Characteristics of the Genius and Writings of L. E. L./General Characteristics of L. E. L.’s Prose Works
General Characteristics of L. E. L.'s Prose Works.
With perfect truth may L. E. L.'s opinion of a gifted author be applied to herself: "We know no writer who has united so much philosophy with so much imagination. She uses her power to make us feel, chiefly to make us think; it is the consequences which she draws from her creations which force reflection to succeed to interest. Read her pages after the first vivid effect of the story is departed, and you will be surprised at the vast mass of moral investigation and truth which they contain."
Proceed we now, then, to examine the prose writings of L. E. L., from which our introductory remarks have perhaps detained us too long. Only, that being aware of some existent mistakes relative to the value of fiction as an instrument of moral benefit, it seemed that an attempt to demonstrate its general capability for usefulness might increase the interest of analyzing, and assist in appreciating, in one particular instance, this adaptation of fiction, together with its rightly-applied influences.
Miss Landon's shorter prose writings, scattered through various annuals and periodicals, cannot now be specified, though many of them would create a name for writers of less note than herself. Some of her critical papers are especially beautiful; her faculty of appreciation was peculiarly vivid, and it was ever allowed most generous expression. The number of her miscellaneous papers is doubtless far greater than may be supposed; but these we must for the present leave; and, after mentioning "Traits and Trials of Early Life," a sweet and most touching little volume for children, pass on now to her three larger works, "Romance and Reality," "Francesca Carrara," and "Ethel Churchill."
In these, as in L. E. L.'s Poetical works, the essential characteristics of genius are truly manifested. It is impossible to turn from their perusal without the conviction that their gifted author must be deeply imbued with the influences of intellectual beauty and general knowledge—profoundly skilled in the mysteries of the human heart—most accurate in her perception and delineations of the varied phases of human character, and keen-sighted in discriminating all the workings of the complicated machinery of motives and counter-motives in operation throughout the social system. These volumes embody much of philosophy and poetry; much of the ideal, and of practical common sense; deep thoughts and high, of intellectual musing, with the lighter sparkles of genuine wit, and truthful observations resulting from extensive knowledge of the world. In short, their pages are so frequently the exponents of the mind's loftiest thoughts, of the heart's deepest emotions, that it is evident their writer must have investigated as a philosopher, imagined and reflected as a poet, felt and endured as a woman.
The tendencies of these works are unquestionably of an enlightening and reflective order. The follies and meannesses and vices, that are so rife in the world, are displayed in their true aspects, fearlessly, yet with gentleness.
L. E. L.'s quick perception and refined taste are often evinced in her truly discriminating observations. Satire is far too harsh a term to apply to her genial spirited wit, which, like the summer evening lightning, playfully flashes, but hurts not,—too general in its diffusion for individual injury. It shows out indeed the clouds of faults, follies and discrepancies, but never, like the heartless sarcasm of malevolence,—the forked lighting of the thunder storm,—never does it strike at the individuals whom those clouds may happen to overshadow.
Miss Landon's own nature was too kindly, too generous, ever to inflict pain by the indulgence of personal ridicule. Things, not persons; qualities, not their possessors; characters, not individuals, were the objects of her witty animadversions. Hers was that graceful and well-applied wit which often, when other methods have failed of effect, reveals in its true light what were best avoided.
Then, too, the deeper tones of her genius, when contrasting the little and low vanities of worldliness with the lofty aims, the noble impulses, the generous deeds, the onlooking and upward aspirations for something brighter and better than earth even in its plenitude of good can supply, are fraught with lessons of true wisdom and moral worth.
Those who did not know L. E. L. may form an idea of the spirit and style of her conversational powers, and of her rapid transitions from "grave to gay, from lively to severe," from her prose works; while, in the same works, her personal friends may recal her living presence, and almost hear her voice, now in its sweet, low, plaintive tones, and anon in its mirthful utterance of gay witticisms. On these pages are still reflected the sparkling mirth and the eloquent sadness which glanced alternately around you from her conversation, like sunlight and shadows chasing each other over the summer landscape.