JOHN BARLOW'S WARD.*
Tnis is a clever, though somewhat slight, story in two volumes. The heroine, Hester, is beloved by two men considerably older than herself. One is a Lancashire millowner, named Henry Thornton, who is too diffident ever quite to manage to tell her of his love, and ask her to become his wife ; and the other is a widower, with one little girl, named George Vane, whom she loves and marries, and who is afterwards induced by the evil spirit of the book to become unjustly suspicious of her relations with Thornton. Thus the book is altogether a study of love, and depends entirely for its interest upon how much or how little the three chief characters care about one another. The two men love in very different ways. Thornton's love is deep, true, and unselfish, but never makes an approach to passing beyond his self-control. When he wishes to ask the girl to marry him, he can consider the pros and COMB as dispassionately as though some other man were concerned :— " He could make Hester happy he determined, therefore he would fearlessly ask her to be his wife. Not now—not in his father's house, where her position would be awkward if she refused him, but in London; he would follow her to her guardian's, and speak there both to Hester and Mr. Barlow. She was no fine lady, be thought, to pine for fashionable friends; her gentle sympathy for the Jacksous, her interest in the Mill and in the men and women working there, her invariable courteous affection for his mother and respect for his father, all promised well for his happiness and her content. I will make her happy,' he said to himself. If I thought I could not I would give her up—aye, I would give her up to-day. God knows, I love her well enough for that.' "
His opinion of the way in which a man should behave to the woman he loves is as follows :—
" 'A man who loves you,' ho broke out a moment after, and
• John Barlow's Ward. London : Smith, Elder, and Co. 1881.
Hester's perplexity deepened as he spoke, ought not to throw himsel on your pity. He should decide for you and himself, and if he thinks you are too delicately nurtured, too innocent of trouble, and unused to anxiety, to take your place by his side in a hard-working world, be should give you up. He should not tempt you to try what disappoint- ment looks like, for his sake. Ay, it would be better and easier, too, if he looks far enough ahead, to leave you bright and beautiful, than to pluck you, and see you fade.' " Now all this is perfectly true and reasonable, and expresses a power of self-abnegation which is both rare and beautiful; but yet there seems to be something cold-blooded and calculating about such love, which would make it but little likely to corre- spond to the ideal of over-mastering passion that probably fills a girl's brain when she dreams of being fallen in love with. Therefore, however true and well worth having Thornton's love may really have been, we think no reader will be surprised that it should have failed to kindle any warmer feeling on the part of its object than a cordial, sisterly esteem and liking. The other man, Fane, regards women from a different and less chivalrous point of view :— " To George Fano a woman was a plaything, a weak creature for whom certain simple pleasures were to be provided, from whom all work and care and anxiety must be warded away ; but as for making a companion, an adviser, even a comforter of her, the proud, cold man was enough for his own needs. He would hold out his strong- hand to help his wife if she would, but would never seek her clasp in his own hour of trouble."
Naturally inclined to coldness and hauteur, these feelings are intensified by the recollection of having been betrayed by his first wife, and his habitual mode of thinking of the other sex has a tinge of languid contempt about it. Though engrossed in literary pursuits, which he apparently considers far more- worthy of attention than domestic joys, he yet manages some- how (we are not shown the process) to captivate the affections of Hester, to whom he appears in the light of a hero to wor- ship after her own heart. Their engagement and marriage are the signal for the appearance of the evil spirit, Pane's sister, Julia, who is a thoroughly, but not impossibly, hateful char- acter. Intensely jealous of a new mistress in the household where she has long reigned supreme, she does all she can to sow discord and distrust between the newly married couple, and there are one or two amusing passages of arms between the sisters-in- law. The remainder of the book is a description of the success attending Julia's machinations, and of how the growth of jealousy in Fane's bosom at last brings to light the real and passionate love that he entertains for his wife. He certainly had a rough waking-up from his condition of tranquil intel- lectual enjoyment when, "out of the msthetic quiet of contem- plative foreign travel, out of a world of books and ancient architecture, and theories of past and present systems, he was suddenly plunged into this throbbing human life, full of grief and passion,—was suddenly told that his child was taken from• her home, and that his wife loved another man."
The chief complaint we have to make against John Barlow's- Ward is the extent to which it hinges upon love and the state of people's affections, either real or imaginary, towards one another. Whom does he love ? whom does she love ? whom does he think she loves ? and questions of a similar tender nature, produce rather a sickly-sentimental effect, when dwelt upon for long, and hardly constitute food of a sufficiently solid character to satisfy the requirements of an average reader during an entire story. Man is a many-sided animal, and few people care to be kept perpetually studying his senti- mental aspect only ; and besides that, ordinary humanity has enough of a schoolboyish delight in adventure and objection to much sentimentality to make it grow impatient under any very large dose of love-considerations in a story. Readers regard a certain proportion of love as all very well, and an almost indis- pensable feature in a good novel ; but that does not prevent their thinking they may have too much of it. The undue pre- ponderance of the tender passion is especially aggravating in John Barlow's Ward, because there are indications that its author has observed human nature under various aspects, and is capable of reproducing her observations with both vigour and humour. The sketch of the two nurses, for instance, extremely slight as it is, is quite life-like, particularly that of the one who,. when her dignity has been ruffled by an invasion of the sick-room under her charge, feels that the only consolation remaining to her is thatnothing can prevent her from complaining to the doctor. Farmer Gee and his daughter, again, are people of whom the author might surely, if she had chosen, have made a good deal more than she has done. We would remark, in conclusion, that the malicious Julia deserves severer punishment than is awarded to her,—though there is certainly one occasion when she is signally discomfited, to the great satisfaction of the reader. It is at a dinner-party at her brother's house ; and she, entertaining a high opinion of her conversational abilities, and never doubting for a moment that they must make men of talent and learning prefer her society to that of a mere chit like Hester, is grievously mortified to find herself mistaken, and to perceive that the brains and sensible conversation on which she prides herself are cast absolutely into the shade by 'the superior attractions of her sister-in-law's youth and beauty.
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