My Enemy's Daughter
A Novel. By , Author of “The Waterdale Neighbors,” etc. Illustrated. New York : Harper and Brothers.
THE enemy in question is a very rich and proud and insolent Member of Parliament, whose like we think we have met in fiction before, and yet he is in many respects worked up into decided novelty ; and his daughter, if not very new or strange, is very tender, sweet, and true. She is loved by the hero, a mediocre singer, who has first loved and lost a young German girl, — later a great prima donna and wife of an Italian patriot. Of course (and this will be no betrayal of confidence to the ladies at least, who always look at the back of the book first), Emanuel Banks marries Lilla Lyndon, and the irreclaimable Member of Parliament is duly carried off by the avenging gout of his class. This is the outline, not very surprising or promising, of a singularly good novel, —good enough in plot, and thoroughly good in tone and conduct of character. There are two or three people in it whose betters we have not seen since the days of Thackeray. First of these is Stephen Lyndon (reprobate brother to the M. P.), who after deserting his wife and daughter (another Lilla Lyndon), and beating about all countries, and living upon his wits and others’ want of them, comes to be stabbed at last by an Italian whose fellow-conspirators he has betrayed to the French government. His character is so life-like that it might very well be life down to that very little ultimate compunction which he feels when dying, or seems to feel, for you are not sure in the end. His talk is perfect of its kind, and the talk of most of the others is natural and good. He is quite incapable of receiving offence, though he can be very malicious and abusive, and there is hardly anything good in him, except a love of the beautiful, which he himself is inclined to think sufficient for his salvation. It is an artistic and delicate piece of work to reproduce, as Mr. McCarthy does, his luxury and sensuousness and humor, purged of their evil, in his daughter’s temperament, who is the next best creation of the book, and who is really a delightful bit of original character. The hero, in whose mouth the story is put, is also pleasant, a manly, generous fellow, whom you like. Italian conspirators we do not get on well with, nor opera singers of any nation ; but we are bound to say that Mr. McCarthy has managed these contrary people with great skill. It seems a pity that the character of Christina, the first love of the hero, which is really subordinate, should be suffered to take up so much space and time ; but as it is not really uninteresting, perhaps we ought not to complain. No part of the book is dull. A high level is kept, and the story abounds in neat and truthful touches ; — capital sketches and studies of persons and places.