There is scarcely a more hazardous experiment for any novelist than “a novel with a purpose.”  If the moral does not run away with the story, it is in most cases only because the author’s lucky star has made the moral too feeble, in spite of his efforts, to do that or anything else,—­in other words, because his book has fortunately defeated its own object.  That any clever girl will be kept from the perilous paths of authorship by the warnings, however strongly inculcated, of any novel whatever, we are not prepared to assert:  we venture to say no one will be deterred by the history of Miss Fanny Gilbert.  If a woman’s happiness is to be found in love, and not in fame, the question nevertheless recurs,—­What is she to do before the love comes?  Our author only shows that his heroine’s restless unhappiness was owing to her having to wait for her heart to be awakened:  to prove what he desires to prove, he should demonstrate that it was owing to her having adopted authorship during the time of her waiting.  During that time, Miss Fanny Gilbert wrote novels, and was unhappy:  would she have been happy, if, in the interval, she had chronicled small beer?  And even admitting that her authorship caused her unhappiness, we can scarcely believe Dr. Holland prepared to say, after having allowed his heroine a real talent, as one condition of the problem, that she ought to have concealed that talent in the decorous napkin of silence.

What the moral loses the story gains.  Our author has lost nothing of that genuine love of Nature, of that quick perception of the comic element in men and things, of that delightful freshness and liveliness, which threw such a charm about the former writings of Timothy Titcomb.  No story can be pronounced a failure which has vivacity and interest; and the volume before us adds to vivacity and interest vigorous sketches of character and scenery, droll conversation and incidents, a frequent and kindly humor, and, underlying all, a true, earnest purpose, which claims not only approval for the author, but respect for the man.

Dr. Holland describes admirably whatever he has himself seen.  Unfortunately, he has not seen his hero or his heroine.  About Arthur Blague there is nothing real or distinctive.  There is a life and reality in many scenes of his experience; but the central figure of the group stands conventional and inanimate,—­the ordinary walking gentleman of the stage,—­the stereo-typed hero of the novel,—­hero only by virtue of his finally marrying the heroine.  The one merit of the delineation—­that it is a portrait of a delicate Christian gentleman—­is sadly marred by the vulgar smartness of Arthur’s repartees with the scampish New-Yorker.  A victory in such a contest was by no means necessary to vindicate the hero’s superiority; and if he so far forgot himself as to engage at all in the degrading warfare, a defeat would have been more creditable.  His retorts are undeniably smart; but “smartness” is the attribute of a “fellow,” not of a “gentleman.”