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    NOTICES OF BOOKS. 61

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    A. Life For A Life. By The Author Of " J...

    time , gave form and substance to the shadows floating through other men ' s minds , while "Walter Scott , learned in the history of his

    country and countrymen , gifted with a keen insight into national and individual character , reproduced in his heroes and heroines men and women as they are .

    To this last class of writers belong also Richardson and Smollett , whose pages as faithfully reflect the coarse and indecent sensuality

    which distinguished the men and women of their day , as the pages of Walter Scott reflect Scotch character and history . Here also Thackeray and Dickens take rank , with a host of others more or

    less faithful reflectors of some phase of social life , with which they have themselves peculiar affinity . Among male novelists , the distinction between the two schools is

    strongly marked , and no writer presents himself to our memory , who may not at once be classed under the head of one or the other . Not so with women : Some _tKere are indeed , as Miss Edgeworth ,

    Miss Austin , and Harriet Martineau , who can be readily and distinctly placed , but by far the greater number , and among them

    we believe will be found those who have made the greatest mark , combine the characteristics of the two schools . Madame Sand is a striking illustration of this ; combining with

    a power of dramatic representation of character , surpassed by no writer , living or dead , that of embodying the speculations , theories ,

    and ideas , which rack the hearts and minds of her countrymen . Of all forms of representative literature there is none so unerring and so powerful as the noveland never did novels so faithfully

    , reflect the social life of any people or country as do those of Madame Sand . France , suffering , struggling , and aspiring "; her body social , no less than her body political , one mass of festering corruption , it

    is in the pages of George Sand that we find expression given to her sins , sorrows , and suffering , her agonies and aspirations . But we are wandering far from the book we have in hand , which

    is one of those home histories we English , authors and readers alike , so delight in ; and here again is another illustration of the

    representative nature of the literature we have under consideration . Nowhere as in England is " home " loved , and cherished ; nowhere

    as in English literature are its pleasures and happiness expatiated upon . " John HalifaxGentleman" is a perfect specimen of the home

    novel , its interests , centering round , a married pair , the fortunes of themselves and their children , and if sometimes the reader be tempted to wish that the said John Halifax , Gentleman , were just

    one shade less perfect , the book none the less leaves a profound and touching remembrance of what an honest , single-hearted man may accomplish in lifethough he begin it friendless , penniless , and

    , ignorant . " A Life for Life " is also a thoroughly domestic story , told by

    means of a journal respectively kept by hero and heroine , one

    Notices Of Books. 61

    NOTICES OF BOOKS . 61

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Sept. 1, 1859, page 61, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01091859/page/61/