... I have read the third volume of _Esmond._ I found it both
entertaining and exciting to me; it seems to possess an impetus and
excitement beyond the other two,--that movement and brilliancy its
predecessors sometimes wanted, never fails here. In certain passages,
I thought Thackeray used all his powers; their grand, serious force
yielded a profound satisfaction. 'At last he puts forth his strength,'
I could not help saying to myself. No character in the book strikes
me as more masterly than that of Beatrix; its conception is fresh,
and its delineation vivid. It is peculiar; it has impressions of a
new kind--new at least, to me. Beatrix is not, in herself, all bad. So
much does she sometimes reveal of what is good and great as to suggest
this feeling--you would think she was urged by a Fate. You would think
that some antique doom presses on her house, and that once in so
many generations its brightest ornament was to become its greatest
disgrace. At times, what is good in her struggles against this
terrible destiny, but the Fate conquers. Beatrix cannot be an honest
woman and a good man's wife. She 'tries, and she _cannot_'. Proud,
beautiful, and sullied, she was born what she becomes, a king's
mistress. I know not whether you have seen the notice in the _Leader_;
I read it just after concluding the book. Can I be wrong in deeming
it a notice tame, cold, and insufficient? With all its professed
friendliness, it produced on me a most disheartening impression.
Surely, another sort of justice than this will be rendered to _Esmond_
from other quarters. One acute remark of the critic is to the effect
that Blanche Amory and Beatrix are identical--sketched from the same
original! To me they are about as identical as a weazel and a royal
tigress of Bengal; both the latter are quadrupeds,--both the former,
women.