Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Short studies of American authors

[48] and “Hetty's strange history” only revived the same questions. The plots of these books showed the hand of “Saxe Holm,” the occasional verses that of “H. H.” Both novels brought a certain disappointment: they had obvious power, but were too painful to be heartily enjoyed. After all, the public mind is rather repelled by a tragedy, since people wish to be made happy. Great injustice has been done by many critics, I think, to “Hetty's strange history.” While its extraordinary power is conceded, it has been called morbid and immoral; yet it is as stern a tale of retribution as “Madame Bovary” or “The scarlet letter.” We rarely find in fiction any severity of injustice meted out to a wrong act done from noble motives. In Jean Paul's “Siebenkas” the husband feigns death in order that his wife may find happiness without him: he succeeds in his effort, and is at last made happy himself. In “Hetty's strange history” the wife effaces herself with precisely the same object,--for her husband's sake: but the effort fails; the husband is not made happy by her absence, and when they are re-united the memory of her deception cannot be banished, so that after the first bliss of re-union they find that complete healing can never come. Only a deep nature could have planned,