UNDER THE SPELL.*
Fox a writer without genii's to produce a novel above the average, threequalifications would appear to be indispensable; a good style, a good plot, and so much of the artistic faculty as to keep him from annoying the reader by improbable incidents, and half-worked-out ideas. The author of Under the Spell possesses the first two recom- mendations, and but for the absence of the third, would have pro- duced a work which might have lived beyond the first library de- mand. He writes well, in good easy English, a little injured, we should fancy, by overmuch reading of London comic literature, but still English which one may read without mental anathemas on involved sentences and misused epithets. He can describe a scene, too, without a torrent of words, as witness the following description of the sands of Weymouth :
" Or rather on those sands a little to the right of Melcombe Regis, where the town is lost to view and the barren isle of Portland scowls across the water at us. A fair sunshiny day, with a light breeze kissing the blue waves of the sea as they ripple away from its caress and go murmuring out with the tide; ships dotting the wide expanse of ocean in the distance ; fishermen's boats coming in; a man- of war near Portland having a little gun practice to itself, and not adding to the harmony of the scene by its heavy thuds across the water."
The plot, the novelist's universal petitio principli being granted, is excellent, and so worked out that the reader feels to the end in- terested in the characters brought before him. It is in the artistic use of his materials and not in the materials themselves that the writer has failed, and missed thereby a very excellent chance of pro- ducing, if not a work with a claim to live, at least the "best novel of the season."
The centre group of the story, which has neither hero nor heroine in the old exclusive sense, is the Lanceford family' a house settled in Dorsetshire, and of that rank which may fittingly aspire to represent the county. Well placed and wealthy, with strong cha- racters and great abilities, the Lancefords are, nevertheless, under an evil destiny, "under the spell" of a tendency invariably to fall in love in the first instance with the wrong person. It is in the effect of this tendency or fate on the father and his three sons that the interest of the tale consists. Of course in such a story the reader must take two things for granted—viz. that a spell, or irre- sistible tendency, may exist in a long-descended race, and that love in a strong mind is always a passion before which every other consi- deration must give way. The last is the assumption of all modern novelists, and though ludicrously at variance with all ,known facts, must, like the supernatural machinery of a poet, be conceded as essential to give the author a disposable motive power. The former, though as unreal, is not the kind of assumption which shocks the ima- gination. Tendencies sometimes very strong are transmissible, and a tendency to make love to the wrong woman is not more incredible, ex- cept in its scientific aspect, than a tendency to gluttony like that of the Bourbons, or a tendency to gaming like that of some English famffies. The spell, of course, acts differently upon different natures. In the father, a proud, reserved, capable man, it leads him to detest and put away his wife rather than renounce a connexion which is the secret remorse of his life, and for which, in his own way, he is always endeavouring to atone. His notion of atonement is to grant secretly some benefit equal as he thinks to the injury he has done. Thus, he creates an appointment at his own cost for the brother of her whom he has wronged, who is not aware of the name of the evil- doer, and keeps him near himself, not to excite remorse, but to please his conscience with the notion of his own benevolence. For the rest he is intended to be the iron father of the stage, mapping out his children's fortunes, and disinheriting his heir for opposition. His eldest son, Edmund, is a squire, a hunting man, with a phy- sique which predisposes him to neglect study, and love excitement, and the manners usually found associated with that physique. He falls in love with the daughter of a retired actress, and she being spirited away by his enraged father, marries the daughter of his coachman. The second son, Nathan, a studious lad of more than average brains, becomes stage-struck, and loves his brother's first attachment, now become an ease% herself of the highest grade, who attracts him to the ruin of.*pects, but cares nothing for his attachment. The third, his cousin, a vain beauty of the schoolgirl kind, who, after breaking his heart, finally throws him off in favour of a Very inferior rival. A practised novel reader will easily perceive in this slight sketch the material for exciting situations and amusing incidents; and these are supplied in profusion, and are frequently of merit. But the reader's enjoyment is, throughout, spoilt by the want of artistic skill visible m a permanent incongruity between the character attributed to the actor and the acts in which that character is displayed. This is most manifest in the case of the father, perhaps the most carefully sketched portrait in the book. Mr. Lanceford is a handsome, selfish reprobate, with great ability, some self-restraint, and an iron will. The author, in the beginning * Under ;'the Spell. By the Author of "Grandmother's Money," "Wildflower," "One-and-Twenty," de. In three volumes. Loudon : Hurst and Blacken
of the tale, calls him a devil, and depicts him as always polished, but always domineering and insolent in his relation to his sons. He
"maps out their lives," persuades the mother of Edmund's first love to withdraw her daughter suddenly, tells the same son to depart for ever if he contracts the misalliance he threatens, and then—gives up his own way in everything. Nathan disappoints him, and he bears it; William disappoints him, and he asks only for delay. He is inso- lently attacked by the daughter of his victim, and skulks without a contest, in short, does everything that the man Mr. Lanceford is de- scribed to be certainly would not do. He never takes a single step to attain his own ends. He wishes, for example, to detach his son from his mother, but beyond tempting him to see a pantomime or two, he makes no effort to divert him from his visits ; he acutely dis- likes Willie's engagement, yet yields without even a momentary struggle. He is always menacing the resistance which the reader always expects, and which he never takes a step even to commence. Here is the way in which the strong man states his resolution to his son's tutor " The lives of my children are mapped out, Mr. Garnett ; I have already told you so.'
" But—but, sir, it is impossible to map out their future out according to your wishes—it is above the power of any man.
" I will do my best,' said Mr. Lanceford, with a faint smile, as he rose; ' if they would bear my name and share my patrimony, they mast follow my behests. I am not the worst of fathers.'
"And, hugging that conceit to his bosom, Mr. Lanceford bade Mr. Garnett good night, and went up to his solitary chamber. In the desolateness of that apartment, in its empty splendour, vibrating no more with the voice of his lost wives, was there anything to steel him still more in his purpose, to warn him of the danger of rash marriages, and keep his eyes upon the great map which he— foolish theorist—had lined out for his sons ?"
And here is the way in which he receives an announcement which upsets the last of his plans :
" Silence! youth is a dreamer, and the words of the dreamer have no power to console me. Mr. Pembercast or his wife has shown discretion in not allowing a formal engagement between you and your cousin for some years, and I am in- debted to one or other for that little consideration. Let the years go by before we talk of this again. Prosecute your suit, William, in the manner that best pleases you, but do not weary me with any details.' " Willie caught his father's hand and pressed it in his. The tears were swim- ming in the sou's eyes, his heart was full, and his father, in his eccentric way, bad been kind to him and offered no opposition. Mr. Lanceford's hand fell lightly on the shoulder of his son, and there was the father in his looks."
Which is the true character—Mr. Lanceford, the polished " devil" who smiles and attitudinizes as he signs a deed of separation from his wife, and burns her picture when accidentally brought before him, who spoils one son's happiness and "maps out" the future of all, or the Mr. Lanceford who receives the overthrow of his plans with so benignant a displeasure ? There is just the same contradiction in the character of Nathan. It would be impossible to prove the state- ment without an analysis as bulky as the story itself, but the readers of Under the Spell will agree with us that of all persons Nathan Lanceford would be the last to be stage struck. In fact, the only character consistent throughout is Edmund, and even he, who marries the coachman's daughter rather than let the village in- jure her by talking of his attentions, neglects the pretty girl when she has educated herself into a lady, to follow his brother's present and his own former love. Still, passion misleads even the chivalric, and the story of Edmund and his self-will, his low alliance and the wife who, after educating herself to be his equal, tries to commit suicide, that she may not be the obstacle to his happiness, lends vitality and interest to the book. Had the family history been worked out as that of Edmund has been, Under the Spell would have been beyond the danger or the reach of depreciating criticism. As it is, the book is simply an average novel, written by one who, would he but think out the ideas his imagination conceives, might produce a work of real and consistent power. To be able to create characters so lifelike that their inconsistencies are as palpable as those of real men would be, is a power so scarce that we regret to see it partially thrown away.
Previous page
