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November 15, 1856.] THE LEADER. 1097
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KATHIE BRANDE. Kathie Brands: a ' Firesi...
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THE ESPOUSALS. The Angel in the House. B...
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Coleridge On Shakspeare Ant) Milton. Sev...
among other things I told her , in the anguish cf her sorrow , that she seemed to be as fond of grief as she had been of her son . What was her reply ? Almost a prose parody on the very language of Shakespeare—the same thoughts in nearly tbe same voids , but with a different arrangement . An attestation , like this is worth a thousand
criticisms . . v There is a long passage explaining the definition of Poetry , but as it is the same which is given in the second volume of the Biographic , Literaria , Yre need not quote it . The following contrast between the ages of Elizabeth and Charles I . is different from any other we remember : — The difference between the state of mind in the reign of Elizabeth , and in that of Charles I . is astonishing . In the former period there was an amazing development of power , bat all connected with prudential purposes—an attempt to reconcile tbe moral feeling with the full exercbe of the powers of the mind , and the accomplishment of certain practical ends . Then lived Bacon , Burghley , Sir " Walter Kaleigh , Sir Philip Sidney , and a galaxy of great men , statesmen , lawyers , politicians , philosophers , and poets ; and it is lamentable that they should have degraded their mighty powers to such base designs and purposes , dissolving the rich pearls of their great faculties in a worthless acid , to be drunken , by a harlot . What was seeking the favour of the Queen , to a man like Bacon , but the mere courtship of harlotry ?
Compare this age with that of the republicans : that indeed was an awful age , as compared with our own . England may be said to have then overflowed from the fulness of grand principle—from the greatness which men felt in themselves , abstracted from the prudence with which they ought to have considered whether their principles were , or were not , adapted to the condition of mankind at large . Compare the revolution then effected with that of a day not long past , when the bubbling-up and overflowing was occasioned by the elevation of the dregs—when there was a total absence of all principle , wlien the dregs had risen from the bottom to the top , and thus converted into scum , founded a monarchy to be the poisonous bane and misery of the rest of mankind .
It is absolutely necessary to recollect that the age in which Shakespeare lived yras one of great abilities applied to individual and prudential purposes , and not an age of high moral feeling and lofty principle , which gives a man of genius the power of thinking of all things in reference to all . If , then , we should find that Shakespeare took these materials as they were presented to him , and yet to all effectual purposes produced the same grand result as others attempted to produce in an age so much more favourable , shall we not feel and acknowledge the purity and holiness of genius —a light , which , however it might shine on a dnnghill , was as pure as the divine effluence which created all the beauty of nature ? GChis is a fine explanation of those obscure yet grand passages , such as Milton ' s description of Death , which are the furthest removed from pure prose : — . ¦¦ " ' . ¦[ - '" . ¦ ¦ " . \ . ' . 7 ¦ ; . - ¦ ¦ ¦; '' ,. .. . '¦ ¦ ¦; . ¦• ' : ' ¦¦ . \
The grandest efforts of poetry are where the imagination is called forth , not to produce a distinct form , but a strong -working of the mind , still offering what is still repelled , and again creating what is again rejected ; the result being what the poet wishes to impress , namel y ^ the substitution of a sublime feeling of the unimaginable for a mere image . We repeat : the admirers of . Coleridge . ¦ will welcome this volume , "because it gives them niore of their favourite ; but we cannot recommend it to readers not already anxious to possess whatever Coleridge said . There is another element in this volume , however , which will interest a totally - different class of readers , namely , a complete list of all the Emendations made on the copy of Shakspeare , which JVhy Collier discovered not long since , and which in England , America , and Germany has excited so much critical and antiquarian contention . These emendations are printed injone . column , and in the other is printed the text as it stood in the old editions or stands now in modern editions ; thus the reader can , without trouble , appreciate the value of the emendations .
November 15, 1856.] The Leader. 1097
November 15 , 1856 . ] THE LEADER . 1097
Kathie Brande. Kathie Brands: A ' Firesi...
KATHIE BRANDE . Kathie Brands : a ' Fireside History of a Quiet Life . By Holme Lee . Author of " Thorney Hall . " Smith and Elder . Holme Lee would have done better , we think , had she continued her onevolume stories , instead , of employing two . Kathie Brande , after all , is not a larger picture , but only- a number of pictures on the same canvas ; it is a book of minute episodes , not a continuously developed story ; and , we are sorry to say , these episodes are somewhat dreary and disappointing . With qualities which distinguish her books from the feeble circulating library novels , and especially with the merit of being without affectation , HolmeLee wants , we fear , the keen sense of reality , or thepower of vividrepre-8 € ntation of reality , which alone can maUe quiet every-day life interesting ; and while we miss in Kathie Brande the artistic power capable of engaging our sympathies , we are thrown into antagonism by the forced and unnatural conception of Duty which it presents as the moral of the tale .
Self-renunciation is doubtless a virtue , the root of all virtue , indeed , being the very triumph over egoism , which self-renunciation implies . But precisely because it is a grand effort of heroic strength , and one incessantly combated by egoistic impulses , it should never be overstrained , never so far removed from probability , ns to loosen , its hold on our sympathies . There are tragic moments in life when we are called upon to make these efforts of self-renunciation , but to make thorn when , uncalled for is ridiculous ; instead of exciting symyathy , such obtrusive martyrdom excites unbelief , or worse . Kathie is the strength and consolation of her family . On her exertions mother , sisters , and brother are made to depend . Seeing this , she refuses to
ja arry Felix Mayne , the curate to whom her heart is given , and keeps him for seven years in irritating expectation , to give him up at last on most Rational pretexts . In the original conception there is nothing improbable . We have little doubt that similar sacrifices are frequently made ; but that that they should excite our sympathy it is necessary for all the circumstances to warrant and enforce the sacrifice , nnd it is here that Holme Lee fails ; she has treated the question so as to make it appear mere wilfulnets , of which the reader may judge by the following scene . After having signified to her lover that she can no longer fulfil her engagement with him , she comes home one evening and finds him standing liy tho lire : —
. kfttliie , i ] lavc been jij ) miserably ill , " i 10 Logan : " I wanted to send for you when tnat wretched letter came and stopped mo . Now I am hero , I want to know from your own lips what you mean . " "Oh , Felix , spares me ! " "No , Kathie , I will spare you nothing . You have played with me seven years , and I havo the right to
ask you why you drop the game so suddenly . If you hold to whit that letter conveys , then , Kathie , you never did love me , and never can . love me , as I have done you . " I said nothing : I sat crushed , broken under the weight of his resentment . I saw his face : it was dark , worn , hollow ; the hair on his temples was gray and thin ; the lines of his features sharpened ; his eyes vivid , restless , and passionate . I shrank from them as a criminal might shrink before his judge . " Kathie , you say nothing ? Why have you led me on all this time , to throw me off at last ? Could any man have loved you more faithfully than I have done ? You know It is treacherous and cruel , this deed of yours . " " Yes , Felix . " "Kathie , while you sit there with that ¦ w hite , stony , passive , listless face , do you not know that ! am almost mad ! Have you said your last words to me , when you acquiesce in my saying you have acted treacherously by me ? " " Felix , I have nothing to plead but this—my mother is ill , and we have no money ; I must work for herand for Jean . I dare not let my mother ' s life be the limit of and
my probation jours . I asked you for rny freedom , because between us there is but this , and my happiness must not depend oa the release from a duty such as mine . " " You mean that you never could marry me until your mother ' s death ? " " Yes . " "I have enough for all , and more than enough ; what I have worked for was . you , Kathie : I am richer and poorer than ever I was . Richer , because money is plenty with me ; poorer , because you shamefully take away all the value and reward of what I have done . How dare you dp it ? " " Felix , if I had done this three years since , it had been right ; but I was selfish and could not : the necessity remained , and at last forced itself on me . " " Kathie , I say again , I have enough , for all I" " My mother would never bear dependence even on her children . " " That ia a contradiction ! you are giving your heart's blood to her now . " " Felix , leave me , do leave me ! " "Is that your last word , Kathie : is all my patience to go for nothing ?" . " Felix , go away and hate me : Ihave done you grievous wrong , and am not worthy that you should love me , " I supplicated . " No , KatMe ; you are just as weak and obstinate other
as women . You are not the creature you once were :, for years you have gone on . hardening into a set form of self-negation and duty until you are a mere statue , and no longer flesh and blood . You are bartering away my life and your own for a chimera . Do you not see it ? " I kept silence ; I felt , indeed , like an unworthy outcast—too low even for contempt . The idea of doing right upheld me no more : I was undergoing the punishment of a duty once neglected , and now to be done doubly , and with twice the first difficulty . He waited a little while , and his features took a hard , iron set , as if they never would relax again . " Kathie , will your lips never open for me more ? " he asked , in a deep , chilling , reserved tone . "Am I to go and never inflict my pi isence upon you again ? " I uttered no word , made no movement to arrest his departure . He walked to the door , paused , and came back : u Kathie , it is a grand mistake ; you love me all the time . Why will you make yourself ice to me " I looked up in bis face ; it seemed to waver and change , and then to fade from my vision altogether . For a moment it seemed as if death were
coming to end it all ; but with a desperate effort I clutched back exauing consciousness and said , " Felix , you are killing me ! Spare me your reproaches J" " Well , Kathie , I am going . " He held out his hand , and I laid mine within it ; it was cold as a stone , and it dropped to my side like one when it fell from his grasp . My face was hidden , and the closing of the door told me he was gone . Jean was descending the stairs as I -went up . She stopped and said , " Kathie , you look as if you had seen a ghost ! " " So I have , Jean ; I have been face to face with my dead youth and happiness . " And thus they learned that Felix Mayne had been with me . This is what novelists fancy produces an effect , w hen in truth thes reader sees that the whole scene is merely written for the sake of prolonging the story , and agitating him—which it doesn ' t . It is mere madness to suppose that Kathie would not have married Felix when the only
reason—povertywhich could actuate her , was set aside by the fact of his having sufficient money to support the whole family ; and her conduct throughout is not the conduct of a woman in love , but conquering afiection by heroism ; it is simply the device of a novelist to produce ' a situation . ' We have taken the principal situation in the novel as the subject of criticism , because the same fault which we observe in it more or lesss diminishes our interest in the whole book , which is unreal in treatment , and somewhat thin and dreary in tone . None of the characters impress us with any vivid sense of their reality ; they are pale water-colour sketches , when not conventional novel types . Nevertheless , if we compare Kathie Brande with the majority of novels which every season brings forth , and every season buries for evor , the intellectual superiority of the authoress commands our respect , while it calls for our more stringent criticism . .
The Espousals. The Angel In The House. B...
THE ESPOUSALS . The Angel in the House . Book II . " The Espousals . " London : J . "W . Parker and Son . The poetry of the present day does not consist entirely of ' the spasmodic school ., ' though the pupils of that academy count greater numbers than those of more sober teaching . Mr . Mathew Arnold has recently , botli by criticism and practice , shown that it is possible to kindle the altar flames of poetry without burning down the temple or smoking out the congregation : Mr . Allingham can exhibit fancy , wit , humour , and pathos , and yet not consider it necessary to " beat out ' s brains" in order to show that he is in earnest ; and the same may be said of one or two others of less name , but pre-eminently of the writer wliose poem now lies before usand whoas
, , far as his title-page informs the reader , is of no name whatever , though he has been so often referred to as Mr . Coventry Patmore that we are not invading any privacy in alluding to him thus openly . In a literary point of view , Mr . Patmore ' s object in putting forth The Angel in the House—of which the First Book was published about two years ago under the title of " The Betrothal "—appears to have been to supply a balance to the excesses of that school of which Mr . Alexander Smith and Mr . Sydney Dobell ur < 5 two of the chief exemplars , to furnish the antithesis to all this tumultuous , flushed , and passionate life , by means of a work of wlich the chief features should be repose , delicate finish , and calm power , and which should influe
nce the reader ' s heart and min d , not by the splendour of particular passages , but by its total grace and harmony . Such seems to be the literary purpose of " The betrothal ; " such , also , that of its continuation , " The Espousals , " to which it is our present purpose more particularly to refer . Tho metaphysical or moral design , as exhibited in both divisions , is somewhat akin to the artistical . The writer seeks to show that the sweet sanctities , the daily habitudes , the calm dignity and delight , the affection based on knowledge , reverence , and sell-sacrifice , which belong to wedded love , when marriage lias been thoughtfully and wisely contracted , are nobler subjects for verse than the wayward moods and irregular pulsations of « ourt-
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 15, 1856, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_15111856/page/17/
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