OMUTA,*

MRS. OLIPHANT is becoming a very voluminous writer. Novel suc- ceeds novel with groat rapidity, nor are more serious works absent from the lengthening catalogue of her writings. It is not surprising, 'therefore, that Carla, which follows so hard upon 21fts. Arthur and The Makers of Florence, should show marks of haste, which detract from its merits, either as a composition or as a story. We always take up a volume of Mrs. Oliphant's with a certain feeling of safety. We know that there will be nothing ultra-sensational, nothing vulgar in conception, and that wickedness will not be introduced to be gloated over, nor sin to be flippantly extenuated ; we feel sure that the style will be easy, but thoughtful, quietly witty, and displaying from time to time a subtle insight into human nature. Her books are eminently readable. Her high place among the lady novelists, and indeed among the authors of the day, is assured. But Carita can scarcely be called a good novel. Indeed, we think it scarcely deserving of a place in the -second rank of such works of fiction. The plot is slight, and rather disagreeable than otherwise. The incidents are few, and only escape being improbable by being common-place ; and there is not one character in the story who commands our admiration, or even much of our interest. We are inclined to pity most of the personages, without sympathising very much with them in their misfortunes ; but although pity may be akin to love, we need some other sentiments to be aroused during the perusal of a novel, to carry us through the three volumes of enforced intimacy with them. There is an entire absence in Carita of what may be called the comic element, and the humour, such as it is, is of a somewhat melancholy order. But in spite of these radical defects, Carita is agreeably written, and is much pleasanter reading than nine-tenths of the novels of the day. Mrs. Oliphant is an authoress who must be judged by a higher standard than many of her fair competitors, and she must be content, when necessary, to pay the penalty of her reputation.

Mr. and Mrs. Bereford are agreeable dilettanti, in easy circum- stances, with a pied-a-terre in London. They travel intelligently

•

Carte. By Mrs. Oliphant. London : Smith, Elder, aud 00. 1877.

over Europe, and enjoy what is best and most cultivated in the society, the art, and even the science of half-a-dozen capitals.

They are ardent and judicious collectionneurs, and their London house is filled with bric-k-brac and the artistic spoils of their numerous visits to Italy and Germany and France. Their tastes, their pursuits, and their opinions are alike, and they are, as the saying is, "devotedly attached" to one another. Of Mrs. Beresford's connections we are told nothing, but Mr. Beres- ford's aunt, Miss Cherry, and his great-aunt, Miss Charity Beresford, are old maids, who live together near Windsor, and after whom the only child of the Beresford house, Caritir, is named. Charity and Cherry are names unpleasantly suggestive of the elder Miss Pecksniff, and Caritk is the third "Charity," Italianised apparently to provide an attractive title

for the book. Within a few pages of the opening, we are intro- duced to Dr. Maxwell, the conventional family doctor, who visits the Beresfords, both in London and at Windsor, apparently more as a friend than as a physician ; who dines with his patients instead of prescribing for them, and always turns up at critical moments to give good advice on all manner of subjects. We are afraid such old-fashioned medical men are now pretty nearly as rare as the dodo. Indeed, we doubt, if they were ever very common, out of the pages of a novel or off the boards of the theatre. Mrs. Oliphant seeks to invest this well-worn character with additional interest by suggesting—merely suggesting—that the doctor is in hove with Miss Cherry, who is a soft-hearted old lady, of, say, five-and-forty ; but although it is evident that Dr. Maxwell would meet with no opposition on the part of the lady, be makes no overtures until the approach of the close of the third volume renders some denouement imperative, when he proposes point-blank, apropos of nothing at all, and is refused by the lady, on the ground that she is too old ! But to return to Mr. and Mrs. Beresford. We had not read ten pages of the book before we perceived that the lady was suffering or about to suffer from a painful and fatal disease. By the time we had reached the twenty-second page, it was apparent that this malady was or was to be cancer, and that she would end her days by poison, instead of in the ordinary course of the disease. Yet neither she nor her husband, nor Dr. Maxwell are supposed to know what is in store for her until long after, on any medical hypothesis of the disorder, there could be any possibility of ignorance. This part of the plot is hastily and inartistically constructed, and the reader is oppressed by a sense of anxiety to "get it over," a sort of mauvais-quart- d'heure feeling, which continues until the hundred-and-twelfth page, when the poor lady begs her husband to poison her, which he refuses to do, and on his leaving the room, she drinks a bottle of laudanum, and disappears from the scene. But it happens that little Caritil, her daughter, who is only about ten years of age, is in the room when the mother opens the fatal medicine- chest, and actually, in her innocence, hands her the phial which contained the deadly draught.

Now, French novelists and dramatists are great artists in suicide, and Monsieur Zola's last refinement of asphyxia by the odour of flowers is a master-stroke in its way, but even the French mind would be greatly revolted at the presence of this innocent child at the very instant of suicide, and at its being made to play so important though so unsuspecting a part in the crime. But Mrs. Oliphant has evidently not had time fully to think over the moral of the situation she has conceived. Mrs. Beresford is not represented as suffering any terrible pain, so as in any way to justify her taking her own life ; she and her husband both lived simply "without God in the world ;" she was afraid of the pain that she might suffer ; her refined mind was revolted at what she called the "loathsomeness of her bodily condition ; " and her suicide was as clear and coldblooded an act of file de se as was ever contemplated by the law. It is possible to con- ceive cases in which the taking-away of one's own life might be scarcely a crime, or even an act which many people might consider justifiable, but Mrs. Oliphant says no word either of praise or blame, of justification or of reprobation. If the reader is not as much shocked as he might be at the act itself, it is because he has expected it so long, that he is glad to get it over, and so to speak, clear the ground for the story. But in spite of all the author's sins of commission and of omission in the con- struction of the plot of her first volume, it cannot be denied that the style is admirable, and that in spite of the reader's oppressive foreknowledge of what is coming, the somewhat improbable life is placed so very naturally before him, that the story is invested with an air of reality which we could only wish to see encompass- ' ing a pleasanter and more intelligible situation. That Mrs. Oliphant could have made more of even this disagreeable conception we doubt

snot, but while saying no word for or against the moral view of the act she chronicles, she gives us no opinion either to endorse or to disagree with, and leaves us very much in the condition in 'which the poor husband is represented to be, shocked, puzzled, and in the dark :—" He did not feel that he was bereaved, or a a mourner, or that he had lost what he most loved ; he felt 'only a stone, looking at stone, with a dull ache in him,

and a dull consternation, nothing more." Dr. Maxwell, .of course, comes in at the supreme moment, and having ,made up his mind that the poison was administered not by the lady herself, but by her husband, gives a certificate of

death from natural causes, and ceases to visit his bereaved friend.

A good deal might be said in favour of this line of conduct, but as far as Dr. Maxwell knows, he is guilty of being "accessory to 'murder," as the lawyers say, "after the fact," and Mrs. Oliphant again leaves us entirely in the dark as to her own view of the moral aspect of the act.

The establishment in London is now bro ken up, and while Mr.

Beresford endeavours to forget his grief in travel, Carith is sent to the country house near Windsor, where she is carefully brought sap by her aunts Cherry and Charity. Here we are introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Burcbell, the rector of the parish and his wife, essentially 'common-place people with a large family, most happily sketched by the author. The character of Mrs. Burchell, who is sometimes rather inappropriately called the Rectorinn, is especially well 'worked out. Envious of the superior wealth and comfort of her friends at the Hall, proud of having a husband and children, proud even of her numerous other grievances, and yet expecting sympathy from others on their account, she thanked God that she was not as other men are, and envied the others for being unlike 'her.

After five or six years, Mr. Beresford, still unconsoled, returns to England ; and Carith, or Cara, as she is now called, goes to five with him at the old house in London. Their next-door neighbour is a Mrs. Meredith, whose husband is in India; and with her Mr. Beresford soon gets acquainted, and their connection soon became platonically intimate :—

"Eventually it became a matter of course that ho should seek that shelter. Ho went out of his own house and knocked at her door me- obanically, and would sit by her, content only to be there, often saying little, getting himself softly healed and soothed, and made capable of taking up again the burden of his life. She was not the same kind of woman as his wife, her habits of mind were different, The variety, the ductuating charm, the constant movement and change that were in Mrs. Beresford dial not exist in this other. She would sit and work by the lamplight, looking up sweetly to answer, but happy to be silent, if lher companion liked it. She made herself always the second and not the first, responding, not leading ; her gift was to divine what was in others, to follow where they wont. It was this that made her so ;popular with all her friends. 'When they came to her for advice, she would give it, without that doubt and fear of responsibility which re- strains so many people. For why ? she had a rule which was infallible, And which made her safe from responsibility, although she was not her- self aware how closely she acted upon it. Her infallible guide was a faculty of seeing what people themselves wished, how their own judg- ments were tending, and what individually they wanted to do. This she 'followed, sometimes consciously, but often quite unconsciously, as habit led her, and she was never afraid of saying Do this, or, Do that. It was one of her great attractions. She might be wise or she might be less than wise, in her decisions, her friends said, but silo never shilly-shallied, never was afraid of saying to you with sweet frankness and boldness what she thought it would be good to do."

Whether such a person would ever obtain the popularity or the general influence that Mrs. Meredith is represented to possess is snore than doubtful, though she is painted in a series of minute nketchea with a most loving skill, but that she should engross poor Mr. Bereaford's attention is quite natural, and natural it is, too,

that Cara should be neglected by her father and her relations, and 'especially the Burehells, should be scandalised. But Mrs. Meredith's two sons, Oswald and Edward, soon find their way next door; and While the bereaved father is engaged with the abandoned mother, one or other of the sons is consoling the forlorn daughter.- For along time this state of things continues, broken only by the rare visits of Roger Burchell, the eldest son of the vicar, and a child- friend of Cara's, with whom he fancies himself in love. The demean- nur to Cara of Oswald, who is a poet and a dandy, rouses Rogers' indignation and jealousy; but as a matter of fact, it is Edward, and not Oswald, the quiet, self-denying brother, not the gay and

selfish one, who is really in love with Cara—though fancying his brother is the favoured one, he lets concealment, like "the worm i'

the bud," feed on his damask cheek, and determines to go to India, 'which io a sort of novelists' limbo for poor and disagreeable people, and those whom it is desired at any time to get rid of. Roger Bur- chell is also going there, and one feels inclined to believe almost anything of a society composed of people like him and the "„doctor's daughter" he eventually marries. Oswald, far from having any designs upon Cara, falls in love with a teacher in an orphanage, whom he sees for the first time in the street, for no better reason than that she looks like a " Perugia° " in her poke bonnet. A child being opportunely run over, and its leg broken by a dray, Oswald carries it to the hospital, and con- trives to meet "Sister Agnes" as she goes to make inquiries after its health. The story now appears likely to become "improper," when we learn that Oswald means marriage, and although our morality may be somewhat satisfied, our ideas of probability receive a very rude shock. That a young gentleman, rich, con- ceited, selfish, petted by society, good-looking, and entirely his own master, should seek his wife in such a quarter, and woo her in such a way are alike absurd. Cara becomes Oswald's con- fidante as to this strange love-affair, and Edward is more and more discouraged at the increased intimacy which seems to flow from these confidences.

Meanwhile Dr. Maxwell again appears on the scene, to reproach Mr. Beresford with his intimacy with Mrs. Meredith and neglect of Cara, the result of which is that the widower determines again to break up his establishment, and send Cara back to her aunts. As he is on the point of starting for the Continent, however, the news arrives that the embarrassing Indian husband has died, "just in the very nick of time." India is a capital place to kill people in, and Mr. Beresford determines to stay. Oswald's relation with Agnes, who turns out to be a daughter of the Burchells and a sister of Roger, is brought to a sudden crisis by a most extravagantly-conceived, but charmingly described suc- cession of accidents, and be marries her privately, in a country inn in which they have been living together—perfectly inno- cently—for three or four days previously. Edward, of course, marries Cara, and Mr. Beresford and Mrs. Meredith, whose intimacy is rendered strictly " proper " by this alliance, agree to continue to live next door to each other as unmarried friends to the end of their days. An attempt made at the last moment by the irrepressible Dr. Maxwell, as a supreme effort of "the family friend," to estrange Mrs. Meredith from Mr. Beresford, by informing her that he had poisoned his first wife, is frustrated by Cara, who, coming in as a sort of deus, or dea, ex machind, relates her passive share in the proceeding, which for some inexplicable reason she had never communicated to any one before, and the story is brought to a somewhat hasty conclusion.