Literary Notices.
UNDER CURRENTS OF WALL STREET. A Romance of Business. By Richard B. Kimball, Author of 'St. Leger,' 'Romance of Student Life,' &c. New York: G.P. Putnam; Boston: A.K. Loring. 1861.
In the United States about one person in a hundred is engaged in mercantile pursuits—in other words, in 'broking,' or transferring from the producer to the consumer. Of this number, a larger proportion than in any other country are brokers in the strict sense of the word, buying, selling, or exchanging money or its equivalents, and managing credit so that others may turn it into capital. A more active, eventful, precarious and extraordinary life, or one calling more for the exercise of sharpness and shrewdness, does not exist, than that of these men. They are among regular business men what the 'free lance' is among military men, or the privateer among those of the true marine. Any one who has been familiar with one of the 'craft,' has probably heard him say at one time or another—'what I have seen would make one of the most remarkable novels you ever read;' and he spoke the literal truth.
Realizing this fact, Mr. KIMBALL, a lawyer of twenty years' standing in Wall St., and consequently perfectly familiar with all its characteristics, has devoted literary talents, which long ago acquired for him not merely an enviable American but a wide European celebrity, to describing this broker-life, with its lights and shadows. Choosing a single subject and a single class, he has elaborated it with a truthfulness which is positively startling. As we often know that a portrait is perfect from its manifest verisimilitude, so we feel from every chapter of this book that the author has, with strictest fidelity, adhered to real life with pre-Raphaelitic accuracy but without pre-Raphaelitic servility to any tradition or set mannerism. The pencil of a reporter, the lens of the photographer, are recalled by his sketches, and not less life-like, simple and excellent are the reflections of the business office as shown in its influence in the home circle. The reader will recall the extraordinary popularity which certain English romances, setting forth humble unpoetic life, have enjoyed of late years. We refer to the Adam Bede and Silas Marner school of tales, in which every twig is drawn, every life-lineament set forth with a sort of DENNER minuteness—truthful, yet constrained, accurate but petty. In this novel, Mr. KIMBALL, while retaining all the accuracy of Adam Bede, has swept more broadly and forcibly out into life;—there are strong sorrows, great trials seen from the stand-point of a man of the world, and a free, bold color which startles us, while we, at the same time, recognize its reality.
The 'hero' of the work is a merchant, who, like many others after incurring bankruptcy, takes to Wall Street—to selling notes as an under-broker for a living. In describing his trials, the author has, with consummate skill and extraordinary knowledge of both causes and effects, pointed out the peculiarities, institutions, and good or bad workings of the American mercantile system, in such a manner as to have attracted from the soundest authority warm praise of his work, as embodying practical knowledge of a kind seldom found in 'novels.' From 'broking' to speculating—from that again to the old course—alternately buoyed up or cast down, through trials and troubles, the bankrupt, at last, in his darkest hour, lands on that 'luck' which in America comes sooner or later to every one. It is worth remarking that in all his characters, as in his scenes, the author is careful to maintain the balance of truth. He shows us that among the sharks and harpies of Wall Street there are phases of honor and generosity—that the arrogance or coldness of a bank-officer may have a rational foundation—that feelings as intense are awakened in common business pursuits as in the most dramatic and erratic lives. In this just treatment of character,—this avoiding of the old saint and angel system of depicting men,—KIMBALL is truly pre-eminent, and under it even the casual SOL DOWNER strikes us with an individuality and a force not inferior to that of the hero himself.
We can not take leave of this truly remarkable book without referring to the under-current of kindly, humane feelings with which it abounds. There is a delicate, tremulous sympathy for the sufferings and joys which he depicts, which reflects the highest credit on the author. There are, in this book, unaffected touches of pathos, founded on the most natural events in the world, which have never been surpassed by any novelist.
We are glad that novelists are leaving romance and going to real life. One breaking into the harsh industry of the factory and market, another taking down the joys and sorrows of the humble weaver, another describing, as in this work, the strange hurrying life of the 'outside broker' to the sharpest-cut detail,—all giving us truth and observation in the place of vague imagination;—such are the best results of late literature; and prominent among these the future historian will place the Under-currents of Wall Street.
MARGARET HOWTH. A Story of To-Day. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1862.
We know of no other truly American novel into which so many elements have been forced by the strength of genius into harmony, as in Margaret Howth. One may believe, in reading it, that the author, wearied of the old cry that the literature of our country is only a continuation of that of Europe, had resolved to prove, by vigorous effort, that it is possible to set forth, not merely the incidents of our industrial life in many grades, in its purely idiomatic force, but to make the world realize that in it vibrate and struggle outward those aspirations, germs of culture and reforms which we seldom reflect on as forming a part of the inner-being of our very practical fellow-citizens. The work has two characteristics,—it breaks, with a strong intellect and fine descriptive power, into a new field, right into the rough of real life, bringing out fresher and more varied forms than had been done before, and in doing this makes us understand, with strange ability, how the thinkers among our people think. We all know how it flows in to them, from lecture and book, from the Tribune and school—but few, especially in the Atlantic cities, know what becomes of culture among men and women who 'work and weave in endless motion' in the counting-house, or factory, or through daily drudgery and the reverses from wealth to poverty. Others have treated a single **o [transcriber's note: illegible word] of life, dramatically and by events, as well as Miss HARDING, but no one American has dared such intricacies of thought and character in individuals—has raised them to such a height, and developed them with such a powerful will, without falling into conventionalism or improbability. Unlike most novels, its 'plot,' though excellent, is its least attraction—we can imagine that the superb pride which gleams out in so many rifts has induced the author to voluntarily avoid display of that ingeniously spinning romantic talent in which novelists excel precisely in proportion to their lack of all nobler gifts. It is a certain rule, as to literary snobs, that in proportion as the food which they give diminishes in excellence, does the plate on which it is served increase in value. But let none imagine that Margaret Howth lacks interest—it is replete with burning, vivid, thrilling interest—it has the attraction which fascinates all readers, based in a depth of knowledge so extraordinary that it can be truly appreciated by but few. The immense popularity which it has acquired and the general praise awarded it by the press, proves that it has gone right to the hearts of the people—whence it came.