Part 13

Encouraged by having found favour with the public, Miss Mulock followed up her success with "Olive" (1850), "Agatha's Husband" (1852), "Head of the Family" (1854). Her literary reputation was now established; and, though her _magnum opus_, "John Halifax," had yet to be written, it may be as well to consider some of the merits and weaknesses of her style, her treatment of her subjects, and her delineation of character.

In a short sketch, such as this, it is not possible to give a synopsis of the plots of the various books, or even, in most cases, extracts from them. We have to confine ourselves to the endeavour to realise the effect they produced at the time they were written--the estimation they were then held in, and to see what position they now command among the novels of the present day.

Perhaps it will be only fair towards the faults we are about to find that we should recall the forward strides made by women in the past forty years. We who can recall the faulty teaching and the many prejudices of that date must often question if women now are sufficiently sensible of the advantages they possess.

A reviewer of Miss Mulock's novels, writing in 1866, says: "It is one of the chief misfortunes of almost every female novelist that her own education, as a woman, has been wretchedly defective;" and further on he adds: "the _education_ of the majority of women leaves them not only without information, but without intelligent interest in any subject that does not immediately concern them." He then points out that it seems impossible for women to describe a man as he is--that they see him only from the outside. "They are ignorant of the machinery which sets the thing going, and the principle of the machinery; and so they discreetly tell you what kind of case it has, but nothing more."

Now, when the time has come that young men and maidens have other interests in common than those which spring out of flirtation and love-making, we may feel quite sure that each sex will get a better insight and have a juster knowledge of the other. The general taste for exercise, and the development of activity and health of body, has killed sentimentality and the heroines of the Rosa Matilda school. Not that these were the heroines that Miss Mulock created. Her ideals are to a certain extent made of flesh and blood, although they are not always living figures. Even at the period when we are told that "In the world of letters few authors have so distinct and at the same time so eminent a position as this lady," her judicious admirers find fault with her overflow of feminine sentimentality, which never permitted her ideal sufferers to conquer their griefs so far that they could take a practical and healthy interest in the affairs of the living world. "They live only 'for others'" says one critic, "'the beautiful light' is always in their faces; their hands 'work spasmodically' at least once in every two or three chapters."

Regarding the cramping influence of the prejudices which hedged in women in Miss Mulock's day, is it not very possible that this flaw in the portraiture of her own sex may have been due to the narrowness of her training rather than to any deficiency in her talent? Nothing more plainly shows how warped her judgment had become than many of the passages in "A Woman's Thoughts about Women." This is a book with much sound argument in it, and full of the desire to rectify the feminine grievances to which she was not blind. But when we come to a passage like the following, in which she asserts that all who "preach up lovely uselessness, fascinating frivolity, delicious helplessness, not only insult womanhood but her Creator," we ask how is this to be reconciled with the text which comes immediately after: "Equally blasphemous, and perhaps even more harmful, is the outcry about the equality of the sexes; the frantic attempt to force women, many of whom are either ignorant of, or unequal for, their own duties, into the position and duties of men. A pretty state of matters would ensue! Who that ever listened for two hours to the verbose confused inanities of a ladies' committee would immediately go and give his vote for a female House of Commons? or who, on receipt of a lady's letter of business--I speak of the average--would henceforth desire to have our courts of justice stocked with matronly lawyers and our colleges thronged by 'sweet girl graduates with their golden hair'? As for finance, if you pause to consider the extreme difficulty there always is in balancing Mrs. Smith's housekeeping book, or Miss Smith's quarterly allowance, I think, my dear Paternal Smith, you need not be much afraid lest this loud acclaim for women's rights should ever end in pushing you from your counting house, college, or elsewhere."

On this showing, such crass ignorance is to be accepted in women, and is to be taken as a matter of course and as natural to them as cutting their teeth or having measles or chicken pox. It is of little use to advocate "Self Dependence," "Female Professions," "Female Handicrafts," for those who cannot write a business letter or do a simple sum. Miss Mulock may have had, indeed I fear had, much reason to cast these reproaches at her sex. But that she did not feel their shame, and urge her sister women to strive for an education more worthy of intelligent beings, proves to me how deeply her mental gifts suffered from the cramping influence of the time in which she lived. Could she have enjoyed some of the advantages which spring out of the greater freedom of thought and action permitted in the present day, how greatly it would have enlarged her mental vision! Her male creations would have been cast in a more vigorous man-like mould. Her feminine ideals would no longer be incarnations of sentiment but living vital creatures. Where the mind is stunted the mental insight must be limited; and strong as were Miss Mulock's talents, they were never able to burst the bonds which for generations had kept the greater number of women in intellectual imprisonment.

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In "Olive," the novel which immediately followed "The Ogilvies," Miss Mulock ventured on a very fresh and interesting subject. Olive, the heroine of the story, is a deformed girl, "a puir bit crippled lassie" with a crooked spine. To make this centre-character attractive and all-absorbing was a worthy effort on the part of an author, and we take up the book and settle ourselves to see how it will be done. Unfortunately, before long, the courage which conceived the personal blemish gives way, and, succumbing to the difficulties of making mind triumph over beauty, Miss Mulock commits the artistic error of trying to impress upon you that, notwithstanding the pages of lamentations over this deformity and the attack made on your sympathy, the disfigurement was so slight that no person could possibly have noticed it. Naturally this puts the heroine in a more commonplace position; and as several minor plots are introduced which Olive only serves to string together, much of the interest in her with which we started is frittered away.

Finally, Olive marries and restores the faith of a religious sceptic. And here it is curious to read the objections raised at the time against bringing into fiction "subjects most vital to the human soul." One critic, after describing the hero he is willing to accept--and, much to our regret, space prevents us showing this terrible model that we have escaped--says: "But a hero whose intellectual crotchets, or delusions, or blindness, are to be entrusted for repairs to a fascinating heroine--a mental perplexity which is to be solved in fiction--a deep-rooted scepticism which is to lose its _vis vitae_ according to the artistic demands of a tale of the fancy, this we cannot away with. Sceptics are not plastic and obliging. Would to Heaven scepticism _could_ be cured by bright eyes, dulcet tones, and a novelist's art of love!"

Criticisms in this tone make more plain to us the difficulties which novelists in the fifties had to grapple with. So many subjects were tabooed, so many natural impulses restrained, while the bogey Propriety was flaunted to scare the most innocent actions, so that nothing short of genius could ride safely over such narrow-minded bigotry. That an extreme licence should follow before the happy mean could be arrived at, was a safe prediction; but many of the writers in that day must have had a hard task while trying to clip the wings of their soaring imaginations, so that they might not rise above the level marked out by Mrs. Grundy.

Now, all these social dogmas must have had an immense influence on the receptive mind of Dinah Mulock, and readers must not lose sight of this fact should they be inclined to call some of her books didactic, formal, or old-fashioned. She never posed as a brilliant, impassioned writer of stories which tell of wrongs, or crimes, or great mental conflicts. In her novels there is no dissection of character, no probing into the moral struggles of the human creature. Her teaching holds high the standard of duty, patience, and the unquestioning belief that all that God wills is well.

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The enormous hold which, ever since its first appearance in 1857, "John Halifax" has had on a great portion of the English-speaking public, is due to the lofty elevation of its tone, its unsullied purity and goodness, combined with a great freshness, which appeals to the young and seems to put them and the book in touch with each other. Those who read the story years ago still recollect the charm it had for them; and, in a degree, the same fascination exists for youthful readers at the present time. The theme is noble, setting forth the high moral truth of "the nobility of man as man," and into its development the author threw all her powers.

From the opening sentence, where you are at once introduced to the ragged, muddy boy and the sickly helpless lad, you feel that these two will prove to be the leading actors in the story--probably made contrasts of, and perhaps played one against the other. This idea, however, is speedily dispelled. Possibly from a dread of failing where it is thought so many women do fail--in the portrayal of the unseen sides of character and the infinite subtleties it gives rise to--Miss Mulock, wisely we think, decided to place her story in the autobiographic form; and the gentle refined invalid, Phineas Fletcher, is made the _deus ex machina_ to unravel to the reader not only the romance of his friend John Halifax's history, but also the working of his noble chivalrous nature. Few situations are more pathetically drawn than the attitude of these two lads, with its exchange of dependence and hero-worship on the one side, and of tender, helpful compassion on the other. A true David and Jonathan we see them, full of the trust, confidence, and sincerity young unsullied natures are capable of. And the story of the friendship, as it grows towards maturity, is equally well told.

His energy and his indomitable faith in himself make a prosperous man of the penniless boy. We follow him on from driving the skin cart to being master of the tan-yard; and throughout all his temptations, struggles, success, he maintains the same honest, fearless spirit.

It seems natural that when to such an exalted nature love comes it should come encircled with romance, and the wooing of Ursula March, as told by sensitive, affectionate Phineas Fletcher, is very prettily described.

For the reason that Ursula is an heiress with a host of aristocratic relations, John believes his love for her to be hopeless. He struggles against this overwhelming passion for some time, until the continuous strain throws him into a fever of which his friend fears he will die. In this agonising strait Phineas is inspired with the idea of confessing the truth to Ursula; and, after a touching scene in which this is most delicately done, she determines to go to the man who is dying of love for her. In the interview, which is too long to be given in its entirety and too good to be curtailed, John tells her that owing to a great sorrow that has come to him he must leave Norton Bury and go to America. She begs to be told the reason, and without an actual avowal he lets her see his secret.

"'John, stay!'

"It was but a low, faint cry, like that of a little bird. But he heard it--felt it. In the silence of the dark she crept up to him, like a young bird to its mate, and he took her into the shelter of his love for evermore. At once all was made clear between them, for whatever the world might say they were in the sight of heaven equal, and she received as much as she gave."

When lights are brought into the room John takes Ursula's hand and leads her to where old Abel Fletcher is sitting.

"His head was erect, his eyes shining, his whole aspect that of a man who declares before all the world, 'This is my _own_." 'Eh?' said my father, gazing at them from over his spectacles.

"John spoke brokenly, 'We have no parents, neither she nor I. Bless her--for she has promised to be my wife.'

"And the old man blessed her with tears."

Abel Fletcher, grave, stern, uncompromising--as members of the Society of Friends in that day were wont to be--is a clever study. He will not yield readily to the influence of John, and when he does give way it is by slow degrees. Yet one of the most winning traits in this somewhat over-perfect young man, given at times to impress his moral obligations rather brusquely, is the deference he pays to his former master and the filial affection he keeps for him; and the author manages in these scenes to put the two into excellent touch with each other--so that, through John's attitude to him, the hard close-fisted old tanner is transfigured into a patriarch who fitly gives his blessing to the bride, and later on, in a scene of great pathos, bestows his last benediction on her blind baby daughter.

It was said at the time of its publication, and it is still said, that in "John Halifax" Miss Mulock reached the summit of her power. That she felt this herself seems to be shown by her adopting the title of "Author of 'John Halifax.'" Its publication was in many ways a new departure. It was the first of that numerous series of books brought out by her (after) life-long friend, Mr. Blackett. Those were not the days when "twenty thousand copies were exhausted before a word of this novel was written;" yet the book had a remarkable and legitimate success. Of its merits a notable critic said, "If we could erase half a dozen sentences from this book it would stand as one of the most beautiful stories in the English language, conveying one of the highest moral truths." And that these few sentences, while in no way affecting the actual beauty of the story, are a blot and an "artistic and intellectual blunder--" the more to be deplored in a book whose moral teaching throughout is so excellent--we must confess. "The ragged boy, with his open, honest face, as he asks the respectable Quaker for work, is no beggar; the lad who drives the cart of dangling skins is not inferior to Phineas Fletcher, who watches for him from his father's windows and longs for his companionship; and the tanner--the honest and good man who marries Ursula March, a lady born--is her equal. Having shown that men in the sight of God are equal and that therefore all good men must be equal upon earth, what need that John should have in his keeping a little Greek Testament which he views as a most precious possession because in it is written 'Guy Halifax, Gentleman'? Are we to conclude that all his moral excellence and intellectual worth were derived from _ladies_ and _gentlemen_ who had been his remote ancestors, but with whom he had never been in personal contact at all, since at twelve years old he was a ragged orphan, unable to read and write?"

Miss Mulock could not have meant this, and yet she lays herself open to the charge, a kind of echo of which is heard in the adding to her good plain title of "John Halifax" the unnecessary tag, "Gentleman."

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Her literary career being now fully established, Miss Mulock decided on taking up her permanent residence in London; and, about this time, she went to live at Wildwood, a cottage at North End, Hampstead. The now ubiquitous interviewer--that benefactor of those who want to know--had not then been called into being, so there is no record at hand to tell how the rooms were furnished, what the mistress wore, her likes, dislikes, and the various idiosyncrasies she displayed in half an hour's conversation. Such being the case we must be content with the simple fact that, charming by the candid sincerity of her disposition, and the many personal attractions that when young she possessed, Miss Mulock speedily drew around her a circle of friends whom, with rare fidelity, she ever after kept.

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"John Halifax" was followed in 1859 by "A Life for a Life," a novel which, although it never obtained the same popularity, fully maintains the position won by its precursor. In it Miss Mulock breaks new ground both as to plot and the manner in which she relates the story, which is told by the hero and heroine in the form of a journal kept by each, so that we have alternate chapters of _his_ story and _her_ story. This form of construction is peculiar and occasionally presents to the reader some difficulties, but as a medium to convey opinions and convictions which the author desires to demonstrate it is happily conceived. The motive of the book is tragedy, the keynote murder--that is murder according to the exigencies of the story-teller. Max Urquhart, the hero--who at the time the tale opens is a staid, serious man of forty--is the perpetrator of this crime, committed at the age of nineteen in a fit of intoxication on a man named Johnston. Journeying from London to join a brother who is dying of consumption at Pau, Urquhart, through a mistake, finds that instead of being at Southampton he is at Salisbury. On the way he has made the acquaintance of the pseudo-driver of the coach, a flashy, dissipated fellow, who by a tissue of lies induces the raw Scotch lad to remain for some hours at the inn and then be driven on by him to where they will overtake the right coach. By this man young Urquhart is made drunk, and when as a butt he no longer amuses the sottish company they brutally turn him into the street. Later on he is aroused by the cut of a whip. It is his coach companion who pacifies him with the assurance that if he gets into the gig he will be speedily taken by him to Southampton. The lad consents, he is helped up and soon falls fast asleep to be awakened in the middle of Salisbury plain by his savage tormentor, who pushes him out and tells him to take up his lodging at Stonehenge. The poor youth, with just sufficient sense left in him to feel that he is being kept from his dying brother, implores the ruffian to take him on his way. "To the devil with your brother," is the answer, and in spite of all entreaties, Johnston whips up his horse, and is on the point of starting, when Urquhart, maddened by rage, catches him unawares, drags him from the gig, and, flings him violently on the ground, where his head strikes against one of the great stones, and he is killed.

How Urquhart manages to reach Southampton, and to get to Pau, he never knows; but when he does arrive at his destination, it is to find his brother dead and buried, and the fit of mania which follows is set down to the shock this gives him. At the end of a year, hearing that Johnston's death is attributed to accident, and being under the conviction that if the truth were told he would be hanged, he resolves to lock the secret in his own breast until the hour of his death draws near, and, in the meanwhile, to expiate his offence by living for others, and for the good he can do to them. He becomes an army doctor, goes through the Crimean War, and, when we are introduced to him, is doing duty at Aldershot, near where, at a ball, he meets the inevitable she, Theodora Johnston. If the hero is drawn dark, thin, with a spare, wiry figure, and a formal, serious air, the portrait of the heroine, with her undeniably ordinary figure, and a face neither pretty nor young, forms a fitting pendant to it. These two are irresistibly drawn towards each other, and, notwithstanding that the lady bears the fatal name of Johnston, they soon become engaged. Dr. Urquhart's tender conscience then demands that the tragic misdeed of his life shall be confessed to the woman he is about to make his wife, and, in a letter, he confides to her the sad history, adding, as postscript, some few days later: "I have found his grave at last." Here follows the inscription, which proves the dead man to have been the son of Theodora's father, her own half-brother, Henry Johnston. "Farewell, Theodora!"

It is impossible here to give more than this crude outline of the plot of a book in which, far beyond the story she means to tell, the author has her own individual opinions and convictions to impress on us. The temptation to earnest writers to try, through their writings, to make converts of their readers, is often very strong, and in this instance Miss Mulock undoubtedly gave way to it. She had not only a vehement abhorrence of capital punishment, but, to quote from her book, she maintained "that any sin, however great, being repented of and forsaken, is, by God, and ought to be by man, altogether pardoned, blotted out, and done away."

As was at the time said, "Her argument demands a stronger case than she has dared to put;" but so ably are the incidents strung together, so touchingly are the relative positions of these suffering souls described, that their sorrows, affection, and fidelity become convincing; and, full of the pathetic tragedy of the situation, we are oblivious of the fact that what is called a crime is nothing greater than an accident, a misfortune, and that for murder we must substitute manslaughter.

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