| | | | The author of the House of Elmore | has made a great mistake in giving his work the | form of a novel ~~ for which the subject is not in the least | degree fitted ~~ instead of that of a melodrama, in the | materials for which it is so rich. Put on the boards of some | "People's Theatre" in the far East of the metropolis, it | would have been sure to receive that instant welcome and | unanimous applause which it is more than problematical | whether it will meet with in its present guise. But perhaps, | after all, the writer has judged wisely ~~ he knew that | human nature can bear a larger amount of tragedy in a | novel than in an acted drama, and, out of kindness, has | spared his fellow men what would have been an almost | unbearable harrowing of their feelings. Or it may have | been the embarras de richesses | which obliged him to prefer the three-volume novel to the | five-act play; for his story certainly contains materials | enough for half-a-dozen most moving tragedies, and, in | these days of adaptation, we suspect that some playwright | will be found ere long taking advantage of them. With the | language he would have no trouble. He would find it ready | to his hand, marching, as it does, both in soliloquies and | conversations, with the genuine melodramatic tramp; | whilst the titles of some of the chapters ~~ such as "The | Evil Night," "The Waning Light of Home," "Fever | Visions," "Ambition's End," "Utter Darkness," "The Last | Sacrifice" ~~ printed in staring letters on the play-bill, | would produce a most telling effect. He would also find, | | strange mysteries and | wonderful disclosures, surprising tableaux and sudden | catastrophes, wherewith to keep the feelings of the | audience at such high-pressure pitch that there would be | no fear of their detecting the absurdity or improbability of | the situations. Of characters he would have enough and to | spare, and we think we cannot do better than select a few | of these for his consideration. To begin with beings of a | superior order ~~ there is | which the hero styles the | and of whom | he speaks, from time to time, in fashion like this: ~~ | | | | It would be almost impossible to exaggerate the sensation | which would be produced by this apparition, stalking ever | and anon across the stage, if properly got up and | judiciously managed. | Next in order come the heroines, of whom there are so | many that it is not easy to say to which of them the part of | prima donna ought to be | assigned. But we feel inclined, on the whole, to give it to | Mrs. Morton, a young and lovely widow, who has | | diminutive in stature, and | dressed sometimes in amber satin and sometimes in | | Very soon after the hero, Luke Elmore, has been | introduced to her, he suspects, from the manner in which | he hears her pacing up and down her bedroom, that she | has | But it is not until he has been married to her | for some years that he discovers this strong feeling to be | caused by her having fallen in love and married him, | knowing her first husband to be still alive ~~ Mr. Morton, | on his side, having entered into a connexion similar to | hers, with a wealthy widow in Sicily. Of course Mrs. | Elmore alias Mrs. Morton, dies | on the discovery by her second husband of the crime of | which she has been guilty. | Next to Mrs. Morton comes Mrs. Elmore's mother, of | whom we catch a glimpse in the opening chapter, where | we find her and her husband celebrating the eleventh | anniversary of their wedding-day ~~ which she, at any | rate, does in a very peculiar manner, by eloping, in the | midst of the festivities, and while the band is playing the | "Honeymoon waltz," with a gentleman, wrongly supposed | to be a Sir William Ashford, who had been a constant | visitor at the house, and of whom we hear nothing more | afterwards. Mrs. Elmore leaves, as legacies to her | husband, three sons, and one daughter resembling her | mother in more points than her beauty, according to her | father, who says, speaking of her to her brother ~~ | | | The young lady does not falsify her father's prediction; for, | on going to London at the season when, we are told by the | author, the town is | she becomes, | after being for some time the reigning belle, and going | through various adventures, the acknowledged mistress of | a | but otherwise decidedly unprepossessing. | Celia Silvernot and Miss Osborne being little more than | the antitheses of these ladies, we will pass them by, and | proceed to discuss the men, beginning with Mr. Elmore, | senior. After his wife's elopement, and his recovery from | the attack of madness which it had occasioned, he takes up | his abode in a gloomy house called the Rest, situated on | the sea-coast, and becomes a misanthrope. He devotes his | life to the education of his children, giving them, from | time to time, sundry pieces of information respecting their | mother; such as that | We suppose | they did mutter it; for he appears to be inspired with a | violent and inextinguishable hatred against them all, not | even excepting Gilbert, his eldest son and the | whom he styles | | At last, Mr. Elmore takes to | drinking, till he is seized by a fit of paralysis; after which, | his time seems to be principally occupied in | whilst they | Then he is seized with his | last illness, | and exit. | We have only space for one more character ~~ that of | Jacques Vaudon, the mystery man, who suddenly shows | himself to Mr. Elmore's son on the dreary seashore, not far | from the Rest, one winter's night, and saves Gilbert from | drowning. He is described as | furnished with | Mr. Jacques, on making his | appearance at the Rest as the rescuer of Gilbert, turns out | to be an old college friend of Mr. Elmore's, who, after | giving him as cordial a welcome as it is in the saturnine | nature to bestow, invites him to make the Rest his home | henceforth ~~ an offer which Vaudon is not slow to | accept. In the process of time, he manages to usurp the | place of master in the household, exercising an | unaccountable influence over Mr. Elmore, and doing all in | his power to undermine the morals of his children. Then it | is that Luke Elmore discovers, through his mother upon | whim he stumbles in a most surprising manner towards the | end of the third volume, that Jacques Vaudon, and not Sir | William Ashford, had been her seducer. Luke no sooner | learns this than he hastens to fulfil his father's dying | injunction to revenge his family's disgrace; but before he | puts an end to Vaudon's life, the miscreant makes his | dying speech and confession as follows: ~~ | | | We have left ourselves no room for a portrait of the hero, | or a sample of his adventures, or the manner in which he | became the cause of his brother Gilbert being made a | cripple for life, or the injustice done him by his father in | leaving him nothing but what he designates as the |

"mammon stigma"

of | 300 pounds a year. There are numerous | other characters, but those we have attempted delineate | will be sufficient to vindicate our opinion as to the | suitability of the story for a melodrama ~~ not the least of | its merits being the writer's noble disregard of good | English and of grammar. | We need scarcely say that it has not been without much | disgust, and at the cost of great self-denial, that we have | waded through these volumes; but we shall be amply | rewarded for our toil and our pains, if, through the | concentrated essence of the novel which we have | attempted to give, we have rendered its utter absurdity and | vulgarity more palpable to those who might not otherwise | have perceived the heights and depths of either. Such a | work as this would indeed be beneath criticism, were it not | that the simple fact of its being for a time

"the last new | novel"

will procure for it many a reader, who, if he had | been previously put on his guard, might haply have been | prevented from committing the sin of wasting a single | moment over the trash. We might almost suppose it to be | the production of one who had spent all his days in | solitary confinement doing nothing, and his evenings at | some sixth-rate theatre, under the delusion that the things | he saw acted there were true pictures of real life.