WEE WIFIE.* Axrrurso more incongruous than the title and the
tale—more widely different than the story told and the story that, with such a title, every one had a right to expect—it is impossible to conceive. Of course, Wee TVifie ought to have been a snug tale of domestic
" crush her lip on the baby face," and another lady crushes her hands together in a vice and throws them angrily away," while at another time '6 a smile more desolate than tears seemed to carve her lip into stone," verily a magic smile indeed, the action of which we cannot even conceive, though to carve out of with a spiritual, fragile shepherd of souls, whose wee wifie cheered, stone or turn into stone are ideas not altogether new to us ; a supported, and encouraged him through his arduous labours, and drink of milk is " a delicious draught, nectar and ambrosia both," saved him from the consequences of his credulous, unworldly love is " a rare life-idyll," a brother says to his sister, " Tell her simple-mindedness. And a midnight christening beyond the that I, Raby, will seek her ;" and the lady sends a message back, snow-clad hills might have been substituted for the less dignified " Tell him, tell Raby," and she addresses the sister-messenger as avocations of the humbler shepherd and his faithful Rover. But " Ah, sweet, my own !" and Sir Hugh exclaims to his bride, for even in this case we ought still to have had our fires and kettles, no particular reason, as they arrive at their own door, " Hush, and, as a make-weight to the sombre heaviness of the clerical birdie, hush ! for this is, 0 God ! I know it is, home !" But cloth, the luxuries of crimson curtains, and a sofa wheeled round there is no end to the stage expressions and picturesque adjectives to the fire, should have been thrown in. Whether we ourselves that abound in this high-flown novel, and which, though meant care much for these comfortable little Christmas stories or not, we to be forcible and expressive, terribly overshoot the mark, and, demand, in common justice to those who do, that when they send added to the would-be tragic incidents of the book, produce the little maid-of-all-work to the circulating-library for them, a highly melodramatic effect probably not at all contem- they shall not have sent back to them instead, a gorgeous fairy plated by their authoress. We say " would-be " tragic tale of halls and palaces, unhappy princesses hiding from cruel events, but we do not wish to be ranked with accomplices of fathers and husbands, and blind majestic knights groping sadly fathers disowning their children, or of sons leaving their mothers through the world to restore them to happiness and their rights. to toil, or of husbands neglecting their wives, or of wives flying This is something very like what we get in Wee TVifie. It reads like from their husbands ; all these things we have as righteous a a pantomime in print, without the fun. For interiors, we have halls horror of as other men, and the present writer can call respectable scented with " sleepy warm flowers " that " get into the head like witnesses to character in mitigation of the authoress's sentence. wine," guarded, or rather unguarded, by careless sentinels nodding These things are tragic enough, certainly, but in llree IlVe they at their posts, while the palace-door stands open, and the good are so managed as to make us feel that the dramatis personx are fairy steals in ; and " marble vestibules " and " staircases of all playing at tragedy for the excitement of the thing, and that, twisted gold," and " velvet carpets " and " crimson-coloured therefore—for perfectly inadequate reasons—they are severally galleries." Then we have gray, moss-covered country seats, into falling upon their own swords ; they love either a grievance or the which we are ushered through lines of servants with the gray- dignity of martyrdom, unconscious that self-martyrdom becomes haired steward at their head, and so to oak-panelled rooms, almost amusing to the spectator if the cause be not in truth a dimly lighted with wax candles in silver sconces,—old family great and sufficient one.
portraits frowning from the walls ; and to vast bed-chambers, A sketch of the story will explain our meaning. Mr. with their deep shadows and quaintly-carved heavy furniture, Huntingdon, a merchant prince, disowns. his only daughter warmed with blazing pine knots; and to old armouries, and to because she elopes with one of his clerks, though said clerk is boudoirs of inconceivable luxury. For scenery, we have wild a gentleman, and has sustained injury and risked life in saving coasts, "the sea dipping on the land with long slow lips of that of his employer ; this is the cause of, say, one-fifth of the waves," and perfect village greens and rural inns, and "sylvan misery described in the novel. The scene of the other division of lawns" and "giant oaks" ; the necessary London street scene is the story is in the country, where Margaret refuses Sir Hugh, and not omitted ; and finally, we have a Highland glen and a water- brings herself and him to grief, because Sir Hugh's father has fall, where the curtain also falls over a reconciliation scene, with laid a perfectly meaningless curse—the cause of which is not a Fay sitting on a "mossy log," and a figure "like a king" and a explained—on his son if he marry a Ferrers ; from this conduct child "like a white blossom" amongst the trees behind. For results, say, the second fifth of the misery. To make matters princesses and fairies, we have no end of beautiful ladies rejoicing worse, Sir lIugh, mad with love for Margaret, rushes at once into in the names of Nea and Fay, and Fern and Fluff, and Crystal marriage with Fay (the Wee Wifie), and the authoress, after and Evelyn ; for princes, the "tall and noble-looking" Sir Hugh remarking, "true, it was his own mad act that forged for Redmond, of "stately presence," and Erie Huntingdon, of "hand- himself the life-long fetters that he loathed," asks us to "pause some face" and "beguiling tongue"; for presiding genii, the blind to consider whether Hugh Redmond is the only man who has and saint-like Raby Ferrers, the "grand-looking man," with the sinned with an error of judgment "; surely she must have slept "firm and gentle" mouth, and his sister Margaret, with serious between writing the first part of the paragraph and the second, eyes and dead-brown hair," "who, from the depths of a noble and for who that remembered calling an act " mad would immediately selfless nature, looked out upon the world with mild eyes of speak of it as an error of judgment? whichever it was, we may trace charity." A handsome fiend is provided, also a relentless father, a third fifth to this source. Sir Hugh soon tires of his baby wife, at Arabian steeds, noble St. Bernards, and all necessary accessories, which we are not surprised, when we learn that on their wedding
And the interest of the novel very little exceeds that of a fairy trip she begs her husband, in all seriousness, not to call her "Wee story or modern pantomime, with its exquisite "get-up," and is 1Vifie" (which sensible proposal—apart from the reason offered—we rendered tedious by that old-fashioned blunder, so destructive of should have had very great pleasure in seconding), because a book, artistic effect, long personal narratives, of which we have no less called "The Polite Match-Maker," which she has been reading than two, each extending over several chapters. with a view to comprehending a wife's position, says that the most The style is ambitious and artificial to the last degree, and takes correct and polite form of address is "honoured wife," or " dearest away what little sense of reality might attach to a tale so romantic madam." The unhappiness which follows is the only part of the and unlikely. One marked characteristic is the appeals to the reader story told with a fair faithfulness to nature, though this, too, is by the authoress, and the confessions, retrospections, &c., conse- disfigured with affectations of style and exaggerations, as when quent upon her admiration for and belief in the creations of her Sir Hugh works so hard on his estates, in his desire to forget his own genius; we cannot help feeling impatient when we are im- troubles, that his favourite horse drops down dead after a heavy
plored to be lenient to this gentleman, and desired to look well day's work. At length Fay discovers a fragment of a letter from at that lady, though we have not been led to care a rush which she erroneously gathers that her husband is absenting him.
whether the gentleman has extenuating circumstances to plead, or self because he cannot bear to live with her ; wherefore she deter- the lady's name "is Fay" and her "face full of dimplements mines, without as much sense as generally appertains to a very little and prettinesses." Word-pictures abound of much ambition, school-girl, "to try hard to be lost," and succeeds; and this pro- but showing more appreciation of beauty than ability to vides the clue to the cause of the fourth fifth of misery. There is leave its impress on the reader, for one is inclined to smile another story going on by the side of those of Mr. Huntingdon at the attempts after effect, instead of letting the mind rest and his family, and of Margaret, and Sir Hugh, and Fay—all on the scenes described : we read of "scented darkness," three slightly interwoven—and we agree with the opening of the of "red and yellow rain," of the "sun-steeped blackness of the seventeenth chapter of the first volume, where it is written that south," of "the buoyancy of salt spray in the air." Forget-me- "it really seems as if the story were becoming hopelessly involved."
note are "rippling blue stars," birds are " birdlings," waggons Crystal—so named, we conclude, by way of contrast, because her are " corn-wains," waggoners are "jocund," pails are "bur- character and conduct are shrouded till the very close in hopeless nished," petticoats are " linsey," people are "wed." A baby darkness—appears at the opening of the novel as a marvellously crows in "an ecstasy of gurgling;" a mother is accustomed to interesting, mysterious and beautiful vagabond ; later on she also
joys, chequered, if need be, with homely sorrows; say of a sturdy shepherd coming home through the snow, cold and hungry, but healthy and happy ; chubby children, blazing logs, simmering kettles, lattice windows ; all these we have a right to demand since Dickens wrote about Dot ; or we might have been contented
" crush her lip on the baby face," and another lady crushes her hands together in a vice and throws them angrily away," while at another time '6 a smile more desolate than tears seemed to carve her lip into stone," verily a magic smile indeed, the action of which we cannot even conceive, though to carve out of with a spiritual, fragile shepherd of souls, whose wee wifie cheered, stone or turn into stone are ideas not altogether new to us ; a supported, and encouraged him through his arduous labours, and drink of milk is " a delicious draught, nectar and ambrosia both," saved him from the consequences of his credulous, unworldly love is " a rare life-idyll," a brother says to his sister, " Tell her simple-mindedness. And a midnight christening beyond the that I, Raby, will seek her ;" and the lady sends a message back, snow-clad hills might have been substituted for the less dignified " Tell him, tell Raby," and she addresses the sister-messenger as avocations of the humbler shepherd and his faithful Rover. But " Ah, sweet, my own !" and Sir Hugh exclaims to his bride, for even in this case we ought still to have had our fires and kettles, no particular reason, as they arrive at their own door, " Hush, and, as a make-weight to the sombre heaviness of the clerical birdie, hush ! for this is, 0 God ! I know it is, home !" But cloth, the luxuries of crimson curtains, and a sofa wheeled round there is no end to the stage expressions and picturesque adjectives to the fire, should have been thrown in. Whether we ourselves that abound in this high-flown novel, and which, though meant care much for these comfortable little Christmas stories or not, we to be forcible and expressive, terribly overshoot the mark, and, demand, in common justice to those who do, that when they send added to the would-be tragic incidents of the book, produce the little maid-of-all-work to the circulating-library for them, a highly melodramatic effect probably not at all contem- they shall not have sent back to them instead, a gorgeous fairy plated by their authoress. We say " would-be " tragic tale of halls and palaces, unhappy princesses hiding from cruel events, but we do not wish to be ranked with accomplices of fathers and husbands, and blind majestic knights groping sadly fathers disowning their children, or of sons leaving their mothers through the world to restore them to happiness and their rights. to toil, or of husbands neglecting their wives, or of wives flying This is something very like what we get in Wee TVifie. It reads like from their husbands ; all these things we have as righteous a a pantomime in print, without the fun. For interiors, we have halls horror of as other men, and the present writer can call respectable scented with " sleepy warm flowers " that " get into the head like witnesses to character in mitigation of the authoress's sentence. wine," guarded, or rather unguarded, by careless sentinels nodding These things are tragic enough, certainly, but in llree IlVe they at their posts, while the palace-door stands open, and the good are so managed as to make us feel that the dramatis personx are fairy steals in ; and " marble vestibules " and " staircases of all playing at tragedy for the excitement of the thing, and that, twisted gold," and " velvet carpets " and " crimson-coloured therefore—for perfectly inadequate reasons—they are severally galleries." Then we have gray, moss-covered country seats, into falling upon their own swords ; they love either a grievance or the which we are ushered through lines of servants with the gray- dignity of martyrdom, unconscious that self-martyrdom becomes haired steward at their head, and so to oak-panelled rooms, almost amusing to the spectator if the cause be not in truth a dimly lighted with wax candles in silver sconces,—old family great and sufficient one.
portraits frowning from the walls ; and to vast bed-chambers, A sketch of the story will explain our meaning. Mr. with their deep shadows and quaintly-carved heavy furniture, Huntingdon, a merchant prince, disowns. his only daughter warmed with blazing pine knots; and to old armouries, and to because she elopes with one of his clerks, though said clerk is boudoirs of inconceivable luxury. For scenery, we have wild a gentleman, and has sustained injury and risked life in saving coasts, "the sea dipping on the land with long slow lips of that of his employer ; this is the cause of, say, one-fifth of the waves," and perfect village greens and rural inns, and "sylvan misery described in the novel. The scene of the other division of lawns" and "giant oaks" ; the necessary London street scene is the story is in the country, where Margaret refuses Sir Hugh, and not omitted ; and finally, we have a Highland glen and a water- brings herself and him to grief, because Sir Hugh's father has fall, where the curtain also falls over a reconciliation scene, with laid a perfectly meaningless curse—the cause of which is not a Fay sitting on a "mossy log," and a figure "like a king" and a explained—on his son if he marry a Ferrers ; from this conduct child "like a white blossom" amongst the trees behind. For results, say, the second fifth of the misery. To make matters princesses and fairies, we have no end of beautiful ladies rejoicing worse, Sir lIugh, mad with love for Margaret, rushes at once into in the names of Nea and Fay, and Fern and Fluff, and Crystal marriage with Fay (the Wee Wifie), and the authoress, after and Evelyn ; for princes, the "tall and noble-looking" Sir Hugh remarking, "true, it was his own mad act that forged for Redmond, of "stately presence," and Erie Huntingdon, of "hand- himself the life-long fetters that he loathed," asks us to "pause some face" and "beguiling tongue"; for presiding genii, the blind to consider whether Hugh Redmond is the only man who has and saint-like Raby Ferrers, the "grand-looking man," with the sinned with an error of judgment "; surely she must have slept "firm and gentle" mouth, and his sister Margaret, with serious between writing the first part of the paragraph and the second, eyes and dead-brown hair," "who, from the depths of a noble and for who that remembered calling an act " mad would immediately selfless nature, looked out upon the world with mild eyes of speak of it as an error of judgment? whichever it was, we may trace charity." A handsome fiend is provided, also a relentless father, a third fifth to this source. Sir Hugh soon tires of his baby wife, at Arabian steeds, noble St. Bernards, and all necessary accessories, which we are not surprised, when we learn that on their wedding
And the interest of the novel very little exceeds that of a fairy trip she begs her husband, in all seriousness, not to call her "Wee story or modern pantomime, with its exquisite "get-up," and is 1Vifie" (which sensible proposal—apart from the reason offered—we rendered tedious by that old-fashioned blunder, so destructive of should have had very great pleasure in seconding), because a book, artistic effect, long personal narratives, of which we have no less called "The Polite Match-Maker," which she has been reading than two, each extending over several chapters. with a view to comprehending a wife's position, says that the most The style is ambitious and artificial to the last degree, and takes correct and polite form of address is "honoured wife," or " dearest away what little sense of reality might attach to a tale so romantic madam." The unhappiness which follows is the only part of the and unlikely. One marked characteristic is the appeals to the reader story told with a fair faithfulness to nature, though this, too, is by the authoress, and the confessions, retrospections, &c., conse- disfigured with affectations of style and exaggerations, as when quent upon her admiration for and belief in the creations of her Sir Hugh works so hard on his estates, in his desire to forget his whether the gentleman has extenuating circumstances to plead, or self because he cannot bear to live with her ; wherefore she deter- leave its impress on the reader, for one is inclined to smile another story going on by the side of those of Mr. Huntingdon at the attempts after effect, instead of letting the mind rest and his family, and of Margaret, and Sir Hugh, and Fay—all on the scenes described : we read of "scented darkness," three slightly interwoven—and we agree with the opening of the
affirms "I am going to be lost too," and being lost, she leads her blind lover a cruel dance in search of her, and it is only at the end of the book, in the Highland glen, that we learn what her reason was,—namely, because in a girlish passion she had uninten- tionally been the means of depriving her lover of his eight; in this second determination to be lost, behold the explanation of the remaining fraction of misery. All, however, ends well, the hard- hearted old father and ne'er-do-weel grandson repent at the eleventh hour (or rather 11.59), and die respectively in a bed of down and in a watery grave ; the blind crystal-hunter is suc- cessful; Sir Hugh and Fay are reconciled ; and Margaret alone, of those for whom our sympathies are expected, is left without a heroine's proper consolation ; she comforts herself, however, by joining a High-Church sisterhood and working carpets for oratories. The book is not without good points ; any girl might read it,—if without advantage, at least without more harm than that of waste of time ; and it has fancy, though this wants much pruning; and force of expression, though unhappily without simplicity. The talents of the authoress lie more, we should say, in the direction of stilted poetry, than in that of prose fiction.
Previous page
