Notices of New Works [pp. 477-480]

Notices of New Works.
ent day have been those in which the tri als and sorrows, the love and desponden cy, the reverses and triumphs of this life,
as they are experienced by women, are
thrown in an autobiographic form before
a sympathising world, Charlotte Bronte
initiated the new mode in fiction in those
wonderful narratives wherein she exposed
to view the inward workings of a restless
and fiery nature, and made every one of
her numerous readers a conidant in the
distresses, the aspirations, the tenderness
of her heart-history. Since Miss Bronte6,
many other writers have essayed the same
psychological style of fictitious composition and the authoress of "Berenice" is
one of them.
" Berenice" exhibits very considerable
power and originality, but the story of the
w rongs and sufferings of the heroine be comes sometimes painfully vivid, and the
exposure it makes of the human heart approaches the horrors of vivisection. We
would rather not see those bleeding fibres,
nor watch the systole and diastole so
closely. The plot is open to serious objection dramatically and morally-an
early love with a delightful young gentle man with the killing name of St. Cyr,
who saves Berenice from slipping into the
water under Niagara Falls-her subsequent marriage with "a third party"quarrels with the same who behaves
abominably-unfortunate meeting with
foriner lover who thereafter goes to Europe-then a legal separation from perfidious husband, followed by probable loss
o f sw eet St. Cyr at sea when returning
to marry Berenice, and, last of all, a pilgrimage performed by th at youn g lady
to th e r ecent home of her ad ored in sunny
Italy- such is the outline of the sad recital.
Episodes there are, and terrible ores, too,
look you, such as that of the yo ung lady
who tried to kill herself by lightning but
was not struck, (a new idea for the French,
who have exhausted the varieties of selfmurder long ago,) and the successful, but
more prosaic suicide of the poor girl, who,
disappointed in love, gave a wedding fete
to a newly married friend, and had so little consideration for her guests as to drink
the fatal poison while they were in the
very midst of the salad and the Sillery.
Such incidents belong rather to the Litterature Extravaganite than to legitimate
English fiction, the more especially as, in
case of Mona Cresson, the suicide is palliated in the pleasantest and most charitable way. The whole effect of the story
is bad in enlisting our sympathies for a
woman who loves one man while married
to an;)ther, and this is all the snore to be
regretted because the book is so readable.
ruined our preserving-kettle with the poker. That brought our do gs out in f ull
b ark, and between us we made night hi d eous. T hen I thought I hear d a voice,
and l iste ned-i t wa s Mrs. Sparrowgrass
calling to me from the top of the staircase. I trie d to make her hear me, but
t he infernal dops united with howl, and
growl, and b ark, so as to dr own my voice,
which is natur ally plaintive and tender.
B esides, there were two bolted doors and
double deafened floors between us; how
could s he rec ognize my voice, even if s he
did hear it? Mrs. Sparrowgrass called
once or twice, and then got frightened;
the next thing I heard was a sound as if
the roof had fallen in, bv which I understood that Mrs. Sparrowgrass was springing the rattle! Tha cal led out our neighbour, already wid e awake; he came to
the rescue with a bull-te rerrier, a Newfoundland pup, a lantern, and a revolver.
T h e mom en t he saw me at the window,
he shot at m e, but fortunate ly just missed me. I threw myself under the kitchen table and ventured to expostulate with
him, but he would not listen to reason.
In the excitement I had forgotten his
name, and that made matters worse. It
was not until he had roused everybody
around, broken in the basement door with
an axe, gotten into the kitchen with his
cursed savage dogs and shooting-iron,
and seized me by the collar, that he recognised me-and then, he wanted me to explain it! But what kind of an explanation could I make to him? I told him he
would have to wait until my mind was
composed, and then I would let him understand the whole matter fully. But he
never would have had the particulars from
me, for I do not approve of neighbours
that shoot at you, break in your door, and
treat you, in your own house, as if you
were a jail-bird. He knows all about it,
however, somebody has told him-somebody tells everybody everything in our village.".
Stories as pleasant as this are not told
every day, but we must not allow it to be
supposed, from our having quoted only a
bit of fun, that the humour of this volume constitutes its chief attraction. It
overflows with humanity and a love of nature and shows on everv page that its author is a man of refined feelings, reflection, and scholarship.
478
[JUNP,
BERIENICE; A -Yovel. Boston: Phillips,
Sampson & Co. 1856. [From James
Woodhouse, 137 Main Street.
The most successful novels of the pres