A week of London life as at present constituted is enough to wear off the freshness of any girl's mind. And it speaks well for the physique of our women that either chaperon or débutante is alive at the end of the season. The former may sometimes devolve her duties on a substitute, but the latter must undergo it all in person. It is a life of the most severe bodily exertion during the three hottest months of the year, relieved only by the most complete intellectual stagnation. The results of such a system upon both mental and bodily health are painful to contemplate. Mr. Carlyle tells us that we see only what we are taught to see; and thus our London young lady fails to perceive in her faded bouquet, as she flings it aside after a ball, but too apt an emblem of herself. Maidens and flowers were associated with each other even before those remote ages when Proserpine, 'herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis was gathered.' But repose is a floral characteristic, and we cannot call to mind any flower which would aptly typify that phenomenon of our day, a 'fast girl.' She is much more like a dragon-fly. To be 'fast' is a modern privilege. It aims at combining the less intellectual pursuits of man with the less desirable attributes of woman. A fast girl can ride across country, smoke, shoot, play billiards, bet, and talk about dogs and horses in a truly edifying manner. She uses slang terms freely, and is defiant in manner. She wears shorter and more vivid petticoats, smaller hats, brighter feathers, boots with higher heels and more plentifully decorated with little brass rings, than those of her slower cotemporaries, and piques herself on reading anything.' Surely the possession of all these advantages, combined with many feminine qualities and generally with good nature, ought to compensate to us for any want of delicacy, refinement, gentleness, humility, or similar trifles.

The highest praise which a man in these days bestows on his partner at a ball, is that she is 'capital fun

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and a stunner to go,' and he valses with her very perseveringly in consequence; but somehow his attentions too often end there, and he is apt to marry a less funny individual. Indeed, cases have occurred where a man's former partners have been very much puzzled to ascertain 'what he could see in that stupid little woman he has married.' Perhaps (were their reasoning powers stronger) it might occur to the questioners that he had married her because she was a woman, and not a bad imitation of his younger brothers. But an eminent logician has defined woman as an 'unreasoning animal who pokes the fire at the top.' So the inference remains undrawn.

An instinctive feeling appears to warn our novelists that it would be vain to attempt to excite a hearty sympathy for the fast girl. Governesses, Crimean nurses, artists, needlewomen, have all been heroines in their day, and every shade of cleverness and silliness has had portrayers, but except in one or two cases, no one has exalted the fast girl into a heroine; and even when she has been depicted in fiction, the author has been obliged to rely for any interest he may excite not on her rapid but on her slow qualities.

We have said a good deal of the defects of novels of the present day, we may now proceed to the more gracious task of examining into their merits, one of which is the discarding of far-fetched events and melodramatic villains; and another, the less conventional character of the heroines. There is still great room for improvement in the latter respect, but they are not quite such lay-figures as of yore. The active, energetic heroes of the present day require a heroine who will co-operate with them, and not one merely to listen to them. But it is in drawing women of the higher classes that our authors are so apt to fail; perhaps it is scarcely too much to say that only Mr. Thackeray and Mr. Charles Kingsley can draw 'ladies.' Several authors tell us that their heroines

are high-born, and describe them as high-bred, beautiful, distinguished, endowed with every feminine virtue, yet fail to produce the complete picture of a lady. Lady Kew had very few feminine virtues, but we meet her prototype in the best society, and there only. Ethel Newcome and the charming Valentia St. Just were imperfect, but they are fair specimens of their own caste, and of no other. Both these authors have a deep knowledge of feminine character in the abstract-Mr.Thackeray apparently from close observation, Mr.Kingsley from intuition; but so have many others, who yet fail in their delineation of women in good society: their characters may be very lady like, but they are not ladies-they miss the je ne sais quoi.

The practical tendency of our day has in great measure disposed of the villains' of older times; the course of our true love is not troubled by the machinations of mysterious ruffians dogging the steps of our heroes and heroines; have we not detectives' at hand? But it is ruffled by the more prosaic obstacles of want of money, or the interference of well-meaning friends, or by a singular want of perception on the part of the principals, who usually proceed upon the plan of the sanguinary stage ruffian in Nicholas Nickleby, and create an immense sensation by 'poking the sword in through the arras in every direction save where the legs of the concealed victim are plainly visible.'

Our novels altogether are improved in likelihood, and are far more earnest and thoughtful, in tone, than those of fifty years ago; and if we sometimes find ourselves deep in a political pamphlet, or controversial or scientific discussion, when we fondly imagined we were going to read a story, we must hope somebody profits by it, and try to suppress the irreverent thought that the folk who prefer their politics and religion in the form of a novel, are of the same class as the frequenters of charitable bazaars; their intentions are

excellent, but they are a little apt to forget the poor in their appreciation of the pincushions.

There is yet another point upon which a few words must be said. There is nothing so subtle or varied as style; no two authors can write alike; but no author can hope that his works will live if he does not write good English, not merely grammatical English, but the English that puts the right word in the right place. A brilliantly expressed fallacy will, in the estimation of the multitude, outweigh a badly expressed truth. The truth we know will prevail in 'the long run; but consider how little time we have to wait for the long run in these steam-engine days, therefore give truth at least a fair start.

The general run of novelists of the day are absurdly careless as to clearness of expression; authoresses have more to answer for in this respect than authors. What shall we say to the following description of a heroine:-'Helen took after her father, who was a tall and handsome man, with very fine features, and a profusion of dark whiskers still untouched with grey, although his head had been entirely bald for years.' Well may the author (?) add further on, 'Helen was rather a peculiar girl; he also informs us that she went out an immense deal.'

No one, however uneducated, who can read at all, is insensible to the charm of good English. A well-written book will be preferred to an ill-written one, even by those who can give no reason for their preference. Good writing does not consist in long words and flowing sentences, but in so stating the matter in hand as to set it before the reader as vividly and concisely as is compatible with the style of the composition. Digressions and illustrations may be permitted in a novel or an essay, which would be out of place in a scientific or logical treatise. But such digressions should never be allowed to carry the author out of sight of his original goal. The universally

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acknowledged beauty of Sir Walter Scott's style is mainly owing to its perfect simplicity and directness; his illustrations arise naturally out of the subject before him, and he condenses into a few sentences, descriptions of scenes and events which in the hands of our novelists would occupy many pages. Such a scene, for example, as Queen Elizabeth's appearance before Leicester and the courtiers, dragging with her the terrified Amy, would in these days be weakened by an analysation of the Queen's feelings, and Leicester's feelings, and Amy's feelings, and a description of the changes of hues, clenched hands, set teeth, and other signs by which these feelings were expressed. And to what end? Are we not men and women ourselves? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?' Is not the most stupid among us competent to fill up for himself the outline which Sir Walter draws for us in these telling words, 'the Queen, with her passions excited to the utmost, shot suddenly into the circle? We should not realize the scene as vividly were we indulged with several pages somewhat in the following style. Alas! poor Queen! the discovery of her misplaced love roused all her bitterest passions. Injured pride, anger, jealousy, contempt, contended for dominion, while love yet struggled for the mastery. Something of this was apparent in the crimson flush which mounted to her brow, in the convulsive movement of her disengaged hand; in the flashing eye, and the set lip, as she clove asunder ("shot into" would be too trivial an expression) the circle which surrounded her favourite.'

Each of Sir Walter Scott's novels contains sufficient incident to furnish half a dozen romances of the ordinary stamp; and had he described each incident after the modern fashion, his stories would have rivalled in length Sir Charles Grandison. But the writer of an historical novel avoids one rock upon which many of his fellow

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workers in fiction split: he is not obliged to be an adept in the art of writing the dialect of his own day. Our modern heroes are doubtless as brave as Cœur de Lion and as loyal as Montrose, but while we are familiar with the armour of the lion-hearted and the doublet of the cavalier, we are less accurately acquainted with their 'common parlance;' and therefore speeches which sound to us quite natural when put into their mouths, strike us as utterly absurd when attributed to a guardsman of the present day. Some of our greatest authors are as unskilled as the smaller fry in the art or knack of writing natural dialogue. Indeed, the more imagination and information a writer possesses, the less able he appears to be to descend to the level of ordinary conversation. In What will he do with it? for instance, none of the characters are made to speak the language which would have been used by their prototypes in real life. Women write dialogue better than men do; they catch and reproduce more easily the tone of those about them, but they are not good writers of historical novels, because they can describe, or rather transcribe, with success only those scenes and characters which come under their own observation. Men have more imagination, and can generalize character better than women, but they often fail in detail. In an historical novel, where the accessories of the story are more or less found for them, they can give full play to their descriptive talents and deeper habits of thought, without the incongruous effect which is produced by a story of every-day life, in which the heroes and heroines 'talk like a printed book.'

The author of Eothen, after describing an eastern funeral, remarks, 'I did not say "Alas!" Nobody ever does, that I know of, though the word is so frequently written;' and our novels would be livelier reading if their authors would keep the difference between written and spoken language more clearly before their eyes. Narra

tive is one thing and dialogue another. An author is at liberty to use any style he pleases when he relates events in his own person, but if these events are to be made known to the reader through the medium of a conversation, the author is bound to reproduce as nearly as possible the language and mode of thought which would be used by the prototypes of his fictitious characters. 'Sister mine, can I woo you to a walk?' is perhaps a beautiful and poetic mode of putting the question, but we fear that in these days 'Are you good for a walk?' is the way in which it would be rendered by most brothers. We do not presume to determine between the respective merits of the phrases, but we think that in a novel professing to describe life in these days the less elegant would be the more true, and there is truth even in fiction. The fault of many novels of the day is lack of incident and over-abundance of dialogue; and when the incident is on crutches and the dialogue on stilts, the pas de deux is not harmonious.

It is the perfect harmony of the dialogue with both actors and incidents which makes the great charm of reality. Unless the characters in a fiction speak as we expect them to speak, and feel in our own minds that they would speak, we cannot get up a hearty sympathy for them; we read about them as we read about the sufferers by a fire at New York or by an earthquake in Lima. We are aware that they are sufferers, but beyond an abstract sense of pity we feel no interest in the catastrophe; while an accident trifling in comparison, but happening at our own door, will call up all our sympathies in a moment. The close fidelity to natural expression is one great cause of the popularity of Adam Bede: the story is an old tale and often told,' but never before told with such minute knowledge of the modes of thought and language of the actors in the drama. And there is no danger of lowering any subject by discussing it in

every-day parlance. The sermon of 'Dinah Morris' touches upon the highest of all topics, and loses none of its sublimity because it is couched in the words of an uneducated though most earnest woman. It is the spirit of the writer, not his language, which can elevate or degrade his subject. The mere fact of touching upon moral or religious subjects in a novel does not necessarily imply that they are improperly handled; but when such questions are discussed or even glanced at in an irreverent or sceptical tone, mischief is done to an extent probably never contemplated by the writer. "The devil tempts most men, but an idle man tempts the devil;' and as idle men, and women too, form the mass of novel readers, it would be as well if novel writers would remember their own responsibility. We all admit in theory that drunkenness is a sin; all who hear their Bible read may know how it is looked upon by God. All who are capable of the most superficial observation may see its effect upon man; yet how seldom is this sin treated in fiction (never on the stage), otherwise than as a subject for mirth; and the same is true of even worse crimes. Selfishness is the creed of the day. If your neighbour's foot be in your way, tread on it-do you suppose he will not remove it?' We pride ourselves as a nation upon our honour -we pique ourselves upon being 'true-hearted Englishmen'-yet our daily lives are full of falsehood, from the time when our boys get their tasks done for them at school, till they represent their country through the trickeries of a contested election. When some long career of fraud ends in the downfall of its architect and the ruin of thousands, we are startled from our apathy, and wonder how such things can be; but while we shrink from a Paul or a Redpath, we dine complacently with the M.P. for our borough, though we well know the cost of money and morals at which his right to those precious initials has been obtained. These

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are things which ought not so to be,' and any writer whose works tend to popularize a higher standard deserves well of his generation.

There is a curious mixture of levity and earnestness in the society of our day. The flippant tone which is so prevalent is partly the result of the general diffusion of scraps of knowledge upon which we have remarked already. When every one knows a little of everything, nothing is likely to be discussed with much depth; but much of the cynical levity which has become a sort of fashion is merely assumed, and we hear men talk as if there existed nothing great, good, or noble in the world, at the very time when they are themselves dedicating time, health, money, and intellect to the mental and bodily improvement of their less fortunate brethren. They combine the theory of Mr. Thackeray with the practice of Mr. Kingsley, and in time the theory will die out, for bad as is the world, and selfish as we undoubtedly are, not one of us can heartily set to work to benefit others, in however small a degree, without discovering sooner or later that there is a good side to every nature, and that it is 'God that has made us, and not we ourselves.'

But with all its faults, society in our time has the merit of being on the whole less artificial than of yore. Its affectations are chiefly intellectual. Our young men no longer consider it womanish' to go to church, or blush to be detected playing with small children. Our women no longer shriek at a spider, or consider it vulgar to eat more than a sparrow, or to drink beer. Men and women meet upon more equal terms; rich and poor are less suspicious of each other. Many of those now at the top of the social ladder began at its lowest round, and remembering instead of ignoring their origin, are devoting their hardly-earned wealth and dearly-bought experience to smooth the path of those who are still struggling in the ascent.

Every one who has an opinion

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now has a right to utter it, and if it be worth attending to he may make sure of a hearing, be he peer or peasant. A letter to the Times from an anonymous writer has often more influence than would have been possessed by the most elaborate pamphlet in former days. Every day cuts more ground from under the feet of the incapable. Those who cannot work with their heads will ere long have to depend on their hands, and, failing to find rest for the sole of their foot on English soil, must migrate to more distant colonies, where physical force still ranks higher than mental cultivation. But we cannot, with the best intentions, be always improving our minds with the study of history and the abstract sciences, and in our intervals of relaxation a novel which sets us thinking without parading on every page that it is written for our instruction is a very valuable but unfortunately rare production.

A great amount of current fiction is written expressly for the young. Books of this class are novels to all intents and purposes, though they usually appear modestly in one volume and call themselves 'Tales.' In our own younger days Robinson Crusoe, the Swiss Family Robinson, Sandford and Merton, and Miss Edgeworth's Tales, with the delightful Fabulous Histories of Mrs. Trimmer, comprised almost our whole library. They were read over and over till every line in their quaint woodcuts was familiar to us. We read fairy tales too, and believed them, though we scarce dare make confession of such benighted ignorance to the boys and girls of this favoured age. though we felt familiar with genii, and quite capable, had we the opportunity, of constructing parasols of palm-leaves, and superintending the education of a 'Friday,' we were curiously ignorant of the ways of the world we lived in, except so far as our own observation extended. We should have taught our man Friday his prayers, but it would not have occurred to us to consider whether he were to be in

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