e attempts to show that the Church which taught the
inspiration of Genesis and condemned Galileo was all the time not
untrue to the scientific conceptions of Copernicus and Darwin, is a
very poor person in the eyes of many of us; and one thing is abundantly
certain, that by no possibility could even Mrs. Ward have made him the
hero of a novel. For a Helbeck, who has reckoned up the chances of
life, and deliberately made his choice, casting in his lot wholly with
an idealism for which the modern world has absolutely no sympathy, we
can and do feel a deep respect. But for your ambidextrous apologist or
theologian, the fellow who can make words bear double meanings, and
even infallible oracles tell contradictory stories, we have nothing but
contempt, because he is a trifler with truth.

And, now, we may turn to the book.

Mrs. Humphry Ward has long taught us to expect excellence, and in
_Helbeck of Bannisdale_ we are not disappointed. She does not work,
indeed, on so large a canvas as in _Robert Elsmere_, nor do her
materials allow her to be quite so interesting as in that masterpiece.
At all events, that is my individual opinion. The atmosphere is very
close throughout the book, and one has a feeling that the windows of
that old, old house of Bannisdale have not been opened for centuries.
One breathes a stifling air. Light and freedom come alone through that
delightful creation, Laura Fountain, a creature you do not easily
forget, with an instinct, rather than a reasoned conviction, of
rational truth and liberty, a being of almost wild impulse, clever,
though partially educated, but good to the heart's core. Altogether, a
winsome, lovable girl, and tragic as was her end, one scarcely knows
whether she was not happier in her fate, hurried hence on the swift
waters of the river she had grown to love, than she ever could have
been in her projected marriage with one to whom religion meant almost
unmixed gloom. Doubtless Helbeck found consolation in it, but it was
such as he was unable to allow others to share. Noble as we
instinctively feel the man to be, tender as is the passion wherewith he
envelops the object of his love, the shadow of the Cross is ever there.
Forgotten in the first sweet hours of their mutual avowal, it soon
reveals its sorrowful presence, and gradually deepens into such
unutterable gloom that the broken-hearted girl is forced to surrender
first love and then life to the inexorable exigencies of