ON "HIRELL." "Nobody who appreciates a novel in proportion as it is well devised, and well written, and reflects real life as in a faithful mirror, will fail to thank us for recommending Hirell' to them with this avowedly unqualified praise."— Atheneum. Mr. Saunders "It is a powerful novel, a tale written by a poet. always writes the best kind of descriptive English-English as simple as cultivated talk but rising now and then into strength and fervour."-Spectator. "The author has certainly succeeded in his portrait of Elias Morgan. How his repulsive faith sustained him while unmerciful disaster followed fast and followed faster,' is admirably described. Especially admirable is the scene of our first introduction to him, when he learns the loss of the fortune he had fondly built so much upon. Indeed, every incident of that eventful day's history, from Chamberlayne's visit in the morning to his old schoolmaster, his proposal to Hirell and her refusal, down to his delicate withdrawal in the evening to avoid profaning the sanctity of the sorrow of the stricken household, is pathetically and most effectively told. "It is, however, with Hirell, the heroine, that the author has taken most pains with most success. There is no part of the book more interesting than the description of Hirell's struggle between 'love and duty,' and the paling of the pure flame of her passion before the still purer sunlight of her faith. And this struggle is brought within the range of our mere human sympathies by the alloy of spiritual pride which helped her faith to conquer."-Pall Mall Gazette. "Hirell' is a novel of great thought and considerable power. The writer, indeed, has so vividly conceived the central figures of his romance, that they seem in the end to possess him and the reader, to act under impulses of a sort of intelligent fate, and not by the will or direction even of the brain from which they have sprung. Greater praise than this we could scarce give a book: The chief actors command and rivet the author's attention, as they certainly will that of every intelligent reader of this robust and suggestive novel."-Daily News. "On the whole, whether we regard the originality of the author's conception, his dramatic instinct, and his power of developing some of the strongest passions that stir the human breast, we must regard Hirell' as a novel of extraordinary merit-one of those rare contributions to the circulating library over which the reader likes to linger, and to many of whose chapters he will return with unsated appetite."-Morning Post. "Mr. Saunders employs a nervous diction which would make any work of fiction proceeding from his hand, of value, even if no other merits could be ascribed to it. But his characters are just as forcible and concise. He has produced a remarkable and powerful book."-Daily Telegraph. "Hirell,' apart from its dramatic vigour and idyllic grace, abounds with lifelike portraitures-some sketched with a vigour verging on coarseness, others dainty as a poet's dream. The movement is vigorous and brisk, reminding one of the elastic tread of youth on mountain heather-the air, meanwhile, lent with the fragrance of crushed herbs and musical with the song of birds, the sky suffused with ever-changing colours."-Illustrated London News. We have nothing but words of praise to offer for its style and composition. Every one who reads this novel will feel that he is communing with a of thoughtful and original spirit."-Examiner. |