CHAPTER XXII.
When the door of the hut opened Bruno growled furiously. Mr. Van Ness appeared on the threshold, smiling, benign, a goodly sight, from his blond head and the yellow topaz on his snowy shirt-front to the polished boots.
"Down, Bruno, down!" said Jane.
The old hunter observed that though she stood erect she could not bring her voice above a whisper. She looked at Van Ness like a kid that the dogs were going to tear to death. Glenn came up hastily between her and the stranger. He had the dog's sudden antipathy to him and to his smile.
"What is your business?"
Van Ness advanced and held out his hand cordially. The mountains had had their effect upon him: his irritated nerves lay now quieted out of sight in the thick cool flesh. As he ascended the heights he had laid his plans. Gentleness first, force if need be: gentle measures would no doubt suffice. The law would ensure to him immediate possession of his wife. She had the devilish obstinacy of a mule, but she was his wife. He would bring her to love him at last, and their future life would be eminently respectable and comfortable. Laidley's estate must yield now, on an average? The remainder of the ride had passed in pleasant calculation. Never had his temper been more serene or firm than when he presented himself before his wife.
"What's your business?" said the old man.
"My business," gently, "is with that lady. I have followed her here from New York, and I thank you heartily, sir, for taking care of her."
"Of course I'll take care of Jane. I'll not allow her to be follered or disturbed, neyther.—Do you want to see this man, child?"
Jane did not hear him. Her eyes were fastened on the handsome figure, all light and benignity. She had thought she was done with it for ever. It seemed to her now as if it never would leave her sight again.
"You kin see clearly that you're unwelcome to her," said Glenn.—"Wife, take Jane into her own room until this gentleman is gone."
"When I go," said Van Ness with a pleasant, airy wave of the hand, "she goes with me. You are kind, my dear sir, but unreasonable. I have a claim upon this lady which even you will allow is sufficient."
"What claim has he on you, Jane?" turning his back abruptly on Van Ness. "Has he any right to talk in this way?"
"Yes. I am his wife."
"Wife! Married! Not accordin' to law?"
"There is the certificate."
At the sight of this slip of paper, and with the rustle of it in Glenn's hand, her strength ebbed away from Jane. It was the Law. Her prejudices and dislikes seemed suddenly insignificant, helpless, in this mighty force. It had the same effect on the ignorant, law-abiding mountaineer.
"I don't see but as it's correct," turning it over, perplexed. "She's yer legal wife."
"No matter ef she were his wife a hundred times," cried his wife: "she shall not go back ef she chooses to stay. P'raps he's abused her. He shall not force her away."
"I have no wish to force her to leave you," in the same gentle, cheerful tone. "Be rational, dear friends. I leave Jane to answer whether I have ever used toward her a word or action that was not loving and tender."
"No," said Jane, dully.
"Do you know anything of me which would justify your flight? Answer me candidly. Is there a single reason why you should not honor and respect me as your husband?"
Jane was silent. The law within her gave a savage answer. But what was that but blind prejudice? She must answer according to the judgment of the outside world.
"Is there any reason?"
"No—none."
Van Ness nodded cheerfully, and motioned the hunter and his wife confidentially to his side: "I will explain the matter to you precisely as it stands," his light eyes looking over their heads to Jane.
She stood irresolutely a moment, and then went into the little room which had been set apart for her. She could not draw her breath so near to him.
Van Ness, peering through the open door, saw that there was but one narrow window inside, opening over a sheer descent of rocks. "It is quite natural that you should love Jane and wish to defend her, as you knew her when she was a child," he said, raising his voice that she might hear. "But you do not understand. She married me of her own free will by the bedside of her dying father. His last act was to give her to me with his blessing. You can judge whether he would have chosen an unworthy husband for her."
"'Tain't likely," said Glenn. But his wife shook her head.
"An hour after his death Jane escaped: left her dead father—left me whom she loved. The only rational way of accounting for her course is that the nervous strain had proved too much for her, and that she was temporarily insane. You can question her whether I have stated the facts correctly."
The old people glanced doubtfully in at the tall figure standing motionless at the open window.
"She don't contradict you in nothin', sir. I'm sorry ef I was onjust to you," said the old man slowly.
"I honor you for it! You could have no claim to my friendship as strong as your affection for my wife."
"Yes," with deliberation, "we've allays been powerful fond of Jane. But marriage is marriage. We won't interfere. Them as God hes jined together—"
Van Ness rose: "I shall take her with me to Asheville. Her mental trouble may make her seem disinclined to go. But firmness and affectionate care will soon restore her." He walked to the door: "Come, my dear wife."
Jane turned and faced him. Her very lips seemed withered: "I have given you the money."
"I want you."
Van Ness waited smiling, without a word after that, his white hands held out.
"Come, my pretty!" whispered the old woman, stroking her arm soothingly. "Suppose you don't like him so much at first? You'll grow into it. Hundreds of women marry without love. You must give up to the law."
The law, the whole world, were against her.
Van Ness came closer, step by step, with the inexorable steadiness of Fate in his eye. Mrs. Glenn drew back and left them alone.
"You married me."
"I wanted to give you the money. There was my mistake."
"You cannot repair it. There is no one to help you."
She looked out at the bare peaks and the sky near at hand, and raised her arms, clasping her hands back of her head. Her lips moved. "God will help me," Van Ness thought he heard her say.
He put his hand on her shoulder: "Come. We must return to-night, at least part of the way," with quiet authority.
He drew her toward him, stooped to kiss her lips.
At that moment there was a loud knocking at the outer door, and a man and woman entered. Van Ness saw them. His hand fell from Jane's arm, his countenance relaxed: for a moment he stood unnerved: then with quick decision he stepped boldly forward to meet them, drawing to the door of the chamber behind him.
"Charlotte?"
"Yes," with a shrug, "or Princess Trebizoff, Madame Varens, what you choose. By any other name I am as dear to you. Heavens! what a chase!" perching herself airily on the settle in front of the fire. "I am one living ache.—I can't congratulate you on your roads, madam. But your scenery! Ah, that goes to the heart!"
Mr. Neckart stood beside her, calmly waiting until Van Ness should turn to him. The great reformer was brought to bay: he was alert, prompt, ready.
"You followed me here, Mr. Neckart?" turning sharply.
"Yes."
"For what purpose?"
"To bring your wife to you," glancing at Charlotte.
"I inferred that was the story which this poor creature had imposed upon you. Surely, you know her character, Neckart? Why, she has levied blackmail for years by just such ingenious devices. I did not suppose any statement of hers would bear a minute's investigation from a shrewd, practical man like yourself. So she really deceived you, eh?" with a discordant laugh.
Charlotte, drying her dainty feet at the fire, looked contemptuously over her shoulder at him.
"There is no need of any discussion in the matter," said Neckart dryly. "We are not here to play melodrama. The matter is easily understood. I returned from Europe last week, and went direct to the Hemlock Farm. From the servants I heard the details of the forced marriage and of Jane's flight. I followed her."
"How did you find her here?"
"Betty Nichols knew that she was coming."
"Damn her! She hid it from me, her husband!"
Neckart stepped hastily forward, then controlled himself and drew back: "She had given the route to Charlotte also. I overtook her at Baltimore. She had stopped to obtain legal proof of your marriage to her in 1847. We followed an hour behind you from Richmond."
Even in this imminent moment Van Ness secretly wondered how this passionate brute of a Neckart held himself in check and talked coolly to the man who had stolen from him the woman that he loved. It would have been in character for him to tear his life out, like Bruno. But this was admirable self-command! It really gratified Van Ness's taste, tottering on the verge of ruin as he was. The truth was, that Neckart was conscious of little else than that Jane was in the hut. The rage against this scoundrel which had maddened him through the long journey had strangely died out. He had not harmed her. He was like a fangless snake, to be trampled under foot at any moment.
But she was there! He had caught a glimpse of the proud, delicate head and its crown of yellow hair behind the door as Van Ness closed it.
The door moved. It opened, and she came out among them. Neckart rose, his head bent upon his breast. He was deaf and blind for the time—could not tell whether she spoke to him or not.
She went directly up to Van Ness: "I am not your wife?"
He cowered for a moment. Then, rapidly shifting his defence, he stood up, benevolent, impregnable: "I do not deny that I was once married to this woman. It was a mad error of my youth, long since repented of. I was divorced from her last June."
"Ta, ta, Pliny, take care!" interrupted Charlotte. "The application for divorce was not made until after your marriage to Miss Swendon. I told you you would not risk a criminal trial for her sake. But I underrated your affection. You did it."
"Then I am free?" said Jane.
"You are free," said Charlotte.
Jane turned to the door and went into the open air without a word.
"I took a good deal of trouble to come here," resumed Charlotte, brushing some dust from her flounces, "to tell her that. I shouldn't have done it for any other woman. But you remember that day when I was shamming death, how she kissed me, Pliny? I didn't forget that kiss."
Van Ness stood silent, hesitating. The firelight shone upon his tall figure, the dainty gray clothes, the shining stone, like a watchful evil eye, upon his breast. He was a perfect presentation of prosperity and peace. He looked at Neckart, but he was looking through the open door at a slight figure moving among the rocks.
Van Ness rubbed his hands softly. "I do not see," he said with unctuous precision, "that further discussion will be of any use in this matter. I was evidently mistaken as to point of time in the divorce. No one who knows me will suspect me of any worse error than a mistake. I will accompany you to Asheville, Charlotte, with pleasure. I owe you no grudge for the bitter wrong you have done me."
Charlotte rose and laughed good-naturedly: "You have your virtues, no doubt, Pliny. So have I. I always thought we were well mated. Shall we continue one? You may have to fall back upon my blackmailing devices, after all. I forgot to tell you that there was an inquiry last week into the disposition of the funds entrusted to you for the Home for Friendless Children, and that they were reported nil."
For the first time in his life Van Ness blenched. The story of the marriage could be smothered. But this was total ruin.
"The sooner you go the better," said the hunter, tapping him on the shoulder. "Ef I understand right, you're not the kind of man as ought to pizen these mountings long."
Van Ness moved heavily to the door. But he turned on the threshold with a sickly smile: "I forgive you your rudeness, my friend. It is not my nature to bear malice.—Farewell, Mr. Neckart. You have mistaken my motives in this matter. But I shall think of you kindly.—I shall bear you all to the throne of grace in my prayers." He shook his hand as if scattering blessings, and went out with a lofty step and head erect.
Charlotte lingered and went up to Neckart.
"You are going to cling to that poor wretch?" he said.
"Well, he's down now, you see. There's nobody but me to stay by him. And I can always draw on him when I'm out of funds."
"You will remember what I told you of the school in Indiana? You could live in respectability and comfort; bring your boy home too."
"My boy? Home?" Her eyes filled with tears. "These are very tempting words, Mr. Neckart. But oh-h! Respectability is such a bore! I must go my own gait to the end;" and with a merry laugh and shrug she followed Van Ness.
When they were out of sight down the gorge, Neckart rose and went slowly out to the cleft in the rock where the girl sat alone.
"Jane," he said, "the way is open between us at last. Will you come to me?"
I cannot write Finis to the story of any of these people. They are all alive to-day, and the current of each life goes on with very little change.
You may still see Van Ness on the platform at all large religious or benevolent meetings in the great cities. There was much talk of the missing funds, but he quieted it satisfactorily. Cynical reporters throw out hints of ugly shadows in his life, but his disciples gather more solidly about him, trust their souls to his direction and their money to his pockets. Simple followers of Jesus fear to condemn a light which shines so splendidly in the market-place, and men who are not His followers accept it as Christianity, and damn the religion as spurious and a fraud.
Charlotte is just now the successful leader of an English opera-bouffe company which is travelling in the West. She gave the proceeds of her benefit in every town to the poor last winter, which was supposed by all respectable people to be an advertising trick. But it was not. The little woman would do more than that to buy herself an entrance into the heaven where her boy is going. She would do anything, in fact, but lead a decent life.
Miss Fleming is still in Rome. She belongs to the modern school which regards the nice reproduction of drapery and dry goods as the highest art. She sends home pictures, which sometimes gain a place by sufferance in a dark corner at the spring exhibition.
Mr. Neckart once bought one, a Lady's Toilette.
"A fair specimen of the millinery cult," he said, showing it to Judge Rhodes, "Poor Cornelia! Why is it that she never, even by chance, paints a clean-minded woman?" He sent a cheque for double the price asked for it. But he threw the picture on the market again, not wishing to take it home. He had married a singularly clean-minded woman.
Cornelia's first impulse was to send the cheque back. But, instead, she bought a ring with a single costly ruby in it, and has worn it ever since, though she has been hungry for bread many a time. Hungry or not, she makes her studio one of the pleasantest resorts for the young artists in Rome. She has cut her hair short, wears a jaunty velvet coat and man's collar: her arms are bony, but she bares them, and still shoots languishing glances from out of the crowsfeet. The young men laugh to each other. "A good fellow, Corny," they say, "but what a pity that she is not a man!"
The Home for Friendless Children is at last a reality in New York, though Van Ness is not a director. It was established by the editor Neckart, whose wife, it is said, endowed it with her own fortune. This charitable deed left them with but a very moderate competency. Neckart managed to buy in the Hemlock Farm, out of his income, for her and the boy.
He drives them over once a week to see the children in the Home, each of whom Jane knows and tries to spoil.
"You are glad that we made this act of reparation, Jane?" he said to her one day.
"Reparation?" She hesitated, and then said, "I know that I made many mistakes when I was a law to myself. You are my law now, Bruce."
"But you are satisfied that it was right to give back the money?" he insisted.
"Oh, of course! The money was unlucky! It made you uncomfortable too. And I look on it as a free gift from Swendon here to the poor little babies," taking her boy on her knee and stroking his curls. "But," she added in a low voice, "the money was mine. I was quite right when I burned the will."
Neckart laughed good-humoredly, and touched the horses with his whip. There is no man living who loves his wife more tenderly; and Jane is the most simple and prosaic of women. Yet there are times when she seems, even to him, a woman whose acquaintance he has scarcely made, and whom he can never hope to know better.
Rebecca Harding Davis
OUIDA'S NOVELS.
For a number of years the novels of Ouida have been the delight of their readers and the scorn and laughing stock of reviewers. Every new volume that has appeared has given a thrill of occasionally guilty delight to those whose studies are confined to the shelves of the circulating library, while critics have beaten the air with their attacks against this writer's frequent coarseness of tone, her hodge-podge of learning, and the superfine elegance which makes the air of most of her stories so heavy and enervating. Nothing could show more thoroughly the futility of criticism than the powerlessness of all the evil-minded notices of her many books. The reviewer may have spoken words of wisdom that would have honored Solomon, but the public did not care how inaccurate Ouida's Latin quotations and classical references were: they were entertained by her novels, and disregarded him who denounced her, just as those who are running to a house where they will hear music, breathe perfumes and see fine dresses pass by the hungry man who stands outside shaking his fist and growling at pleasure-seekers. People who are anxious to waltz do not care to stop and discuss with political economists the advisability of giving up luxuries, nor to hear the band begin the best of Beethoven's symphonies: they want to hear the opening notes of one of Strauss's compositions. The same love of amusement is at the root of all novel-reading—unless indeed it be a feeling of social duty which brings so many readers to George Eliot's novels—and Ouida is pretty sure to give her admirers a full dose of highly-seasoned entertainment which cannot fail to please unsensitive palates.
The materials with which she brews her fiery and somewhat heady draughts are almost monotonously alike. Her heroes are beauteous, long-limbed, silky-haired, graceful men: if the scene is laid in England, they are generally officers, always of high family and terribly dissipated. Beneath a quiet, courteous demeanor they hide passionate feeling, indomitable bravery and great capacity for friendship. They are adorned by every vice, and are consequently loved by every woman. As for the women, who except Ouida can describe them? They are faultlessly beautiful, exceedingly headstrong and full of fascinating peccadilloes. Next to the beaux sabreurs come the gifted artists, and alongside of the wicked ladies of rank appear the ladies without rank, but with every other charm of the sinful sort. Brandy and soda, hock and seltzer and cigarettes almost deserve mention among the dramatis personæ: they serve to delight her aristocracy, and for the aristocracy Ouida has a most plebeian esteem. Its faults are virtues in disguise: gambling away a large fortune in a night is heroism; faithlessness in love is its first duty; anything like decorum is the most "caddish" Philistinism. These being Ouida's literary principles, and also the delight of her readers, it is easy to see how absolutely useless would be any solemn attempt to prove that there is anything good in the world except wickedness. Ouida has pages of pseudo-rhythmical soliloquy in which she alleges the truth of her statements about lords and ladies, but, whether true or false, there is a charm to her readers in her flowery account of what their social betters do. Scandal never fails of a listener, and who can serve such huge banquets of scandal as will Ouida at a moment's notice? She offers no mere crumb that has dropped from a rich table, but a mass that concerns every duke and duchess and earl and countess in the peerage. Victor Hugo has taught a docile generation the power of the melodrama, and Ouida, an apt pupil, has written in English the most violent protests against human beings as they are, and has encouraged the use of exaggeration in the representation of life. She employs the much-abused method of contrast. She draws a man who is stained with every vice, and to outweigh his crying faults she makes him tell the truth under difficult circumstances, or keep a promise, or possibly do a generous action, and the reader, who has admired the hero at his worst, thrills with fervent pride in his colossal right-doing at last.
The air of worldly wisdom with which her books are filled is another powerful attraction. Persons who know so much about wickedness must have, it would seem, a rare knowledge of human life and human beings; and the poor reader, whose worst notion of vice is working embroidery on Sunday, has forced down her throat stenographic reports of the talk in demireps' parlors, with occasional interludes in which the author charges her critics with squeamishness for objecting to her parade on the dung-hills of life. But it is useless to make too much mention of her faults. She is like most of the writers who reject all limitations and say they must describe people as they are, and then seek in the mire for people to write about.
Putting aside the question of the impropriety which taints by no means all her work, it is well to find what constitutes her power in other directions. She has a large following, and many who utterly condemn her gross faults are very anxious to read her new books as fast as they appear. In the first place, she has a good deal of real power. It is not accuracy, or refinement, or the accomplishment of much by moderate means, but a great accumulation of effective points, that carries the reader through her books. It is not a man whom she takes for a hero, but a picturesque combination of attractive failings, united with an impossible beauty and grace. It is a vulgar ideal that she worships, and it is vulgarer in fact than as she sees it; but she worships it with positive adoration, and she warms the reader with something of her own fervor. She is in earnest, and she has the gift of expression, often of tawdry, bombastic expression, but often powerful and impressive.
Take Chandos, for instance: it is the melodrama run mad. Chandos belongs to one of the best families in England; he has genius in all directions; he writes books that sell as only very good and very poor books sell; he is as beautiful as the figures that adorn tailors' patterns; his wealth seems boundless; in immorality Don Juan was but a blundering schoolboy by his side. This cold description does him no manner of justice: any one who knows Ouida's novels will readily recall the type, and he stands head and shoulders above the rest. He warms a snake in his bosom in the guise of a friend, who manages his affairs and leads the lordly Chandos to total bankruptcy. The languid voluptuary goes out into the world and knows every kind of suffering: at length, twenty years afterward, he is restored to his rights, and by a magnanimous effort he pardons the treacherous friend, who, he finds, is his illegitimate brother, and all ends well. But the reader's feelings are reached in a way that no one would suspect from this meagre statement. Chandos lives in halls of porphyry, and does everything for the man who betrays him; he is absolutely above suspicion, just as the other man is without a scrap of virtue or kindliness; and the contrast between his high and his low estate is done in black and white, with lights and shadows as distinct as if the book had been written under a calcium flame. That the book has considerable crude force cannot be denied even by those who are ready to sneer most loudly at its glaring faults. By dint of exaggerating virtues and vices the author dulls for a time the inevitable revolt of the reader against such unnatural representations of life. This story—or it may be other readers have been struck by some other of the series—impresses itself upon the memory for a time, just as a play would in which we seem to see a man jump out of a third-story window, but in both cases we should be inclined to question the author's respect for literature. All such work is like scene-painting, but if a man prefers gazing at chromo-lithographs to visiting the Pitti Gallery, he cannot be talked out of his tastes.
The reaction against realism shows itself now-a-days in many curious ways. Alongside of an intense devotion to science there flourishes the vulgarest superstition regarding the occupations and intellectual capacity of departed spirits, and the imagination of the present day finds its frequent expression in coarse melodrama. But even for the melodrama Ouida, clever as she is, lacks one important element—namely, a sense of humor. There is a monotonous seriousness in her stories, and frequently an unrelieved pathos, which is in direct violation of the law that commands grotesqueness and misery to be put in close antithesis by the writer who is anxious to win fame. The airy badinage of some of her characters is singularly void of lightness and frolicsomeness. Their unfailing cynicism alone makes good this noticeable deficiency. This fault distinguishes Ouida very clearly from Dumas and Victor Hugo, for Dumas's high spirits seldom failed him, while Victor Hugo combines contrasting qualities in his novel as carefully as if he were making a salad. But Ouida can relieve the strain she makes upon her readers' feelings only by a profuse display of worldly wisdom. Every-day experience shows that vulgar, unrelieved cynicism is an easily-learned accomplishment: any credulous person, inclined to gossip and ashamed of being thought decorous, can be hand and glove with Ouida in a very short time, although it is by no means every one who out of such tawdry material can weave a story that shall be generally interesting. The double nature of this writer is an instance of a rather rare combination. She can be as vulgar as a gossiping dressmaker with a keen love of scandal, and yet she has a vein of poetical sensitiveness, of strong feeling, which stands in strange contrast with her heavy-handed cynicism. In fact, she gilds in her own fashion the crudest display of coarseness and selfishness. Possibly it is too much to say that she gilds: she hangs round with tinsel all sorts of subjects, over which she rejoices as a raw schoolboy rejoices over his first cigar; and this with an infantile delight in her own savoir vivre and an ecstatic vain-glory in her faults which throw real merits into the shade.
A melodramatic imagination—by which is meant a proneness to look at things as Ouida looks at them, an inclination to see crude picturesqueness of effect—apparently fills its owner or victim with the most puffed-up pride. Anything like moderation or exactness is despised, good workmanship is regarded as the plodding of stupidity, and all chance of cultivating what talents the writer may have is thrown over to find place for strong effect. All of Ouida's desultory reading seems to have taught her nothing except that by heaping up agonizing incidents a point will be reached at last when even the most hardened reader will have to succumb and give his sympathy to much-persecuted innocence or to fascinating guilt; and her power of inventing harrowing scenes is practically unlimited. So many writers are cold and unlifelike that Ouida's exaggeration seems to many a most pardonable fault, so far indeed as it seems to be a fault. Her perpetual references to the classics probably appear to the ignorant reader like the profoundest lore: her chatter about French literature, especially about books seldom discussed in mixed company, furthers this delusion. Indeed, it is pitiable to go through one of her novels and pick out the rubbish she collects and sets in order for the delight of an eager public. Here are some gems from In a Winter City. The present condition of Florence, disguised as Floralia, is thus compared with its past glories: "It is Belisarius turned croupier to a gaming-table; it is Cæsar selling cigars and newspapers; it is Apelles drawing for the Albums pour Rire; it is Pindar rhyming the couplets for Fleur de Thé; it is Praxiteles designing costumes for a calico ball; it is Phidias forming the poses of a ballet." That gem is on the first page of the book, which is more like a tenth-rate French novel than any English story that has appeared for some time.
Here are a few lines from Chandos, describing the revels of the aristocracy in a "summer villa at Richmond belonging to him [the hero, of course], where most of these Bohemian dinners and suppers à la Régence were given—a charming place, half covered in flowering trees and pyramids of May blossoms,... with the daintiest and cosiest banqueting-room in the world, hung with scarlet silk, drawn back here and there to show some beautiful picture by Titian, Greuze, Regnault or La Tour; large enough to hold twenty people, but small enough to fill à huis clos like a cabinet; with the air scented by dreamy incenses and dishes and wines under the mellowed light that would have entranced even Lucullus had he been throned there on his ivory chair....
"'The art of life is—to enjoy!' cried Chandos that night, lifting up to crown the sentiment a deep glass of glowing red Roussillon.
"'Toast worthy of Lucullus and Ovid! and you are a master of the science,' said John Trevenna, who was perhaps the only one who saw quite clearly through that intoxicating atmosphere of pastilles, and perfumes, and wines, and crushed flowers, and bruised fruits, and glancing tresses, and languid eyes, and lips fit for the hymns of a Catullus.
"'He is the darling of the gods!' cried Flora de l'Orme, that magnificent Arlésienne, with her melting, Greek-like glance, and her cheek like a peach in the sun, while she leaned over him and twisted, Catullus-like, in the bright masses of his long, golden hair a wreath of crimson roses washed in purple Burgundy."
Probably, if the pink-cheeked beauties on glove- and handkerchief-boxes could be filled with the breath of life, and be set down in a land of which the only authentic representations are those on a drop-curtain, this is the way they would talk and act; and the same refined taste that goes to the painting of such figures and scenery is manifested in the production of such literature as makes up the bulk of many of Ouida's novels.
And yet a writer who so handicaps herself with vulgarity and actual indecency and the grossest snobbishness has underneath that unattractive varnish a fervent passion that is at least impressive. While revelling in such scenes as made the notoriety of the author of Guy Livingstone, she has touches of real pathos, over-wrought possibly, but cold in comparison with her absurdest writings. In Signa, for instance, the whole story of Bruno's love for his betrayed sister's child has certain elements of fineness which atone for much of the rubbish swept into some of Ouida's earlier novels. The book is not one for the Sunday-school library, nor will any one be injured by not reading it, but there is more ability in it than one will find in a great many books by more discreetly-admired writers. It is a romance of a kind not over common in English fiction, and it forms a grateful change from the arid records of the cool love-making of English curates and home-bred young women as sung by this writer's contemporaries. The book has the faults that surely mark an untrained writer, but there is nothing petty in it: indeed, there is a generous breadth of treatment which shows most strongly how Ouida's natural gifts, which had been wasted by glorifying club-talk and midnight suppers, blossomed forth under the influence of Italy. She was possessed by its charm, and inspired by it to put all her new feeling into this story of passion. There is no trace of the confining bounds that had previously kept her busy turning over unworthy material: she spoke out boldly; and if this is not a great book, it is at least a book with some of the qualities of greatness in it. Indeed, it is of a sort that makes one regret that the author had not been exposed to more favorable influences: wiser blame and more temperate praise might possibly have freed her from the faults that show their head even here much more than is desirable. But what is fine in it is something no one could have taught her—the sympathy with ambitious youth, the struggle for fame on the part of the hero, his uncle's stern nature, and the cleverness with which some of the lesser characters are drawn: all these things, which are to be found beneath the facile sing-song of the prose and the perpetual exaggeration of everything good as well as of everything bad, are surely the proof of rare original power. Her very excellence at times serves but to make the reader impatient with her faults, which more than anything are vulgar; and genius and vulgarity do not agree well.
But her good qualities are best seen in some of her short stories, and most of all in those collected in a single volume entitled Leaf in the Storm, and Other Stories, the others being entitled "A Dog of Flanders," "A Branch of Lilac," and "A Provence Rose;" all of which first appeared in Lippincott's Magazine. These are free from the faults of taste which so generally mar her work, although at times the reader comes on exaggerated touches which lessen rather than intensify the pathos; but on the whole it is impossible not to admire, and to admire warmly, the author's power. Ouida here shows her true feeling, and feeling is not over-abundant in contemporary fiction. There is plenty of acute observation, clever description and more or less good-natured satire, but all these things are slight and meagre by the side of strong and genuine feeling. The greatest novel-writer will combine both, and will not sacrifice one to the other; but only too often Ouida throws aside actual and imaginary probability for the sake of melodramatic effect. Of these short tales just mentioned, the one giving its name to the book and "A Branch of Lilac" are especially to be mentioned with respect, and they justify almost any amount of wrath on the part of the reader with the author's excessive abuse of her gifts. In her reaction against conventionality and everything that is humdrum she continually falls into worse pitfalls, but here she is really tragic and really pathetic. In three of these tales she draws the sufferings of struggling genius, which she is fond of describing, though she has never done it so well as here; and in two of them, "A Dog of Flanders" and "A Provence Rose," she combines in the story unusual ingredients, one being told by a rose that witnesses the incidents, while in the other the dog's feelings are set forth at great length. This is always a difficult thing to do; and it is to be noticed that in both disguises we find Ouida under other names, but yet there is enough that is touching in the treatment to dispel harsh criticism. This is not the only time that Ouida has introduced this transmigration of souls into her books, for Puck is a story told by a dog, but unfortunately the dog has the author's ineradicable preference for low company, and a sort of nineteenth-century Moll Flanders has an undue prominence in the book. Bébée, on the other hand, reminds the reader of the innocent short tales: it is a charming little story without the ambitious tawdriness of the longer romances. In a Winter City, again, reeks with fashionable follies and is written in Ouida's most approved worst style.
Ariadne, the latest of her novels, shows in many ways a marked improvement over her earlier work. The story is an admirably invented one: almost every incident is of course crammed with pathos, while the main plot is exceedingly touching. It is supposed to be narrated by an accomplished Roman cobbler, who is a sound critic of art as well as an expert repairer of shoes. He comes across one day a young girl of great beauty who has been wonderfully educated in the classics by her father, and who now, after her parent's death, has come to Rome to find her grandfather, a miserly Jew. This unnatural grandfather drives her from his door, and the cobbler, finding her in great misery, offers her his room, when she at once falls sick, while he lives in his stall. When she has recovered she begins to carve statues—her father had been a sculptor—and these coming to the sight of a great French artist, Maryx by name, he makes her his pupil. Gradually her teacher comes to love her, but there appears on the stage a great poet, Hilarion—there is never any lack of greatness in these novels—who is faultlessly beautiful and whom every woman infalliby loves at sight. Of course, Ariadne is not an exception, so that one day Maryx and the cobbler are surprised to find that Hilarion and she have run away together. It would be unnecessary to describe the book too closely from this point: it is enough to say that Hilarion soon wearies of her, while she never changes in her feeling toward him. When she is deserted in Paris the cobbler goes there and brings her back to Rome, when Maryx learns again the hopelessness of his love, and later Hilarion shoots him in a duel. After a time Ariadne dies broken-hearted, just as Hilarion has learned really to love her, so that he survives to mourn hopelessly the evil he has done. However this may sound in a cold abstract, it cannot be denied that the reader receives a deep impression of the tragedy which is the subject of the book. Ouida never fails to supply the tragic element in great abundance, but here it is given us not on the writer's mere assertion, but with such exposition of the characters as marks some of her later stories, but is perhaps more prominent here than elsewhere. The heroine, for instance, is well drawn: her intensity and purity, and indeed her genius, are all clearly brought before the reader. It is something rare to conceive such a character, but it is infinitely rarer to find any definite image of it conveyed by a writer to any one else. To be sure, this is done with a great waste of purple ink, but yet there are touches which indicate not power alone, but also that acuteness of observation and intelligent knowledge of method which are needed to give even great power its value. Maryx too is well represented, and everywhere, even when the captious would complain of too much melodrama, there are scenes and bits of talk that are good because they are natural. In time justice will be done to the ability of a writer who, when the short-hand report of talk over tea-cups was the fashion, was able to rise above such mechanical handiwork and write a story full of passion. Faulty, tawdry and theatrical as much of Ouida's writing is, she does know—and knowing she at times describes—genuine passion, as she has done here. Much as she has spun out the tale, it is a fine one, and an admirable example of her best side. The revenge that Ariadne makes in carving a statue of Hilarion as he seemed to her, so that even he felt some shame at his inferiority to her conception of him, is impressive. The way, too, in which Rome is kept as a background for all the events described is worthy of notice. But here as elsewhere the main fault is this, which is best described in her own characteristic language: "How one wishes that they had told us the fate of Nausicaa! When she leaned against the pillar and bade her farewell to the great wanderer, we know her heart was heavy: never again could she play by the shore glad-hearted with her maidens: when she had passed, that day, out between the silver dogs of Hephæstus, through the west wind and the pomegranate-blossoms, to the sea, she had left her happy youth behind her. So much we feel sure of, but we would fain know more. Were it a modern poem, how it would be amplified! how much we should hear of her conflict of silence and sorrow! No modern would have the coldness to leave her there, leaning against the column in Alcinöus's hall, and never add a word of her fate. But that is our weakness: we cannot 'break off the laurel-bough' shortly and sharply, unburnt, as they did of old."
Not only is she unable to "break off the laurel-bough:" she decks it with gewgaws and tinsel; she sets the reader's teeth on edge with references to the "Scipii" and to the "gens Quintilii," and never lets pass a chance to bring some bit of ancient or mediæval Roman history into the story, which is also weighed down with superfluous sentiment. It would be hard to find a writer more affected by the "weakness" of redundant description and expression. Then, too, the glorification of all her characters, her way of giving them unlimited wealth, beauty or genius, is like that play of the imagination of children which they exhibit by talking of the time when they will be rich and will give one another hundreds of thousands of dollars. Every one of the longer novels is marred by this fictitious extravagance: it is in her short stories alone that she manages to touch the earth, and in them her pathos is genuine and direct.
Thomas Sergeant Perry.