This is the first of a series to be translated from the original of the Countess Hahn-Hahn, if they find acceptance among us. The writer is, at present, one of the most poplar novelists of her own country. The book shows the atmosphere of high culture in which it was produced and a feminine fineness of observation, especially in the analysis of the passions. But the chief value of the book is in an excellent picture of a woman. Faustina is woman, painted as only one of her own sex could paint her. The dialogue is often heavy; the speakers making long orations upon art, literature, and the conduct of life, not only longer than any real talker ever made, but in a style such as no good talker ever used. They are totally deficient in terseness, flexibility, and that quick varying sparkle on the waters that shows the ruffling breeze of real intercourse. They are not, however, more defective in these ways than the dialogues in Miss Bremer’s novels, which (the dialogues) people read, we understand. When Faustina speaks, the gesture and action of the conversation are graceful; the other interlocutors interrupt; so, we suppose, the Countess Faustina is the real representative of the Countess Hahn-Hahn’s mind. The book shows the questions as to woman, broached among ourselves, in a state of society where difficulties wear a more immediately threatening aspect, and crave a maturer wisdom for their remedy.*
“The Countess Faustina . . .” New-York Daily Tribune, 12 March 1845, p. 1.
