The British Quarterly Review

“ She makes us smile often, but she very rarely moves us to tears, either by her pathos or her tragedy, for she encumbers both with too many words. She describes everything with precision, and by the time we have done with the piled-up anguish, we are too familiar with it, and too weary for sympathy. This is a fault, but when an artist gives us such fair pictures of middle-class life, in fair flowing English, we are more than contented, though they may not bear the sign-manual of genius. ”

“ But the cynical novel we like not, be it ever so clever—the novel that casts into immortal types the baser metal of humanity, and photographs into permanent blackness the transient suggestions of evil that come and go on the mind of the million; for we can never separate from the art of a book its influence ”

“ In 'Rufus Lyon,' George Eliot has done justice to a somewhat eccentric type of Nonconformist minister, but the majority of the best-known sketches of Nonconformity, lay or clerical, are mere caricatures by persons who know it only from the outside. For a true and sympathetic view of modern life amongst Dissenters, we want a writer born and bred in dissent, and with that endowment of genius which is the gift of God. ”

“ Oliphant displays in this story an excess of that shrewd humour in which Lucilla Majoribanks is so gloriously deficient, and she becomes now and then as sarcastic as Mrs. Woodburn, who was the terror of Carlingford society when Lucilla was forming it. There is, indeed, a strong touch of caricature in several of her delineations in the 'Chronicles,' but even in the most exaggerated, the natural features are preserved. Every character is distinct as life, and their variety is as wonderful as life. ”

“ There is heartache in the story of 'Lilliesleaf,' but not heartbreak, for love abides still between the one who strays away and those who stand fast by duty, and justifies itself as the greatest power for good that God has given to his creatures, by bringing the prodigal home to his own roof and people in final repentance, forgiveness, and peace. ”

“ I laid down my bonnet upon the table, and sat at the lone fireside, from which both life and pleasantness had passed away; and I could not send back the tear from my eye that came at the thought of what was gone; for truly the fireside of Claud, my brother, was, as deserted as mine. “Jenny,” said I, it is an eerie thing to think upon, Do you mind what a pleasure it was to do everything for the bairns? and now the bairns are sober men and women, and have their ain firesides, and their ain troubles; truly nature and the course of life are hard upon old folk.” ”

“ All is well at last; at Lilliesleaf and at Oakenshaw are great quiet and peace of heart. The labour of the elder generation prospers at the good bidding of the Lord, and 'the light of His countenance has brightened upon the path of all the bairns.'
Mrs. Oliphant is far too voluminous a writer to permit us to treat all her works in detail. We must in the majority of cases content ourselves with a passing allusion, and devote our space to the consideration of those novels by which her fame is, we trust, secured beyond this generation. ”

“ The young minister follows the butterman's advice about the 'coorse,' and soon fills the chapel to overflowing; but he suffers his heart to go madly astray after that 'bright particular star' of the highest Carlingford society, Lady Western, and that is an irretrievable blunder. There is something ludicrous as well as painful in his passion, which brings him nothing but mortification and grief. The enthusiasm of pretty Phœbe Tozer and her compeers is lost on him,and general discontent in the connection results. ”

“ Oliphant, who has no morbid taste for narrow circumstances, does not set the wedding-bells a-ringing until she has put her hero in the way of affording to her heroine all the comforts and enough of the luxuries of life to make them happy in the marriage-state, and to enable them to keep up a position in the very best Carlingford society. ”

“ If we may judge from the publishers' advertising lists and from the critical columns of the reviews, there is at this moment a sensible decline in the power of Women's Novels, an indication that the feminine genius of this generation has touched its highwater mark, and that the ebb has begun. No general vote of popularity has exalted any young authoress into sudden fame and fortune for some years past. ”

“ Our remarks on the famous 'Chronicles of Carlingford' have run out to so great a length that we must sum up briefly what we have to say about the writer's other works. We regret this the less because Mrs. Oliphant does not provoke to much variety of criticism. When we have said that her English is good, her method diffuse, her sarcastic vein excellent, her moral tone unimpeachable, we have said almost all there is to say of her style. It is not so strongly characterized that we can ever declare with certainty on taking up a new story in 'Blackwood' that it is hers or not hers. ”

“ What should we expect to take place in 'the world' if a clergyman whom we had always seen active in his duty, pure in his life, refined in his habits, were wildly accused of removing from her home and secreting a pretty little coquettish miss, his clerk's niece, on the strength of her having been seen haunting his lodgings, and once conducted home by him after dark, and given by to her guardians with a sharp admonition? ”

“ Majoribanks gave only dinners, to which naturally, while there was no lady in the house, ladies could not be invited; and, besides, he was rather a drawback than a benefit to society, since he filled the men with such expectations in the way of cookery, that they were never content with a good family dinner after. Then the ladies, from whom something might justly have been expected in the way of making society pleasant, were incapacitated either by character or by multiplicity of children. ”

“ Oliphant manifests a lively interest in every system of ecclesiasticism with which she is acquainted; and, as she expound their various developments in common life, she makes her readers share this interest. She wishes us perfectly to understand that she does not consider Christianity to be the exclusive property of any sect; in her philosophy, one religious profession is as good as another, and she preaches her principles of tolerance from this text in some of the cleverest novels that the language boasts. She is a very prolific writer, and her method has naturally undergone modifications ”

“ If there is any truth in the old phrase which calls a church a cure for souls, it is certain that no cure of souls can be delegated to a preacher by the souls themselves who are to be his care. I find my old theories inadequate to the position in which I find myself, and all I can do is to give up the post where they have left me in the lurch. ”

“ Wentworth, who is a gentleman by birth and education, and a Christian in principle and life, on what seems to us the most preposterously inadequate evidence, is supposed to be guilty of folly and sin, which, if proved against him, would deprive him of his gown. We can conceive nothing more glaringly absurd and disagreeable than this portion of the 'Chronicles.' The character of a minister of God is delicate as a woman's, and ought not to be breathed upon. ”

“ Rectors High Low, and Negative in their views: a Perpetual Curate responsible only to his Bishop, and a poor Curate, with a poor spirit to match, responsible to his Rector's wife; and more incisively than any of these, she limns a Nonconformist preacher, a young genius fresh from Homerton, writhing in the alternate embraces and clutches of his flock, and his low-bred friend who, casually occupying his pulpit, makes 'an' it,' and ultimately supersedes him in his office of pastor to the delightful Carlingford 'connection' worshipping at Salem Chapel. ”

“ She was never seen to flinch at difficulty, and from some passages of arms out of which other women would have emerged with a sense of ignominious defeat, she came with flying colours, and with never so much as a scratch on her shield. ”

“ The bad people fill far more than their fair share of the stage, and they are dismal and uninteresting, and the misery amongst them is as all-pervading as an east-wind. The germ of the story is an iniquitous will, by which a man, with cunning spite against his son, leaves all his large possessions to accumulate in the hands of trustees until the said son's death, when they are immediately to devolve upon his grandson—a fine opportunity indeed, for the devil to set the evil passions of father and child to work! The authoress lets the Old Enemy avail himself of it to his heart's content. ”

“ In real life, we believe that the accusation would never be made, or if made by vulgar and credited by silly persons, would be strongly repudiated by every man and woman blessed with a grain of common sense. But what does Mrs. Oliphant represent as the probable course of action in such a community as Carlingford? ”

“ It is a great merit in a writer when she can thus compel us to realize her characters, and it is a power that Mrs. Oliphant possesses in a very high degree. These two books, 'Mrs. Margaret Maitland' and 'Lilliesleaf,' should be read consecutively. The personal experiences of Mrs. Margaret Maitland are not told in detail until she is 'an eldern person,' left alone in the quiet, pretty cottage of Sunnyside, to which she and her mother have betaken themselves on the death of the minister, her father. She has had her griefs of heart, but they are over, and God has comforted her ”

“ I tell you, so far from rewarding him for being of the true sort, you do nothing but snub him, that I can see. He looks to me as good for work as any man I know; but you'll give your livings to any kind of wretched make-believe before you'll give them to Frank. ”

“ In default, therefore, of any new star of the first magnitude in the literary firmament, we are truly thankful for the favourite old luminaries who rose above the horizon twenty years since, and still go on mildly shining over the waste of literary waters that heave and rock all round this restless and reforming age ”

“ Tozer. “It's hard lines on a minister's wife to please the congregation. Mr. Vincent here, he'll have to take a lesson, That Mrs. Bailey was pretty-looking, I must allow.” “Sweetly pretty!” whispered Phœbe, clasping her plump pink hands. “Pretty-looking! I don't say anything against it,” continued her mother; “but it is hard upon a minister, when his wife will take no pains to please his flock. To have people turn up their noses at you ain't pleasant.” ”

“ She had been a strong-minded woman all her life, and had managed everybody's affairs without being distracted and hampered in her career by those doubts of her own wisdom, and questions as to her own motives, which will now and then afflict the minds of weaker people when they have to decide for others. ”

“ That is the reward of wickedness,” said Jack, with a laugh. “As for Frank, he is a perpetual curate, and may marry perhaps fifty years hence; that's the way you good people treat a man who never did anything to be ashamed of in his life ”

“ Frank Wentworth and Lucy Wodehouse play hero and heroine in, the next 'Chronicle;' but there are several groups of subsidiary characters, each with a central interest, not always essential to the development of the story-in-chief, which often drags, and would have been more effective for pruning, or careful compression. It begins with the arrival of Mr. Morgan and his wife—a couple who have waited to be married until the bloom is off both their lives, and who experience a slight flavour of disappointment with each other in consequence. ”

“ To be sure, Grange Lane was inhabited, as at present, by the best families in Carlingford; but then, without organization, what good does it do tu have a lot of people together?' Mr. Berry, the evangelical rector, was utterly unqualified to take any lead; his wife was dead, his daughters were married, and his maiden sister, who kept his house, asked people to tea-parties where the Dissenting minister, Mr. Tufton, was to be met, and other Dissenters, small tradesmen, to whom the rector, in his universal benevolence, held out the right hand of fellowship. ”

“ As for the men, the lawful owners of all this feminine display, they huddled all together, indisputable cheese-mongers that they were, quite transcended and distinguished by their wives and daughters. ”

“ Vincent,” continued Mrs. Pigeon, shaking out her skirts, and expanding herself on her chair; “but it's all real and solid; what we say we mean—and we don't say no more than we mean—and them's the kind of folks to trust to wherever you go.” ... “We never have had nobody in our connection worth speaking of in Carlingford but's been in trade,” said Mrs, Brown; “and a very good thing too, as I tell Brown. For if there's one thing I can't abear in a chapel it's one set setting up above the rest. ”

“ Pigeon, clinching the milder speech. “But it seems to me,” said poor Vincent, “that a minister can no more be said to get his living off you than any other man. He works hard enough generally for what little he has. And really, Mrs. Tozer, I'd rather not hear all these unfortunate particulars about one of my brethren.” “He ain't one of the brethren now,” broke in the poulterer's wife. “He's been gone out o' Parson's Green this twelvemonths. Them stuck-up ways may do with the Church folks as can't help themselves, but they'll never do with us Dissenters. ”

“ Ladies is terrible tiresome in that way; they'll come in the middle of the day, when a body don't know in the world what to have for them, or they'll come at night, when a body's tired, and ain't got the heart to goin to a supper. There was always a deal of sense in Miss Lucilla, when she hadn't got nothing in her head.'
'Just so,' said Dr. Majoribanks, who was rather relieved to have got through the announcement so easily; 'you will see-that her room is ready, and everything comfortable, and of course to-morrow she and I will dine alone.'
'Yes, sir,' said Nancy ”