The House of Yorke. By M. A. T. 1 vol. 8vo, pp. 261. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1872.
A thoroughly good American novel was, we suppose, a literary event which was looked for by nobody who had much knowledge of what had been done in that direction, or who had thought much about the causes which produce the painful thinness of most of our native literature. It is true enough, as Dr. Holmes says, that Protestantism in its last analysis means “none of your business,” and what it means at the root it means more or less in every branch and stem, every leaf and flower. And in America especially, which has, so to say, no history and no traditions, and whose vast material resources tempt its children to believe that the world has been started afresh for them on a different basis from that which underlies older civilizations, one of the most patent and most unpleasant results of the theories on which the new civilization was founded has been the barrenness, the hopeless mediocrity, of the literature which it has produced. How was it possible that a people who, as a people, recognized no absolute authority in any matter whatsoever, even in those of fundamental importance, and who had engrained in their minds the conviction that everybody’s opinion, especially in matters of taste and of religion, was as likely to be true as his neighbor’s, should produce a characteristic and thrifty national art and literature? Lawlessness, a lack of respect for authority, and, in most instances, a provincial ignorance that in these matters there was any recognized authority, were what made the weakness of our efforts in this direction. There were a few writers and a few works of acknowledged ability. In fiction we have had Cooper, and we had also an Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but that the latter owed much of its success to the local evil with which it dealt was evidenced by the inferior merit of the works from the same hand which preceded and which followed it. In the limits of a book-notice it is, of course, not possible to do more than to intimate a conviction that literature and art, like civilization and public morality, rest securely only when they are built upon Catholic truth. Here in America there was ample room and opportunity to prove the opposite proposition if it could be proved, and to show that on a foundation of criticism and negation a strong and sightly structure could be reared. There was no lack of ability in our writers, and there was occasional genius; but, when what they did was not an evident imitation of some foreign model, it generally showed incompleteness, a lack of definite conceptions, and an unpleasant awkwardness and indecision of purpose. We are speaking now only of what is known as light literature—essay-writing, fiction, and poetry.
To find, therefore, a distinctively American novel which one can honestly praise as a work of art, is something at which one may be legitimately surprised as well as pleased; and that we have, at last, in The House of Yorke, such a novel, is what nobody who has read it attentively will be at all likely to deny. The true story intertwined with the fictitious one is, as it should be in a work of fiction, so skilfully subordinated to the main current of the novel that it in no way mars the catholicity which is the first element in all genuine art. Pettiness and provinciality are the two rocks on which novels “founded on fact” are most apt to strike; particular facts get such a prominence in them that the larger truth which art demands is lost sight of. Our author shows, however, a thorough mastery of her materials and an accurate perception of what are the proper means to an end. She shows, too, an unusual degree of insight into character and a trained skill in delineating it. All her personages live: not one of them is an imitation of some other novelist’s creation. Their individuality is preserved, too, without recourse to tricks of speech and gesture—they are always themselves, because in the mind of their creator there existed a clear and definite image of each of them. That she has studied herself and other people very closely is evident as well when she brings her characters into action as when she analyzes their motives. The book is full of bits of delicate insight, as, for instance, where she says of the impetuous Dick Rowan that “his soul had, indeed, always been more tranquil than his manner.” The whole of this character, though, and especially the story of his vocation, may well enough be given as an instance.
She knows, too, how to be dramatic without becoming sensational, and how to be thoroughly delicate and reserved and yet make an interesting love story. Her style is easy and unembarrassed, and always level with the occasion, whether in dialogue, description, or moralizing, and her book is one to be as well liked by the ordinary novel-reader, purely for the interest of the story, as by those who are more attracted by its lofty purpose and by the skill with which that purpose is carried out.
Discussions and Arguments on Various Subjects. By John Henry Newman, sometime Fellow of Oriel College. London: Basil Montagu Pickering, 196 Piccadilly. 1872. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
This is another volume of the uniform series of Dr. Newman’s works. It contains an essay on the manner of catholicizing the Church of England, one on Anti-Christ, one on the analogy of Creed and Scripture in respect to the difficulties of each, one on Secular Knowledge as a means of moral improvement, one on the Defects and Excellences of the British Constitution, and one on the argument of the Ecce Homo—the last two essays only having been written since the conversion of the illustrious author.
The republication of Dr. Newman’s Catholic writings is only something which might have been expected, and which would be considered by all as desirable. The same might be said of his previous works, so far as these contained no heretical or uncatholic statements and opinions. But the entire republication of his Anglican writings was something novel in its way, and rather calculated to startle the mind of one who had not considered the very weighty motives which have induced the author to make this bold stroke. These writings could not have been suppressed. To a very great extent, they are substantially sound, as well as masterly in thought and style, with only an accidental mixture of error. Even those which are in their substance and scope directly anti-Catholic are important documents in the history of polemics. By their incorporation with a complete series of the doctor’s works, they are reduced to the category of those arguments and objections against the faith which are incorporated into systems of theology for the purpose of exhibiting both sides of the controversy, and bringing out the truth in its contra-position to error. The work of Dr. Newman’s life has been a most remarkable and providential one. He has reasoned himself up from Protestantism, through Anglicanism, to the Catholic Church, speaking aloud, and in tones to command attention, during the whole process. It is impossible to estimate the influence for good which he has exerted as an instrument in the hand of God in bringing back Protestants to the fold of the church. The preservation of the complete history of his intellectual progress is therefore something which tends entirely to advance the cause of truth, and to illustrate the glorious conclusion which he finally drew from his premises and proved with such power of reasoning and charm of rhetoric. The present volume contains many things of the greatest intrinsic value, besides what is valuable for the reasons above given, especially the essay on Creed and Scripture, in which the present downward slide of the English toward infidelity is distinctly predicted.
Constance Sherwood. An Autobiography of the Sixteenth Century. By Lady Georgiana Fullerton. 1 vol. 8vo, pp. 284. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.