The Purcell Papers, vol 1 | Page 7

grotesque, and the
horrible,
which so singularly distinguish him as a writer
of prose
fiction.
'Uncle Silas,' the fairest as well as most
familiar instance of this
enthralling spell over
his readers, is too well known a story to tell in

detail. But how intensely and painfully distinct
is the opening
description of the silent, inflexible
Austin Ruthyn of Knowl, and his

shy, sweet
daughter Maude, the one so resolutely confident
in his
brother's honour, the other so romantically
and yet anxiously
interested in her uncle--the
sudden arrival of Dr. Bryerly, the strange

Swedenborgian, followed by the equally unexpected
apparition of
Madame de la Rougiere,
Austin Ruthyn's painful death, and the
reading of his strange will consigning poor Maude to
the protection
of her unknown Uncle Silas--her
cousin, good, bright devoted
Monica Knollys, and
her dreadful distrust of Silas--Bartram Haugh

and its uncanny occupants, and foremost amongst
them Uncle Silas.
This is his portrait:
'A face like marble, with a fearful monumental
look, and for an old
man, singularly
vivid, strange eyes, the singularity of which
rather
grew upon me as I looked; for his
eyebrows were still black, though
his hair
descended from his temples in long locks of the
purest
silver and fine as silk, nearly to his
shoulders.
'He rose, tall and slight, a little stooped, all
in black, with an ample
black velvet tunic,
which was rather a gown than a coat. . . .
'I know I can't convey in words an idea of
this apparition, drawn, as it
seemed, in black
and white, venerable, bloodless, fiery-eyed, with

its singular look of power, and an expression so
bewildering--was it
derision, or anguish, or
cruelty, or patience?
'The wild eyes of this strange old man were
fixed on me as he rose;
an habitual contraction,
which in certain lights took the character of a

scowl, did not relax as he advanced towards me
with a thin-lipped
smile.'
Old Dicken and his daughter Beauty, old
L'Amour and Dudley
Ruthyn, now enter upon
the scene, each a fresh shadow to deepen its

already sombre hue, while the gloom gathers in
spite of the

glimpse of sunshine shot through it
by the visit to Elverston. Dudley's
brutal
encounter with Captain Oakley, and vile persecution
of poor
Maude till his love marriage comes to
light, lead us on to the ghastly
catastrophe, the
hideous conspiracy of Silas and his son against
the
life of the innocent girl.
It is interesting to know that the germ of
Uncle Silas first appeared in
the 'Dublin
University Magazine' of 1837 or 1838, as the
short tale,
entitled, 'A Passage from the Secret
History of an Irish Countess,'
which is printed
in this collection of Stories. It next was published

as 'The Murdered Cousin' in a collection of
Christmas stories, and
finally developed into the
three-volume novel we have just noticed.
There are about Le Fanu's narratives touches
of nature which
reconcile us to their always
remarkable and often supernatural
incidents.
His characters are well conceived and distinctly
drawn,
and strong soliloquy and easy dialogue
spring unaffectedly from their
lips. He is a close
observer of Nature, and reproduces her wilder

effects of storm and gloom with singular
vividness; while he is
equally at home in his
descriptions of still life, some of which remind

us of the faithfully minute detail of old Dutch
pictures.
Mr. Wilkie Collins, amongst our living
novelists, best compares with
Le Fanu. Both of
these writers are remarkable for the ingenious

mystery with which they develop their plots, and
for the absorbing, if
often over-sensational, nature
of their incidents; but whilst Mr.
Collins excites
and fascinates our attention by an intense power
of
realism which carries us with unreasoning
haste from cover to cover
of his works, Le
Fanu is an idealist, full of high imagination,
and an
artist who devotes deep attention to the
most delicate detail in his
portraiture of men
and women, and his descriptions of the outdoor

and indoor worlds--a writer, therefore,

through whose pages it would
be often an
indignity to hasten. And this more leisurely,
and
certainly more classical, conduct of his
stories makes us remember

them more fully and
faithfully than those of the author of the

'Woman in White.' Mr. Collins is generally
dramatic, and sometimes
stagy, in his effects.
Le Fanu, while less careful to arrange his plots,

so as to admit of their being readily adapted
for the stage, often
surprises us by scenes of so
much greater tragic intensity that we
cannot
but lament that he did not, as Mr. Collins has
done, attempt
the drama, and so furnish another
ground of comparison with his
fellow-countryman,
Maturin (also, if we mistake not, of French

origin), whom, in his writings, Le Fanu far
more closely resembles
than Mr. Collins, as a
master of the darker and stronger emotions of

human character. But, to institute a broader
ground of comparison
between Le Fanu and
Mr. Collins, whilst the idiosyncrasies of the

former's characters, however immaterial those
characters may be,
seem always to suggest the
minutest detail of his story, the latter
would
appear to consider plot as the prime, character
as a
subsidiary element in the art of novel
writing.
Those who possessed the rare privilege of Le
Fanu's friendship, and
only they, can form any
idea of the true character of the man; for after

the death of his wife, to whom he was most
deeply devoted, he
quite forsook general society,
in