A PAIR OF NOVELS.*
Thelma derives its name from a girl whose character and cir- onmstances have enough points of resemblance to those of the • a.) Thelma. By Matte Coral. London Richard Bentley and Bon.— (2.) True to a Type. By R. Cleland. Edinburgh and London Blackwood and Bans.
heroine in the Princess of Thule, to warrant a suspicion that the author's thoughts must have been more or less influenced by Mr. Black's novel. Thelma cornea from a remote and little- known region in Norway, as Sheila did from Lewis ; then, again, Thelma's refinement and cultivation present a striking contrast to the rusticity and roughness of her surroundings ; she combines quaint simplicity and ignorance of the ways of the world with ample natural talent and capacity for shrewd observation ; she is distinguished by extreme docility and sweetness, as well as by moral strength and nobility of character ; and she, like Sheila, undergoes the fate of a wild flower rooted up and transplanted to a hot-bed, inasmuch as she is transferred by matrimony from her native wilds to the garden of " society," and made to exchange the joys of freedom for the constraints of an artificial state of existence. The hero, Sir Philip Errington, is yachting in Norway with three other young men, when he accidentally comes across an unknown damsel of matchless beauty, and falls in love with her on the spot. Having ascertained her place of abode, he follows her thither, and presents himself to her father, a polished, amiable sort of old Viking, whose social rank is that of a farmer, though by birth he claims descent from kings. Finding her virtues and charms in general to be as transcendent as her beauty, Sir Philip loses no time in wooing and winning Thelma, and then takes his bride home to England. Here their happiness would have been perfect but for the persevering machinations of spiteful enemies. And these at last contrive to bring about a misunderstanding so serious as to separate the devoted couple and produce considerable misery and heartburning,—though not more than can be remedied before the curtain falls. One of the moat curious features in the story, of which the above gives a rough outline, is the wayward unkindness with which the author treats her hero. At first, and during the greater part of the book, he is evidently a prime favourite, being handsome, rich, accomplished, honest, honourable, loveable, exemplary as lover, husband, and friend, and having no failings or wrong- doings laid to his charge. Bnt then, in the third volume, she seems to change, and get angry with him all of a sudden, without rhyme or reason, like a child in a pet with its doll, and to deter- mine that he shall be made responsible—whether deser vedly or not —for the misunderstanding which constitutes the book's culmi- nating disaster. The misunderstanding in question would not have occurred if he had betrayed a friend's confidence, and imparted to Thelma a private affair in no way concerning her, which the person who confided it to him particularly wished him not to reveal to her. So the author, in her sudden anxiety to throw blame upon him, first endeavours to deduce the moral that a man is bound to tell his wife everything that he knows—which in this case, be it observed, would have involved telling her a friend's secret that she had nothing to do with—and then, as if fearing lest this moral may not be so universally accepted as to ensure him the desired censure, Miss Corelli goes on to announce (much to the reader's surprise) that the mischief would not have happened but for Sir Philip's own conceit, though there has hitherto been no sign of his being addicted to that fault ! This seems to us not only hard upon an innocent man, but also an artistic mistake. For if a character in a novel has a defect which is destined to be an important factor in events in the third volume, then surely that defect ought to be made a little con- spicuous in previous pages, and not kept so far out of sight that its existence has never been even suspected.
Thelma is called "a society novel ;" this, however, seems rather a misnomer, seeing that more than half the book is descriptive of scenery and people in primitive parts of Norway, and that that is decidedly the best half, and has a vigour, fresh- ness, and vividness which are lacking to the other. Thelma herself, although endowed with over-many perfections, is interesting. So is her father, the impulsive, fearless, proud, old Viking, whose tendency to savage wildness is tempered by culture and genial kindliness, and for whom the weird burial of the Crimson Shroud seems a meet and appropriate termination. So, too, is the half-witted, affectionate, fiercely jealous Sigurd, with his preternatural keenness of intuition in relation to what- ever affects his love, and power of expressing his thoughts in fanciful metaphors worthy of a poet. But on turning from the Norwegian to the English characters, there is a dismal falling- off. The people are conventional and commonplace specimens of humanity, as studied in the novelette of a society paper ; and it seems doubtful whether the author has a sufficiently intimate knowledge of the details of English social life to qualify her for writing on the subject. For instance, as it is not customary amongst ladies and gentlemen—who are not Bohemians—to go calling upon an ordinary acquaintance late in the evening, after dinner, without special invitation, it seems odd that Sir Francis Lennox should have done this without any one (except the reader) being struck by the singularity of his proceeding. And, again, to descend to "high life below stairs," it seems to argue ignorance of the etiquette which prevails there to represent all Lord Wiusleigh's domestics lady's maid and footman included, as having supper together in the servants' hall ; for in large establishments like that of his lordship, the upper servants do not condescend to sup in the hall with the common herd, but retire to the aristocratic seclusion of the housekeeper's room,—an Elysium whose portals are flung open to a lady's maid, and refuse to admit a livery. Finally, the plot is decidedly weak, and the book would have gained in every way by compression into two volumes. And though it is not without cleverness, yet its merits are inferior, in our opinion, to those of the last work from the same pen, Vendetta !
If Thelma attempts more than it can perform satisfactorily, the case is reversed in the story now to be considered, whose under- taking is unpretentious, and the performance sufficiently good to provoke a half-regret that its aim was not more ambitions. True to a Type does not aspire to depict the sensational or sublime; its characters are not calculated to excite strong admiration, aver- sion, sympathy, or violent emotion of any kind, but it contents itself with being a light drawing-room comedy, which is made successful by the fidelity to nature and sense of humour of the writer. He (or should it be she I) is an observer and philosopher, quick to detect and analyse what passes through the minds of his fellow-creatures, and not moved very seriously by the follies which he perceives and satirises, and deems fitting rather for smiles than tears. And he takes care that though his people may be ridiculous, they shall yet none of them be destitute of brains, or incapable of an occasional shrewd remark like the subjoined sample, which is taken almost at random out of one of the conversations, and wherein is pithily expressed a most essential qualification for success in life :-
"It is not so much special talent that is wanted, for getting on, as entireness. A man must poor his whole self into the one groove, if he is to make a hit. The whole of a very ordinary fellow is more, yen see, and therefore surer to win, than part of one of your superior people dabbling in half-a-dozen,different pursuits."
The dramatis personas of the story are the guests at an American sea-side hotel, described as "a salad of humanity where the sweets, the sours, and the bitters find themselves in. new com- binations with one another, and united for a time in a sauce piquante of fresh air and idleness." And in relating how the living ingredients of this salad bathed in the surf, picnicked, squabbled, flirted, and displayed their various foibles whilst pursuing their respective ends, the author finds ample scope to delineate human nature in clever and amusing sketches (there is not enough in them to be called finished portraits) which give the impression of being drawn from life. Perhaps the gem of the collection is Mrs. Naylor. Shrewish, vain, selfish, interfering tyrannically with her daughter's love-affairs, petty and unamiable in every way, she at first inspires mere con- temptuous dislike; but before the end, that sentiment is moderated perforce by a sort of involuntary respect, in conse- quence of the talent and resource she shows in coping with a sudden emergency, and making dire defeat assume the appear- ance of almost triumph. The woman who distinguished herself as she did then, could not have been altogether despicable, one feels. Again, the " school-ma'am " and her fragment of old- young-lady's romance, half-ludicrous and half-pathetic, is deserving of special praise. And noteworthy, also, is the laugh- able, vulgar, old Scotchwoman, whose maternal fondness causes her to regard her conceited, solemn prig of a son as a very paragon of attraction and matrimonial eligibility, and gives her an unalterable and openly proclaimed conviction that no un- married young lady can possibly behold him without setting her cap at him. The book's greatest blemish is the episode from which it apparently takes its title, wherein a father and daughter who are utter strangers and ignorant of each other's existence, are brought together in the relation of engaged lovers. In itself, the idea of such a thing is repulsive; and besides that, the discovery of the real relationship between them is so purely accidental, that one has an uncomfortable shudder at the narrowness of the escape.
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