Surrey--
its genuine though almost suburban wildness, with the vicarage and
the wonderful abode, above all, the ancient library of Mr. Wendover,
all is admirably done, the landscape naturally counting for a good
deal in the development of the profoundly meditative, country-loving
souls of Mrs. Ward's favourite characters.
Well! Mrs. Ward has chosen to use all these varied gifts and
accomplishments for a certain purpose. Briefly, Robert Elsmere, a
priest of the Anglican Church, marries a very religious woman; there
is the perfection of "mutual love"; at length he has doubts about
"historic Christianity"; he gives up his orders; carries his
learning, his fine intellect, his goodness, nay, his saintliness,
into a kind of Unitarianism; the wife becomes more intolerant than
ever; there is a long and faithful effort on both sides, eventually
successful, on the part of these mentally [66] divided people, to
hold together; ending with the hero's death, the genuine piety and
resignation of which is the crowning touch in the author's able,
learned, and thoroughly sincere apology for Robert Elsmere's
position.
For good or evil, the sort of doubts which troubled Robert Elsmere
are no novelty in literature, and we think the main issue of the
"religious question" is not precisely where Mrs.
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