Of a different order is ‘The Days of Bruce,’ a historic romance of the late thirteenth century, which is less historic than romantic, and in whose mirror the rugged chieftain would hardly recognize his angularities.

‘The Vale of Cedars’ is a historic tale of the persecution of the Jews in Spain under the Inquisition.  It is told with intense feeling, with much imagination, and with a strong love of local color.  It is said that family traditions are woven into the story.  This book, as well as ‘Home Influence,’ had a wide popularity in a German version.

In reading Grace Aguilar it is not easy to believe her the contemporary of Currer Bell and George Eliot.  Both her manner and her method are earlier.  Her lengthy and artificial periods, the rounded and decorative sentences that she puts into the mouths of her characters under the extremest pressure of emotion or suffering, the italics, the sentimentalities, are of another age than the sinewy English and hard sense of ‘Jane Eyre’ or ‘Adam Bede.’  Doubtless her peculiar, sheltered training, her delicate health, and a luxuriant imagination that had seldom been measured against the realities of life, account for the old-fashioned air of her work.  But however antiquated their form may become, the substance of all her tales is sweet and sound, their charm for young girls is abiding, their atmosphere is pure, and the spirit that inspires them is touched only to fine issues.

The citation from ‘The Days of Bruce’ illustrates her narrative style; that from ‘Woman’s Friendship’ her habit of disquisition; and the passage from ‘Home Influence’ her rendering of conversation.

THE GREATNESS OF FRIENDSHIP

From ‘Woman’s Friendship’

It is the fashion to deride woman’s influence over woman, to laugh at female friendship, to look with scorn on all those who profess it; but perhaps the world at large little knows the effect of this influence,—­how often the unformed character of a young, timid, and gentle girl may be influenced for good or evil by the power of an intimate female friend.  There is always to me a doubt of the warmth, the strength, and purity of her feelings, when a young girl merges into womanhood, passing over the threshold of actual life, seeking only the admiration of the other sex; watching, pining, for a husband, or lovers, perhaps, and looking down on all female friendship as romance and folly.  No young spirit was ever yet satisfied with the love of nature.

Friendship, or love, gratifies self-love; for it tacitly acknowledges that we must possess some good qualities to attract beyond the mere love of nature.  Coleridge justly observes, “that it is well ordered that the amiable and estimable should have a fainter perception of their own qualities than their friends have, otherwise they would love themselves.”  Now, friendship, or love, permits their doing this unconsciously: