The Ascent of Man Part 12

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

THE PROPHECY OF SAINT ORAN,

And other Poems.

"There is perhaps no phase of our history more capable of poetic treatment than the sainted lives of the Irish monks who first spread the Christian faith over the western sh.o.r.es of Scotland, and yet it would be difficult to point to a single representative poem having Saint Columba and the devoted band of his disciples for its heroes. An attempt at filling up this gap has recently been made by Miss Blind in a narrative poem devoted to the fate of St. Oran, the friend and disciple of St. Columba.... Apart from the sonorous beauty of her lines, there is in her diction a straightforwardness and simplicity, and an entire absence of affectation and false sentiment, which, combined with considerable power of characterization, make her volume a remarkable contribution to English literature."--_Times_, September 26, 1881.

"To disturb the _motif_ of a legend is always a bold, and mostly a rash, proceeding.... And yet so skilfully is the story handled that the main incidents of the legend do not lose, but gain by this disturbance of the _motif_, and the character of Oran, which with the old _motif_ could only have presented the single side of the religious enthusiast, becomes a character exhibiting that complexity which modern taste demands.... Directness of style and lucidity of narrative are the characteristic excellences of the poem. There are few contemporary poets who could have done so much dramatic business in so few lines.... In each of the sonnets there is a thought that is well expressed, and worth expressing."--_Athenaeum_, July 30, 1881.

"It is in the domain of character that the poem is distinguished by its highest excellence. There is an ideal statuesqueness embodied in the person of St. Columba such as is felt to possess a powerful appeal to the imagination. The poem embraces many pa.s.sions, of which the most tender and beautiful finds expression in the exquisite creation of the radiant golden-haired girl for whose love St. Oran breaks his vow of chast.i.ty. But the really powerful contribution to our knowledge of character which this book contains is fittingly centred in St. Oran himself. A dramatic instinct of high order finds utterance in his struggles between opposing pa.s.sions. Nor are the metrical excellences of the poem less conspicuous.... If one were in need of some single phrase by which to denote the ultimate effect produced by this book, one might say that it seems the most _mature_ of all recent first efforts, even of established rank."--_Academy_, July 16, 1881.

"In the choice of a subject for her chief poem she has been singularly fortunate.... That a story such as this is full of poetical suggestiveness is obvious, and Miss Blind has proved herself equal to the occasion. She has avoided writing anything approaching to a 'tendency poem.' She metes out justice with an equal hand to all her characters. The genuine enthusiasm and religious zeal of the monks are set forth in language as inspired as is the final protest of St. Oran against their narrow fanaticism; and one of the best pa.s.sages in the book is indeed the Sermon in which St. Columba announces the Gospel of love and redemption to the islanders."--_Pall Mall Gazette_, August 22, 1881.

"'The Prophecy of Saint Oran' is skilfully told and vigorously written. In the description of nature and scenery; in the delineation of character; and in the management of singularly difficult positions there is visible a firm and practised hand, a bold and unmistakable power. 'The Street Children's Dance' not unworthily ranks with some of the touching pieces of Hood, Mrs. Barrett Browning, and others."--_British Mail_, September 1, 1881.

"The only excuse for street music that can reasonably be considered valid is the touching plea for public toleration which is embodied in Miss Mathilde Blind's poem, wherein the spectacle of poor children dancing round an organ is as pathetically moralized and as tender and full of loving pity as Mrs. Browning's 'Cry of the Children.'"--_Daily Telegraph_, September 1, 1881.

"The poem is rich in true description of sea and sky and mountain, and glows in sympathy with the deeper feelings which stir humanity. There has been published no poem of such creative suggestiveness as this for many a day, and we hope and believe that it is the precursor of other work by the same unfaltering hand. This poem is a true work of art, complete and beautiful. There is in the volume other work which shows a master's touch...."--_Manchester Examiner and Times_, July 1, 1882.

"Il y a la bien plus qu'une simple facilite de versification. Le recit du poeme d'ouverture est grand et fort, la maniere de raconter est pleine de poesie et d'effet. Depuis la mort de Mrs. Barrett Browning, nous n'avons point eu de poesie aussi hautement inspiree qui ait jailli d'une source feminine."--_Le Livre_, Paris, October 10, 1881.

THE HEATHER ON FIRE:

A Tale of the Highland Clearances.

"Miss Blind has produced one of the most noticeable and moving poems which recent years have added to our shelves.... As a singer with a message her attempt is praiseworthy, and her performance is fairly self-consistent. It is eminently h.o.m.ogeneous; the pa.s.sion once felt, the inspiration once obeyed, the well-head pours forth its stream in a strong and uniform current, which knows no pause until its impulse ceases.... The story is pathetic at once in its simplicity and in its terror.... We congratulate the author upon her boldness in choosing a subject of our own time, fertile in what is pathetic, and free from any taint of the vulgar and conventional. Poetry of late years has tended too much towards motives of a merely fanciful and abstruse, sometimes a plainly artificial, character; and we have had much of lyrical energy or attraction, with little of the real marrow of human life, the flesh and blood of man and woman. Positive subject-matter, the emotion which inheres in actual life, the very smile and the very tear and heart-pang, are, after all, precious to poetry, and we have them here. 'The Heather on Fire' may possibly prove to be something of a new departure, and one that was certainly not superfluous."--_Athenaeum_, July 17, 1886.

"Miss Blind has chosen for her new poem one of those terrible Highland clearances which stain the history of Scotch landlordism.

Though her tale is a fiction it is too well founded on fact.... It may be said generally of the poem that the most difficult scenes are those in which Miss Blind succeeds best; and on the whole we are inclined to think that its greatest and most surprising success is the picture of the poor old soldier Rory driven mad by the burning of his wife. In his frenzy he mixes up his old battles with the French and the descent of the landlord's ejectors upon the village."--_Academy_, August 7, 1886.

"In this versified tale of Highland clearances, Mathilde Blind has, with genuine poetic instinct, selected a family the fortunes of which form the burden of her story.... Literature and poetry are never seen at their best save in contact with actual life.... This little book abounds in vivid delineation of character, and is redolent with the n.o.blest human sympathy."--_Newcastle Daily Chronicle_, June 3, 1886.

"A subject which has painfully preoccupied public opinion is, in the poem ent.i.tled 'The Heather on Fire,' treated with characteristic power by Miss Mathilde Blind. Irish evictions have offered so convenient a theme to party strife, that the sufferings of the unhappy Highland crofters have not always met with the compa.s.sion they were so well calculated to inspire. In eloquent and forcible verse, Miss Blind tells the tale of their wrongs, their resistance to the hard fate imposed upon them, and describes the bitter grief with which

'Crowding on the decks with hungry eyes, Straining towards the coast that flies and flies,'

those among them driven into exile look on the sh.o.r.es to which many bid an eternal farewell. Both as a narrative and descriptive poem 'The Heather on Fire' is equally remarkable."--_Morning Post_, July 30, 1886.

"We are happy in being able to extend to the present poem a welcome equally sincere and equally hearty; for it is a poem that is rich not only in power and beauty but in that 'enthusiasm of humanity' which stirs and moves us, and of which so much contemporary verse is almost painfully deficient. Miss Blind does not possess her theme; she is possessed by it, as was Mrs. Browning when she wrote 'Aurora Leigh.'... We can best describe the kind of her success by noting the fact that while engaged in the perusal of her book we do not say, 'What a fine poem!' but 'What a terrible story!' or, more probably still, say nothing at all, but read on and on under the spell of a great horror and an over-powering pity. Poetry of which this can be said needs no other recommendation, and, therefore, we need not unduly lengthen our review of 'The Heather on Fire.'"--_Manchester Examiner and Times_, September 1, 1886.

"There are charming pictures of West Highland scenery, in Arran apparently, and of the surroundings and conditions of Highland cottar life."--_Scotsman_, July 20, 1886.

"In 'The Heather on Fire' she exhibits a clearness and beauty of diction, a rhythmical correctness, a grace and simplicity of style which mark her out as no slavish follower of any poetic 'school,' but an unaffected and truthful expression of her own feelings.... Whatever the reader's opinion may be on the grievance which Miss Blind throws into such fierce light, he cannot fail to be pleased with her graceful tale, so gracefully and simply told."--_Glasgow Herald_, July 20, 1886.

"Miss Mathilde Blind's poem is the tragic epic of the old evictions in the Highlands of Scotland. It is a strange fact that the general reader knows more about the siege of Troy, the Norman Conquest, and the Wars of the Roses, than about such matters in the very history of our own days as the depopulation of the Highlands of Scotland by the landlords. The old story comes to the front just now by reason of the crofter agitation. In the preface to her fine and touching epic, and in the notes at the end, Miss Blind pa.s.ses in review some of the facts of the eviction of the Glen Sannox people by the Duke of Hamilton in 1832, where, as she says, 'the progress of civilization, which has redeemed many a wilderness and gladdened the solitary places of the world, has come with a curse to these Highland glens, and turned green pastures and golden harvest fields once more into a desert.' The 'Heather on Fire' is a poem in four cantos--or 'Duans'--comprising about two hundred stanzas."--_School Board Chronicle_, July 10, 1886.

"It is written in a strain which must of necessity appeal to the sympathies of all grades of society, and at the same time it is eminently poetical, both in thought and rhythm."--_Western Antiquary_, August, 1886.

"A book like this forms an admirable corrective to the harsh and cold-blooded theories of such landlords as the Duke of Argyle on the rights of his cla.s.s."--_Cambridge Independent Press_, August, 1886.

"There is a sonorous beauty, a cla.s.sic dignity and depth of pathos throughout her four cantos, and a vivid and thrilling description is given of the industrious hamlets, the contented happy people, and the ruthless manner in which the evictions were effected by the stewards and ground-officers."--_Elgin Courant_, August, 1886.

TARANTELLA:

A Romance.

"The author of this two-volumed romance is favourably known by other works, and by her appreciative 'Life of George Eliot.' The strange effects of the bite of a tarantula spider, so firmly believed in by the Italian peasantry, and the marvellous power of musical enthusiasm, supply the motive of the story; and the characters are portrayed with great force, pathos, and a touch of homely humour."--_Bookseller_, Christmas, 1884.

"Miss Blind may be congratulated on 'Tarantella,' her first novel. In the _recit_ (as we have called it) of the musician, Emanuel Sturm, nearly all the interest of the book is concentrated. The violinist, poor and unknown, finds himself at Capri. Accident brings him, one evening, to a frightened group of women, one of whom has just been bitten by the tarantula, and, according to the popular superst.i.tion, he is implored to play, in order to drive the poison out of her. He refuses at first, but afterwards consents, and, finding himself almost supernaturally inspired, plays an improvised 'Tarantella' throughout a whole stormy night, finally curing the girl. The tune thus strangely hit on spreads, and ultimately makes him famous, but the love he has conceived for his Antonella brings him almost as much misery as his music brings him fame."--_Pall Mall Gazette_, February 5, 1885.

"Admiration of the delicate sketching now in vogue should not blind us to the very opposite kind of charm of which 'Tarantella' is full.

Entirely poetical in conception (save that it is not written in metre), 'Tarantella' is more essentially a poem than many a narrative written in smooth and elegant verse.... 'Tarantella' is indeed full of strange originality and scenic effects of uncommon powers. The dance among the ruins is not likely to be soon forgotten by the most unimaginative of readers, and it is rarely, we think, that in an English novel the psychology of the poetic temperament has been touched by a hand so delicate and at the same time so strong."--_Athenaeum_, January 17, 1885.

"There is abundant imagination, and the language is generally fresh and vigorous.... The author finds many opportunities of introducing scenes from German life, which are evidently written with intimate knowledge.... This is distinctly a novel to read."--_Echo_, June 16, 1886.

"This powerful and pathetic tale has carried us more completely out of ourselves and along with it than any work of fiction we have read for many a day.... Her (Miss Blind's) word-pictures glow with rich local colours; she is a complete mistress of the art of dramatic cause and effect. When once fairly under weigh, she never allows the interest to flag for a single moment. Thus it is only when we have laid down the final volume that we have time or inclination to pause and recognize the care and art which have contributed to this triumphant result; to turn back ... and dwell on the author's extraordinary knowledge of the human heart--extraordinary alike for its depth and its range. As for the wit and humour with which the book is freely sprinkled, the poetic and artistic spirit which pervades it throughout, they can only be appreciated on a second or a third perusal."--_Life_, December 25, 1884.

"'Tarantella' is extremely clever, and the treatment of the weird subject she has chosen picturesque in the extreme. The local colouring is especially fine, and her character studies extremely strong. Thrice welcome in its two-volume form, 'Tarantella' is a book bound to make its mark."--_Whitehall Review_, December 11, 1884.

"We have very ingenious resources in music and the bite of the tarantula, which alone music is said to heal. Notwithstanding the sense of improbability, we follow the strange fortunes of Antonella, Countess Ogotshka, and her almost magical transformation with interest. Mina, the innocent girl, her friend, is well delineated, and Emanuel Sturm, the wonderful violinist and composer, for whose portrait Paganini has doubtless been available, is original, no less than his friend the painter."--_British Quarterly_, January, 1885.

"'Tarantella' is a very clever story, with plenty of action and not without tragic incidents. The author has also plenty of humour, and there is at least as much light as shade in the book. Mina is not less delightful than the Countess is objectionable, in spite of her beauty and her daring."--_London Figaro_, November 20, 1886.

"We shall not spoil the story by hinting at its _denouement_. It is a deeply interesting one; and the characters, three of them at least, are sufficiently original to give the author a high rank as a novelist.... The book abounds in striking and interesting pictures of Italian and German life and scenery."--_Dublin Mail_, November, 1886.

"'Tarantella' is, indeed, a novel unlike the common--full of power and imagination and originality.... It would be unjust to deny to this very remarkable book a large share of what the world calls genius."--_Melbourne Argus_, March 14, 1885.

"By her recent works, 'The Prophecy of Saint Oran' and the 'Life of George Eliot,' Miss Blind brought herself before the public as a writer of considerable ability, and her latest novel will do much to increase her reputation.... 'Tarantella' deserves to be cla.s.sed among the best novels of the present day."--_Scottish News_, June 15, 1886.

"There is an inherent charm about 'Tarantella' which will be apparent to the reader from a perusal of the first chapter. This agreeable quality does not end there, however. The whole of the tale, which is divided into forty-six chapters, is permeated with features of an exceptionally attractive description. Not the least noteworthy character of the story is its novelty. Most of the incidents, which are carefully elaborated and follow in logical sequence, are conspicuous for an airy freshness in nature and treatment. Every chapter has its specific purpose, there being a uniform overflow of idea and sentiment; and each development of the pleasing romance opens to the mental vision of the thoughtful reader incidents of a more or less engrossing description. Continental scenes and customs are described with freeness and perspicuity, and the varied and eventful adventures of the princ.i.p.al characters--pleasingly typical, it may be mentioned, of the romanticism invariably a.s.sociated with 'love's young dream,' when, as in the present instance, there is a combination of youth and beauty--are recorded with a poetical fervour and gracefulness of diction which are certain to be generally admired."--_Western Daily Press_, June 2, 1886.