TWO ON A TOWER.* As a general rule, we hold
a reviewer is scarcely justified in revealing the purport of any work of fiction upon which he writes. His opinion should be given in such a way as not to destroy the interest of the book for those who read it subse- quently to his criticism ; in fact, the author 'should be left to -tell his story himself, and not have it compressed into half-a- dozen sentences. But there are exceptions to this, as to all other rules, and we intend to make an exception here. Mr. Hardy is an author who has given us, as he has given most of his readers, great pleasure in several of his books. His fiction is distinguished by an originality and a power which remove him from the ordinary herd of novel-writers, and in his best works he bestows an amount of at- tention upon the subordinate characters and the local surroundings of his tales such as we can scarcely parallel amongst living writers. Without entering into any description of his general merits, of which we have often spoken, and which are, by this time, quite familiar to most of our readers, we say at once that, in return for much pleasant reading at his hands, we consider the greatest kindness we can show him in the review of Two on a Tower is to tell its story in plain words. If that story so told should prevent any of Mr. Hardy's admirers from reading the book itself, we think the author will have every reason to be grateful to us.
Here, then, first of all, is the story :—The Lady Viviette Constantine is fair to see, and has an unkind and jealous husband, who indulges his jealousy • by going to Africa lion- hunting, and leaving her shut up in a lonely country house, pledged to go to no amusement ere he returns. The lady grows solitary and bored, not unnaturally, and for very lack of some- thing to do, ascends to the top of a tower, which stands in the midst of a ploughed field upon her estate. Arrived at the top of this monument, she discovers a youthful philosopher, with a Greek profile, a velvet skull-cap, and corn-coloured curls, study- ing the stars with an old-fashioned telescope. The Lady Viviette interests herself in this youth, gives him her confidence, a Ross's equatorial, and finally, herself; for, in the meantime, news has come that the lion-slaying husband has died of fever. The Greek astronomer, who is only twenty, and the Lady Viviette, who is eight-and-twenty, conceal their marriage, and visit one another in the most uncomfortable way, for no earthly reason, or at all events for none that Mr. Hardy can explain to us, when there -appears upon the scene a dens ex machina, in the shape of a brother who has failed in the diplomatic profession, and also a bishop, who, coming to confirm the villagers, falls in love with the supposed widow, Lady Viviette. Meantime, just before the marriage, a great-uncle of the youthful astronomer dies, leaving him £400 a year, on condition that he does not marry before he is twenty-five. Now follow complication upon complication.
The diplomatic brother, who is one of the most incompre- hensible idiots it has ever been our luck to come across, after laying various plans to detect his sister's love for the
astronomer, and failing in them all, disappears from the scene because she refuses to accept the bishop, who proposes to her by letter as soon as he has returned to the bosom of his diocese. At this moment the local solicitor appears, and'informs Lady Viviette that has' husband did not die when he was supposed to die,but a year later. Then Lady Viviette discovers that her young
* Tao on a Tower. By Thomas Hardy. London: Sampson Low and Co.
astronomer has forfeited the bachelor uncle's £400 a year in order to marry her. The state of matters now stands thui :-
Lady Viviette is a widow, not a wife, as her husband was alive when she married again ; the astronomer, who is now twenty- one, must disclose his marriage and abandon the £400 a year and re-marry Lady Viviette, or stick to the £400 a year and leave her to her fate. Of course, the lady takes the high-minded course (as she considers it) of refusing to allow her youthful lover to make her the wife legally, that she is morally, and conceals the episode altogether. And so the wife who is no wife, sends her husband who is no husband, away to the Cape, to discover stars and enjoy his £400 a year ; and soon after, discovering herself to be enceinte, marries the bishop, and palms off her child upon him as his own. To end the story, the bishop dies, the astronomer returns to marry Lady Viviette ; but when she hears his intention, she gives one shriek of joy, and falls dead in his arms. We may, of course, be quite wrong, but, in our opinion, this is a story as unpleasant as it is practically impossible. There is not, from beginning to end, a single gleam of probability in the plot, and what good end can be served by violating all natural motives in order to produce such unpleasant results we are at a loss to see. But it is not alone in the unpleasant character of the plot, and its forced and unnatural situations, that we think this book so unworthy of Mr. Hardy's reputation.
The manner of treatment is even more objectionable. Lady Viviette's passion for Swithin St. Cleeve, which is the main motive of the book, is a study which, in its mingling of passion, religion, and false self-sacrifice, appears to us to approach very near to the repulsive, and the more so, perhaps, for a certain peculiar reticence with which it is dwelt upon.
Lady Viviette herself is 'meant to be very nice, but is so self- contradictory as to lack all reality ; she is more of a
shadow at the end of the book than she is in the first chapter. The rest of the characters are the merest lay figures; and the rustics, to whose appearance Mr. Hardy has accustomed us, are but the palest shadows of those in Far from the _Madding Crowd, &c. That there are throughout the book many little touches delicately descriptive of Nature, and many flashes of quaint village wit, is only to say that it is by Mr. Hardy. He cannot help being impressive when he talks of natural scenery; and no writer has ever conveyed more subtly the silence of the country at night, and the weird suggestive- ness of little natural sounds of wind, or beast, or bird, when heard in the absence of human voices. But the book, as a whole, is bad,—the worst the author has written. So much we may say confidently. It is melodramatic without strength, extravagant without object, and objectionable without truth. We have spoken frankly our opinion of this book, for Mr. Hardy is one of those authors in whom it is not impossible that frank speaking may produce good results. Let us now, as some set-off to our unfavourable opinion of this latest work, quote the passage which describes the meeting of Swithin St.
Cleeve with Lady Viviette, on his return to England. It must be remembered that in the interval his early love has been wedded and widowed, and that St. Cleeve's purpose in returning to England is to marry her. He finds Lady Helmsdale (such is now her name) sitting at the top of the old tower, with her (and his) child at her feet.
" Viviette !' he said. 'Swithin !—at last !' she cried. The words died upon her lips, and from very faintness she bent her head. For, .instead of rushing forward to her, he had stood still ; and there appeared upon his face a look which there was no mistaking. Yes ; he was shocked at her worn and faded aspect. The image he had mentally carried out with him to the Cape he had brought home again as that of the woman he was now to rejoin. Bat another woman sat before him, and not the original Viviette. Her cheeks had lost for ever that firm contour which had been drawn by the vigorous hand of youth, and the masses of hair that were once darkness visible had become touched here and there by a faint grey haze, like the Via Lacted in a midnight sky. Yet to those who had eyes to understand as well as to see, the chastened pensiveness of her once handsome features re- vealed more promising material beneath than ever her youth had done. But Swithin was hopelessly her junior. Unhappily for her, he had now just arrived at an age whose canon of faith it is that the silly period of a woman's life is her only period of beauty. Viviette saw it all, and knew that time had at last brought about his revenge."
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