—we • What She Come Through. By Sarah Tytler. 8 vols. London : Daldy, Taldstar, and Co. 1877.—By the Elbe. By Sarah Tytler. 8 vols. London: Smith, Bides. WM
had almost said, month by month—a succession of novels which, if not of the highest order, are well constructed, read- able, and entertaining. We think it strange, indeed, if any long space of time elapses without the announcement of a new novel by Mr. Trollope, by Mrs. Oliphant, by Mr. Black, or by Miss Yonge. There are several living lady novelists who have probably written much more than Miss Tytler, but she also has written several tales, and among them a few of a superior order. The publication, however, of two fictions at the same time, each contained in the orthodox three volumes, would be, even in these days of novel-writing, an unusual feat, but we suspect that both tales have been doing duty in magazines, and that this will account for their almost simultaneous appearance in book form.
What She Came Through bears marks, we• think, of having suffered injury from this inartistic, though, no doubt, lucra- tive method of publication. The earlier part of the novel is greatly spun out, and clever as the writing often is, we would gladly have less of it, as it does not facilitate the movement of the story. Another fault is one common to novelists who are not masters of their craft, —that of unravelling the plot by the help of an extraordinary and almost incredible concatenation of circumstances ; while a third, and we take it, a more radical defect, is the unsuitable language frequently put into the mouths of the characters. Thus, for instance, the heroine, a gentlewoman by birth, who leaves school and all gentle society at thirteen, lives amongst rustics, and does the meanest of rustic work, talks while hoeing a field of not sinking her identity in another's; and writes, after regaining her proper sphere, to a poor girl who can scarcely spell a word of English correctly, about getting away from the speciously bland apparition of her mother-in-law to some- thing simpler, ruder, truer. In this and other ways we observe a want of verisimilitude in the novel, which, at the same time, is not wanting in natural touches, in picturesque and richly-coloured passages. Pleasance Hatton, the heroine, and her sister Anne, who dies at an early period of the tale, are introduced to the reader as school-girls of thirteen and fifteen. Their father, who had been living abroad, dies, and a rich aunt, an utterly selfish, unfeeling woman, brings the news of his death, and adds to it the intelligence that her nieces are left nearly penniless, that she cannot be expected to assist them, and that all she can do is to send them to their mother's relative, Mrs. Balls, a homely country- woman, who has charge of a deserted manor-house and manages a small dairy. The indignant girls repudiate their rich relative from that moment, and when Anne dies, not many weeks after, Pleasance makes up her mind to forsake the class in which she had been born and to live the life of a peasant-girl. In some respects, however, she finds it difficult, as may be imagined, to fall in with the rough habits and manners of the agricultural poor, and her early refinement is shown in many ways not altogether pleasing to her associates. Pleasance is a beauty, who, while hoeing in the fields, thinks and talks of Tennyson ; and she had a habit also which is thus commented on by Lizzie Blennerhasset, the blacksmith's daughter, Pleasance's chief friend:—
"A brush for 's teeth, think on thatten I Wool, it do sound summat ;" admitted Lizzie. "1 'a heard tall that all gentlefolks d' go a brussin' away on their teeth every live day, though it d' soun' nonsense waste on time. I 'a seed Pleasance a-doin' on it, when I were bidin' the night at the farm, and her said, in excuse like, her 'ad learnt when she were young, and were at a boardin'-school a-bringin'-up for a lady. It were like an ill lesson her could not leave off and feel comfortable athout."
Pleasance has a clownish lover, an honest, manly fellow, who, in his rude way, worships the ground she treads on, and it seems at one time as if the heroine in her self-abnegation were about to sacrifice herself to this rustic hero ; but one day a new field-hand appears, who calls himself Joel Wray, and Long Dick's chance is gone for ever. There is something about Joel which delights the girl, and he on his part is fascinated with the rare treasure which he has discovered in the harvest-field. Like Gay's lovers (not Pope's, Miss Tytler), they are overtaken together in a thunder- storm, but unlike the unfortunate pair who died in each other's, arms, Joel and Pleasance awake to new life after this happy accident The love-making ends in marriage, but before that event takes place, Joel informs Pleasance that owing to some quarrel with his family he has hitherto concealed his real name which is Archibald Douglas, an act which called forth a strong expression of blame from the girl, whose nature is eminently straightforward and truthful. On the wedding-day her faith in Archibald is put to a severer test, for the discovery is made that instead of being what he appears, he is a man of wealth and family, with more than one estate in the country and a mansion at the West End. His wife's resolution is
soon formed. Douglas wishes her to go at once with him to hin mother, who will then see that her son has won "the dearest, sweetest, wisest woman in the world " :—
" I will not go at all,' she said, plainly. 'I daresay you think that I must go with you,' she continued, while he looked at her confounded, because I married you this morning, and so am bound to obey you. But ours was not a right marriage, in which both man and woman know what they are doing. I don't think that it should stand for a marriage ; but I do not know and cannot help that. What I do know is that I will not go with you unless you force me, which you will not do.'—' Plea- sance,' he cried, 'what is this ? You are not in earnest,—you are not in your senses. Our marriage not a right marriage, which you do- not think should stand, and you my love, my wife.' He stopped, choked with emotion. Yes,' she said, 'Archie Douglas, or whatever they call you.' She uttered the last words with harsh scorn, that even before it tingled through his veins filled him with consternation. 'Ton know that I did not mean to marry you as you are; you know and I know that I am no more fit to be a gentleman's wife than I have wished to be the lady that I have forgotten to be.'"
They part, in fierce wrath on her side, in bitter grief on his, and though Douglas writes again and again after leaving, his wife throws the letters on the fire unopened. So she elects to live on in maiden misery, until, hearing accidentally that Douglas has been seen riding with a young lady in the Park, she suddenly dis- covers that she has placed him in a wrong position. The marriage must no longer be concealed, and having reached this conclusion, she takes the absurd resolution of going to London and waylaying her husband in the Park,—we say "absurd," because, it will be remembered that Douglas is as anxious as man can be to avow the deed and to own and welcome his wife. Archie is riding with his sister Jane and her friend, Miss Windham, when Pleasance starts out upon them so as to make one of the ladies' horses shy and rear. Douglas leaps from his horse, entrusts his companions to a friend, acknowledges bravely his relationship to Pleasance, walks off with her to the Park gate, and there places her in a cab :— " When they had driven off, he leant forward and said, 'Pleasance, is Mrs. Balls dead? Have you come to me ?' and his voice was tremulous with feeling. If Pleasance had cared to read his meaning, it might have been plain to her that her empire—widely removed from each other as she, as well as others, saw the two—could be restored by a single word. He was ready to forgive all the wounds inflicted on his pride and his love by her former obstinate rejection of him, and of his penitence for having deceived her, and by her spurning the advantages which other women would have prized. But Pleasance did not speak the word. She said, sadly yet firmly, looking down because of the anguish that tugged at her heart-strings when her eyes met his, while she remained resolute not to pat upon him a burden that he could not bear, or subject herself to a trial which she should not know how to suffer. 'I have not come because I wanted you, Archie, I have not come to stay.' He was repelled and thrown back upon himself. It seemed to him from her words that she was there in sheer perversity, to expose their unhappy position, and to thwart and torture him. Then what is your business with me?' he asked, leaning back and folding his arms to endure, while his whole tone and manner changed in her estimation to those of the grand seigneur,— a change which appeared to put a world of different experiences, different motives, different passions and prejudices between him and Pleasance. Is our marriage known to your people ?' she asked him, with the simple, courageous directness which nothing could daunt or turn aside, though her heart might be broken. can understand that it was a great mistake for you, as well as for me ; but, unfortunately, that does not help us to put an end to it, and since that is true, the whole truth should be told. Don't you think so?' She spoke quietly, so dispassionately as at once to chill and exasperate him. To stoop to concealment would not only be a great error, which would increase every evil a thousandfold '—she was remonstrating strongly, yet in e. manner not entirely removed from that elder sister's or mother's fashion in which she had often spoken to him in happier circumstances—' it would be terribly unjust to others.'—' To whom we are to serve as a warning, I suppose,' he spoke with sharp irony. 'Did you never think,' he demanded, while a flush came over his face, 'how you wrought to shame me, as you are doing this day?'—' No, no,' she cried, in an agony of denial.—' Yes,' he affirmed, with stern indignation. 'Did you never consider how cruelly hard, well-nigh impossible, you made it for me to tell of the marriage to the friends to whom you would not accompany me when we had quarrelled and parted on our very wedding day?' if it had to be told,' she said.—' You may rest satisfied,' he ex- claimed, with the passionate scorn df himself and her into which he had worked himself. 'To-night the foolish story will be over all London,— all London that knows anything of me, and nothing of you.' He was thinking, while he spoke, of what had been to him the unapproachable attractions which had won him,—ay, and which ho was angrily con- scious at this moment were as powerful as ever to subdue him. The concealment is at an end,' he assured her ; but whether the end has been brought about with any regard to me and my share in the misfor- tune—whether I might not have been consulted, or even warned, as to the mode of the announcement—whether there might not have been some respect paid to my duty to my people, which would have led me to prepare them for the blow that must come unexpectedly upon them —I leave you to judge.' She listened, half-wistfully, half-shrinkingly, to his hot taunts, and then she half-rose. Let me go,' she implored him. We are only making ourselves more miserable. Contention be- tween us can do no good, and is horrible. I thought we might have both seen what was for our mutual good—the best that can be for either of us—and consented to part, in a sort, friends. Since that is not to be —and perhaps we had better never have met again—let us part now.'" And part they do, but ultimately Pleasance yields so far as to
consent to live separate in one of Douglas's country seats, and to receive from him a moderate allowance. Here she finds herself in the close neighbourhood of the aunt who had treated her so unkindly as a school-girl, and discovers that this aunt's daughter is the young lady she had seen riding with Archie Douglas in the Park. Mrs. Windham is a wealthy woman, but by the discovery of a lost will—that common-place contrivance beloved of novelists —her property, or a large portion of it, is transferred to Pleasance, and Mrs. Windham and her fast daughter, Rica, are only too eager now to take advantage of their relationship. The heroine's action under these circumstances is eminently just and praise- worthy, and indeed all her conduct, allowing for the position she has voluntarily assumed, seems worthy of praise, excepting her conduct to her husband. After many months of this divided life, Pleasance discovers she has been wrong, and travels to Shardleigh, "to confess it, and to re-establish, if he would, Archie Douglas's authority over her." She is shown into a room where the master of the house is asleep, and the scene that immediately follows strikes us as eminently unreal. The love that both feel finds ex- pression at last, and the curtain falls on a happy couple, but the way in which, on her husband's first waking, Pleasance begins to talk about her duty is insufferable. Of course, every novel-reader will see that, if she only wished "to fulfil her obligations," she might have written to tell him so, and the long explanations of the novelist accounting for her heroine's conduct cannot prevent till from thinking it strained and artificial. Pleasance, who, by the way, is probably the only beautiful heroine in fiction con- demned to wear spectacles, has, no doubt, some fine points of character, but the general conception is, we think, unsatisfactory. A few of the minor characters are drawn with some skill, and the descriptions of rural occupations and of the conversations of rustics seem to be a study from the life.
When the reader of What She Came Through reaches the second volume, he will begin to find some reward for his toil. We can- not hold out to him the same hope in perusing By the Elbe. A great portion of this nondescript book is devoted to a description of German life and manners, of German art and music, and to a discussion of social theories. Most of the characters that assist in developing the plot—if plot it deserves to be called—are wholly uninteresting, and we confess a distaste for Mary, the heroine, and for Taff Penryn, the hero, highly virtuous and estimable people though they be, which does not diminish the more we know of them. The vulgarity of Mary's younger sister, Pm—the daughter, be it observed, of an English squire—may be estimated by the following remarks made by the girl while peep- ing through the window at Taff Penryn, who has just arrived :— " An insignificant fellow, not an inch taller than Papa is, Polly. I like a six-foot-two man. I know he runs the risk of being mistaken for a guardsman or a footman, and that be is often deplorably lanky when he is not a monster of flesh and blood; still I am inclined to ask quantity in a man and quality in a woman. Fair hair without fail, but face not tallow-coloured or pasty in substance, or like a brick pre- Adamite man—not even of a Bath-brick man—with a very respectable brown tan, considering the shade of his hair and moustache. Quite a fierce moustache ; that is the second point in his favour. But he has bet, as far as I can discern, a single scar of a sword-cut on cheek or chin, caught in encounters with hosts of rivals as he serenaded his whey-faced, whey-haired Gretchen. I should not wonder if he were to tarn out a humbug After all, I fancy he is not very eligible even pour passer le temps, and to bring us into flirting practice. I don't suppose he is worth our lugging out our second best bravery for, Lyd, unless it be to teach us how to make war, my duck ; even a barbarian of a beggarly, fantastic German student may serve as a target for our aim."
Miss Tytler may perhaps defend this vulgarity on the part of a young English lady by referring to Miss Austen's portrait of a fast girl in Pride and Prejudice, and we may admit that the con- trast between Lydia Bennett and her charming sister, Elizabeth, is as striking as the contrast between Ira Carteret and her model sister, Mary ; but Miss Austen's consummate art in delineating these and all her characters enables her to present them in a natural light, even when the circumstances might appear un- natural, a feat beyond Miss Tytler, whose dramatis person in this novel, from Fm a upwards, talk in a style which takes us quite out of the experience of real life. In By the Elbe, as we have inti- mated, there is more padding than story, and 'it is possible to skip page after page without losing any portion of the meagre and unexciting plot. Why the one pair of lovers in whom the reader will feel the least interest quarrel and part is not very evident, and when at last the two are brought together again, he will, we fear, feel but a languid interest in the reconciliation. Marks of carelessness abound throughout the tale, names are mis- spelt, words are misapplied, and many of the sentences are chiefly remarkable as specimens of bad English. We regret thus to find
fault with a writer who has in earlier days produced some ad- mirable work, and the tone of whom writings is invariably pure and healthy. Neither of the novels before us can increase Miss Tytler's reputation, and By the EThe is, we fear, likely to diminish it, not only among critics, but with readers who have hithertd found a pleasure in her tales.
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