THREE NOVELS.*
INCOMPARABLY the best of these three novels is An Olt l Man's Favour, whose author is evidently a clever, capable observer, possessed of a very pleasant sense of humour, and able to appre- ciate and delineate characters of diverse kinds,—strong and weak, self-repressed and outspoken, deep and shallow. The predominant idea of the book is revenge. A man in business having brought bankruptcy upon two others, who thereupon die broken-hearted, the widow of the one and the son of the other are inspired by an intense craving to be avenged upon the source of their calamities, and keep this aim relentlessly in view during years of patient working and waiting. This forms a somewhat grim centre-piece, around which are assembled various other interests—social, domestic, and amatory—grouped together naturally and artisti- cally, and depicted with skilful and delicate touches. Some of the figures in the groups are laughter-moving, whilst others verge on tragedy. To the former class belong the quaintly vehement Mr. Ward and his sister, the thrice-married Mrs. Reynolds, Mr. Chesterley, the Williams family, and the Ham- monds, who ape the fashionable world from afar, and regard leadership of society in a provincial town as the height of ambition ; all these are ludicrous and delightfully lifelike sketches, whose subjects are victims of a satire which has the happy knack of being at once pungent, and yet free from bad-humour and unwholesome cynicism. In the Leighs and Derings, again, are shown more pathetic and stern aspects of life, such as the struggles of destitute widows and orphans, the sadness of a sick mother feeling herself a burden to her beloved children, and the fierce thirst for revenge already mentioned. This, at the very moment when its gratification at last becomes possible, is disappointed through the instrumentality of a sweet young girl who is dear to the two would-be avengers. In con- nection with these two there is one peculiarity to be noticed, which is that inasmuch as they are both represented as being • (1) An Old Man's Favour. By the Author of "Dr. Edith Romuw." London : Bentley and Son —(1) Born in the Purple. By Maxwell Fox. London : Hurst and Blaekett.—(5 ) Dudley. By Curtis Yorke. London : Tam] and Bons.
good and virtuous sort of individuals, and as there is not the slightest indication of their having been atheists, it strikes one as a little odd that they should have been able to go on cherishing the evil passion of revenge for years, without once (so far as we are told) being checked by religious considerations. But though this omission certainly does give rise to a faint sense of incongruity, yet the blemish is much too trifling to prevent our recommending the book cordially as a fresh, clever, and amusing novel. Successful as it is, however, there is yet one respect in regard to which we rather fancy that the author has failed to attain his mark. It seems likely that he may have intended to inculcate the moral that a strongly marked talent of any kind is a trust which its owner ought to consider before everything else; and that people who are so endowed are guilty of a sort of disloyalty in allowing anything to interfere with their devoting themselves entirely to the cultivation of the talent in question. But if that be indeed the intention, we doubt its having been so executed as to ensure success ; for we suspect that the majority of readers will judge Wilfrid to have acted wisely in his choice between the musical and business careers offered to him, instead of disapproving of it, as the writer seems inclined to do. Money- making and bread-winning are not altogether the same things ; and in Wilfrid's case, be had to think not only of himself, but also of the mother and sisters who were partially dependent on him.
From a story wherein the leading idea is vengeance, we turn to one wherein it is worldly greed ; from a writer who studies human nature at the fountain-head, to one who appears con- tented to take it at second-hand; and from a book whose tone is natural, to one pervaded by exaggeration and unreality. By the end of the first chapter of Born in the Purple, we had melancholy forebodings as to the amount of originality and freshness likely to be discoverable in the succeeding pages ; and these forebodings proved true, for it is a conventional three- volume novel which appears to have resulted solely from perusal of other works of a similar nature, and is peopled with hackneyed types of character, studied not from life, but from fiction. The following rough outline of the contents will serve to justify the above criticism :—The hero, Egbert, "a graceful, stalwart fellow, with the straight facial lines, the perfect lips and chin, of a marble Greek divinity ; curling fair hair, and blue beautiful eyes, gave brilliancy to the classic, proud face," is the well-known young man of good family, indolent and impecunious, who is in danger of losing his ancestral estates to the equally well.known, rich, grasping lawyer, to whom they are mortgaged. As the lawyer is a social nobody with an only daughter for whom he has ambitions views, his offering to free the property on condition of the young people's marrying one another, is so obviously a matter of course, that to men- tion it seems almost an insult to the reader's understanding. The daughter, Fedora, has a massive chin whose size is so much insisted on as to indicate clearly the unlikelihood of her acquiescing in any arrangement which does not meet with her own approval; but as Egbert is "as handsome as a sun- god," he has captivated her without an effort, and she ardently desires the proposed match. And though her tender feelings are not reciprocated, inasmuch as he objects strongly to her, and is desperately in love with a siren of an actress, yet he has too keen an eye to the main chance to let any sentimental nonsense interfere with his prospects of wealth, and even manages to feel quite kindly towards the hated Fedora when regarding her as an embodiment of legal deeds removing the encumbrances from his property. Thus there is no difficulty about the engagement. But immediately afterwards the state of things is altered suddenly by the introduction of a diabolical and handsome Frenchman, with eyes capable of a lurid and sinister light, who has astonishing gifts as a mesmerist and violinist, and who persuades Fedora that he is her husband, demanding hash-money to keep the relationship a secret. The engagement to Egbert being broken off in the ensuing com- plications, the precious family estates are once more im- perilled, and the task of redeeming them by a wealthy marriage devolves upon his sister, the heroine, who is no less marvellously beautiful than himself, and who obligingly engages herself as required,—though not, of course, without many protests, and speeches of the kind proper to heroines so circumstanced, about being sacrificed for gold, sold like a slave in the Cairo slave- market, hating and scorning herself, Lkc. There are three candi- dates for her hand, all three of whom are as wanting in originality and as familiar to novel-readers as are the rest of the dramatis personae. One is a stupid, tipsy, rich, young lout of a baronet ; another, a clever, inscrutable, polished, still richer young noble- man ; and the third, a talented young man of low birth, a carpenter who exhibits pictures at the Academy, is the guest of Duchesses, and " bares a nobly cast head" when he takes off his hat. Diamonds glistening like dew, costly silks and satins, velvet-pile carpets, beautiful costumes and furniture, figure as matters of every-day life ; and things in general are done with a regardlessness of expense which, when considered not as the exception but the rule, is only to be found in the realms—(would it be more appropriate to omit the fourth letter of the word ?)— of fiction. The utmost we can conscientiously say in favour of the book is that there is no harm in it, and that, though trash, it is yet not absolutely unreadable. By-the-bye, the author may like to know that Adam's mythical wife is commonly called Lilith, not Sileth.
In Dudley, the course of true love sets off running as smoothly as could be wished, and continues to do so for about a third of the book, when it changes its mind suddenly, and takes to behaving in the proverbial manner. The cause of the change is the extraordinary folly of the heroine in selecting the very inopportune occasion of her fiancé's loss of fortune to yield to an impulse of sublime self-abnegation prompting her to break off her engagement,—an act which, at such a moment, could hardly expect to escape misconstruction under any circum- stances, and more especially when she said nothing of her real motive to any one, but kept it locked within the recesses of her own bosom. After distinguishing herself thus, she and her lover proceed to exemplify with provoking perversity the old adage, "He that will not when he may, when he will he shall have nay ;" for whenever she condescends to make an advance, he is irresponsive ; and whenever he is in a humour for reconcilia- tion, she is sure to be otherwise minded. And by dint of this and misunderstandings, they are kept apart until it is necessary for them to be brought together in time for the curtain to fall upon a happy tableau. The story does not lack movement, but there is no attempt at plot. We cannot say we found it very entertaining.
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