| | | | | It is well known that the chosen who sit under Lord | Panmure are remarkable, among other eminent qualities, | for an exquisite delicacy of discrimination. Theirs it is to | discern the delicate moral boundary which distinguishes a | tea-party from | | a dinner, and to understand why Shakspeare is innocent in a | square-room, recited by a gentleman in black cloth, and | profligate in a horse-shoe room, from the mouth of a | gentleman in maroon velvet. This nice perception is also | carried into literature. The naughty world reads novels ~~ | three-volume abominations, half-bound in roan; but the | saint reads only tales, nice little books, elegantly got up in | red cloth and one volume. Indeed, we are not sure that | these privileged works are not exempted from the pitiless | sweep of the fourth commandment, and allowed to take | their place by the side of gossip and dozing as a legitimate | Sabbath recreation. We, of course, are of the despised | Pariahs called

"the world,"

and therefore | naturally felt ambitious to enjoy for once the seraphic | characters, and the gentle incidents, which can innocently | thrill the pure hearts that would have been spotted by | Marryat or James. We longed to share the holy musings of | the saintly few who applaud a Shaftesbury and work | slippers for a Close. So we betook ourselves to one of the | most accredited publishers, and procured a little volume, | orthodox in size, binding, and title, and written by a lady | who has already edified the Evangelical world by her moral | lucubrations. And having, with much pain and grief, | mastered its contents, we will now try to introduce our | readers to the subjects of thought which an Evangelical | authoress thinks most suitable for the minds of English | maidens. | A Lady Lismore renounces her son on account of a | misalliance, and drives him and | his low-born wife to seek their fortunes in India ~~ being | cajoled into this severity by a lady named Bertha, who | wished to have married that son herself. The unhappy | couple both die in India. Their only child is sent home in | an Indiaman, which is wrecked on the shore of England, at | the very spot where Bertha happens to be living. The child | is saved, and is brought up to her cottage, whereupon she | immediately conceives the idea of murdering it. For the | child is heir of the Lismore estates; and if she murders it, it | will be easy for her to pass off one of her own children in | its place: ~~ | | However, her hand was stayed by a variety of interruptions, | one of which consisted in one of her own children ~~ she | had but two ~~ dying of the croup. The story then leaps | over a few years, and introduces us to Floreen, the central | character of the book. Floreen is the heiress of the Lismore | estates, on the supposition generally entertained, that the | child which was wrecked had died. She is a character | which the authoress evidently drew for a Jesuit novel, and | which she was obliged to turn to better account, because | Jesuit horrors were so flat in the market. She is, therefore, | made to do the part of the

"shocking example"

of | infidelity. She begins by reading Rochefoucault, for which | she is prosily lectured by Lady Lismore ~~ naturally takes | to Rousseau in consequence ~~ and ends, as the book | draws towards its catastrophe, by studying Voltaire. Her | eyes are

"glassy," "gleaming," "snakelike."

She | has

"snakelike hissings in her brain,"

and gives | vent, probably in consequence, to

"low hissing | laughs."

She is given to listening behind bushes to | other people's conversation ~~ a peculiarity, indeed, which | is shared by no less than four other characters in the book, | and appears to form, in Miss Lisle's opinion, a salient | feature in English country life. She is incessantly weaving | intricate webs of policy, which principally consist in trying | to make other people marry those they don't like, in order | that she may keep the heir to herself; and she spends her | life in practicing all those simple-minded | puses by which we have so often seen | the wily Jesuit ensnare the dovelike Protestant. The story | turns on her efforts to retain the Lismore estates, of which | she was for a long time thought to be the heiress, until one | day Bertha appeared with a boy and a girl ~~ the girl, Hilda, | being her own child, but the boy, Hugh, being, according to | her account, the child who was saved on the night of the | wreck, and who is, therefore, Lady Lismore's grandchild, | and heir to the property. At this announcement, Floreen | behaves as an individual with snakelike hissings in her | brain might be expected to do: ~~ | | She resolves, however, to retrieve her position by marrying | Hugh; but Hugh is perverse enough to fall in love with | Hilda. Nothing daunted, Floreen betakes herself to her | manoeuvres, which principally consist in bribing another | man with the promise of her own hand to make love to a | third man's lady-love, so as to pique him, the third man, | into courting Hilda, and detaching her from Hugh. | Accordingly, the authoress drags her readers through a long | tissue of coquettish intrigues, over which she gloats with a | gusto and a familiarity, strange in one of those to whom |

"the world"

is a subject of such avowed horror. | There are no less than four couples, embracing nearly all | the subsidiary characters of the book, who are incessantly | engaged in flirting, coquetting, proposing to, and jilting | each other. But Floreen's intrigues are all in vain. Hugh | will marry Hilda, and the wedding-day is fixed, when | suddenly Bertha, as soon as she hears the news, goes into a | delirium with horror, tells Hugh that he is her son, and dies | before she can say more. The natural conclusion to which | Hugh and Hilda come is that they are really brother and | sister, and were on the point of committing an incestuous | marriage of a most frightful nature. And here comes Miss | Lisle's strongest moral point. Just as Floreen is a shocking | example of the results of reading Rochefoucault in early | youth, so Hilda is the pattern young lady who harangues | the company by a page at a time on the doctrine of | justification by faith alone; and she has now reached what | the authoress looks upon as her culminating point of virtue. | Long and wearily does Miss Lisle dwell on the beauty of | Hilda's patience in resigning herself to the impossibility of | marrying her brother. Here, for instance, is the exordium | of a sermon on the general unreality of female affection: | ~~ | | But, in spite of this eulogium of her heroism, and in spite of | strenuous efforts, Hilda was not able to shake off the

| "unreasonable predilection,"

or, as we of the world | should call it, the incestuous attachment. Floreen's | manoeuvres succeeded so far, that Hilda was induced to | engage herself to somebody else; but neither her impending | marriage with him, nor the fact that the gratification of her | real wishes would have been, to the minds of most people, | too horrible to think of, had much effect on the feelings of | this Christian heroine. Her

"predilections"

were | still in a most unreasonable condition. Two days before her | wedding she is represented as remonstrating with herself in | the following resigned but not very hopeful spirit: ~~ | . And then she steals her hand within that of her future | husband, and

"feels almost happy."

Fortunately, | under these circumstances, a visitor from India makes his | appearance in the very nick of time, and changes the face of | affairs. It then comes out that Hugh, indeed, is the son of | Bertha, as she declared on her deathbed, but that Hilda is | the child who was saved from the wreck, and, consequently, | Lady Lismore's granddaughter. As soon as this discovery | comes to light, Hilda, with the utmost promptitude, breaks | off her marriage with her second lover, and at once | re-engages herself to Hugh. But Floreen, the disciple of | Voltaire, must of course come to a tragical end. Baulked | again of her expectation of wealth, she becomes desperate, | and resolves to poison Hilda; and for this purpose she steps | out one evening and buys arsenic at the neighbouring | village. Hugh, however, who hears that she is gone out, at | once suspects arsenic as the most natural thing in the world, | rushes to the village to verify his suspicions ~~ climbs up | the ivy to the window of Floreen's room ~~ watches her | hide the arsenic, and then changes it for white sugar. | Foiled in this endeavour, Floreen makes an attempt to | throttle Hilda, which Hilda obviates by the simple | expedient of screaming; and Floreen, detected in all her | crimes, disembarrasses herself of their results by going mad. | We think this is a failure of poetical justice on the | authoress's part. The disciple of Voltaire ought certainly to | have been hanged. | Now, as this little book was written for the edification of | youth, and is read, we presume, in holy seclusion, where | the wicked novel never penetrates, it may be instructive to | review the subjects on which Miss Anna Lisle wishes the | minds of Evangelical young ladies to dwell. To begin with | the lowest grade of criminality ~~ there are, first, four | young gentlemen and three young ladies perpetually flirting | in the most shameless way with people they do not intend | to marry. Then there are two young ladies and two young | gentlemen mutually detesting each other, and eventually | engaging themselves to each other, in fraud, or pique, or | despair. Then there are two women, young and well-born, | who attempt the most treacherous and ruthless kinds of | assassination. And lastly, there is the pure-minded young | heroine, whose bitter grief, blended with patient resignation | at not being able to form an incestuous connexion with her | brother, is the main interest of this chaste and touching plot. | Miss Anna Lisle is conversant with St. Paul, and doubtless | recollects a crime which was

"not so much as named | among the Gentiles;"

and yet the parties in that case | were only stepmother and stepson. But that which was not | so much as named among the Gentiles is thought, among | some religionists of the nineteenth century, it appears, a fit | subject for women to write on and women to read. To | dwell on, and invest with a sentimental halo, a vain longing | on a girl's part after an incestuous connexion with her | brother, as if it were a passion which is

"unreasonable" |

indeed, but rather a subject for pity than for reproof, | would doubtless conduce highly to the promotion of | domestic purity, and will be a valuable addition to the | day-dreams of young-lady readers. Fortunately, however, Miss | Lisle's style of composition ~~ a sort of hybrid between the | Newgate Calendar and one of Dr. | Cumming's sermons ~~ is not one to attract any but very | resolute students. It is a fortunate mental law that those | who have the power to attract do not, as a rule, care to grub | deep into the moral dungheap. It is only the feeblest and | the silliest who try to compound for their own insipidity | | by the natural horror of the incidents they select. But let | not Miss Lisle be discouraged, or imagine that her | resources are at an end. There are still regions of horror to | be explored, on which she has not touched ~~ there are yet | plenty of strong-savoured incidents of crime wherewith to | spice her pious tales. She should make herself acquainted | with the works of Xavier de Montepin ~~ though he indeed | can scarcely be called more than a disciple in the school of | which she is the leader ~~ for, as Evangelicism is not very | prevalent in France, the raciness of his subjects has been | too much for the sensitive nerves of the French police. But | in this freer atmosphere, and under the strong shield of a | religious party, she may venture on lines of thought which | no worldling would dare to touch. |