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Extracts.

REVIEW. (From the, 'Daily News, 1, September 4th.) J}red ': a Tale of the Gh'eai Dismal Swamp. By Haeriet Beecheb Stowe. Sampson ■ Low and Son. " We have" "often expressed our opinion pretty 'Strongly on the subject of didactic fiction. We have no hesitation in saying that works whish come ' strictly under this category are;' when considered artistically, thoroughly and entirely wrong; when ' looked upon as mere1 vei.icles for the communication of great moral or social truths, they ' are,, as" a rule; weak ■ and ricketty ; when judged by the peculiarity they exhibit of smuggling one. thing uuder the form of another, they must be pronounced shabby and despicable. • We have no more respect .for the tales which are written expressly on -this principle than for the gold leaf which .covers a nauseous pill. . They are not a bit more sweet than the treacle in ' which the amiable Mr*. Squee'rs enveloped the brimstone which she administered to the youtb--ful members of society who had the' good fortune to be placed under her maternal care. .Indeed,, we have' always, thought that this fn-^eeing practical woman intended that the periodical- administration of ■ these doses should serve as a great raorai lesson to be remembered in after-life. The sharp rap ■ on" the head, from the very spoon that had been instrumental in conveying the medicated meal to the young, unfortunates, was doubtless meant as a leminder that something disagreeable was the result of envelop•iig substantial medicine in luscious sweets. The sweets spoil the effectof the medicine, and the medicine vitiates the, flavour of the sweets. A similar effect is visible in a mere didactic novel. The notion .dilutes tne moral, and the moral throws a sombre sltade~ov«r the fiction. Both are spoilt in the operation. Repudiating this class of works of fiction as we do, how is it that we have an admiration, for which we can-with difficulty iijjd fitting .expression; for Mrs. Stowe's novels ? Have they not a moral ?—nay. are they not* written to inculcate great.social truths,?—we shall be a^ked. Does not the 'authoress, in, her preface, state distinctly that her work is intended expressly to show the nature of certain social evils, and ■does she not mean to indicate a remedy ? To tlie^e. questions the answers must be in the affirmative, at the-same time that it may be confidently asserted that- Mrs- Stowe's novels are separated by the broadest chasm -possible from mere didactic tales. Ko romance can be truly great without being essenli-'lly moral—nay, without-being essential! v religious. • But a tale is not moral because it lias a moral tacked on to the end of it, nor - religious because it discusses a <'agma. Mrs. Stowe's tales/although moral -and lelijjious to a degree to vrhich it would .be difficult to find a para Pel in woihs of fiction, are so not merely bee-iit^e they trumpet tli« moral or parade the religion. The evolution of the tale gradually brings out illustrations'' of the yrand principles, of .morality and >elieion; which are involved in .the incidents of the half, itself. Morality and relim'uirdo not appeal in her works in tire shape of mottoes, like devices of illumination lamps hung on Hie brandies of trees, but like the' fi uits of the trees themselves, which come the- c for uo other reason than that they cannot help it. The fruit is included in the idea of the tree. It,, was there potentially before we j-nwit actually. Here is the great beauty of Mrs. Stowe's work-*; 'the-.'.beauty ■■vhich ha* attr.tcted tens of thousands of readers wiio would have shrunk with wi:ful iinpaiiuncu from any attempt to ttMcli fi'fMD morals or v.tiglun. There is in these works a grand and graceful structure of

fiction, supporting and containing great and holy truths." But these truths are not for ever mopping and mowing at' you like the sculptured - gurgoy les on ' the . outside of gotliic buildings. They are at once a portion and ornament of the structure itself. Mrs. Stowe's works, will hold, their place in the ranks of imaginative literature when the accursed " domestic institution"- which it is the great purpose of her life to crush has vanished; when, the pseudo-religious cant which she tramples under foot with a degree of pious detennina.ioft- which could arise from nothing .else than an unshaken faith in the eternal truths of religion, has given way-in 'the world to a holy sincerity. They will maintain this j.lace by reason of the wonderful affluence of material which is worked up in her novels, by reason °f her great insight into-the mysteries of our moral nature, by her great ppn«:*> of beauty, physical and-moral, by her delicate perception of the graces of character. Mrs. Stowe has, it is true, chosen a field of labour in which vast materials lie temptingly before her ; but it is her genius which has made this field fruitful. Even before the publication of '• Uncle Tom's Cabin" and the " Key," we knew, or might have known, as much of the horrors of slavery as these works display; But tlie marvellous light of imagi.nation had never before brought out. into the distinct vision the depths of holiness, truth, and capabilities of matrvrdbm that lay in-ah Uncle Tom, the witch-like propensities of a Topsy, the devils that the ",domestic institution" causes to dwell in the soul of a' Legree. . There are some persons who imagine that the great popularity of .".Uncle,Torn's Cabin" must be attributed to its exposition and denunciation of the horrors of slavery. Nothing can be more absurd. It was ihe brilliancy of the imagination, the depth of the genius of the authoress, which attracted' admirers. The wrongs of the npgro race" have been pealed into the ears of Europe for the last forty years, but the nature of the negro race was never %nown thoroughly until Mrs: Stowe illustrated it It was the power of the genius, the artistic skill of the author, which fused into a glowing mass dull, heavy materials, which before but interested mere speculative individuals, but which had never touched the gieat heart of the public. In fact, >t. was Mrs. Stowe's imagination, sense of beauty, and dramatic power, which gave her the ear of the public. If she can press these, without damage to art, into the service of morals and religion, into the cause of the dissemination of a love for bpauty, she is even the more worthy of our admiration. There are some persons, however, who imagine that books in which the religious feelingl is so strongly developed as lin those written by Mrs; Stowe must be

tainted with cant. Now, if1 there are books which, more than any other, at the same time that they are essential religious are dieting lished hy an utter absence of cant, nay a determination to beat it down, and bring it into unvtterable contempt, they are those of Mrs. Stowe. She bus precisely that horror of cant which is ■■■entertained by all persons who believe that religion1 means something else titan, the. utterance of sanctified phrases, ihe rigid performance of cci tain rites, tiic condemnation of our neighbour fur not believing exactly as. we do, and the looking up of our faith for six da\s in the week, and bunging it out to air on the seventh. Every character in k" Died" which is wojth anything at all is a living protest against cant. Take, for instance, that delicious Nina, beautiful ns the birds and flowers amoi'sj which she live«, andtn whom she appears, before the depths of her inner being are aroused, to be assimilated- can anything He more decided than the unconscious rebuke the little witch gives to her Pharisaical aunt Nesbit ?

Of course "Mrs. Nesbit regarded Nina and all other lively young people'with a kind of melancholy endurance, as. spectacles of worldliness. There was ,but little sympathy, to be sure, in the dashing and out-spoken, and almost defiant little' Niua, and the, sombre silvery-grey apparition which glided' quietly about the wide hall of her paternal mansion. In fact, it seemed to afford the latter a mischievous pleasure to shock her respectable relatives on all convenient occasions. Mrs. Nesbit felt it occasionally her duty, as she remarked, to call her lively niece into her apartment, and endeavour to persuade her to read some such volume as Law's " Serious Call," or "Owen on the One Hundred and Nineteenth Psalm," and to give her a general and solemn warning against all the vanities of the world,'in which were generally included dressing in any colour but black and drab, dancing, flirting, writing love-letters, and all other enormities, down to the eating of peanut randy. One of these scenes is just now enacting" in the good lady's apartment, upon which we will raise the curtain. Mrs. Nesbit, a diminutive, blue-eyed, fair complexioned little woman, of some five feet in height, sat gently swaying in that respectable asylum for American old age commonly called a rocking chair. Every rustle of her silvery silk gown, every fold of the snowy kerchief on her neck, every plait of her immaculate cap, spoke a, soul long retired from this world and its cares. The bed, arranged with extremest

precision, however, was covered with a melange of French finery, flounces, laces, among which Nina kept up a continual agitation, like that produced by a breeze in a flower-bed, as she unfolded, turned, and fluttered them before the eyes of her relative. " I have been through all this, Nina," said the latter, with a melancholy shake of her head, '*' and I know the vanity of it." " Well, aunty, I haven't been through it, so I don't know." " Yes, my dear, when I was of your age, I used to go to balls and parties, and could think of nothing but of dress and admiration. I have been through it all, and seen the vanity of it." "Well, aunt, I want to go through it, and see the vanity of it, too. That's just what I'm after. I'm on the way to be as sombre and solemn as you are, but I'm bound to have a good time first. Now, look at this pink brocade." Had the brocade been a pall, it could scarcely have been regarded with a' more lugubrious aspect. "Ah, child! such a dying world as thisf To spend so much time and thought on dress !" " Why, aunt Nesbit, yesterday, you spent just two whole hours in thinking whether you should turn the breadths of your black silk dress upside down, or downside up; and this was a dying world all the time. Now I don't see that it is any better to think of black silk than it is of pink." This was a view of the subject which seemed never to have occuiTed to the good lady. , " But now, aunt, do cheer up, and' look at this bqx of artificial 'flowers. You know I thought I'd bring a stock on from New York. Now, aren't these" .perfectly lovely ? I like flowers that 'mean something. Now, these arc all imitations of natural flowers, so perfect that you'd scarcely know them from the real. Seethere, that's a moss-ross ; and now look at these sweet-peas, you'd think they had just been picked; and there —that heliotrope, and these jessamines, and those orange-blossoms, and that wax cam el i a." ■" Turn off mine eyes from beholding vanity. !" said Mrs. Nesbit, shutting her eyes, and shaking her head. " What if we wear the richest vest, PoacocVa and flies sire better (lr«*t; Tliis fleOi, with all it-" glonous forms, Must drop to earth, nnd>; free! the wormn.' ";Aunt, I do think you have the most horrid, disgusting set of hymns, all about worms, and dust, and such like." ' " It's my dutyj child, when I see you so much taken up with such sinful finery." ".Why, aunt, do you think artificial flowers are sinful ?" " Yes, dear; they are a sinful waste of time aud money,'and take off your mind from more important things." " Well, aunt; then what did the Lord make sweet-peas", and roses, and orange blossoms for r I'm 'sureit's' only doing as He does to make flowers. He don't make everything grey or

stone colour. Now if you would only come out in the garden this morning and see the oleanders, and the crape myrtle, and the pinks, the - roses, and the tulips, and the hyacinth's/ I'm sure it would do you good." ' • "Oh, I should certainly catch cold, child, iF I went out of doors. Milly left a crack open in the window last night, and I've sneezed three or four'times since. ' It will' never do for me to go out in the garden; the feeling of the ground striking up through' my shoes is very un- • healthy." ' . . ■ ■' Well, at any rate, aunt, I should' think, ifthe Lord didn't wish us to wear roses and jessamines, he would not have made them. And - it is the most natural thing in the world to want to wear flowers." "It only feeds vanity and a love of display, my dear." " I don't think it's vanity, or a love of display. I should want to dress prettily if I were the only person in the world. I love-pretty things, because they are ' pretty. I ; like to wear them because they'make" me look pretty." " There it is, child; you want to dress up your poor perishing body to look pretty, that's the thing." "To be sure I do. Why shouldn't-!? I mean to look as .pretty as I can as long as I live." " You seem to have quite a conceit of your beauty" said aunt Nesbit. " Well, I know lam pretty. I'm not going to pretend I don't. I like my own looks, now, that's a fact. I'm not like one of your Greek statues, I 'know. I'm not - wonderfully handsome, nor likely to set the world on fire with my beauty. I'm just a pretty little thing; and I like flowers and laces, and all of these things, and I mean to like them, and I don't think there'll be a bit of religion in my not liking them; and as for all that disagreeable stuff about the worms that you are always telling me, I don't think it ■ does me a -particle of good. And, if religion is going to make me so poky, I shall put it off as long as I can," " I used to feel just as you do, dear, but I've seen the folly of it.'.' " If I've got to lose my love for everything that is bright, everything that is lovely, and everything that is pretty, and like to-read such horrid stupid books, why I'd rather be buried, and done with it." " That's the opposition of' the natural heart, my dear." Again, there is not much like cant in the following extract. There is, on the contrary, a most complete scattering1 of all attempt at cant. Admire the earnestness, so like in degree but- so different in kind, of Old Tiff, who is so anxious to get "' dese yere chil'en to Canaan," but who is awfully perplexed by the' uncertain sounds given out by the professors of religion, to that of Nina, who has lived a life of sensations, but is gradually awakening to a life of thought; and that of Clayton, whose cultivated mind and dspth of principle has given an expansion to his religion which is understood b}' few and practised by still fewer. " Tiff, how did you like the sermon ?" said Nina. " Dor's pretty far, Miss Nina. Der's a good deal o' quality preaching." " What do you mean by quality preaching, Tiff?" ." Why, dat ar kind dats good for quality— full of long words, you know. I 'spccts it's very good; .but poor niggers like me can't see his way" through it. You see, "Miss Nina, what I's studdin' on lately is how to to get dese yer chil'en to Canaan; and I liars furs with one ear and den "with t'oder, but 'pears like ant clar 'bout it yet. Dere's a heap about most everything else, and it's very good; but 'pears like I ant clar arter all about dat ar. Dey says 'Come to Christ;' and I says, ' Whar is he, any how ?' Bress you, I want to come. Dey talks 'bout going in the gate, and knocking at de do,' and 'bout marching on de road, and 'bout fighting and being soldiers of de cross ; and de ■ Lord knows now I'd be glad to get de -chil'en through any gate; and I could take 'em on my back and travel all day, if dere was any road : and if dere was a do,' bless me; if dey would'nt hear old Tiff a rapping! I 'spects de Lord would have fur to open it—would so. But, arter all, when de preaching is done, dere don't 'pear to be

nothing to it. Dere ant no gate, dere ant no do,' nor no way; and dere ant no fighting, 'cept when Ben Dakin and Jim, Stokes gef jawing, about der dogs; and everybody comes back eating der dinner quite comf table and 'peers, like der want no such thing dey's been preach-1 ing 'bout. Dat ar troubles me—does so—'cause I wants fur to get dese yer chil'en'in de .kingdom, some way or other. I did'nt know but some of de quality would lenow more 'bout it." j "Hang me, if I haven't felt just so!" said uncle John, "When they were-'singing that hymn 'bout enlisting, and being a soldier, if ■there had been any fighting doing anywhere, I should have certainly gone right into it; ■ and the preaching stirs me up terribly. But, then, as Tiff says, after its all over, why there's dinner to be eaten, and I cant see anything better than to eat it; and then by the time I have .drunk two or three glasses of wine.it's all gone. Now that's just the way with me." " Dey says," said Tiff, " dat we must wait for de blessing to come down upon us, and aunt Rose says it's dem dat shouts dat gets de blessing; and I's been shouting till I's "most beat out, but I hasn't got it. Den one of dem said none of dem could get it but de . 'lect; but den t'oder.one he seemed to think different; and hr de meeting dey tells about de scales falling from her eyes, and I wished dey fall from mine—l do so. Perhaps Miss Nina, now, you could tell me something." " Oh, don't ask me," said Nina, " I don't know anything about these things. I think I feel a little Hke uncle John," she said, turn;ing to Clayton. ' "There are'two kinds of ser- . mons and-hymns; one gets me to sleep, and the other excites and stirs.me up in ,a general kind ;of way,; but they don't either seem ;to do me irealfgood;" - „; :, ; " For my part, lam such an enemy to stagnation,"; said. Clayton,:" that I;: think, there is> : advantage .in everything that: stirs up the soul, : even though ,we see ;rio immediate results. I ilistento music, see pictures, as far Lean, uncritically. I say,' Here I am; see what you can 'do % withme.';, So I. present myself to almost all 'religious exercises. It is the most mysterious part of our nature;'l do not pretend to .understand it, therefore never criticise." "For my part," said Anne, "there is somuch in the wild; freedom; of, these meetings that shocks my taste and sense of propriety, that I am annoyed more than lam benefitted."" v .

"There spoke the true, well-trained^conven-tionalist," said Clayton. " But look around you. ;See, in this wood, among.those flowers, and fes-> toons of vine, and arches of green, how,many shocking,;unsightly;growths! You would:not, have had all this underbush, these dead: limbs, ■these briers running riot over trees/and; .someitimes choking or killing- them. You would have ■well-trimmed' trees, and velvet turf] But I love briers, dead limbs, and all, for their very isavage.freedom. Every once in a while you see in a wood a jesamifie, or a sweet-brier, or a .grape-vine, that throws itself into a gracefulness iof growth which a landscape gardener would go down on Ms knees for, but cannot get. Nature resolutely denies it to him; she says 'No!' I keep this for my own." You wont have my wild ne^s —my freedom;'very well, then you shall not have the graces that spiing from it!' Just so it is with men. Unite any assembly of common men in a great enthusiasm—work them up into an abandon,'and let every one Met go/ and. speak as Nature prompts—and you will have brush, underwood, briers, and all grotesque growths ; but now and then, some thought or sentiment will be struck out with a freedom or power such as you cannot get in any other way. You cultivated people are much'mistaken" when you despise the enthusiasm of the masses. There is more truth than you think in the old 'Vox populi, vox Dei!'" , : ; "What's that ?" said Nina. "' The voiGeof the people is the voice of God!'" There is truth in it. I never repent my share in a popular excitement, provided it be of f the highest sentiments ; and L do not ask too strictly whether it has produced any tangible re-' suits. I reverence the people as Ido -the woods for the wild, grand freedom with which their humanity developes itself." '. :. " . : [ •■<■-- "l'm afraid, Nina," said aunt Nesbit, in a low tone to the latter, "I'm afraid he isn't orthodox." \ ."What makes you think so, aunt?" . ' "Oh, I don't know;, his talk hasn't the real SOUnd." '■■■■■■' .•'■■. > ::-.. "•." ■■:-" ■:■;■.;;::■■; " : You. want something that ends in 'ation

1 don't "you, aunt—-justification, sanctificatioi)," or something of that kind." (To be concluded in our next.)

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Lyttelton Times, Volume VII, Issue 442, 28 January 1857, Page 4

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3,624

Extracts. Lyttelton Times, Volume VII, Issue 442, 28 January 1857, Page 4

Extracts. Lyttelton Times, Volume VII, Issue 442, 28 January 1857, Page 4

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