628 The Syrian Flute. Ir was a Syrian afternoon In April, sweet as English June, * Rode o'er the steaming Húleh plain, On the first Eastern slope, drew rein: On Yorkshire damsels, burnt nut-brown. Full fain the horses grazed awhile. Our feet were deep in flowers alway; The thick bees revell'd on the may, Singing their songs of summer-day Upon the blooms of the old Isle. Ah me, the noonday hour of ease, How daintily the southern breeze Caress'd us ever and again; While here and there a bird did seem To sleep, and twitter, all in dream; Who may forget the earliest sight Upper plain of Jordan about the "Waters of Merom." How his aged willows hoary Wave and whiten night and morn; How his oleanders' glory Like rose-fringes of the morn, Glow with delicate carnation Round each wayward-wandering bay, Drinking deep in emulation, With the myrtle and the may, And the lilies and the deer, * A quaint and tender little sound Came softly on my pilgrim's dream. As if the Grandsire of all Bees Unto the reed of Greece or Rome; Since ilex, beech, and chestnut-tree Saw Shepherd's life, heard shepherd's lay. That which hath been, the same shall be. Old Jordan runs on ceaselessly, And man accomplisheth his day. R. ST. J. T. 630 Heroines and their Grandmothers. WHY do women now-a-days write such melancholy novels? Are authoresses more miserable than they used to be a hundred years ago! Miss Austen's heroines came tripping into the room, bright-eyed, rosycheeked, arch, and good-humoured. Evelina and Cecilia would have thoroughly enjoyed their visits to the opera, and their expeditions to the masquerades, if it had not been for their vulgar relations. Valancour's Emily was a little upset, to be sure, when she found herself all alone in the ghostly and mouldy castle in the south of France, but she, too, was naturally a lively girl, and on the whole showed a great deal of courage and presence of mind. Miss Edgeworth's heroines were pleasant and easily pleased, and to these may be added a blooming rose-garden of will Irish girls, of good-humoured and cheerful young ladies, who consented to make the devoted young hero happy at the end of the third volume, without any very intricate self-examinations, and who certainly were much more appreciated by the heroes of those days, than our modern heroines with all their workings and deep feelings and unrequited affections are now, by the noblemen and gentlemen to whom they happen to be attached. If one could imagine the ladies of whom we have been speaking coming to life again, and witnessing all the vagaries and agonizing experiences and deadly calm and irrepressible emotion of their granddaughters, the heroines of the present day, what bewildering scene it would be! Evelina and Cecilia ought to faint with horror! Madame Duval's most shocking expressions were never so alarming as the remarks they might now hear on all sides. Elizabeth Bennett would certainly burst out laughing, Emma might lose her temper, and Fanny Price would turn scarlet and stop her little ears. Perhaps Emily of Udolpho, more accustomed than the others to the horrors of sensation, and having once faced those long and terrible passages, might be able to hold her own against such a great-granddaughter as Aurora Floyd or Lady Audley. But how would she deal with the soul-workings and heart troubles of Miss Kavanagh's Adèle, or our old favourite Ethel May in the Daisy Chain, or Cousin Phillis, or Margaret Hale, or Jane Eyre, or Lucy Snowe, or Dinah or Maggie Tulliver's distractions, or poor noble Romola's perplexities? Emily would probably prefer any amount of tortuous mysteries, winding staircases and passages, or groans and groans, and yards and yards of faded curtains, to the task of mastering these modern intricacies of feeling and doubting and sentiment. Are the former heroines women as they were, or as they were supposed to be in those days? Are the women of whom women write now, women as they are, or women as they are supposed to be? Does the modern taste demand a certain sensation feeling, sensation sentiment, only because it is actually experienced? This is a question to be answered on some other occasion, but, in the meantime, it would seem as if all the good humours and good spirits of former generations had certainly deserted our own heart-broken ladies. Instead of cheerful endurance, the very worst is made of every passing discomfort. Their laughter is forced, even their happiness is only calm content, for they cannot so readily recover from the two first volumes. They no longer smile and trip through country-dances handin-hand with their adorers, but waltz with heavy hearts and dizzy brains, while the hero who scorns them looks on. Open the second volume, you will see that, instead of sitting in the drawing-room or plucking roses in the bower, or looking pretty and pleasant, they are lying on their beds with agonizing headaches, walking desperately along the streets they know not whither, or staring out of window in blank despair. It would be curious to ascertain in how great a degree language measures feeling. People now-a-days, with the help of the penny-post and the telegraph, and the endless means of communication and of coming and going, are certainly able to care for a greater number of persons than they could have done a hundred years ago; perhaps they are also able to care more for, and to be more devotedly attached to, those whom they already love; they certainly say more about it, and, perhaps, with its greater abundance and opportunity, expression may have depreciated in value. And this may possibly account for some of the difference between the reserved and measured language of a Jane Bennett and the tempestuous confidences of an Elizabeth Gilmour. Much that is written now is written with a certain exaggeration and an earnestness which was undreamt of in the placid days when, according to Miss Austen, a few assembly balls and morning visits, a due amount of vexation reasonably surmounted, or at most "smiles reined in, and spirits dancing in private rapture," a journey to Bath, an attempt at private theatricals or a thick packet of explanations hurriedly signed with the hero's initials, were the events, the emotions, the aspirations of a life-time. They had their faults and their accomplishments: witness Emma's very mild performances in the way of portrait taking; but as for tracking murderers, agonies of mystery, and disappointed affections, flinging themselves at gentlemen's heads, marrying two husbands at once, flashing with irrepressible emotion, or only betraying the deadly conflict going on within by a slight quiver of the pale lip-such ideas never entered their pretty little heads. They fainted a good deal, we must confess, and wrote long and tedious letters to aged clergymen residing in the country. They exclaimed "La!" when anything surprised them, and were, we believe, dreadfully afraid of cows, notwithstanding their country connection. But they were certainly a more amiable race than their successors. It is a fact that people do not usually feel the same affection for phenomenons, however curious, that they do for perfectly commonplace human creatures. And yet at the same time we confess that it does seem somewhat ungrateful to complain of these living and adventurous heroines to whom, with all their vagaries, one has owed such long and happy hours of amusement and entertainment and comfort, and who have gone through so much for our edification. Still one cannot but wonder how Miss Austen would have written if she had lived to-day instead of yesterday. It has been often said that novels might be divided into two great divisions-the objective and the subjective: almost all men's novels belong to the former; almost all women's, now-a-days, to the latter definition. Analysis of emotion instead of analysis of character, the history of feeling instead of the history of events, seems to be the method of the majority of penwomen. The novels that we have in hand to review now are examples of this mode of treatment, and the truth is, that except in the case of the highest art and most consummate skill, there is no comparison between the interest excited by facts and general characteristics, as compared with the interest of feeling and emotion told with only the same amount of perception and ability. Few people, for instance, could read the story of the poor lady who lived too much alone without being touched by the simple earnestness with which her sorrows are written of, although in the bare details of her life there might not be much worth recording. But this is the history of poor Mrs. Storn's feelings more than that of her life-of feelings very sad and earnest and passionate, full of struggle for right, with truth to help and untruth to bewilder her; with power and depth and reality in her struggles, which end at last in a sad sort of twilight that seems to haunt one as one shuts up the book. In George Geith, of which we will speak more presently, there is the same sadness and minor key ringing all through the composition. Indeed, all this author's tunes are very melancholy—so melancholy, that it would seem almost like a defect if they were not at the same time very sweet as well as very sad. Too Much Alone is a young woman who marries a very silent, upright, and industrious chemical experimentalist. He has well-cut features, honourable feelings, a genius for discovering cheap ways of producing acids and chemicals, as well as ideas about cyanosium, which, combined with his perfect trust in and neglect of his wife, very nearly bring about the destruction of all their domestic happiness. She is a pale, sentimental young woman, with ravenblack hair, clever, and longing for sympathy-a femme incomprise, it must be confessed, but certainly much more charming and pleasant and pathetic than such people usually are. Days go by, lonely alike for her, without occupation or friendship or interest; she cannot consort with the dull and vulgar people about her; she has her little son, but he is not a companion. Her husband is absorbed in his work. She has no one to talk to, nothing to do or think of. She lives all alone in the great noisy life-full city, sad and pining and wistful and weary. Here is a little sketch of her :— Lina was sitting, thinking about the fact that she had been married many months more than three years, and that on the especial Sunday morning in question she was just of age. It was still early, for Mr. Storn, according to the fashion of most London folks, borrowed hours from both ends of the day, and his wife was sitting there until it should be time for her to get ready and to go to church alone. Her chair was placed by the open window, and though the city was London, and the |