The Pearl of Orr's Island

A Story of the Coast of Maine. By MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, Author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” “ The Minister’s Wooing,” etc. Boston : Ticknor & Fields. 12mo.

MRS. STOWE is never more in her element than in depicting unsophisticated New-England life, especially in those localities where there is a practical social equality among the different classes of the population, “ The Pearl of Orr’s Island,” the scene of which is laid in one of those localities, is every way worthy of her genius. Without deriving much interest from its plot, it fastens the pleased attention of the reader by the freshness, clearness, and truth of its representations, both of Nature and persons. The author transports us at once to the place she has chosen as the scene of her story, makes us as familiarly acquainted with all its surroundings as if we had been born and bred there, introduces us to all the principal inhabitants in a thoroughly " neighborly ” way, and contrives to impress us with a sense of the substantial reality of what she makes us mentally see, even when an occasional improbability in the story almost wakes us up to a perception that the whole is a delightful illusion.

This foundation of the story in palpable realities, which every Yankee recognizes as true the moment they are presented to his eye, enables the writer to develop the ideal character of Mara Lincoln, the heroine of the book, without giving any sensible shock to the prosaic mind. In the type of womanhood she embodies, she is almost identical with Agnes, in the beautiful romance which Mrs. Stowe has lately contributed to this magazine : the difference is in time and circumstance, and not in essential nature. The Puritan maiden, with all her homely culture and rough surroundings, is really as poetic a personage as any of Spenser’s exquisite individualizations of abstract tenriniue excellence; perhaps more so, as the most austere and exalted spiritualities of Christianity enter into the constitution of her nature, and her soul mores in a sphere of religious experience compared with which “ fairyland” is essentially low and earthy. She is an angel as well as a woman ; yet the height of her meditations does not interfere with, but rather aids her performance of the homeliest human duties ; and the moral beauty of her nature lends a peculiar grace to her humblest ministries to human affections and needs. The vivid delineation of this character, from her childhood to her death, we cannot but rank among Mrs. Stowe’s best claims to be considered a woman of true imaginative genius.

In the rest of the population of Orr’s Island the reader cannot fail to take a great interest, with but two exceptions. These are Moses, the hero of the novel, and Sally Kittredge, who, in the end, marries him. But “ Cap’n ” Kittredge and his wife, Miss Roxy and Miss Ruey, and Zephaniah Pennel, are incomparably good. Each affords matter enough for a long dissertation on New-England and human character. Miss Roxy, especially, is the typical old maid of Yankee land, and is so thoroughly lovable, in spite of her idiom, her crusty manners, and her eccentricities, that the only wonder is that she should have been allowed to remain single. But the same wonder is often expressed, in actual life, in regard to old maids superior to Miss Roxy in education, accomplishments, and beauty, and her equals in vital selfsacrifice and tenderness of heart.

We have referred to Moses as a failure, but in this he is no worse than Mrs. Stowe’s other heroes. They are all unworthy of the women they love; and the early death of Mara, in this novel, though very pathetic, is felt by every male reader to be better than a long married life with Moses. The latter is “made happy” in the end with Sally Kittredge. Mrs. Stowe does not seem conscious of the intense and bitter irony of the last scenes. She conveys the misanthropy of Swift without feeling or knowing it.

In style, “ The Pearl of Orr’s Island ” ranks with the best narratives in American literature. Though different from the style of Irving and Hawthorne, it shows an equal mastery of English in expressing, not only facts, events, and thoughts, but their very spirit and atmosphere. It is the exact mirror of the author’s mind and character. It is fresh, simple, fluent, vigorous, flexible, never dazzling away attention from what it represents by the intrusion of verbal felicities which are pleasing apart from the vivid conceptions they attempt to convey. The uncritical reader is unconscious of its excellence because it is so excellent, — that is, because it is so entirely subordinate to the matter which it is the instrument of expressing. At times, however, the singular interest of the things described must impress the dullest reader with the fact that the author possesses uncommon powers of description. The burial of James Lincoln, the adventure of little Mara and Moses on the open sea, the nightvisit which Mara makes to the rendezvous of the outlaws, and the incidents which immediately precede Mara’s death, are pictured with such vividness, earnestness, and fidelity, that nobody can fail to feel the strange magic communicated to common words when they are the “nimble servitors ” of genius and passion.

In conclusion we may say, that, in the combination of accurate observation, strong sense, and delicate spiritual perception, — in the union of humor and pathos, of shrewdness and sentiment, — and in the power of seizing character in its vital inward sources, and of portraying its outward peculiarities,— “ The Pearl of Orr’s Island” does not yield to any book which Mrs. Stowe has heretofore contributed to American literature.