Esperance
By , author of “Light on the Dark River,” “Marion Graham,” &c. New York: Sheldon & Co.
CAN it be possible that any literature of the world now yields sentimental novels so vague and immature as those which America brings forth ? Or is it that their Transatlantic compeers float away and dissolve by their own feebleness before they reach our shores ?
“ Cry, Esperance ! Percy! and set on.” This Shakespearian motto might have appeared upon the title-page of this volume ; but there is nothing so vivacious upon that page, nor indeed on any other. The name of the book comes from that of the heroine, who was baptized Hope. But the friend of her soul was wont to call her Esperance, “in her wooing moods,” and from this simple application of the French dictionary results the title of the romance. Even this does not close the catalogue of the heroine’s pet names however, for in moments of yet higher ecstasy, when she rides sublime upon the storm of passion, she is styled, not without scientific appropriateness, “ Espy.”
Esperance is a young girl who seeks her destiny. She also has her “ wooing moods,” during which, on small provocation, she “ hastily pens a few lines ” — of verse such as no young lady’s diary should be without. She has, moreover, her intervals of sternness, when she boxes ears; now in case of her father, unfilially, and anon in more righteous conflict with her step-mother’s wicked lover. But her demonstrations do not usually take the brief form of blows, but the more formidable shape of words. Indeed, it takes a good many words to meet the innumerable crises of her daily life ; and, to do her justice, the more desperate the emergencies, the better she likes them. Anguish is heaped upon her, father and mother desert her, several eligible lovers jilt her,— she would be much obliged to you to point out any specific sorrow of which at least one good specimen has not occurred within her experience. There is a distressing casualty to every chapter, and then come in the poisoned arrows ! “ Once in the room, I bolted the door and threw myself—not on the bed — the floor better suited my mood. And there I lay, with reeling senses, and a brain on fire, while in my trampled and bruised heart were wildly struggling tenderness and scorn, love and hate, life and death. . . . The slow-moving hours tolled a mournful requiem, as the long procession of stricken hopes and joys were borne onward to their death and burial. And I, the victim, turned executioner.”
The French dictionary extends onward from the title-page, and haunts these impassioned pages. Phrases of a recondite and elaborate description, such as “ Oui, monsieur.,” “ Très-bien,” and “ Entrez,” adorn the sportive conversation of this cultivated circle. Sometimes, with higher flight, some one essays to gambol in the Latin tongue : “ It seemed to me that old Tetnpus must have taken to himself a new pair of wings to have fugited so rapidly as he did.” Yet the French and the Latin are better than the English ; for the main body of the book, while breaking no important law of morals or of grammar, is scarcely adapted for any phase of human existence beyond the boarding-school. It seems rather hard, perhaps, to devote serious censure to a thing so frail ; but without a little homely truth, how are we ever to get beyond this bread-and-butter epoch of American fiction ?