sing the qualities of this remarkable novel before the readers
of "The Atlantic Monthly," we shall have an advantage not always enjoyed
by criticism; for we shall speak to an audience perfectly familiar with
every detail of the story, and shall not be troubled to _resumer_ its
events and characters. There has been much doubt among many worthy
people concerning Mr. Reade's management of the moralities and the
proprieties, but no question at all, we think, as to the wonderful power
he has shown, and the interest he has awakened. Even those who have
blamed him have followed him eagerly,--without doubt to see what
crowning insult he would put upon decency, and to be confirmed in their
virtuous abhorrence of his work. It is to be hoped that these have been
disappointed, for it must be confessed that, in the _denouement_ of the
novel, others who totally differed from them in purpose and opinion have
been brought to some confusion.

It is not as a moralist that we have primarily to find fault with Mr.
Reade, but as an artist, for his moral would have been good if his art
had been true. The work, up to the conclusion of Catharine Gaunt's
trial, is in all respects too fine and high to provoke any reproach from
us; after that, we can only admire it as a piece of literary gallantry
and desperate resolution. "C'est magnifique; mais ce n'est pas la
guerre." It is courageous, but it is not art. It is because of the
splendid _elan_ in all Mr. Reade writes, that in his failure he does not
fall flat upon the compassion of his reader, as Mr. Dickens does with
his "Golden Dustman." But it is a failure, nevertheless; and it must
become a serious question in aesthetics how far the spellbound reader may
be tortured with an interest which the power awakening it is not
adequate to gratify. Is it generous, is it just in a novelist, to lift
us up to a pitch of tragic frenzy, and then drop us down into the last
scene of a comic opera? We refuse to be comforted by the fact that the
novelist does not, perhaps, consciously mock our expectation.

Let us take the moral of "Griffith Gaunt,"--so poignant and effective
for the most part,--and see how lamentably it suffers from the defective
art of the _denouement_. In brief: up to the end of Mrs. Gaunt's trial
we are presented with a terrible image of the evils that jealousy,
anger, and lies bring upon their guilty and innocent victims. Griffith
Gaunt is made to suffer--as men in life suffer--a dreadful