FAR AWAY AND LONG AGO.*
ANY book written by the author of _Records of a Girlhood must have a claim to the respectful attention of critics, and • Far Away and Long Ago. By Franeee Anne Kemble. London : IL Bentley
and Bon. 1e89. •
we confess, almost in spite of ourselves, that we find a great deal to admire in Far Away and Lang Ago. It is a story almost entirely without everything that usually makes a story attractive. The style is stately—one might almost say Johnsonian, for the thought of Rasselas flashes into the mind as we read—the characters, except perhaps Judge Selbourne and his wife, are quite devoid of that which is usually called
"charm." They are studied entirely from the outside, and drawn in strong, dark lines, with an immense amount of description. The book might, in fact, be called a narrative rather than that lightly touched modern thing, a story. And there is little to redeem all this sternness in the narrative itself, which is dark and tragical, painful, and repulsive in character. We are inclined to think that it must, indeed, as the introduction seems to say, be a story of real life, a tradition handed down in the wild, adventurous history of some American village ; for the tragedy is too bare, too savage, too unnecessary, too gruesome and horrid in its details, to be invented by any civilised mind, certainly by a mind so culti- vated, so refined and artistic, as that of the author of the book.
But taking it as a true story—truth, as police reports teach us, being often more horrible as well as more strange than fiction—it is a wonderfully written chronicle of a certain period in the history of this Massachusetts village. The kind of country is brought vividly before us,—mountain, valley, and forest, charcoal-burners' smoke stealing up among the great masses of trees, iron-furnaces, hill-sides white and rosy with kalmia-blossom, emerald meadows, black swamps, summer thunderstorms and winter snow, the village, with its wooden houses and strangely mixed population, American,
English, Irish, the mystery of a former race still lingering on in the Indian Mumbett's cottage. She, witch-like though harmless, is a very powerful study, actually a curse to those to whom she meant to be kind, and the innocent cause of all
their terrible trouble. Judge Selbourne, the chief person in the village, with his charity towards all men, is certainly the pleasantest character in the book, and his talks with Pat O'Flaherty and with Mrs. Selbourne, make the most agree- able pages ; his religious talks, with the Doctor or with the new Revivalist minister, Caleb Killigrew, we do not like so well. In fact, the whole of the religious talk is somewhat painful, though we have no doubt it is a faithful report of what was to be heard in those days in such villages as Green- ville, and in a country where such experiences as the following were not very uncommon :—
" Soon after Mrs. Selbourne came to her home in Greenville, one day when her husband was absent, she answered herself a knock at the door, and was rather surprised at the immediate entrance of two men, whose dusty and heated appearance indicated travelling on foot in the public road at noonday. Of course, any demand for charity was not to be dreamed of, that being altogether impossible in the rural New England of those days ; so, ushering her unknown visitors into her parlour, she asked them what their business might be, and if, in the Judge's absence, she could be of any use to them. One of them, with constant repetition of the last words of his sentences by the other, then explained that they were engaged in a religious work, having undertaken a journey on foot for the purpose of calling as they went along at the various houses they passed, to pray, and praise God with their inmates ; to exhort, to arouse, to awaken, and, in short, fulfil an Apostolic duty of Christian wayfaring through the district. They deplored the absence of the Judge, but thought the Judge's wife might benefit by their zeal ; and giving one another a preparatory glance and push, simultaneously uplifted their voices in a Methodist hymn which prolonged itself through five verses, at the conclusion of which one after another put up prayers and petitions of considerable length and fervour, and then pre- pared to take their departure, having fulfilled their edifying mission. Mrs. Selbourne begged them to stay a moment, and hurrying from the room, returned presently, followed by a servant with cake and wine on a tray, of which she begged them to partake, thanking them at the same time for their call, of the kind motive of which she expressed herself convinced. The peripatetic preachers and teachers very readily accepted the welcome refresh- ment, and departed, leaving the provider of it not, perhaps, much edified, but not much surprised either, at an incident which was quite in accordance with the religious spirit and manners of the We do not give this extract as a specimen of the style of the book, which would be quite unfair, but because it seems to have that curious ring of truth and personal experience which we find all through, but more strongly in some places than in others. The most striking and the saddest figure is, of course, the unfortunate Mary Morrison, the daughter of the English- man who, after long work and patience, has emigrated to Greenville, and there is sacrificed to the unhealthy neighbour- hood of the swamp he has to pass to his daily work, as she, poor girl, is sacrificed to her mother's puritanism, the ignorance and superstition of the Indian, Mumbett, the brutality of Killigrew, and the tragical stupidity of William Norris, with its awful consequence. There are, of course, people over whom some malign fate seems to hover from birth to death; but we do not think, as we said before, that an artistic writer would draw a character all shade, a young and beautiful girl without one moment's happiness. Mary's history is too painful not to be true ; the horrible accident which ends it could hardly have been invented ; and we feel sure that Mary was the true heroine of a dark story handed down in some New England village, heard, remembered, and now written down for us by one to whom these legends, of which she knows the frame in Nature, are probably a favourite study. We cannot exactly say that we like Far Away and Long Agog but there can be no doubt that it is a powerful story, power- fully told, and a very strong contrast, in its straightforward dignity of tone and style, to the ordinary story of the present day.
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