520 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[June 19, 1885. 



patient possessing and using a battery, if he will obey 

 explicit directions as to the application of the current. 



Lastly, one sentence to those who, in their wretchedness 

 despair : — " Lift up your hearts." Scieuce can help you, 

 and if you but seek her aid will do so. She asks not faith, 

 only obedience, for her teachings are the manifest truths of 

 God's universe, and only fools disbelieve them. 



DICKENS AND THACKERAY. 



By Eichaed A. Proctor. 



(Continued from p. 49-1.) 



"\TTHAT strikes me most in Thackeray's portraiture of 

 V T women is that even those among his female cha- 

 racters who belong to the same category are so clearly 

 discriminated. Amelia Selden is an amiable nonentity, 

 and so is Rosey Mackenzie ; but no one would ever mistake 

 one for the other or either for Fanny Huxter. There is, 

 in fact, no more resemblance between the two than there is 

 between Eosey's fit of jealousy when Ethel Newcome 

 brings the news of the letter found in Orme'a History and 

 Amelia's jealous love for that young pickle, her son. 

 Again, Laura Pendeunis and Charlotte Bayham are both 

 amiable girls, both bright and intelligent, though neither is 

 particularly clever ; but they are no more to be mistaken 

 for each other than Captain Costigan for General Bayham 

 or for Colonel Newcome. 



So with the unamiable ladies. Apart from the difference 

 between the social condition of Becky Sharpe, Blanche 

 Amory, and Fanny Moantain, they are perfectly distinct in 

 character, though all are clever and unscrupulous, all 

 seductive rather than attractive. Unlike these in nearly 

 all respects, though belonging to the same category, is 

 Beatrice Castlewood, just as Lady Castlewood is unlike all 

 Thackeray's other amiable women (nearest, perhaps, to 

 Helen Pendennis) and Clara Pulleyn unlike all those of 

 the class to which she belongs. 



The development of Mrs. Mackenzie's character from 

 mere vulgarity to viragoism is worked out with surpassing 

 skill. As other illustrations of Thackeray's .skill in this 

 direction I would mention the ladies of the Castlewood 

 family and the two daughters of Sir Miles Carrington. 



Thackeray seems to have taken keen delight in picturing 

 good mothers. By the way, he was a great admirer of 

 Steerforth's mother, in " David Copperfield," the only fadi/ 

 in Dickens' novels. A writer in the Atlantic Monthly 

 a few years since said of Thackeray that he had given us 

 scarcely any mother-characters ; the Atlantic writer ad- 

 mitted, indeed, that Thackeray had given some good mothers, 

 but, oddly enough, wrote as though two good mothers were 

 neutralised by one bad one. I fancy I could name a score 

 at least of mothers in Thackeray's novels without consider- 

 ing those in the "Snob Papers," "The Hoggarty Diamond," 

 "The Bedford Row Conspiracy," " Our Street," &c., the 

 wonderful mothers in " The llavenswing," and " Barry 

 Lyndon," or the sketches in " Denis Duval." 



In " Vanity Fair " we have at least five mothers — 

 Amelia O.sborne, Mrs. Sedley, Lady Southdown, Mrs. Bute 

 Crawley, and Mrs. Becky Crawley (ju'e Sharpe) herself — 

 to count only those who are depicted as mothers, good, 

 bad, or indifferent. Mr.s. Major O'Dowd views her 

 military family in so motherly a way that she might 

 almost be counted among Thackeray's mothers. In " Pen- 

 dennis " we have four mothers — Helen Pendennis, the 

 Begum, Harry Foker's "mum," and Fanny's foolish 

 mother — not to count the mother of Mdlle. Caracole, or 

 whatever the lady's name who adorned Foker's Richmond 



party. In " Esmond " there is only one " full-length " 

 mother — Lady Castlewood, (a singularly skilful drawing, 

 by the way, if the difficulty of the subject is con- 

 sidered) ; but in [\i& sequel — " The Virginians " — there are 

 at least six admirably-discriminated pictures of mothers — 

 Rachel Warrington, Mrs. Mountain, Lady Castlewood the 

 second,* Mrs. Lambert, Mrs. George Warrington {nee 

 Lambert), and Lady Warrington. In the " Newcomes " 

 mothers are still more numerous. There are no less than 

 eight — Lady Newcome, Mrs. Hobson Newcome, Leonore 

 de Floraf, Laura Pendennis, Mrs. Mackenzie, Barnes 

 Newcome's unhappy wife, Ijady Walham and Lord Farin- 

 tosh's mother (remarkable as having been resuscitated by 

 Thackeray, who had killed her and forgotten all about it). 

 In the "Adventures of Philip" (with the "Shabby Genteel 

 Story ") there are six mothers — Mrs. Gann, dear Caroline 

 Brandon (Philip is as her own child we know), Mrs. Brandon 

 Firmin, Mrs. Philip Firmin, Mrs. General Bayham and 

 Philip's first threatened mother-in-law, ]Mrs. Twysden — all 

 admirably sketched, though some with only a few masterly 

 strokes. In " Lovel, the Widower," there are three mothers, 

 all taking active parts in that wonderful scene which follows 

 Lovel's declaration. In all no less than thirty-three ad- 

 mirably-delineated mothers (doubtless I have overlooked 

 several) by the writer, of whom it has been absurdly said 

 that he could never draw a woman, t 

 {To he continued.) 



IRISH SEASIDE RESORTS 



FROM AN UNCONVENTIONAL POINT OF VIEW. 

 By Percy Russell. 



rpHE beauties of Ireland — chiefly, however, those inland 

 X — are usually associated in English minds with Samuel 

 Lover and Thomas Moore, and in these days usually sadly 



* By the way, has it been noticed that Maria Castlewood's age 

 in the " A'^irginians" does not correspond with the record of her 

 birth in " Esmond" ? 



t The writer in the Atlantic Monthly referred to above remarked 

 also on the absence of " the mother " from fiction, where, if she is 

 introduced at all, she is, he said, an uncomfortable figure, always 

 in the way. But, with the exception of Dickens, who certainly 

 (for reasons too easily to be guessed) has few mothers, and those 

 mostly unpleasant ones, in his novels, the Atlantic writer was 

 rather unfortunate in his selections. He says there were no 

 mothers in " Sandford and Merton," in " Jane Eyre," in the " Wide, 

 Wide World," or in " Guy Livingstone." Can he have forgotten 

 Tommy Merton's foolish mother, or the poor woman for whom that 

 weak but kindly boy (whom most of us used to like much better 

 though than the goody-goody bore, Harry Sandford) begged £40 

 from his father ? Besides, is not Sandford's mother introduced to 

 us at the end of the story, when Mr. Merton visits Farmer 

 Sandford? In the "Wide, Wide World" there is one of the 

 sweetest mothers of fiction — Jlrs. Montgomery — and Nancy Vawse's 

 grandmother ought to count as a mother. So in "Jane Eyre" 

 there is, at the beginning of the story, a mother, and a well-drawn 

 one, though she is not a pleasing picture, and we are introduced to 

 two further on. Guy Livingstone's mother is one of the most 

 striking characters in that most repulsive story. The Atlantic 

 writer goes on to mention that Charles lleade has mothers — 

 Catherine, in " The Cloister and the Hearth," for instance, and the 

 Baroness, in " White Lies;" "but there are three fathers and no 

 mothers in ' Foul Play ; ' ' Grifiith Gaunt' has two wives at once, 

 but no mother," and so forth. If he had named Lucy Dodd, how- 

 ever, he would have indicated as much motherhood in lleade's 

 writings as would compensate for a dozen motherless novels. 

 Though, by the way, there are two mothers, as well as two wives, 

 in " Griflith Gaunt " (to say nothing of Mrs. A'int), and in the 

 prison scene between Mercy Vint and Mrs. Gaunt the mother feel- 

 ing in woman is drawn with singular force. (I think it will be 

 found that of all novelists who have written much Cooper has 

 about the smallest proportion of the maternal element.) 



