ts in motion all human
actions and passions, and has given a subtile but sure analysis of
certain phases of modern life, and a vivid picture of at least two
actual, warm, palpitating, breathing men. His success in this respect is
the more striking because he began by offering us mere pasteboard heroes
of the most conventional type. The male characters in his early books
were, in fact, shuttle-cocks to be tossed hither and thither by the
mysterious contradictions, the incomprehensible inconsistencies, of his
heroines, whose scheme of existence was the indulgence of every whim,
and whose notion of logic was that one paradox must educe another still
more startling. Having finally made up his mind as to the insoluble
nature of the female problem, he seems inclined to discard mere
clevernesses and prettinesses and to advance into the broad arena of
real life, with its diversity of actors and its multiplicity of
interests. Both Bartley Hubbard in "A Modern Instance" and Silas Lapham
in the book before us strike us as admirable characterizations. If
Lapham is in certain respects a less original presentation than Bartley
Hubbard, he is at least a hero who draws more strongly upon the reader's
sympathies and takes surer hold of the popular heart. In fact, Silas,
with his big, hairy fist, his ease in his shirt-sleeves, his boastful
belief in himself, his conscience, his ambition, and his failure, makes,
if we include his sensible wife, the success of the novel before us. The
daughters are not, to our thinking, so well rendered; while the Coreys,
sterling silver as they ought to be, impress us instead as rather thin
electro-plates. The Boston Brahmins have entered a good deal into
literature of late, but so far without any brilliant results. According
to their chroniclers, they spend most of their time discussing in what
respects they are providentially differentiated from, their
fellow-beings. Sometimes they put too fine a point upon it and wholly
fail to make themselves felt. But then again their superior knowledge of
the world is patent to the most careless observer. For instance, when
Mrs. Corey pays a visit to Mrs. Lapham she apologizes for the lateness
of the hour, explaining that her coachman had never been in that part of
Boston before. This naturally casts an ineffaceable stigma upon the
respectable square where the Laphams have hitherto resided, and shows
that between the two ladies there is a great gulf fixed. Again, to p