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Opinions of the Press.

The Prophecy of Saint Oran, and Other Poems.

• “There is perhaps no phase of our history more capable of poetic treatment than the sainted lives of the Irish monks who first spread the Christian faith over the western shores of Scotland, and yet it would be difficult to point to a single representative poem having Saint Columba and the devoted band of his disciples for its heroes. An attempt at filling up this gap has recently been made by Miss Blind in a narrative poem devoted to the fate of St. Oran, the friend and disciple of St. Columba.... Apart from the sonorous beauty of her lines, there is in her diction a straightforwardness and simplicity, and an entire absence of affectation and false sentiment, which, combined with considerable power of characterization, make her volume a remarkable contribution to English literature.” —Times, September 26, 1881.
• “To disturb the motif of a legend is always a bold, and mostly a rash proceeding.... And yet so skilfully is the story handled that the main incidents of the legend do not lose, but gain by this disturbance of the motif, and the character of Oran, which with the old motif could only have presented the single side of the religious enthusiast, becomes a character exhibiting that complexity which modern taste demands.... Directness of style and lucidity of narrative are the characteristic excellences of the poem. There are few contemporary poets who could have done so much dramatic business in so few lines.... In each of the sonnets there is a thought that is well expressed, and worth expressing.” —Athenæum, July 30, 1881.
• “It is in the domain of character that the poem is distinguished by its highest excellence. There is an ideal statuesqueness embodied in the person of St. Columba such as is felt to possess a powerful appeal to the imagination. The poem embraces many passions, of which the most tender and beautiful finds expression in the exquisite creation of the radiant golden‐haired girl for whose love St. Oran breaks his vow of chastity. But the really powerful contribution to our knowledge of character which this book contains is fittingly centred in St. Oran himself. A dramatic instinct of high order finds utterance in his struggles between opposing passions. Nor are the metrical excellences of the poem less conspicuous.... If one were in need of some single phrase by which to denote the ultimate effect produced by this book, one might say that it seems the most mature of all recent first efforts, even of established rank.” —Academy, July 16, 1881.
• “In the choice of a subject for her chief poem she has been singularly fortunate.... That a story such as this is full of poetical suggestiveness is obvious, and Miss Blind has proved herself equal to the occasion. She has avoided writing anything approaching to a ‘tendency poem.’ She metes out justice with an equal hand to all her characters. The genuine enthusiasm and religious zeal of the monks are set forth in language as inspired as is the final protest of St. Oran against their narrow fanaticism; and one of the best passages in the book is indeed the Sermon in which St. Columba announces the Gospel of love and redemption to the islanders.” —Pall Mall Gazette, August 22, 1881.
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• “‘The Prophecy of Saint Oran’ is skilfully told and vigorously written. In the description of nature and scenery; in the delineation of character; and in the management of singularly difficult positions, there is visible a firm and practised hand, a bold and unmistakable power. ‘The Street Children’s Dance’ not unworthily ranks with some of the touching pieces of Hood, Mrs. Barrett Browning, and others.” —British Mail, September 1, 1881.
• “The only excuse for street music that can reasonably be considered valid is the touching plea for public toleration which is embodied in Miss Mathilde Blind’s poem, wherein the spectacle of poor children dancing round an organ is as pathetically moralized and as tender and full of loving pity as Mrs. Browning’s ‘Cry of the Children.’” —Daily Telegraph, September 1, 1881.
• “The poem is rich in true description of sea and sky and mountain, and glows in sympathy with the deeper feelings which stir humanity. There has been published no poem of such creative suggestiveness as this for many a day, and we hope and believe that it is the precursor of other work by the same unfaltering hand. This poem is a true work of art, complete and beautiful. There is in the volume other work which shows a master’s touch.... ” —Manchester Examiner and Times, July 1, 1882.
• “Il y a là bien plus qu’une simple facilité de versification. Le récit du poeme d’ouverture est grand et fort, la manière de raconter est pleine de poésie et d’effet. Depuis la mort de Mrs. Barrett Browning, nous n’avons point eu de poésie aussi hautement inspirée qui ait jailli d’une source féminine.” —Le Livre, Paris, October 10, 1881.

The Heather on Fire: A Tale of the Highland Clearances.

• “Miss Blind has produced one of the most noticeable and moving poems which recent years have added to our shelves.... As a singer with a message her attempt is praiseworthy, and her performance is fairly self‐consistent. It is eminently homogeneous; the passion once felt, the inspiration once obeyed, the well‐head pours forth its stream in a strong and uniform current, which knows no pause until its impulse ceases.... The story is pathetic at once in its simplicity and in its terror.... We congratulate the author upon her boldness in choosing a subject of our own time, fertile in what is pathetic, and free from any taint of the vulgar and conventional. Poetry of late years has tended too much towards motives of a merely fanciful and abstruse, sometimes a plainly artificial, character; and we have had much of lyrical energy or attraction, with little of the real marrow of human life, the flesh and blood of man and woman. Positive subject‐matter, the emotion which inheres in actual life, the very smile and the very tear and heart‐pang, are, after all, precious to poetry, and we have them here. ‘The Heather on Fire’ may possibly prove to be something of a new departure, and one that was certainly not superfluous.” —Athenæum, July 17, 1886.
• “Miss Blind has chosen for her new poem one of those terrible Highland clearances which stain the history of Scotch landlordism. Though her tale is a fiction it is too well founded on fact.... It may be said generally of the poem that the most difficult scenes are those in which Miss Blind succeeds best; and on the whole we are inclined to think that its greatest and most surprising success is the picture of the poor old soldier Rory driven mad by the burning of his wife. In his frenzy he mixes up his old battles with the French and the descent of the landlord’s ejectors upon the village.” —Academy, August 7, 1886.
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• “In this versified tale of Highland clearances, Mathilde Blind has, with genuine poetic instinct, selected a family the fortunes of which form the burden of her story.... Literature and poetry are never seen at their best save in contact with actual life.... This little book abounds in vivid delineation of character, and is redolent with the noblest human sympathy.” —Newcastle Daily Chronicle, July 3, 1886.
• “A subject which has painfully preoccupied public opinion is, in the poem entitled ‘The Heather on Fire,’ treated with characteristic power by Miss Mathilde Blind. Irish evictions have offered so convenient a theme to party strife, that the sufferings of the unhappy Highland crofters have not always met with the compassion they were so well calculated to inspire. In eloquent and forcible verse, Miss Blind tells the tale of their wrongs, their resistance to the hard fate imposed upon them, and describes the bitter grief with which, ‘Crowding on the decks with hungry eyes, Straining towards the coast that flies and flies,’ those among them driven into exile look on the shores to which many bid an eternal farewell. Both as a narrative and descriptive poem ‘The Heather on Fire is equally remarkable.’ —Morning Post, July 30, 1886.
• “We are happy in being able to extend to the present poem a welcome equally sincere and equally hearty; for it is a poem that is rich not only in power and beauty but in that ‘enthusiasm of humanity’ which stirs and moves us, and of which so much contemporary verse is almost painfully deficient. Miss Blind does not possess her theme; she is possessed by it, as was Mrs. Browning when she wrote‘Aurora Leigh.’... We can best describe the kind of her success by noting the fact that while engaged in the perusal of her book we do not say, ‘What a fine poem!’ but ‘What a terrible story!’ or, more probably still, say nothing at all, but read on and on under the spell of a great horror and an over‐powering pity. Poetry of which this can be said needs no other recommendation, and, therefore, we need not unduly lengthen our review of ‘The Heather on Fire’” —Manchester Examiner and Times, September 1, 1886.
• “There are charming pictures of West Highland scenery, in Arran apparently, and of the surroundings and conditions of Highland cottar life.” —Scotsman, July 20, 1886.
• “In ‘The Heather on Fire,’ she exhibits a clearness and beauty of diction, a rhythmical correctness, a grace and simplicity of style which mark her out as no slavish follower of any poetic ‘school,’ but an unaffected and truthful expression of her own feelings.... Whatever the reader’s opinion may be on the grievances which Miss Blind throws into such fierce light, he cannot fail to be pleased with her graceful tale, so gracefully and simply told.” —Glasgow Herald, July 20, 1886.
• “Miss Mathilde Blind’s poem is the tragic epic of the old evictions in the Highlands of Scotland. It is a strange fact that the general reader knows more about the siege of Troy, the Norman Conquest, and the Wars of the Roses than about such matters in the very history of our own days as the depopulation of the Highlands of Scotland by the landlords. The old story comes to the front just now by reason of the crofter agitation. In the preface to her fine and touching epic, and in the notes at the end, Miss Blind passes in review some of the facts of the eviction of the Glen Sannox people by the Duke of Hamilton in 1832, where, as she says, ‘the progress of civilization, which has redeemed many a wilderness and gladdened the solitary places of the world, has come with a curse to these Highland glens, and turned green pastures and golden harvest fields once more into a desert.’ The ‘Heather on Fire’ is a poem in four cantos—or ‘Duans’—comprising about two hundred stanzas.” School Board Chronicle, July 10, 1886.
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• “It is written in a strain which must of necessity appeal to the sympathies of all grades of society, and at the same time it is eminently poetical, both in thought and rhythm.” Western Antiquary, August, 1886.
• “A book like this forms an admirable corrective to the harsh and cold‐blooded theories of such landlords as the Duke of Argyll on the rights of his class.” —Cambridge Independent Press, August, 1886.
• “There is a sonorous beauty, a classic dignity and depth of pathos throughout her four cantos, and a vivid and thrilling description is given of the industrious hamlets, the contented, happy people, and the ruthless manner in which the evictions were effected by the stewards and ground‐officers.” —Elgin Courant, August, 1886.

Tarantella: A Romance.

• “The author of this two‐volumed romance is favourably known by other works, and by the appreciative ‘Life of George Eliot.’ The strange effects of the bite of a tarantula spider, so firmly believed in by the Italian peasantry, and the marvellous power of musical enthusiasm, supply the motive of the story; and the characters are portrayed with great force, pathos, and a touch of homely humour.” —Bookseller, Christmas, 1884.
• “Miss Blind may be congratulated on ‘Tarantella,’ her first novel. In the récit (as we have called it) of the musician, Emanuel Sturm, nearly all the interest of the book is concentrated. The violinist, poor and unknown, finds himself at Capri. Accident brings him, one evening, to a frightened group of women, one of whom has just been bitten by the tarantula, and, according to the popular superstition, he is implored to play, in order to drive the poison out of her. He refuses at first, but afterwards consents, and finding himself almost supernaturally inspired, plays an improvised ‘Tarantella’ throughout a whole stormy night, finally curing the girl. The tune thus strangely hit on spreads, and ultimately makes him famous, but the love he has conceived for his Antonella brings him almost as much misery as his music brings him fame.” —Pall Mall Gazette, February 5, 1885.
• “Admiration of the delicate sketching now in vogue should not blind us to the very opposite kind of charm of which ‘Tarantella’ is full. Entirely poetical in conception (save that it is not written in metre), ‘Tarantella’ is more essentially a poem than many a narrative written in smooth and elegant verse.... ‘Tarantella’ is indeed full of strange originality and scenic effects of uncommon powers. The dance among the ruins is not likely to be soon forgotten by the most unimaginative of readers, and it is rarely, we think, that in an English novel the psychology of the poetic temperament has been touched by a hand so delicate and at the same time so strong.” —Athenæum, January 17, 1885.
• “There is abundant imagination, and the language is generally fresh and vigorous.... The author finds many opportunities of introducing scenes from German life, which are evidently written with intimate knowledge.... This is distinctly a novel to read.” —Echo, June 16, 1886.
• “This powerful and pathetic tale has carried us more completely out of ourselves and along with it than any work of fiction we have read for many a day.... Her (Miss Blind’s) word‐pictures glow with rich local colours; she is a complete mistress of the art of dramatic cause and effect. When once fairly under weigh, she never allows the interest to flag for a single moment. Thus it is only when we have laid down the final volume that we have time or inclination to page: 6 pause and recognize the care and art which have contributed to this triumphant result; to turn back... and dwell on the author’s extraordinary knowledge of the human heart—extraordinary alike for its depth and its range. As for the wit and humour with which the book is freely sprinkled, the poetic and artistic spirit which pervades it throughout, they can only be appreciated on a second or a third perusal.” —Life, December 25, 1884.
• “‘Tarantella’ is extremely clever, and the treatment of the weird subject she has chosen picturesque in the extreme. The local colouring is especially fine and her character studies extremely strong. Thrice welcome in its two‐volume form, ‘Tarantella’ is a book bound to make its mark.” —Whitehall Review, December 11, 1884.
• “We have very ingenious resources in music and the bite of the tarantula, which alone music is said to heal. Notwithstanding the sense of improbability, we follow the strange fortunes of Antonella, Countess Ogotshka, and her almost magical transformation with interest. Mina, the innocent girl, her friend, is well delineated, and Emanuel Sturm, the wonderful violinist and composer, for whose portrait Paganini has doubtless has been available, is original, no less than his friend the painter.” —British Quarterly, January, 1885.
• “‘Tarantella’ is a very clever story, with plenty of action and not without tragic incidents. The author has also plenty of humour, and there is at least as much light as shade in the book. Mina is not less delightful than the Countess is objectionable, in spite of her beauty and her daring.” —London Figaro, November 20, 1886.
• “We shall not spoil the story by hinting at its dénouement. It is a deeply interesting one; and the characters, three of them at least, are sufficiently original to give the author a high rank as a novelist.... The book abounds in striking and interesting pictures of Italian and German life and scenery.” —Dublin Mail, November, 1886.
• “‘Tarantella’ is, indeed, a novel unlike the common—full of power and imagination and originality.... It would be unjust to deny to this very remarkable book a large share of what the world calls genius.” —Melbourne Argus, March 14, 1885.
• “By her recent works, ‘The Prophecy of Saint Oran’ and the ‘Life of George Eliot,’ Miss Blind brought herself before the public as a writer of considerable ability, and her latest novel will do much to increase her reputation.... ‘Tarantella’ deserves to be classed among the best novels of the present day.” —Scottish News, June 15, 1886.
• “There is an inherent charm about ‘Tarantella’ which will be apparent to the reader from a perusal of the first chapter. This agreeable quality does not end there, however. The whole of the tale, which is divided into forty‐six chapters, is permeated with features of an exceptionally attractive description. Not the least noteworthy character of the story is its novelty. Most of the incidents, which are carefully elaborated and follow in logical sequence, are conspicuous for an airy freshness in nature and treatment. Every chapter has its specific purpose, there being a uniform overflow of idea and sentiment; and each development of the pleasing romance opens to the mental vision of the thoughtful reader incidents of a more or less engrossing description. Continental scenes and customs are described with freeness and perspicuity, and the varied and eventful adventures of the principal characters, pleasingly typical, it may be mentioned, of the romanticism invariably associated with ‘love’s young dream,’ when, as in the present instance, there is a combination of youth and beauty—are recorded with a poetical fervour and gracefulness of diction which are certain to be generally admired.” —Western Daily Press, June 2, 1886.

The Ascent of Man: Poems

• “Miss Blind traces the ‘Ascent of Man’ through successive stages, until first love, and then sorrow—which is love under another guise—lead us to the highest conception of human life we can hope to reach. It is a brave, sad, glorious story, told with inimitable skill, and as only a poet who knows man’s heart, with its hopes, doubts, fears, aspirations, could possibly tell it.... The other poems in the volume are as excellent in their kind as those which give a title to it. The only difference between them is that one series is rich with human experience, and with the results of knowledge and of high thinking, while the other is all aglow with the fresh delights of the outdoor world. These delights find an almost perfect expression.... A reviewer who is so fortunate as to light on a book like this, lays it down with regret, and fears that he has not said of it all that it deserves should be said. That is my feeling; and, lest I should have omitted any note of praise that ought to be sounded, I should like to add, by way of suggestion to all lovers of poetry—and I hope they are still many—that here is truly a book that is worth the loving.” —Academy, June 15, 1889.
• “The effort which Miss Blind has made is one deserving of high praise. From Chaos to Kosmos she hurries her reader along, breathless and perspiring perhaps, but never anxious to stop. We have known her book to be read on the Underground Railway, and the reader to be so absorbed in its contents as to be carried unawares several stations past his destination.... Miss Blind’s gift of song is genuine, and her imagination powerful.... When all is said and done, ‘The Ascent of Man’ remains a remarkable poem, and cannot fail to increase its author’s reputation as a brilliant and original writer.” —Athenæum, July 20, 1889.
• “There is a fine elevation of tone, and there is a splendid mastery of diction, well sustained from the beginning to the end.... The poems are unquestionably very beautiful.” —School Board Chronicle, June 8, 1889.
• “Miss Blind has already a place of honour among poets, and this striking volume will make it sure. There is nothing weak or unreal about her verse, and there is much force of thought, sympathy for all, and burning scorn of luxurious vice.” —Liverpool Mercury, June 19, 1889.
• “One of the advanced minds of the day is Mathilde Blind. I have at my side her latest book, ‘The Ascent of Man.’ The poems are all earnest and high pitched in tone—they are human.... Every line comes from a heart full of life’s unutterable woes, of hope’s faint, half‐believing monitions.” —Cheltenham Examiner, June 19, 1889.
• “To Miss Blind belongs the honour of having been the first to seriously render Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer into verse on anything like a bold and comprehensive scale. ‘The Ascent of Man’ is a really remarkable poem. Its main conception is even noble, its manner of execution is brilliant and vigorous, and it abounds in passages which prove Miss Blind to possess the true poetic faculty.” —Wit and Wisdom, August 3, 1889.
• “In her last published volume of poems, ‘The Ascent of Man,’ Miss Blind has revealed qualities of imagination, enthusiasm, and strength, which place her high indeed among women writers of the day.” —Echo, August 8, 1889.
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• “Miss Blind has already proved herself to be no ordinary writer of verse, and her new volume will add to her reputation. ‘The Ascent of Man’ is a philosophical poem, challenging comparison by its subject with the great work of Lucretius, and inevitably suggesting some of the finest passages of Tennyson.” —Manchester Examiner, May 18, 1889.
• “That Miss Blind’s volume shows signs of poetic power no careful reader can for a moment doubt.” —Literary World, June 14, 1889.
• “Miss Blind is an accomplished authoress, and a verse‐maker of remarkable skill. There is plenty of suggestion, as well as a good deal of brilliant, forcible, and easy colouring, in ‘The Ascent of Man.” —Star, June 17, 1889.
• “This is a powerful but unequal poem: but the task set to herself by the author was such a mighty one, that, even had her success been far less than it is, she might well be proud.... This volume will considerably enhance Miss Blind’s reputation as a poetess.” —Lady’s Pictorial, June 28, 1889.
• There are some fine passages, elevated in conception and felicitous in expression.... The volume, as a whole, is a considerable advance on Miss Blind’s previous poetic work, and should give much pleasure to all thoughtful and cultivated readers.” —Globe, May 22, 1889.
• “The chief merit of this fine poem is that it treats from the transcendental point of view certain conceptions and theories of life which modern science has shown us under another aspect.” —St. James’s Gazette, June 16, 1889.
• “‘The Ascent of Man’ is a volume of verse which marked by much grace of diction. In her ‘Poems of the Open Air,’ Miss Blind is specially successful. Though a thousand poems have taken us into the gardens and fields ere now, we gladly return to them with her.” —British Weekly, July 12, 1889.
• “Her descriptions of the early struggles for existence are powerful and picturesque in a high degree.” —Pall Mall Gazette.
• “Has merit of no common order, due, perhaps, as much to the author’s wide human sympathy as to her poetical gifts.” —Morning Post.
• “The doctrine and tendencies of present‐day thought are endowed with fascinating poetic form in Miss Mathilde Blind’s ‘Ascent of Man.’.... She encircles grave Science with an aureole, and illuminates his grey technical pages with rainbow tints and emblazoned designs.” —Watt’s Literary Guide.
• “This new volume is another testimony to the sterling character of Miss Blind’s poetic talent. Technically the verse‐workmanship is masterly; the verse is sonorous and well balanced, the diction simple and unaffected, and the style marked by the essential quality of distinction.” —Women’s Penny Paper.
• “‘The Ascent of Man’ opens with lines which, in their vigour and rhythmic sweep, recall the most resonant passages of Lucretius.” —The Scottish Leader.