THE NOVEL 175 and the memory of my life may save your sou) from selfisb ness ; your dark days will cease ; the pain caused by the world will be eased by the love of your dcar ones, and the suffering caused by those you love will be for gotten amidst the approving smiles of the world. I t is only the selfisb for wh om life contains no consolation." The Carthusian is full of a noble fervour, but it is mani festly the work of a young author. The characters are fertile in fine sentiments and reflections ; but their actions are weak and purposeless. Eötvös' second novel, The Viliage Notary, was dis tinctly a novel with a purpose. It was really a vehement attack upon the autonomy of the provinces. In 1846, when Eötvös compteted the book, serfdom was not abol ished and each province was a littie kingdom in itself, its ruler, and sometimes its tyrant, being the jöispán or lord-Heutenant of the county. If he committed any unlawful action it was practicany impossible to resist it. Eötvös depicted the corruption an d stagn ation prevalent in the provinces with aU the warroth inspired by his in dignation. Deák, however, was right when, in speaking of this novel, he said : " On the title-pages of books treating of the ail ments of horses there is often pictured a horse suffering from ali possihle diseases and infirmities at one and the same time, but in reality such an unfortu nate animal does not exist. I t is the same with the pro vince presented to us in Eötvös' novel ; so miserable a p rovince does not exist." The kind of persecution to wh ich good men were sub jected is shown to us in the career of the hero, the viliage notary. A noble-minded and idealistic thinker, finding that his schemes of reform are not acceptable, abandons the struggle and seeks a humble sphere of activity as a
