Romance and Reality
author: Maria Jane Jewsbury
source date: December 1831

Maria Jane Jewsbury Romance and Reality. By L. E. L., Author of 'The Improvisatrice,' &c. 3 vols. London. 1831. Colburn & Bentley. [This review article appeared in The Athenæum no. 215 (Saturday, December 10, 1831): 793-7. The essay is attributed to Jewsbury in The Athenaeum Projects: Index of Reviews and Reviewers , https://athenaeum.city.ac.uk/. The Criticism Archive edition of this article was prepared by Mary A. Waters and Krystal J. Iseminger.]

W e were always of opinion that Miss Landon's poetry failed in giving a just estimate of Miss Landon's powers. Glowing with imagery, radiant with bright words, seductive with fond fancies,

Full of carving strange and sweet,
All made out of the carver's brain,
For a lady's chamber meet,— [Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Christabel (1816) 173-5.]

picturesque, arabesque, and romanesque, it yet lacked vigour and variety—often abounded in carelessness, and dealt too much in the superficial. It bore too great a resemblance to Thalaba's palace in the desert, a structure that Mr. Canning probably had in his mind when he said of all splendid but unsubstantial creations, "they rose in the mists of the morning, but dissolved in the noonday sun." [Untraced.] Sand often contains gold, yet sand makes a sorry foundation, and we have often wished that L. E. L. would dig till she reached the rock. So far from agreeing with the objections brought by many grave and corporate critics against the superabundance of "Love" in her verses, we have wished for more that could really deserve the name,—taking leave to think that the sparkling sentiment which has idleness and self-will for its parents, and an impersonation of moonlight and a serenade for bridemaids, bore passing small resemblance to intense yet rational feeling; real, yet not ungovernable energy of soul. Again, without going the length of other "robustious periwigged" [Shakespeare, Hamlet III.ii..9.] objections raised against her landscape drawing, we have ventured to wish her on more familiar terms with lady Nature; and, finally, as she has undoubtedly founded a poetic school, we have unfeignedly wished that she would whip some dozen of her scholars. The faults of an original may be merged in the light of his beauties; but the faults of a copyist call for the wet sponge of annihilation. What made us think that Miss Landon possessed "powers that she had never used," were occasional lines and passages manifesting, not merely thought, but a capacity for speculating upon thought—a deeper looking into man's heart and destiny—and loftier aspirations after all "that is very far off," than might beseem troubadours and improvisatrici. 'Erinna,' notwithstanding its incorrect versification, proved that there was iron in the rose; the 'Lines on Life,' breathed wisdom born of tears and nursed of truth; whilst the majority of her later poems have proved her in possession not only of the genii of the lamp, but of the master of the genii; not only of fancy, that builds with gold and gems, but of truth and thought, that bring the living spirit to inhabit. In that most convenient of places—somewhere, we remember to have read an apologue, which, as not inapplicable, we shall narrate. When the Queen of Sheba went to prove King Solomon with hard questions, she appeared one day before him with two wreaths of flowers, the one natural, the other artificial, but both so apparently alike as to render her request that he would distinguish them at a distance somewhat difficult of performance. The wisest of men and best of botanists was puzzled—but, observing a bee outside one of the palace windows, he ordered its admission and watched is movements. The little honey merchant was neither to be deceived nor allured by the bright hues of the artificial wreath, but guided the monarch's decision by settling instantly on one really composed of the roses of Sharon and the lilies of the valley. Would that all poets allowed a bee (sympathy) to discern for them the difference between the false and true—Miss Landon has done so of late, and if her verses have not glittered quite so much with diamond dust, or exhaled so much of the spice islands, the absence has been well supplied by fresh dews and natural brightness. It is a flower-garden beside a fairy tale.

But it was to the prose work intended to proceed from her pen that we looked with most expectation, as the test, trial, and, if the truth must be told, triumph of Miss Landon, and of our own particular opinion of her mind. The work is here; we have read it with as much attention as if it had been theology, and as much excitement as if it had been treason. To call it a novel is incorrect; plot, incident, and narrative of all kinds, would go into a nut, or, to be literally correct, into a walnut-shell. Let not lover of history and mystery, no demander of event and catastrophe, no old-fashioned believer in its being equally the duty of governments to put down plots, and of novelists to purvey them—no person who reads a book merely to know what happens in it, sit down to 'Romance and Reality.' If they inquire of us, "who or what is the Romance?"—"who or what is the Reality?" we cannot answer, for the very primitive reason of not knowing. Those who care little about story, or who can wait for it till the third volume, will find real and delightful occupation in its pages. The correct title of the work would have been 'Maxims and Characters'—for it is composed of essays, criticisms, sketches of life, portraits living and dead, opinions on manners, descriptions of feeling, all served up with so much wit that the authoress might never have been sad,—with so much poetic and moral feeling that she might never have been gay. Perused as a work of fiction, it is too desultory and incorrect to be satisfactory; it must be read as a brilliant, and sometimes profound commentary on the life of this "century of crowds"—as the result of keen and varied observation and reflection: in this view we cannot but esteem it a remarkable evidence of talent. We ask the poetry of the authoress, where, till now, dwelt the brave good sense—the sarcasm bitter with medicine, not poison—the remarks that, beginning in levity, die off into reflection—the persiflage that is only a feint to conceal love of the beautiful and longing after the true? and the 'Improvisatrice,' the 'Troubadour,' and the 'Venetian Bracelet,' answer—"Where?" How much there is that poetry cannot or must not convey. As the Ettrick Shepherd [James Hogg.] says, "Blessings on the man who first invented sleep" [The Ettrick Shepherd quotes the oft-referenced remark by the character Sancho Panza in Cervantes's Don Quixote.]—so we say, "Honour to the patriarchs, who undoubtedly all wrote in prose!" But for 'Romance and Reality' in prose, half our island might never have awoke from their dream that L. E. L., was an avatar of blue eyes, flaxen ringlets, and a susceptible heart! The counter conviction, that her genius is infinitely more like an arrow, barbed at one end and feathered at the other, will dismay a thousand fancies, the cherished growth of albums and sixteen. Take for example the following outline of a domestic day and a domestic savage; we are heathens if they would not be recognized at the foot of the Pyramids.

Monday and two o'clock found Emily in Harley Street, rather sooner than she was expected, as was evident from that silken rustle which marks a female retreat. A discreet visitor on such occasions advances straight to the window or the glass: Emily did the latter; and five minutes of contemplation ascertained the fact that her capote [Though the word more often means a long cloak, in this case it seems more likely to refer to a "close-fitting cap" ( Oxford English Dictionary .] would endure a slight tendency to the left. She then took a seat on the hard, or, as they say of hounds, the hide-bound sofa—the five minutes lengthened into twenty, and she sought for amusement at a most literary-looking table. Alas! she had read the novels—for treatises she had no taste—and two German volumes, and three Latin, together with a scientific journal, gave her a cold chill. While thus employed, a red-faced, loud-voiced servant girl threw open the door, and howled, 'If you please, ma'am, Master Adolphus has thrown the Library of Entertaining Knowledge at Master Alfred's head, because he tore the Catechism of Conchology;' but before Miss Arundel could express her regret at such misapplication of knowledge, the girl had vanished in all the dismay of a mistake.

At last Mrs. Smithson appeared. 'My dear Emily, you have waited—I forgot to tell you that I devote the early part of the day to the dear children—I never allow my literary and domestic duties to interfere: you cannot commence the important business of education too soon, and I am but just emerged from the study.'

This was a little at variance both with servant's appearance and her own laboured toilette, whose want of neatness was the result of hurry and bad taste, not of after-disorganisation. It is amazing how oppressive is the cleverness of some people, as if it were quite a duty in you to be clever too—or, as I once heard a little child say, 'Oh, mamma, I always speak to Mrs. S. in such dictionary words!'

'Slowly and sadly' did the morning pass. Alas! for the victim of friendship, whom sentiment or silliness seduces into passing a long day! The upright sitting on the repulsive sofa—the mental exhaustion in searching after topics of conversation, which, like the breeze in Byron's description of a calm, 'come not'—the gossip that, out of sheer desperation, darkens into scandal; if ever friends or feelings are sacrificed under temptation too strong to be resisted, it is in the conversational pauses of a long day; and worst of all, a long day between people who have scarcely an idea or an acquaintance in common, for the one to be exchanged, or the other abused—communication or condemnation equally out of the question. Mrs. Smithson secretly pitied herself for wasting her colloquial powers on that social non-entity, a young lady; and Miss Arundel was somewhat bewildered by the march of her former friend's intellect. Divers of those elegant harmonies, which make musical the flight of time in London, verified the old rhyme, that

Come what may,
Time and the tide wear through the roughest day. [Shakespeare, Macbeth Act I, scene iii, lines 146-7, slightly altered.]

The muffin-boy announced three o'clock—the pot-boy clanking his empty pewter was symptomatic of four—the bellman tolling the knell of the post announced five—and, at length, a heavy hard-hearted rap proclaimed the return of Mr. Smithson; a gruff voice was hear in the passage—a ponderous step on the stairs—the door and his boots creaked, and in came the author of the treatise on bats and beetles, followed by a blue-coated, nankeen-trousered young man, whose countenance and curls united that happy mixture of carmine and charcoal which constitute the Apollo of a Compton Street counter. [At the time of this writing, Compton Street was a commercial hub in an area that attracted a substantial population of exiles, particularly from France.] Mr. Smithson was equally sullen and solemn-looking, with a mouth made only to swear, and a brow to scowl—a tyrant in a small way—one who would be arbitrary about a hash, and obstinate respecting an oyster—one of those tempers which, like a domestic east wind, 'sparks neither man nor beast,' from the unhappy footman that he cursed, to the unlucky dog that he kicked.

A minute specimen of humanity, in a livery like a jealous lover's, of 'green and yellow melancholy,' announced dinner. Mr. Smithson stalked up to Emily, Mr. Perkins simpered up to the hostess, and they entered a dismal-looking parlour, whose brick-red walls and ditto curtains were scantily lighted by a single lamp, though it was of the last new patent—to which a dim fire, in its first stage of infant weakness, gave small assistance.

Mr. Smithson, who, as member of a public office, thought that church and state ought to be supported,—which support he conceived to consist in strict adherence to certain forms,—muttered something which sounded much more like a growl than a grace, and dinner commenced.

At the top was a cod's shoulders and head, whose intellectual faculties were rather over much developed; and at the bottom was soup called Mulligatawny—some indefinite mixture of curry powder and duck's feet, the first spoonful of which called from its master a look of thunder and lightning up the table. To this succeeded a couple of most cadaverous fowls, a huge haunch of mutton, raw and red enough even for an Abyssinian, flanked by rissoles and oyster patties, which had evidently, like Tom Tough, [Central speaking character of a song by Charles Dibdin.] seen 'a deal of service:' these were followed by some sort of nameless pudding—and so much for the luxury of a family dinner, which is enough to make one beg next time to be treated as a stranger.

Conversation there was none—Mr. Smithson kindly sparing the lungs of his friends, at the expense of his own. First, the fire was sworn at—then, the draught from the door—then, the poor little footboy was encouraged by the pleasant intelligence that he was the stupidest blockhead in the world. Mr. Perkins sat preserving his silence and his simper: and to the lady of the house it was evidently quite matter of habit—a sort of accompaniment she would almost have missed.

The truth is, Mr. Smithson had just married some twenty years too late—with his habits, like his features, quite set, and both in a harsh mould. Young Lady! looking out for an establishment—mediating on the delights of a house of your own—two maids and a man, over whom you are set in absolute authority—do anything rather than marry a confirmed bachelor—venture on one who has been successful with seven succeeding wives, with ten small children ready made to order—walk off with some tall youth, who considers a wife and a razor definitive signs of his growth and his sense; but shun the establishment of a bachelor who has hung a pendulum between temptation and prudence till the age of——; but of all subjects, age is the one on which it is most invidious to descant.

The cloth was removed, and sudden commotion filled the passage:

At once there rose so wild a yell
Within that dark and narrow dell,
&c. &c. &c. [Sir Walter Scott, The Lady of the Lake Canto VI, Stanza xvii, lines 1-2.]

and in came Master Adolphus and Master Alfred in full cry, having disputed by the way which was to go first—also a baby, eloquent as infancy usually is, and, like most youthful orators, more easily heard than understood. The boys quartered themselves on the unfortunate strangers; and Mrs. Smithson took the infant, which Emily duly declared was the sweetest little creature she had ever seen. On going up stairs, Emily found Mlle. Hyacinthe shivering—for, with the usual inhumanity of friends, there was no fire; and it was one of those wet, miserable evenings, gratis copies distributed by November through the year. i. 123.

Certainly, reading the two first volumes of 'Romance and Reality' is exceedingly like reading a volume of Horace Walpole's Letters (only that the names and news are newer), or, if acquainted with literary London, like passing an evening with half your acquaintance. In this respect the book answers to a magazine, saves postage, and, if carried on extensively, might do away with the necessity of newspapers. On this topic we commend the authoress to the fatherly care of that most delightful person, Dr. Folliott, whose opinions, as found in 'Crotchet Castle,' [Crotchet Castle (1831), a satire by Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866), features the bigoted Tory cleric, Dr. Folliot.] we here transcribe:—

Mr. Eavesdrop.—Me Sir! What have I done, Sir, that I am to be poisoned, Sir?

The Rev. Dr. Folliott.—Sir, you have published a character of your facetious friend, the Rev. Dr. F., wherein you have sketched off me: me, Sir, even to my nose and wig. What business have the public with my nose and wig?

Mr. E.—Sir, it is all good-humoured: all in bonhommie: all friendly and complimentary.

Rev. Dr. F.—Sir, you have been very unfacetious. You have dished me up like a savory omelette, to gratify the appetite of the reading rabble for gossip. The next time, Sir, I will respond with the argumentum baculinum. Print that, Sir: put it on record as a promise of the Rev. Dr. F. which shall be most faithfully kept with an exemplary bamboo.

Mr. E.—Your cloth protects you, Sir.

Rev. Dr. F.—My bamboo shall protect me, Sir.

Mr. Crotchet.—Doctor, Doctor, you are growing too polemical.

Rev. Dr. F.—Sir, my blood boils. What business have the public with my nose and wig?"

L. E. L.'s "takings" are for the most part "friendly and complimentary"—nevertheless, some are so caustic, that, unless she omits them in a second edition, it might be well to publish a literary copy of the advertisement to Rowland's Kalydor, [Rowland's Kalydor, a patent preparation for the complexion, was advertised as producing relaxation and dispelling irritability.] particularly that part which states its soothing qualities for "gentlemen whose chins are tender after shaving." Against her second edition, too, or, rather against her next work, we would remind her, that what has been said of bagpipe music may be said of witticisms where too numerous—"the one half would sound better for the other half not being heard." The first volume is as full of points as a packet of needles, and, as the writer says of some one's attitude, fails of being easy by being elaborate. This over-abundance of repartees, similes, and epigrams, becomes tiresome to the dull, and teazing to the quick; makes wit look too like hard work, and the author too much resemble a vivacious juggler—a

Katerfelto, with his hair on end
At his own wonders, wondering for his bread. [William Cowper (1731-1800), The Task: The Winter Evening (1785) 86-7.]

We think we dare read this riddle: to be natural, earnest, and quietly dignified, even as an author, requires no less moral courage than to be so in daily life. Ridicule is society's fear of God, and entertainment its "pearl of great price." [From the fourteenth-century alliterative poem The Pearl .] An author of the beau monde puts wit in his first volume to purchase leave to throw heart, truth, and sentiment into his last. Miss Landon's third volume is exempt from all the faults of the two others; there is no want of story, which is so concentrated in its pages, that, with a little introduction, and the entire smother of the Higgs' family, it might be printed separately, a perfectly true, pure, pleasant specimen of fiction. It is effective, without effect being strained after, and contains passages full of power, beauty, and simplicity. The epigrammatic style is dropped; the narrative flows sweetly yet sadly along; and the history of the grave and noble Beatrice—of the self-will and repentings of the less firmly strung Emily, would redeem an Almack's of young ladies, and "a wilderness of monkeys." [Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice III.i.122-3.] We give a specimen from this part of the work:—

No one person in a thousand is capable of a real passion—that intense and overwhelming feeling, before which all others sink into nothingness. It asks for head and heart—now, many are deficient in both. Idleness and vanity cause, in nine cases out of ten, that state of excitement which is called being in love. I have heard some even talk of their disappointments, as if such a word could be used in the plural. To be crossed in love, forsooth—why, such a heart could bear as many crosses as a raspberry tart.

But Beatrice loved with all the vividness of unwasted and unworn feeling, and with all the confidence of youth. Proud, earnest, and enthusiastic, passion was touched with all the poetry of her own nature. Her lover was the idol, invested by her ardent imagination with all humanity's 'highest attributes.' Undegraded by the ideas of flirtation, vanity, interest, or establishment, her love was as simple as it was beautiful. Her life had passed in solitude, but it had been the solitude of both refinement and exertion. She was unworldly, but not untaught. She had read extensively and variously. Much of her reading had been of a kind unusual to either her sex or age; but she had loved to talk with her father on the subjects which engaged him; and the investigations which were to analyze the state of mankind, and the theories which were to ameliorate it, became to her matters of attraction, because they were also those of affection.

Natural scenery has no influence on the character till associated with human feelings: the poet repays his inspiration by the interest he flings round the objects which inspired it. Beatrice had early learnt this association of nature with humanity. She was as well acquainted with the English literature and language as with her own; and the melancholy and reflective character of its poetry suited well a young spirit early broken by sorrow, and left, moreover, to entire loneliness. The danger of a youth so spent was, that the mind would become too ideal—that mornings, passed with some favourite volume by the dropping fountain, or beneath the shadowy ilex, would induce habits of romantic dreaming, utterly at variance with the stern necessities of life.

But Beatrice had been forced into a wholesome course of active exertion. Obliged to think and to act for herself—to have others dependent on her efforts—to know that each day brought its employment, her mind strengthened with its discipline. The duties that excited also invigorated. The keen feeling, the delicate taste, were accustomed to subjection, and romance refined, without weakening.

* * * *

Beatrice was grave; silent, except when much interested; reserved, save when under the influence of some strong feeling; with manners whose refinement was that of inherently pure taste, and much mental cultivation, touched, too, with the native grace inseparable from the very beautiful: self-possessed, from self-reliance, and with a stately bearing, which—call it prejudice, or pride, or dignity—spoke the consciousness of high descent, and an unquestioned superiority. The pride of birth is a noble feeling.

Lorraine, on the contrary, was animated—more likely to be amused than excited—with a general expression of indifference not easily roused to interest. His manners had that fine polish only to be given by society, and that of the best. His thoughts and feelings were kept in the back-ground—not from native reserve, but from fear of raillery—that suspicion of our hearers which is one of the first lessons taught in the world. His habits were luxurious—hers were simple; he was witty and sarcastic—she scarcely understood the meaning of ridicule; his rules of action were many—as those rules must be on which the judgments of others are to operate—hers were only those of right and wrong. A whole life spent in society inevitably refers its action to the general opinion. Beatrice, as yet, looked not beyond the action itself.

* * * *

Some slight chance usually rivets the attention; it did so now. On one of the tablets were inscribed various names of an apparently large family, the dates of the different deaths singularly near to each other. Emily felt as if her own solitary situation had never weighted upon her thoughts till now. 'Many are kind to me, but none care for me.' Youth with its affection an impulse and a delight, judges others by itself, and exaggerates its claims.

Strange it is that people (unless in the way of ostentation) never value the blessings they possess. But if life has a happiness over which the primeval curse has passed and harmed not, it is the early and long-enduring affection of blood and habit. The passion which concentrates its strength and beauty upon one, is a rich and terrible stake, the end whereof is death;—the living light of existence is burnt out in an hour—and what remains? The dust and the darkness. But the love which is born in childhood—an instinct deepening into a principle—retains to the end something of the freshness belonging to the hour of its birth: the amusement partaken—the trifling quarrel made up—the sorrows shared together—the punishment in which all were involved—the plans for the future, so fairytale-like and so false, in which all indulged: so true it is that love's slightest links are its strongest!

There is something inexpressibly touching in the story of Ishmael, the youth who was sent into the wilderness of life with his bow and his arrow, 'his hand against every man, and every man's hand against him.' Even in our crowded, busy, and social world, on how many is this doom pronounced! What love makes allowances like household love?—what takes an interest in small sorrows and small successes like household love? God forgive those (and I would not even say forgive, were not Divine mercy illimitable,) who turn the household alter to a place of strife! Domestic dissension is the sacrilege of the heart. iii. 89-117.

With these extracts we close 'Romance and Reality'—trusting, nay, believing, that Miss Landon's next prose work will exhibit all the merits of this, matured, and all its faults avoided. To conceive some whole in a strain of high mood, consecrated by high purpose, and crowned with high reward, is not more than she is capable of—not more than she ought to effect:—

Shadows of beauty,
Shadows of power,
Rise to your duty—
This is the hour. [Byron, The Deformed Transformed (1822) I.i.157-60.]