TWO " STUDIES " IN FICTION.* Tits two novels we
have bracketed together are, in some re- spects, as dissimilar as they well can be. Arthur Tregarthen, the tragedy of whose life Mr. Christie Murray tells in his new work, and Antoinette Raynor, the " misguidit lassie," intro- duced to us by the young lady—we say young lady, after due deliberation—who styles herself "Percy Ross," have each what the other wants, and so markedly, that a very skilful artist would have contrived to marry them as certainly as Mr. Hardy united the solid Oak to the skittish Bathsheba. It is, too, a very far cry from Mr. Murray's smoky literary Bohemia off ths Strand to the breezy High- land respectabilities amidst which Antoinette leads her im- pulsive German lover such a provoking dance. Yet both stories are essentially of the single-character kind. Both are full of promise, dashed with what is known, in the critical slang of the hour, as "dangerous tendencies." Mr. Murray has arrived at a critical stage in his career. His novitiate as a craftsman—and a very tenderly-treated novitiate it has been, in spite of his truculent remarks on reviewers—is over, and it is now for him to settle whether he is to pursue steadily his own road of vigorous realism, or to follow the multitude along the parade of literary affectation. By the Gate of the Sea has in it not a little of Mr. Murray at his best, but it also seems to show that he has a hankering after being somebody else than himself. "Percy Ross," on the other hand, is only beginning her novi- tiate; unless we are altogether mistaken, A Misguidit Lassie is a first work by a new and young hand. There may be no depth, moral or other, in it ; but there is biightness, quick perception of character, and a happy humour, ever so much better than the poor Thackeray-and-water of many modern novels which tries so often to pass, and is even sometimes mistaken, for depth. But there are also immaturities, and tendencies to burn incense before some of the false gods of present-day fiction. Criticism of both By the Gate of the Sea and A Misguidit Lassie, must, therefore, have an element of warning, if not of the didactic, in it.
Could Mr. Murray not have given us his Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark ; or could he not, at the least, have given the Prince enough of the strong sense of Benedick to pre- vent his brain being softened and his life being shipwrecked, as he himself says, by collision with a babble ? By the Gate of the Sea is not so strong a novel 83 Joseph's Coat or even Val Strange. But there are some admirably-drawn characters in it,—and then there are not too many of them. Ronald Marsh, the poet, verges, perhaps, on caricature ; the fur on his coat is, perhaps, a tritle too deep, and his hair is perhaps half an inch too long. But his develop- ment is well traced, and the final triumph of character over craze is sure to be eajoye I. Lorrimer, the vulgar, enter- prising, but warm-hearted theatrical manager of a quarter of a century before Mr. Irving awl Mr. Hollingshead, leaves nothing to be desired ; and we are disposed to forgive Miss Churchill the actress everything but her husband and the weak little sup- pressio veri which made her lose him. But Mr. Murray should not again give his readers such a poor imita- tion of Hamlet as the crack-brained Cornishman, Arthur Tregarthen, with his morbid fancies, his bits of green glass, his search after the philosopher's stone. The misunder- standing that separates him from his wife is altogether in- credible. Tregarthen's strong point, if he has any, is sincerity ; and yet we find him, at a critical moment in his life, professing a dislike for, and a disbelief in, actresses which he only half feels. Then we are asked to believe that courageous self-reliance is the back-bone of the character of Miss Farmer, whom Tregarthen marries, Why, then, has she not the courage to tell her lover that she has been for a short time on the stage, the more espe- cially as being there at all was a credit to her ? Last, and worst, the device of inserting in the letter Mrs. Tregarthen leaves behind her, when she deserts her husband, dubious language which is taken to mean that she has been guilty of something worse than concealing from him the most heroic episode in a career of self-sacrifice, is one worthy only of a third-rate artist. By the Gate of the Sea suggests, in short, the idea that Mr. Murray wished in writing it to prove that he can write tragedy as well as other people. But he cannot Like Mr. Black, be is at home among the humours and • Be thy Oafs of ilite Sea. By David Christie Murray. 2 vols. London : Chatto aid Windnr. 1883. A Miaguilit Lassie. By Percy Ron. London : Macmillan and C-3. 1883. happinesses of human life, and should do nothing more serious than welcome home discarded faith at the end of his last volume. Mr. Black does not intend to present his admirers with another Macleod of Dare or Madcap Violet—at all events, it is to be hoped so, for the sake of his own reputation—and so we trust Mr. Murray will not give us another Arthur Tregarthen. Two more words of warning. There is no humour, there is scarcely even the fun of the public-school boy, in describing an eminent writer on ethics as "the Reverend Mr. Paley." Mr. Murray would do well, further, to cork-up his self- consciousness ; certainly, he should not allow it to find vent in pugnacious prefaces and heavy-shotted dedications. There is nothing unnatural in his dedication of By the Gate of the Sea to Mr. Walter Besant, for there are scenes in it which remind one of the earlier works of the late firm of Besant and Rice. But why not dedicate it sans phrase ? Above all, why tell us once more that "Nature brings not back the mastodon, nor we those times "? The Mastodon is becoming as tiresome as the Silver Streak and the Upas Tree.
There are in A Misguidit Lassie, as we have already indicated, many crudities aud juvenilities. "Brave, tender Kingsley," is a boarding-school phrase. Moralisation is not a strong point with "Percy Ross," and fortunately she does not often give her readers information of this kind,—" A man is not necessarily what events make him ; some men of strong individuality dominate their and yet the circumstances of their sphere of action do act upon them, moulding and changing them in manner, if not in heart." "Kismet," by the way, is very nearly as much of a literary bore as "the mastodon." Childish impishness, no doubt, accomplishes some wonderful feats in the way of perverting language. But,—
" There is a dreadful hell below, I have been there, and still would go,"
has a manufactured and indeed rather low-comedy look. There is no plot, to speak of, in A Misguidit Lassie. Emil Rosenthal is surely too poor and boyish a character to capture such a fancy as Antoinette B,aynor's ; and Helen Sinclair, whose part in the story is only second to Antoinette's, indicates a want of Scotch pride, reticence, and "dourness," in spite of her magnanimity, in accepting a lover at second-hand with so little ado. On the other hand, many of the characters are altogether true to Scotch nature, such as the dull-witted but not ungentlemanly High- land laird, Gordon Caergnent, and poor, unpractical Aunt Ishbel, although we are not quite sure as to the particular catechism of the Free Kirk of Scotland which she prefers to the Church's. But the real, if not the sole attraction of this story is the English girl with French blood in her veins who gives the title to it. There is at least reality in her moods, her practical jokes, her philanthropies, and her miseries. A bright naivet6 is the essence of Antoinette's character and history ; and there is such an absence of it in current fiction, that any writer who presents us with even a little deserves encouragement. Some ten, or perhaps even five years hence, "Percy Ross" should write what Carlyle styles "a real book," provided that the bloom is not off the natural grace of her style by that time, or that no affectation has taken its place.
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