witness to the cruelty which caused it to be secreted. As if this was not enough, you take her part; embalm her supposed grievances in a story, which everybody is sure to read, and preach the awful doctrine that if our wife has reason to suppose that her governess is setting her cap at one of our sons, she is bound in conscience to do all she can to forward the match, and to take her tyrant to her bosom as a daughter. Is not this pushing universal charity a trifle too far for a practical age?

Seriously speaking, is it quite wise to favor the notion that a young woman -a young lady, if you please-who gets 801. a year and her board is prima facie a victim of oppression if she is not treated exactly like a member of the family which employs her? We have known many a rich young lady to whom it would have done all the good in the word to go out as a governess, and who wanted nothing so much as some regular stated occupation to take her out of her self and her own sensibilities. The authoress of The Village on the Cliff is rather hard on poor Mr. Hervey Butler (see pedigree) for saying of little Miss George that she is not "de noter classe." The poor man ought no doubt to have said "notre;" but was his sentiment, however ill expressed, altogether wicked and false? We will match one story by another. Certain certificated schoolmasters conceived that it was a dreadful grievance that the clergy and the squires would not regard them as members of "noter classe;" whereupon they went to a very eminent educational philanthropist, and poured out their woes to him with professional volubility. They discoursed on the dignity of the teacher's calling, on the elaborate character of the education they had received, on the falsehood and tyranny of conventional distinctions; and at last they paused for a reply. Their patron, who had listened very patiently, said: "It appears to me that your grievance is that you are not treated like gentlemen?" "Just so, sir, and we demand the reason of such treatment." "Well, if you ask me, the reason is, because you are not gentlemen." Ungracious as it is to say so, there is, after all, such a thing as "noter classe;" and though people may make a harsh and even

cruel use of the distinction between those who do and those who do not belong to it, it exists just as much as beauty and talent, which may also be the excuse for much cruel vanity, but are nevertheless real distinctions, the existence of which it is useless to deny. By the way, the superb Reine herself is continually quarrelling with her lover because she is conscious of the difference which is in point of fact put between them by the fact to which it is supposed to be absolutely immoral in poor Mr. Hervey Butler to allude.

We will now turn back to the question with which we began this article, and try to condense into a more or less definite form the general sentiment which pervades these books, and the diffusion of which constitutes their moral in general. The task of giving shape to a sen timent, is one which it is not very easy to discharge quite fairly; but nevertheless it is one which almost every novel-reader performs for himself whenever he reads a novel which impresses and affects him, and as some medicines are perhaps administered more effectually in the form of vapor than in any other way, so some sentiments are capable of being generally diffused and rendered popular by novels more readily than by any other vehicles. The moral effect of The Village on the Cliff and Elizabeth appears to us to be something of the following kind: each book in a different way is, from first to last, the expression of the feeling of intense sympathy with every one whom the authoress regards as good, or beauti ful, or wise. She has an almost unmeasured love for all her characters, though it is by no means a blind or indiscrimi nate feeling. She sees all their faults, she does not in the least degree exagger ate their merits, either moral or intellectual, but she loves them-if such a comparison can be made without the faintest suggestion of a depreciatory kind -somewhat as a girl loves her doll. They are obviously real beings to her singularly quick and faithful imagination, and there is not one of them whom she really dislikes, except one or two secondary characters introduced merely for the sake of giving a little flavor to the story, like the sour aunt in Elizabeth, who lives with the Protestant minister, or like Mme. Merard, M. Fontaine's

harsh mother-in-law. Even these offenders, however, are very mercifully treated. Thus, for instance, the terrible family servant, Justine, who had lived for years in Fontaine's house as his factotum, is fully credited with the merits of energy and fidelity. "She would go about with the air of a sulky martyr, working miracles against her will. Madame de Tracy, with all her household, was not so well served as Fontaine with this terrible ewe-lamb of his." The general tendency of the book, however, cannot be mistaken. It is-How good all these people are! How lovable notwithstanding, nay because of their faults! What a magnificent creature Reine is, though no doubt she has a bad temper! Can you help loving her? Could any one help loving her? How specially lovely Catherine George is, because she is so weak, so little, so ignorant, so dependent, so completely under the control of her two little childish sisters! Can you have the heart not to love her? Ought not every man and woman to protect, to cherish, to love her? How chivalrous and noble M. Fontaine is under all his defects of temper and manner! What a good fellow in the main is even the irresolute Dick Butler! What a good side there is to the French character and the Roman Catholic religion! How much is to be said in favor of nuns and convents! In a word, how much there is to love in the world, and how little do the superficial faults which we all notice, faults of manner, indecision of character, the serious forms of ignorance and weakness, which we see about us, really interfere with the paramount duty of loving one another, or even render it more difficult to discharge that duty. Then, again, what an unspeakable blessing it is to be understood, loved, and sympathized with. How Elizabeth, how Catherine George, how the splendid Reine, all in their separate way, hunger and thirst after affection, and the protection and support which it gives. This is the great leading sentiment which these books convey, but another sentiment is connected with it, and though less energetically expressed and less prominently put forward, is still unmistakably present. It is the sentiment of duty. None of the characters do anything wrong, none of the leading characters appear

even to be tempted to dispute the justice and wisdom of the rules by which their world is governed. Poor Eliza beth is, indeed, a little wilful and naugh ty, and very decidedly imprudent. She is instantly slapped, put in the corner, and given to understand in the most decisive way that such are the penalties which naturally befall young women who go to theatres without the leave of their natural protectors. They not only are exposed to unpleasant remarks, but, moreover, catch feverish colds, and hear that the objects of their affections are engaged to be married to somebody else; and serve them right, too, says the authoress indirectly, but still with emphasis. So, too, if a handsome widow will marry out of pique a Protestant pastor who is in no way suited to her, and whom she does not really love; if a poor little governess in love with an attractive artist will marry a French maire in order to get a home and a protector, there is to be no whining and no nonsense about it. How such marriages would end in French novels and in some English ones we all know, but with our authoress marriage is marriage, and when a woman once becomes a wife, the notion that any course except that of doing her duty to the very utmost is possible or conceivable, or that any former attachment can afford any sort of excuse for not being a good, obedient, affectionate wife is never even entertained or in any way suggested as possible. Moreover, with all the intense appreciation which they show of the force and value of love, these books show knowledge of another fact, namely, that when such a duty is vigorously performed, the performance of it brings its own reward. Catherine George and Mme. Tourneur both learn to love their husbands by doing their plain duty toward them, in spite of feelings and recollections which would point the other way. This firmness and distinctness of moral tone is an admirable characteristic, and is one of the many points in which the influence of Mr. Thackeray's works may be traced in tales which, perhaps, resemble them less at first sight than might have appeared natural. It was one of Mr. Thackeray's most prominent characteristics that, though he often had occasion to paint it, he never directly or indirectly palli

ated immorality, or frittered away the sauctions of morals. He constantly made you feel that men good in the main were often very weak, and that men thoroughly bad had their amiable points; but he never confounds right and wrong, and every one of his books recognizes and confesses in every variety of way the truth that bad actions produce misery, that good actions produce happiness, and that the common rules of morality tell us in the plainest, broadest way what actions are good and what are bad.

Such being the nature of the general sentiment by which these books are pervaded, and which they are calculated to increase, what is to be said of the sentiment itself? The only fault to be found with it is that it is, perhaps, rather too good to be quite true; but it is so kindly and so thoroughly healthy and vigorous, that the fault (if such it can be called) of a slight tendency to optimism is one which can be blamed only by a needlessly severe critic. At all events, the harshest thing that can be said with any appearance of justice, is that the authoress sees rather more to love in her fellow-creatures, and sets rather more value on human sympathy than the majority of men, and after all she is quite as likely to be right as we. No finite mind sees all that there is to be seen in human nature. Some of us catch one aspect of it, some another, and we ought to be glad to find any one who can feel so deeply and express so vigorously a genuine, hearty, unaffected love and admiration for commonplace people such as all of us know, and most of us are. return to the point from which we set out, The Village on the Cliff preaches a sermon which more formal preachers would have probably considered wicked, but which is gradually coming to be widely believed and largely applied to human life. Its general purport is that goodness is the rule and evil the exception, and that it is not only a duty to love our neighbor, but right and reasonable, inasmuch as human nature is beautiful and worthy of love. In our judgment, this is at once true and important, and the qualifications necessary to make it quite true can, on particular occasions and for limited purposes, be neglected without much harm. To

To

preach such a doctrine sincerely and gracefully would be to do a good deed, even if it were preached with more exaggeration, and with a greater forgetfulness of its necessary limitations than can be charged upon the authoress of The Village on the Cliff. One subsidiary moral which may be deduced from these books is important in the present day. It is that it is possible to be a very clever woman and a most intensely womanly woman, without being in the least degree fit for the possession of a vote. We see no indications in these books of fitness on the part of wom en in general, or authoresses in particular, for that suffrage which appears to some people in the light of a ticket of admission into heaven. Mr. Mill ridiculed in Parliament the notion that in the present state of society women stand in need of male protection, or are by nature dependent. We suspect that our authoress could teach even that great philosopher something about a sex to which he has not the honor of belonging. Look at the magnificent Reinethe humble Catherine George-the prac tical Mrs. Hervey Butler-the silly, wellmeaning Mme. de Tracy: are they not each and every one dependent in different ways? Is not the craving for male support, protection, and sympathy, even on the part of those who are in reality stronger than their husbands, and better fitted in appearance to rule than to be ruled, the governing passion of every one of them? There is not a woman in either of these stories, who either does stand alone, or is capable of it. There is not one who does not show in one way or another that a mannish woman is as imperfect and unnatural a being as a womanish man, and who does not illus trate a sentiment none the worse for be ing old-"I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house." "I suffer not a wom an to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man."

In conclusion, we may make one observation upon the literary merits of these stories. It is, of course, natural to compare them to Mr. Thackeray's works, and there are, as we have already indicated, grounds of comparison, both moral and intellectual. There is the same slightness of plot, the same prominence of feeling,

and the same substantial moral vigor and disposition to moralize; but there are also great differences. The Village on the Cliff and Elizabeth are in no degree imitations of Mr. Thackeray's works. They are thoroughly independent, and have a most distinct character of their own, notwithstanding their family likeness. The style, in particular, is perfectly original. It is the easy, natural expression of the thoughts of a cultivated lady, who has learnt by practice how to throw her thoughts into a sustained consecutive form. The general uniformity is pleasantly relieved by occasional brilliancy, turns of quaintness, and bits of sentiment, curiously varied by occasional passages marked by strong common-sense vigorously expressed. We shall not attempt to justify these observations by extracts. Our readers will, we hope, read the books for themselves, if indeed they have not done so already, and we can promise that they will find not only this, but much else well worth their notice, which we have been obliged to pass over unmentioned.

The Contemporary Review.

THE MORALITY OF LITERARY ART.* AND this naturally leads us to say a single word of Miss Braddon and her class, who studiously, and of set purpose, seek to awaken our sympathies for certain types of character by involving us in such circumstances as tend to set us in active opposition to some conventional moral regards. With them spirit is opposed to form; and because the one is found inefficient to express the other, the existence of any law beyond the caprice of the individual is implicitly denied. It is artistic atheism in its lowest phase what is permitted to the individual for the sake of the race's freedom is justified against society; and the ethical bearing, if such they have, is certainly to oppose the lower freedom of caprice to that higher freedom which, as Hegel would say, lies in acting according to the will of the Whole, as embodied in the State or in Law. Those very elements of culture which should teach on every side the sacredness of

* Continued from page 227.

law, even where it is imperfect, are made the mediums for transporting such weak characters as may be influenced by pictures of this kind into a new world, where savage gratification of sense and of personal desire is the supreme good. Practically the result of such books is to reverse the grand old idea of what constitutes heroic behavior, by cunningly eliciting our sympathy for individuals placed in doubtful circumstances, who fall into falsely tragical positions because of their weakness, and their want of that will in which lies the very root of heroic action. And here, we regret to say, Miss Braddon and George Eliot join hands, Lady Audley and Mrs. Transome being true twinsisters of fiction.

Indeed, had it not been that Miss Braddon-this comet of literature--had formed a conjunction with what promises to be a fixed star for the centuries, we should, in Dante's words, have only looked and passed on. But George Eliot, with all the power to exhibit dramatically various types of character, and so to obtain a true unity, in other words, to create, has allowed certain abstract ideas so to dominate in her later works, that they almost cease to be art in the loftiest sense. By setting herself in conscious and declared revolt against the common beliefs, thoughts, and aspirations of her time, she has made her last novel nothing else than an apology for those moral elements that have deposited themselves in marriage laws and begotten other restraints

mediums, she would say, of the cruelty of God and of society toward women. The sympathy which she endeavors to extort from us on behalf of Mrs. Transome, while yet she keeps us wholly in the dark as to the details of her early sinful life, at least till she has every chance to win it, will not be fully accorded by any right-minded person after the discovery is made; and the result is, that our hearts and intellects are set into debate with each other at the very moment when they should have been brought into softest harmony. The art form has become a mere mask, that she may preach the better. Hegel found great fault with Goethe's "Goetz" because of the interjection of purely arbitrary elements. He would certainly

have detected plenty of this sort of thing in "Romola" and "Felix Holt." The little rationalistic hints in the latter actually split it up into separate bits of sermons in the most tell-tale way, and establish, as perhaps no other work could establish, the truth of what we have said as to the inevitable results of a revolt against what we have called the formal elements the age supplies to the artist as instruments on which, as Goethe would say, "to proceed further."

There is one lady who, though she possesses nothing like the intellectual breadth and dramatic force of George Eliot, and certainly has not one tithe the literary trick of Charles Reade, has yet, by purity of instinct, and healthy sympathy with ordinary thoughts and feelings, done more justice to her own age than either in dealing with other times. This is the author of "Citoyenne Jacqueline," in which one of the most disordered and vicious of historical periods is touched with almost unprecedented instinctive delicacy and reserve. The very soul of the Revolution is presented to us without any of its filth in her quiet pages. In this lady's other stories pictures of last century life especially, of which "On the Stage and off the Stage" is a type specimen-we have all the artificiality, reaction, and wasted lifeweariness of the period, without hint or taint of what was really repellent and disgusting in it.

But, on the other hand, elements in themselves immoral may be purified by the truthfulness of the artist in subordinating his personal regards to this higher interest-the bond of common belief by which he is united to his time. Such we believe to be preeminently the case with Dante, much as this is opposed to the common view. What are called the Dantesque (?) elements in the Divina Commedia, for instance, are not the reflection of anything that pertains to Dante individually, but belong essentially to the medieval conceptions of the universe and of the future. Otherwise that poem had been one of the most immoral thinks ever written. It would have simply been-what it is so often said to be-a piece of cruel, cowardly revenge, and would have had no value either as art or history.* But, on the contrary,

* All Dantesque imitations are here too exclud.

when the work is viewed in the synthesis of its aim and spirit, we discover a sort of unconscious protest-none the less powerful that it is a protest of heart and emotion-against the intellectualized conceptions of things that dominate in the first portion. In this sense, truly, Dante was but a voice; Carlyle has called him the voice of ten silent centuries. What is truly personal in the "Inferno" is the tremblingly tender affection in it, which softens all the horror, and throws a ray of light upon the skirts of the awfullest blackness. Thus we can see something of the sacrifice it had cost Dante to continue dramatically faithful to the beliefs he had to make the mediums of a deeper and more consistent scheme of things. For if we regard his pictures of the sufferings of Francesca, of poor Brunetto Latini, of Ugolino, and of Ciacco (Dante's pity for whom so offends Ginguené), as in any sense real, why should we gratuitously pass out of view his own griefs, deeper than tears, that more than once made him fall down, "come corpo morto cad di?" And yet he would be true to what he believed in common with his age, and his greatness of belief breeds not scorn of the common men and wom en who, pointing at him, said, “Eccovi l'uom ch'è stato all' Inferno," because he himself, with his whole soul, believed as they did. But had he felt any per sonal gratification in the pains he paints others as suffering in hell, would he have represented himself, as he has done, as suffering with them, for even in his contempt there is all the pain of pity? Nay, rather like Nero, he had danced the more wildly joyful the deeper the woes into which his enemies were plung ed. Or must we regard him not only as a cruel, revengeful man, but also as a consummate hypocrite? This, we think, the most literalizing of his critics will scarcely assert, and yet they must impale themselves upon either of the horns of this dilemma. Wholly different is our view of Dante.* We believe that by

ed, because they become, or ever tend to become, immoral by deference to the mere form and by want of power to seize the deeper element by which the grotesque of Dante lives-his tender ness, which did not at all pertain to the sphere of opinion, but was rather opposed to it.

* Any artist, for instance, who wrote a series of dramas illustrative of the time of Luther, would