Notwithstanding its defects--and it is full of them judged from the stand-point of art--_Wildfell Hall_ is a book of promise. In the descriptions of the Hall, the mystery that surrounds its mistress, the rumours of her unknown lover, the heathclad hills and the desolate fields, there are romantic elements that remind one of _Wuthering Heights_. The book is more faulty than _Agnes Grey_, but the writer had a deeper vision of life with its weaknesses and its depths of human passion. If years had mellowed that "undreamt-of experience" of Thorp Green, Anne Brontë with her truthful observation and sympathetic insight into character might have written a classic. The material out of which _Wildfell Hall_ was wrought, under a more mature mind, with a better grasp of the whole and a better regard for proportion, would have made a novel worthy of a place beside _Jane Eyre_. * * * * * That English fiction has produced sweeter and more varied fruit by being grafted with the novels of women no one who gives the matter a serious thought can for a moment doubt. One distinctive phase of woman's mind made its way but slowly in the English novel. Women are by nature introspective. They read character and are quick to grasp the motives and passions that underlie action. The French women have again and again embodied this view of human nature in their novels, which are essentially of the inner life. _The Princess of Clèves_ by Madame de Lafayette, written in 1678, is the first book in which all the conflicts are those of the emotions; here the great triumph is that which a woman wins over her own heart. Madame de Tencin in _Mémoires du Comte de Comminges_ represents her hero and heroine under the influence of two great passions, religion and love. Madame de Souza, Madame Cottin, Madame de Genlis, Madame de Staël, and George Sand wrote novels of the inner life. The Princess of Clèves with noble dignity controls her emotion and at last conquers it. The pages of George Sand thrill with unbridled passion. The English women, however, are more repressed by nature than the French, and the English novel of the inner life advanced but slowly. The emotions of the long-forgotten Sidney Biddulph are minutely told. _A Simple Story_ by Mrs. Inchbald is a psychological novel. Amelia Opie, Mary Brunton, and Mrs. Shelley wrote novels of the inner life.