Hangman's House/the Great Valley
by . New York: The Century Company. 12mo. xiv+466 pp. $2.50.
by . Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. 12mo. iv+317 pp. $2.00.
THERE was no occult reason for including these two novels in one comment, and yet. they form an interesting contrast. Miss Johnston writes of perilous times in eighteenth-century America, in a style of restrained realism, and Mr. Byrne of modern Ireland, in a style of unrestrained sentiment and romance. Miss Johnston never lets herself go, while Mr. Byrne lets himself go to such an extent that he seems to have been visited afterward by some doubts. The doubts, perhaps, led him to affix to Hangman’s House a ‘Foreword to Foreigners,’ the general tenor of which is that only an Irishman can completely enter into the full Irishry or Irishism of the novel. He thinks that, since Irish literature has turned from the older traditions of Moore and Lover and is appealing more and more to the head instead of to the heart, the millions of expatriate Irishmen the world over, for whom the Old Country is a memory and a sentiment, rather than an actuality, will welcome one ‘last novel’ in the traditional vein, full of riding, fighting, noble renunciation, and romantic love, set against the fragrant fields and hedgerows, the wistful legend and lore, of the ancient island, and all put forth in the singing prose of his earlier romances. No doubt he is right. A great many readers, and not all of them Irish, will like his new mixture of old matters.
To respond fully, however, one must have, I suspect, a good deal more than a drop of Irish blood. To one not so fortunately endowed, there is a certain softness, just a taste of the maudlin, such as has been the taint of more than a little Irish literature in the past. Perhaps it is what is called the ‘Celtic melancholy.’ The muchpraised melodious prose lacks the touch of genius, the saving strength, of James Stephens; the horse race and the fox hunt do not have the pagan robustness and hilarity of the Misses Somerville and Ross or Masefield, not to mention hard-headed old Anthony Trollope; and even the love story is all but spoiled by a weak-kneed villain and a melodramatic revolutionist who tramps the roads in disguise and yet sings the Shan Van Vocht loudly and apparently continuously. Against these defects (if they are defects — one can never tell whether they will seem so to others) may be set, touches of humor, though all too few, passages of exquisite description, and the character of the heroine. There is a good deal in the girl to win sympathy and even love. But if the reader would have the author at his best, let him turn to Section 2 of Chapter XVI and read there the story of Dan Hoyser, as told by a shenachie or story-teller in a lonely inn in Donegal. Dan Hoyser is none other than our old friend, Tannhäuser, become a great Irish poet, and Mr. Byrne’s success in working this transmutation suggests that he is essentially a shenachie himself, most natively and happily occupied in spinning bitter-sweet yarns of high deeds in olden times in the style of mingled nonsense, poetry, and wisdom that seems a special gift of his race.
The Great Valley is half idyl and half drama, the first twenty chapters or so being a quiet account of the coming to Virginia of a Scottish family and their settlement in the Shenandoah, then a remote frontier. ‘The Scots were never a soft race,’ says the author, and the Reverend John Selkirk, his wife, his four children, and his sister-in-law, all douce and sonsy people, are the stuff out of which great pioneers are made. Miss Johnston has presented them with great skill. They are unmistakably Scotch, although their dialect is but slightly indicated, the only lack I felt in them being their deficiency in the salty humor that seems to be almost, universal among their race.
The account of their progress from Williamsburgh into the wilderness, of their settlement, first in Burke’s Tract and later in Burke’s Land, in general, and of the life of Elizabeth Selkirk, the heroine, in particular, is full of charm and interest. One cannot help envying the staunch happy family in their quietly busy life amid beautiful surroundings, where mutual love and help sufficiently compensate for lack of other things. Seldom has the author written more pleasingly.
With the outbreak of the French and Indian War the idyllic existence ends. The Valley is invaded by Shawnees and the second half of the book is as tempestuous as the first half was peaceful. Miss Johnston long ago proved that she could write exciting narrative, and here, in the account of Elizabeth’s escape from the Indians, she has proved it. once more.
It has been objected to her novels of Colonial times that she idealizes the colonists. It seems truer, however, to say that she chooses to write about colonists who need no idealization. There are many hints in this novel that not all Virginians were like the Selkirks, but she has apparently thought that a picture of a noble and devoted family would be at least as edifying as one of the seamy side of Colonial life. Granting her the right to choose her materials, one can only admire the honesty of her style and the quiet, dignity of her story. She has traveled far in technique and in sincerity since the days of To Have and to Hold, and this book should enhance her reputation.
R. M. GAY