THE SHERLOCKS.*
Tux plot of Mr. Saunders's new work is neither remarkably in- teresting nor essentially common-place ; it is striking neither from its natural simplicity and probability, nor from the variety of its incidents and the ingenuity of its construction. Hannah The Sherkos. 333? Jebn Saunders. In 8 vats. London: Strahan and Co. Horne, the daughter of a water-side alehouse-keeper, is intro- duced to us as a young beauty, sought in marriage by Jack Maelise, a rich idler ; Peter Sherlock, a country "lawyer's clerk ;" and Richard Bannister, a good-for-nothing adventurer. Hannah, of course, marries the mceuvais evjet, and. Peter Sher. lock and Jack Maclise have to provide themselves with wives, as they promptly do, elsewhere. Iu four or five years, however, Bannister dies, and Peter Sherlock, having also conveniently lost his wife, marries his old. love, Hannah. All this is contained in the first forty pages of the book. Peter Sherlock has been left with two sons by his first wife, Walter and Benjamin, and Mrs. Bannister somewhat later brings to the joint establish- ment a child of the name of Sophie, whom she believes to be her niece, but who is really her daughter by the late Mr. Bannister. Sherlock, who seems to have developed since our first introduction to him from a country attorney's clerk into a City merchant, provides comfortably for the whole party, having taken up his abode at a river-side suburb of London, and living in a comfortable family mansion called Waterdale House. Hannah, who, after losing her first husband, seems to. have become acidulated, not to say soured, in temper, and given to quoting minatory and uncomfortable texts from Scripture, and generally expressing herself in the language of a Methodist in a novel, bullies poor Sophie, as only a soured woman, who thinks she is acting up to Solomon's precepts, is able to do. Sophie, who has been told that she is a drudge and a maid-of- all-work,—and consistently treated as such, determines to run away, but is met at the door as she is starting by Peter Sher- lock, who takes her to London, a propos of nothing, fits her out in a suit of "soft sable and velvet," puts her "red and blotched hands into a pair of delicate, soft, stone-coloured kid-glovea," and having had. her" matted locks" artistically treated by a cele- brated. co.Veur, brings her back to Waterdale House, where the gentle Hannah is prepared to give them both a warm reception. Mr. Sherlock, however, for the first time in his life, takes the domestic reins into his own hands, and his wife submits,----with a very bad. grace, apparently more from amazement than from anything else. Both Peter Sherlock's boys—a young artist and a young ne'er-do-weel—at once fall in love with the transformed Sophie, who, taking after her mother, of course favours the latter; and the mental struggles and feelings' generally of Benjamin and. Walter form the subject of Mr. Saunders's work. The taming of Hannah Sherlock by vigorous treatment on the part of her husband, and tears on the part of her daughter, is also somewhat fully worked out. Analysis of character is Mr. Saunders's forte, but authors who are similarly gifted should remember that a novel cannot be made interesting by analysis of character alone, nor unless the characters themselves are interesting, and the incidents are sufficiently striking and sufficiently probable. The characters in a novel should, above all thin , strike us as real parsons, living in a real world ; and it is then that an analysis of these characters becomes one of the highest efforts of the novelist, and the source of a very high order of intellectual pleasure or sada-. faction on the part of the reader. The Sherlocke is a novel written by a poet, an idealist, a man careless, or rather regardless, of details, and he does not infuse into the story that impres- sion of real life which is at once something less and something more than what is meant by realism. It is a story in the air, and even when the author descends for a, time to earth, he is not happy in his work. He is out of his element. We will make our meaning clearer by a reference to the story itself.
Almost as soon as Benjamin and Walter begin to think of their love for Sophie, the former puts out his brother's eyes. We gather that ho did so—for the accident is rather ideal, and we are never told how it happened—in playing with a sling, but the ill-blood borne to him by the gentle Walter is neither ideal nor, we trust, very real. However, the young artist is sent to a blind asylum, and getting a knock on the back of his head from a falling beam, immediately recovers his sight. This anti, climax reminds the reader too strongly of the "man of Tiles- saly " in the nursery rhyme,—
" Who WWI wondrous wise, Who jumped into a quiaset-bush, and scratched out both hie eyes ; And when he saw his eyes wore out, with all his might and main He jumped into another hush, and scratched them in sgain."
And although we do not wish to doubt Mr. Saunders's word
conveyed in a foot-note—that a friend of his did recover his sight in this extremely hoinceopafitic manner, we venture to think that he has not made the best use of so interesting a piece
of information, How vigorously such writers as Charles Dickens or Charles Resale would have dealt with so startling a fact, and how naturally they would have worked it into a novel ; but such is the unreality of Mr. Saunders's system, that a real fact, when introduced into his story, seems quite out of place ; the unreal alone appearing natural in his story,—just as an extract from Robinson Crusoe or Gallker's Travels would seem out of place in Frankenstein or Queen Mob.
In the second volume, we find Jack Maclise, who has, like his companions, married, and like them, lost his wife, and who has been left with an only daughter. Being at the point of death, he sends for Peter Sherlock. It is perhaps rather late in his life to be introduced to him, but his name has been mentioned once or twice before, and we are now told that his father, an immensely rich merchant, had left him at his death with an income of come £2,000 a year, but had further settled £200,000 on his son's daughter, Pauline, the trustees being Peter Sherlock and Jack Maclise himself, who was certainly a strange person to be appointed to the office, under the circumstances ; and Peter Sherlock having further made the trust completely nugatory, by letting his friend do what he liked with the money, Bannister contrived, to lose no less than 2194,700 of the trust-money belonging to his daughter; and died, leaving her and the ad- ministration of his affairs generally, including the task of announcing to Miss Pauline Bannister the fact that her father was a swindler and she herself comparatively a beggar, to his friend, Peter Sherlock. Shortly after this event, Sophie, who has become the constant companion of her stepfather, suggests that the whole party should go to church; but Pauline is too sore at heart to take any pleasure in public worship, and Peter Sherlock (who is a middle-aged merchant in Billiter Lane) ex- presses himself as follows :—
"Go, my dear. Don't make matters worse, by seeming as if it as only at the last moment you could make up your mind to fulfil a duty that is to your own happily constituted mind also a pleasure. Pauline and I are above that kind of thing. But you, my child, had bettor stick to your old-world ways, even though the only comfort I can give you in so doing is, that while we are learnedly miserable, you will be ignorant and happy. Now go, and drink deeply of that peace which passeth all understanding, that you may refresh us from your abundance, provided in the meantime we can discover any satisfac- tory, logical reason why we ought to drink. There, go I"
On returning from church, Sophie, who has never given any prey one sign of religious feelings, asks leave to read a chapter of the Bible to her father and Nuline, and chooses the passage which tells of Saul being troubled by an evil spirit, and David refreshing him by playing upon the harp :—
"Presently Sophie felt Peter's hand touch hers and take hold of it, to lead her to the piano. He asked no further questions, gave no fresh command, but showed he meant her to obey. That touch, that .conviction was electrical, and cleared all for her. His strength be- came hors. Yes, she would obey him, and leave all the rest to him, and to God. She paused a little over the instrument, and over the books of sacred music, which Peter brought, as if thinking what she could best do, and what was most likely to be fitting for the occasion. Her musical knowledge was very limited, but such as it was had been obtained in a good school. She chose one of the most touching and pathetic of airs, the 'Behold and see' [if there be any sorrow like unto His sorrow], from Handel's ' Messiah,' and over which she had lately spent much time,"
All this is so unreal that it strikes the reader as almost profane. It is only that the style and tone of thought are too high-pitched for the story itself. Such bright and happy passages as the fol- lowing are entirely independent of the plot :—
" Uncle Sherlock tells me, if let alone, my little heap would be twice as big in fourteen years.' Since goodness is a kind of gold, I wonder whether the little stock of it one has might also get doubled in a few years by the same easy process of letting alone ? Wouldn't that be charming ? To live a century or two would be a privilege indeed. Why, we should get so good at last that even the angels, whom my earliest and dearest old schoolmistress used to say were always hovering about good children, to take care of them, would get afraid of such superior persons, and take their leave.' "
Not knowing which way to turn, and unwilling to inform Pauline Bannister of the condition of her finances until she is of age, Peter Sherlock takes her home to live with him at Water- dale Rouse.
New a change comes over the spirit of the dream, and Benjamin and Walter, who have up to this time both been in love with Sophie, now both fall desperately in love with Pauline. . Benjamin, indeed, struck with remorse for having blinded his brother, has run away from home and enlisted in a marching regiment, by way of leaving the coast clear to him as regards Sophie. He might fairly be supposed therefore to be out of the way of the new corner, but in order to complicate the plot, however, he obtains a few days' furlough, meets Pauline at Hastings, and falls in love with her. He shows his admira- tion in a practical way by deserting, for which he is sentenced by court-martial to four months' imprisonment. But now the real skill of the author is brought into play. Throughout one entire volume he presents to us Benjamin and Walter as being in love with both Sophie and Pauline ; and yet we are not shocked at the "false position," we are not struck with the absurdity of the situation. Hero the author is in his element,—the region of what may be called poetical metaphysics. It would be im- possible to show greater natural mastery over the enormous difficulties of the situation. DIA, unfortunately, Mr. Saunders must return to practical life, and we have Peter Sherlock's own financial ruin brought about by the introduction of a stage swindler called Grainger, and the founding of a bogus bank, which could not have taken in the least experienced girl of six- teen, and the establishment of a sort of Stock Exchange gambling-house and refreshment-room combined, and carried on in Mr. Sherlock's own office, in Billiter Lane!
At length Walter and Benjamin can endure their anomalous position as regards Sophie and Pauline no longer, and Walter, who is this time made the aggressor, in a fit of rage throws his brother into the Thames, and is rewarded for so doing with the hand of Pauline. Benjamin is picked out of the water, but only to die immediately afterwards ; and poor Sophie, in whom we have grown to take some interest, is left lamenting, husband- less,—and we trust, for the happiness of the younger Sherlocks, loverless.
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