(Westminster Review, October 1855)
WE ARE inclined to think that when all the beasts of the field and fowls of the air were brought to Adam, ‘to see what he would call them’, this large demand on his ‘organ of language’ must have been rather embarrassing to him, and he would have found it much more convenient if the naming had been deferred until he could have the help of Eve, who doubtless was as ready as most of her daughters at telling her husband what to say. Something like this embarrassing position of Adam’s is the case of that unfortunate son of Adam, a reviewer who sits surrounded with books on which he is required there and then to render an opinion, –for is not all opinion, nay, all science, simply a naming? Of the genus belles lettres, novels are usually the most numerous species, for assuredly they are fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth; but it so happens that this quarter they form no large proportion of the books before us. We give the precedence to a very unpretending one in a single volume of anything but close print. We mean A Lost Love by Ashford Owen. Take up this volume, not of course in the grave morning hours, when you want something strong and substantial, but when you come in agreeably tired with your walk, or, for want of conversation, between dinner and tea. You will find a real picture of a woman’s life; not a remarkable woman, not one of those heroines who have such amazing moral strength that they despise happiness and like to be disappointed, or who are so wonderfully intellectual as to give even serious views of ‘female competition’; yet not a commonplace woman, but one who, while loving and thirsting to be loved, can give up her one hope in life when sympathy and good sense demand it, without having any fine theories about her deed, or any consciousness that she is doing something out of the common, – one with no great culture and no great powers, but with that true freshness and simplicity which makes any mind original and interesting. Such is Georgy, the heroine of A Lost Love; a parasitic plant, but a vigorous one, with a strong preference of the particular tree to which it will cling. The story is a melancholy one, but without any exaggerated sorrows; the tragic notes in it belong to that ‘still, sad music of humanity’, which seems to make hardly a perceptible element in the great world-symphony. But every tender and watchful nature has an ear for such notes; and Georgy’s tale will remind most readers of something they have seen in life. The writing is not remarkable otherwise than for the excellent quality of simplicity: there are none of the fine sayings which often fall by the way from a superior writer, even when bent on merely telling a story; but in the absence of this merit, there is the scarcely inferior merit of not aiming to say fine things. The author is unquestionably a woman, and writes like one in the best sense, namely, by keeping to the delineation of what a woman’s experience and observation bring within her special knowledge.
Quite an opposite kind of talent is exhibited in Aspen Court, which has been gathered into three volumes from the numbers of Bentley’s Miscellany. Like all fiction written for periodical appearance, it bears the stamp of that demand for periodical effect, which opposes itself to a natural development of character and incident; and so far Aspen Court is under a disadvantage when read consecutively. It belongs to the class of cleverly-written novels which are as far as possible from boring us, but, having done their work of amusement, are laid down and forgotten. There is unusually smart writing and satirical sketching, but no grasp of character, no close, genuine presentation of life. It professes to be a story of our own day, and in one sense fulfils that profession, since its scenes are all selected as representative of various social aspects. We have a lawyer’s office, a scene in the House of Commons, a club-house, high political society, a lock-up house, a fight, interviews with a manager, the reading of a play in the green-room and its subsequent production on the stage, a hunt, a chop-house, and the intrigues of a Catholic priest. But these scenes, one and all, are vitiated by the constant presence of unreality; often amusing, they are always fantastic; and while locality and costume imply that we are making acquaintance with the things and people of actual life, we are in fact among beings little less unreal than my Lord Marquis of Carabas. The great merit of the book is lively writing; witty sayings and humorous touches abound. For example: among the clerks in a lawyer’s office is Mr Maunder, who ‘wrote a beautiful hand, borrowed money from every new clerk, and was rather supposed to be an atheist, because he never swore, and because he had been detected reading Voltaire’s Charles XII.’ – ‘Mrs Basnet, the monthly nurse, had annexed an embroidered pocket handkerchief from the drawers of a lady, who, at the time, was not nearly so well as could be expected.’ – ‘The Countess of Rookbury, having presented the Earl with an heir, became dissatisfied with the Court physician, and called in a homœopathist. Being thus left a widower, Lord Rookbury announced, to prevent trouble to the mothers of families – for he was a very gentlemanly man – that little Viscount Dawton was not to have a step-mamma.’ – ‘He found not… the meretricious cross-breed in art by which the modern French school contrives to depict the Magdalene with the united attractions of Palestine and the Palais-Royal.’
The great defect of Aspen Court is a want of earnestness as a background to the liveliness; the author is never thoroughly serious even in the most serious situations. But the power of the writing and the change of scene carry one over the ground, and the book everywhere titillates the palate, though it satisfies no craving.