ABSTRACT
A novel by the author of New Grub-street must always be of great interest, and Born in Exile is one that it is hard to lay down, though it is a pessimist book, as all from this school are bound to be. Godwin Peak is an intellect ofboundless ambition, 'born in exile,' that is to say, an aristocrat oflow birth, with a strong taste for social refmements, but without the sense ofhonour ofa higher class. His struggles for a livelihood and distinction are long and painful, and he exhibits the arrogance of a character unsoftened by any gleam of spiritual faith, and without any principle except self-seeking. The crisis of his fate appears in the temptation to affect Christianity and take orders, to win the hand ofa religious girl. The deception is exposed by those associated in the production of Godwin's savagely anti-Christian writings, and some touching scenes follow, in which the Christian girl condemns, only to excuse, the hypocrisy of her lover. These scenes mitigate the hardness ofthe book, in which dialogue and characters are always ofthe diamond cut diamond order. In the end Sidwell adopts Godwin's scepticism, but cannot resolve to offend her kindred and marry him; and the book ends badly. The hard, dusty highway of life, trodden by all these people without hope and without faith, is a more distressing spectacle than the author probably meant to make it, and the hero approaches a Napoleonic ideal of cynical self-seeking.
