its publication, is less attractive than the stories of "Linny Lockwood"
and "Lilly Dawson." The form adopted for the recital of Susan's
narrative is extremely inartistic, for it comprises Susan's
reminiscences, interspersed at intervals with narrative, and supposed to
be told by her in mature age, when she is housekeeper to the hero of
the story. Nevertheless, the plot is ingenious, turning on the murder of
Susan's brother by a handsome and gentlemanly villain, and the
subsequent exposure of his guilt by means of Susan's energy and the
repentance of one of his victims. It has all the elements of a
sensational story, with the exception of a "sympathetic" heroine or any
other really interesting character; for Susan Hopley, the embodiment of
all homely virtues, is distinctly dull, and it is difficult to feel the
attractiveness of the "beautiful and haughty" dairymaid, Mabel
Lightfoot, whose frailty forms an important element in the discovery of
Gaveston's guilt.
"Lilly Dawson" may be said to possess something of a psychological
interest, which redeems it from the charge of dulness brought against
"Susan Hopley." The heroine is thrown as a child into the hands of a
wild and lawless family, smugglers and desperadoes, who make of her a
household slave; and the child appears at first to be utterly stupid and
apathetic. A touch of affection and sympathy is needed before her
intellect awakes. In fear of being forced to marry one of the sons of
the house in which she has been brought up, when she is only fifteen,
she escapes from her enemies, becomes the guide and adopted child of an
old blind man, takes service as a nursemaid, is employed in a milliner's
workroom, narrowly escapes being murdered by the man whom she refused
to marry, and finally acts as maid in the house of her own relations,
where she is discovered and received with the greatest affection.
Nevertheless, she cannot endure the life of "a fine lady," and goes back
ultimately to marry the humble lover whose kindness had cheered her in
the days of her childhood and poverty.
In "Linny Lockwood" there is a touch of emotion, even of passion, which
is wanting in the previous stories. It embraces scenes and situations
which are quite as moving as any which thrilled the English public in
the pages of "Jane Eyre" or "East Lynne," but, owing possibly to Mrs.
Crowe's obstinate realism and somewhat didactic homeliness of diction
and sentiment, it seems somewhat to have missed its mark. Linny Lockwood
marries a man entirely unworthy of her, whose love strays speedily from
her to another woman--a married woman with whom he elopes and whom he
afterwards abandons. Linny, being poor and destitute, looks about for
work, and takes the post of maid to her husband's deserted mistress,
without, of course, knowing what had been the connection between them.
But before the birth of Kate's child, Linny learns the truth and
nevertheless remains with her to soothe her weakness, and lessen the
pangs of remorse of which the poor woman ultimately dies. A full
explanation between the two women takes place before Kate's death; and
the child that is left behind is adopted by Linny Lockwood, who refuses
to pardon the husband, who sues to her for forgiveness, or to live with
him again.
The character of Linny Lockwood is a very beautiful one, and the story
appeals to the reader's sensibilities more strongly than the recital of
Susan Hopley's adventures or the girlish sorrows of Lilly Dawson.
* * * * *
Mrs. Crowe's writings certainly heralded the advent of a new kind of
fiction: a kind which has been, perhaps more than any other,
characteristic of the early years of the Victorian Age. It is the
literature of domestic realism, of homely unromantic characters, which
no accessories of exciting adventure can render interesting or
remarkable in themselves--characters distinguished by every sort of
virtue, yet not possessed of any ideal attractiveness. She is
old-fashioned enough to insist upon a happy ending, to punish the wicked
and to reward the good. But amid all the conventionality of her style,
one is conscious of a note of hard common sense and a power of seeing
things as they really are, which in these days would probably have
forced her (perhaps against her will) into the realistic school. She
seems, in fact, to hover between two ages of literature, and to be
possessed at times of two different spirits--one the romantic and the
supernatural, the other distinctly commonplace and workaday. Perhaps it
is by the former that she will be chiefly remembered, but it is through
the latter that she takes a place in English literature. She left a mark
upon the age in which she lived, and she helped, in a quiet,
undemonstrative fashion, to mould the women of England after higher
ideals than had been possible in the early days of the century. Those
who consider the development of women to be one of the distinguishing
features of Queen Victoria's reign should not forget that they owe deep
gratitude to writers like Mrs. Crowe, who upheld the standard of a
woman's right to education and economic independence long before these
subjects were discussed in newspapers and upon public platforms. For, as
George Eliot has said, with her usual wisdom, it is owing to the labours
of those who have lived in comparative obscurity and lie in forgotten
graves, that things are well with us here and now.
Caroline Clive was the second daughter and co-heiress of Edmund
Meysey-Wigley, of Shakenhurst, Worcestershire. She was born in 1801, at
Brompton Green, London, and was married in 1840 to the Rev. Archer
Clive, Rector of Solihull, Warwickshire. In the latest edition of her
poems, her daughter states that "Mrs. Archer Clive, from a severe
illness when she was three years old, was lame; and though her strong
mind and high spirit carried her happily through childhood and early
life, as she grew up she felt sharply the loss of all the active
pleasures enjoyed by others."
Her novel, "Paul Ferroll," contains a touching poem which shows how
deeply she felt the privations consequent on her infirmity.
"Gaeta's orange groves were there
Half circling round the sun-kissed sea;
And all were gone and left the fair
Rich garden solitude but me.
"My feeble feet refused to tread
The rugged pathway to the bay;
Down the steep rocky way they tread
And gain the boat and glide away.
* * * * *
"Above me hung the golden glow
Of fruit which is at one with flowers;
Below me gleamed the ocean's flow,
Like sapphires in the midday hours.
"A passing by there was of wings,
Of silent, flower-like butterflies;
The sudden beetle as it springs
Full of the life of southern skies.
* * * * *
"It was an hour of bliss to die,
But not to sleep, for ever came
The warm thin air, and, passing by,
Fanned sense and soul and heart to flame."
A great love of nature and a yearning to tread its scenes breathe in
every word of these lines, which possess an essentially pathetic charm
of their own.
Mrs. Clive died in July 1873, from the result of an accident, by which
her dress was set on fire when she was writing in her boudoir at
Whitfield, with her books and papers around her. Her health was
extremely delicate, and she had been for many years a confirmed invalid.
Her first work consisted of the well-known "IX Poems by V." published in
1840. These poems were very favourably received, and were much praised
by Dugald Stewart, by Lockhart, and by Mr. Gladstone, who says of them,
"They form a small book, which is the life and soul of a great book."
They were also very favourably reviewed in the _Quarterly_ (LXVI.
408-11). Her other poems, "I Watch the Heavens," "The Queen's Ball,"
"The Vale of the Rea," etc., have been re-published with the original
"IX" in a separate volume. "Year After Year," published in 1858, passed
into two editions; but Mrs. Clive's reputation chiefly rests upon her
story of "Paul Ferroll," published in 1855, and its sequel, "Why Paul
Ferroll Killed his Wife." The second story was, however, in no way equal
to the first; and a subsequent novel, "John Greswold," which appeared in
1864, was decidedly inferior to its predecessors, although containing
passages of considerable literary merit.
"Paul Ferroll" has passed through several editions, and has been
translated into French. It was not until the fourth edition that the
concluding chapter, which brings the story down to the death of Paul
Ferroll, was added.
* * * * *
There is little difference in date between the writings of Mrs. Crowe
and those of Mrs. Archer Clive, but there is a tremendous gap between
their methods and the tone of their novels. As a matter of fact they
belong to different generations, in spite of their similarity of age.
Mrs. Crowe belongs to the older school of fictionists, while Mrs.
Archer Clive is curiously modern. The tone and style are like the tone
and style of the present day, not so much in the dialogue, which is
generally stilted, after the fashion of the age in which she lived, as
in the mental attitude of the characters, in the atmosphere of the
books, and the elaborate, sometimes even artistic, collocation of scenes
and incidents.
* * * * *
"Paul Ferroll" is often looked upon merely as a novel of plot, almost
the first "sensational" novel, as we call it, of the century. But it is
more than that. There is a distinct working out of character and a
subordination of mere incident to its development; and the original
ending was of so striking and pathetic a nature that we can only regret
the subsequent addition, which probably the influence of others made
necessary, just as in "Villette" Charlotte Bronte was obliged to soften
down her own conception, in order to satisfy the conventional
requirements of her friends.
The story of "Paul Ferroll" displays a good deal of constructive skill,
although the mystery enfolded in its pages is more easily penetrated
than would be the case in a modern sensational novel. The fact is, we
have increased our knowledge of the intricacies both of human nature and
of criminal law in these latter days, and our novelists are cleverer in
concealing or half revealing their mysteries than they were in "the
forties." For a few pages, at least, the reader may be deluded into the
belief that Paul Ferroll is a worthy and innocent man, and that his wife
has been murdered by some revengeful servant or ruffianly vagabond. But
the secret of his guilt is too speedily fathomed; and from that point to
the end of the book, the question turns on the possibilities of its
discovery or the likelihood and effects of his own confession.
Mrs. Clive's picture of the "bold bad man" is not so successful as that
of Charlotte Bronte's Rochester. Rochester, with all his faults,
commands sympathy, but our sympathies are alienated from Paul Ferroll
when we find (in the first chapter) that he could ride out tranquilly on
a summer's morning, scold his gardener, joke with the farmer's wife, and
straighten out the farmer's accounts, when he had just previously
murdered his wife in her sleep by thrusting a sharp pointed knife
through her head "below the ear." Even although he afterwards exhibits
agitation on being brought face to face with the corpse of his wife, we
cannot rid ourselves of our remembrance of the insensibility which he
had shown. The motive for the crime is not far to seek. He had fixed his
affections on a young girl, his marriage with whom had been prevented by
the woman who became his wife. Dissension and increasing bitterness
grew up between the pair; and her death was held as a release by Paul
Ferroll, who hastened to bring home, as his second wife, the girl whom
he had formerly loved.
No suspicion attached to him, and he is careful to provide means of
defence for the labourer Franks and his wife, who have been accused of
the murder. On returning home with his second wife, to whom he is
passionately attached, he devotes himself entirely to literary pursuits,
refusing to mix with any of the society of the place. From time to time
his motive is allowed to appear; he has determined never to accept a
favour from, nor become a friend of, the country gentlemen, with whom he
is thrown into contact, so that they shall never have to say, supposing
the truth should ever be acknowledged, that he has made his way into
their houses on false pretences. But in spite of his seclusion, he lives
a life of ideal happiness with his wife, Ellinor, and their beautiful
little child, Janet, who, however, occupies quite a secondary place in
the hearts of her father and mother, who are wrapt up in one another.
The events of the next few years are not treated in detail, although
there is at one point a most interesting description of the state of a
town in which cholera rages, when Paul Ferroll flings himself with
heroic ardour into every effort to stem the tide of the disease. Owing
to a riot at the time of the Assizes, Ferroll fires on one of the crowd
and kills him, so that by a curious coincidence, he is tried for murder,
and has full experience of the horrors accompanying the situation of a
criminal. He is sentenced to death but pardoned, and returns to his old
life at home. The widow of the labourer who had formerly been accused of
the murder of his first wife then returns to England, and Ferroll knows
that her return increases the danger of discovery. He tries to escape it
by going abroad, but finds on his return that Martha Franks, the widow,
is in possession of some trinkets which belonged to the late Mrs.
Ferroll, that she has been accused of theft and finally of the murder of
her mistress. This is the very conjuncture which had always appeared
possible to Paul Ferroll; the moment has come when he feels himself
obliged to confess the truth, in order to save a fellow creature from
unjust condemnation. He thereupon acknowledges his guilt, is at once
conveyed to prison, and after a merely formal trial is condemned to
death--the execution to take place, apparently, in three days, according
to the inhuman custom of the time.
Ellinor dies on the day when she hears of his confession; and Janet, his
daughter, now eighteen years old, and Janet's young lover, Hugh
Bartlett, are the only persons who remain faithful to him or make
efforts for his safety. Through Hugh's efforts and the treachery of the
gaoler, Paul Ferroll manages, in a somewhat improbable manner, to escape
from prison; and he and Janet make their way to Spain, whence they will
be able to take ship for America.
The conclusion of the story, as at first written, is particularly
striking. Janet, after an illness, has come to herself: "She did not
know the place where she was. The air was warm and perfumed, the windows
shaded, the room quite a stranger to her. An elderly woman, with a black
silk mantle on her head and over her shoulders, spoke to her. She did
not understand the meaning, but she knew the words were Spanish. Then
the tide of recollection rushed back, and the black cold night came
fully before her, which was the last thing she recollected. 'My father,'
she said, rising as well as she could. The woman had gone to the window
and beckoned, and in another minute Mr. Ferroll stood by her bedside.
'Can you still love me, Janet?' said he. 'Love you! oh yes, my father.'"
It seems a pity that a concluding chapter was afterwards added,
containing a description of Janet's life with her father in Boston, and
of his dying moments and last words, which might well have been left to
the imagination. The original conclusion was more impressive without
these details.
It is rather curious, too, that Mrs. Clive should have written another
volume to explain _why_ Paul Ferroll killed his wife; but possibly she
thought further explanation was necessary, since she prefixed to the
latter volume a quotation from Froude's "Henry the Eighth": "A man does
not murder his wife gratuitously." In this book she changes the names of
all the characters except that of Ellinor. Paul Ferroll is Leslie, and
his wife, Anne, is Laura. Ellinor, the young and beautiful girl out of a
convent, completely enchants Leslie, whom Laura had intended to marry;
and Laura contrives, by deliberate malice, so completely to sever them
that he makes Laura his wife, while Ellinor returns to the convent.
"Violent were the passions of the strong but bitter man; fierce the
hatred of the powerful but baffled intellect. Wild was the fury of the
man who believed in but one world of good, and saw the mortal moments
pass away unenjoyed and irretrievable. Out of these hours arose a
purpose. The reader sees the man and knows the deed. From the premises
laid before him, he need not indeed conclude that even that man would do
the deed, but since it was told in 1855 that the husband killed his
wife, so now in 1860 it is explained _why_ he killed her."
This second volume is decidedly inferior to the first, but it shared in
the popularity which "Paul Ferroll" had already achieved, and the
author's vigorous portraiture of characters and events was well marked
in both volumes.
* * * * *
With her third volume, "John Greswold," came a sudden falling off, at
any rate as regards dramatic force. "John Greswold" is the autobiography
of a young man who has very little story to tell and does not know how
to tell it. No grip is laid on the reader's attention; no character
claims especial interest, but the thing that is remarkable in the book
is the literary touch, which is far more perceptible than in the more
interesting story of "Paul Ferroll." The book is somewhat inchoate, but
contains short passages of real beauty, keen shafts of observation, and
an occasional flight of emotional expression, which raise the writer to
a greater literary elevation than the merely sensational incidents of
her earlier novels. She has gained in reflective power, but lost her
dramatic instinct. Consequently "John Greswold" was less successful than
"Paul Ferroll."
The conclusion of the book, vague and indecisive, shows the author to be
marked out by nature as one of the Impressionist School. It is powerful
and yet indefinite; in fact it could only have been written by one with
a true poetic gift. "The seven stars that never set are going westward.
The funeral car of Lazarus moves on and the three mourners follow
behind. They are above the fir wood and that's the sign of midnight.
Twenty-three years ago I was born into this world and now the
twenty-third has run out. The time is gone. The known things are all
over and buried in the darkness behind. Before me lies the great blank
page of the future and no writing traced upon it. But it is nothing to
me. I won't ask nor think, nor hope, nor fear about it. The leaf of the
book is turned and there's an end--the tale is told."
* * * * *
"Paul Ferroll" may be considered as the precursor of the purely
sensational novel, or of what may be called the novel of mystery. Miss
Bronte in "Jane Eyre" uses to some extent the same kind of material, but
her work is far more a study of character than the story of "Paul
Ferroll" can claim to be. In "Paul Ferroll," indeed, the analysis of
motive is entirely absent. The motives that actuated Paul Ferroll are to
be gathered simply from chance expressions or his actions. No
description of the human heart has been attempted. The picture of the
violent, revengeful, strongly passionate nature of the man is forcible
enough, but it is displayed by action and not by introspection. It is
for this reason that Mrs. Clive may be placed in the forefront of the
sensational novelists of the century. She anticipated the work of Wilkie
Collins, of Charles Reade, of Miss Braddon, and many others of their
school, in showing human nature as expressed by its energies, neither
diagnosing it like a physician, nor analysing it like a priest. A
vigorous representation of the outside semblance of things is the
peculiar characteristic of the so-called sensational novelist; and it is
in this respect that "Paul Ferroll" excels many of the novels of
incident written during the first half of this century. It heralded a
new departure in the ways of fiction. It set forth the delights of a
mystery, the pleasures of suspense, together with a thrilling picture of
"the strong man in adversity," which has been beloved of fiction-mongers
from the first days of fable in the land.
But perhaps it was successful, most of all, because it introduced its
readers to a new sensation. Hitherto they had been taught to look on the
hero of a novel as necessarily a noble and virtuous being, endowed with
heroic, not to say angelic qualities; but this conviction was now to be
reversed. The change was undoubtedly startling. Even Scott had not got
beyond the tradition of a good young man as hero, a tradition which the
Brontes and Mrs. Archer Clive were destined to break down. For Scott's
most fascinating character, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, was confessedly the
villain of the piece; and the splendidly picturesque figure of Dundee
was supposed to be less attractive than the tame and scrupulous
personality of Henry Morton. It was a convention amongst writers that
vice and crime must be repulsive, and that there was something
inherently attractive in virtue--a wholesome doctrine, insufficiently
preached in these days, but not strictly consistent with facts. To find,
therefore, a villain--and a thorough-paced villain, the murderer of his
wife--installed in the place of hero and represented as noble, handsome,
and gifted, naturally thrilled the readers' minds with a mixture of
horror and delight. The substitution of villain for hero is now too
common to excite remark, but it was a striking event in the days when
"Paul Ferroll" was published, although there had been instances of a
similar kind in the novels of the eighteenth century. The new fashion
gained ground and speedily exceeded the limits which Mrs. Archer Clive
would no doubt have set to it; but it is nevertheless in part to her
that we owe this curious transposition of _roles_, which has
revolutionised the aims and objects of fiction in the latter half of the
nineteenth century.
MRS. HENRY WOOD
The art of the _raconteur_, pure and simple, is apt to be undervalued in
our days. A rage for character-painting, for analysis, for subtle
discrimination, down to the minutest detail, has taken hold upon us; and
although we have lately returned to a taste for adventure of the more
stirring kind, there is still an underlying conviction that the highest
forms of literary art deal with mental states and degrees of emotions,
instead of with the ordinary complications of every-day life. Hence the
person who is gifted simply with a desire (and the power) of telling a
story _as_ a story, with no ulterior motive, with no ambition of
intellectual achievement, the Scheherazade of our quiet evenings and
holiday afternoons, is apt to take a much lower place in our estimation
than she deserves.