NEW NOVELS..
Too much Alone is an exceedingly suggestive phrase, and what it portends is admirably realized in the novel of which it is the title. It is a thoroughly good novel, both in conception and exe- cution and ought at once to secure for its author an honourable popularity among the subscribers to Mudie's. Among the rare combination of qualities which distinguish it from the majority of novels, even of the better class, is its downright reality, which yet does not preclude an infusion of ideal grace and savour into a story of domestic and professional life among the chemical fac- tories of the far East of London. The locality is not a favourite one with novelists ; at least, they seldom go to it except in search of frightful examples, or for topics upon which they may discourse fantastic philanthropy; but our author has with happier dis- cernment chosen as models for her principal figures some of the large-brained men who are toiling in that dingyregion in the pursuit of wealth through the development of science audits practical applications. She puts them living before us, in very flesh and blood, not a blotch or stain overlooked in their sorely ill-treated garments; she makes us familiar with their thoughts, their talk, and' their daily occupations ; and we wonder, as we follow her, to see with what a firm and sure step she moves about among furnaces and vats, and carboys and crucibles, and to hear her talk of ledgers, and profit and loss, and loans, and bills, and sales, and examinations in bankruptcy, as knowingly, and with as complete freedom from the affectation of knowledge, as any man on 'Change. Thus she succeeds marvellously in the very particu- lar in which most lady novelists break down; for, with all their keenness of insight, they cannot help blundering more or less ludi- crously when they venture to speak, as they too often do, about things which are far out of the range of their own observation. But the story is not at all about science and business; for, were it so, it would be, for all but men devoted to those pursuits, as dull as it is now pleasant and full of human interest. There is no ob- trusion of these matters upon the reader; they present themselves incidentally, and are spoken of with just sufficient precision to make it easily intelligible how they affect the outer and inner lives of those who work in them, and of those whose fates are linked to the workers'. Here are some acute remarks on. the class in general :—
"Business people rarely analyze their feelings, and still more rarely ex- press them in words, and it is, perhaps, for this very reason that they are the only class in the community who really and truly care to read about themselves. They like to have their feelings, causes of action, and modes of thought, put into words. A novel about business, about their hopes, joys, oys, and troub:es, throws a new mental light across the page of their life's history.; they find everything written there which. they have experienced in their own persons, but never dreamt of making a romance about. A good story is to one sort and set of men a translation of their own feelings to themselves. After a fashion, the author turns into poetry the monotonous prose of their existence, and he writes words to that low, sweet harmony which has, at times, thrilled every chord in their hearts with pleasure. The rich talk to the rich, and the poor talk to the poor—both pour out their feelings on the smallest provocation, like a deluge—they analyze their minutest sensation ; they know why they are • Too Mach Alone. By F. G. Trafford, Author of "The Moors and the Fens.' In three volumes. Published by Skeet. Netley Hall, or the Wife's Sister. Published by Smith, Elder, and Co. Mademoiselle Mori: a Tale of Modern Rome. In two volumes. Published by
Parker and Sou.
Bengala : or Some Time Ago. By Mrs. Vidal, Author of "Tales for the Bush," "Esther Merle," "Florence 'Templar," &c. Published by Parker andlon. sorry, and they know why they are glad; they can tell you wherefore they dislike this person, and are fond of that; but it is in the nature and essence of business to be secret concerning itself. Unless the wife of his bosom be a very model of prudence, the merchant dare not confide the state of his affairs to her. He will talk business over with a friend, but not his business ; for, if he be doing well, it is imperative he should keep his trade, his profits, and his connexions to himself' and, if he be doing ill, he must hold the know- ledge of his concerns all the tighter, in order to keep up an artificial credit, and be able to "pull through." If he have let his wife become cognizant of any important failure or great crisis in his fortunes, he lives in an agony lest she should inadvertently whisper the fact to her dearest neighbour— sister, perhaps, to his greatest rival or largest creditor he never can speak before his children lest they should repeat chance phrases to the ser- vants; and, at length, the habit of secrecy, which may have been, at first, irksome, becomes easy. A man acts, but says nothing ; feels, but hardly thinks about his feelings, until some writer, skilled in the mystic lore of human sensations_, writing of some imaginary individual, unveils the secrets of his own heart before him ; when he imagines that the portrait must have been drawn from actual life, and declares that the fellow talks as if he had been down him with a light."
Maurice Shim, a noble specimen of this class of men, has lived like a hermit in the counting-house and the laboratory up to the age of five-and-thirty, when to his great surprise he falls in love with a friendless orphan girl. Never man sighed truer breath than Maurice, and never was wife more worthy of love than his Lina ; but he leaves her "too much alone," and deprives her of a wife's dearest privilege, that of sympathizing with all her hus- band's toils, and hopes, and cares.
"There was nothing money could buy he would have grudged to her or the boy. Nothing on earth would have been too good or too beautiful for Line. When she became associated with his plans, it was always as a par- ticipator in the wealth they were to yield ; for he could not see, poor blind fool that he was, that even in the midst of their present competence, his wife was hungering and thirsting, not for gold nor silver, not for grander furniture nor handsomer dress, not for more servants to command, nor more money to spend, but for love and companionship. Mentally the woman was starving, for the only food she had ever had presented to her, though tempting, was poison, and she felt afraid to touch it. As well she might, for setting aside all other things—never to speak of the loss she was sure to gain eventually—she knew there was not in England so .leal and loyal a heart as that which beat in the breast of the man she had vowed to love unto death. Passing over his one error of judgment, an undue absorption to a pursuit which had for years stood him in the stead of dearer and better ties, there was not a man in the whole earth from whom it would have been a a greater crime to swerve in thought or deed, in honour or in law, than Maurice Stern. The man was blind, he wanted a sense, he had no eyesight, and no human being, nothing but the oculists, time, experience, and mis- fortune, could benefit his case."
Our readers would not thank us for further disclosing the tenor of a story which is far too good to be read by deputy.
Netley Sall, or the Wife's Sister' is neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring ; it is a cross between a novel and a pam- phlet. Its narrative part begins with a show of building materials and arrangements which seem to foretoken nothing less than a three volume edifice ; but very little comes of these elaborate preparations. The plot dwindles down to the most meagre pro- portions, and the story serves only as a clumsy framework for the pamphlet, which is fitted into it in this wise. A gamekeeper wants to marry the sister of his deceased wife, but the vicar of the parish refuses to publish the banns, and does so with reluctance, having strong doubts of the justice of the law he obeys. The matter is warmly taken up by the widower's master, and he, the vicar, and a lawyer, form themselves into a conimittee of inquiry on the principle of Lord Lyndhiust's Act, and discuss it in several sittings with a great amount of research, and considerable force of argument. The result is that the law is condemned in all its re- lations—scriptural, ecclesiastical, legal, utilitarian, moral, and sentimental ; and Scotland being exempt from its operation, the gamekeeper and his sister-in-law are sent thither to be married. Finally, the gamekeeper's master himself becomes a widower, and proves the sincerity of his convictions, by doing in his own case what he had sanctioned in that of his dependent. We have fairly sketched the programme of the work, and it certainly is not a tempting one for novel readers ; to those however, who are specially interested in the marriage law controversy, Netley Hall may be safely recommended as containing an able digest of the whole body of argument on one side of the question.
The author of Mademoiselle Mori. has seen with her own eyes the oppression endured by the modem Romans ; she sympathizes with their patriotic aspirations, and does not despair of their ful- filment; for living among these men, and knowing how they have dared and suffered, she sees them "ready to dare and suffer again, if so they may purchase liberty." Therefore it is that she has written this story of Roman life during the period which closed with the siege and capture of the city, in the hope—no vain one, we feel assured—that its Rental -will inspire others with some portion of that generous interest with which she herself looks back upon the heroic struggles, and forward to the future fortunes of the' much suffering Roman people. The framework of the story is well adapted to the purpose in view, for it enables the author to deal largely with the facts of public history, and to blend them in a natural and effective manner with the private history of her dramatis personte. The work is distinguished throughout by the freedom and grace of its language, and in its more stirring scenes by the force and vividness with which they are portrayed. It may stand securely upon its intrinsic merits but it has yet another claim to favour for the promise it gives' if, as we have reason to infer, it be the author's first effort in fiction.
It is much to be regretted that the author of Bengala did not score out a good half of her manuscript before she sent it to press. After the removal of so much rubbish, there would have remained a very pleasant series of sketches of pastoral life in Australia, as it used to be twenty years ago. But she has chosen to turn her sketch-book into a novel by the interpolation of a most tedious and hobbling course of love-making, and few will have patience to read it, though the feat may be accomplished pleasantly enough by those who are skilled in the art of skipping.
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