"Speaking of this queer book, the New York Courier says, 'If the writer ever showed the manuscript to her friends, they acted most cruelly towards her, in not advising her to throw it into the fire.' We think so too. We have never seen so sad a revelation of a woman's heart. There are some flashes of genius in the book, but there are more flashes of that unmentionable fire, supposed to be familiar to wicked souls.
"The principal characters in Ruth Hall bristle all over with iron spikes of selfishness and cruelty. The able critic of the Boston Post declares that 'art would never admit such stony-hearted monsters in a story of real life.' Now, 'Ruth Hall' is understood to be an autobiography. That it was intended as such by the writer, there can be no doubt in the mind of any person who knows her and reads her book. Following this view of the subject, we have, first and foremost among the monsters, Fanny's own father. He is the 'old Ellet' of the story--a man who 'thinks more of one cent than of any child he ever had;' who coldly leaves his daughter and grandchildren to suffer almost the extremes of want and privation; who would not, indeed, throw them a crumb, were it not that, as a church-member, he has a 'Christian reputation to sustain,' and fears public opinion. The caricature is gross and awful. Yet it is not even a caricature. Fanny (Ruth Hall) has daubed the hideous picture of an impossible character, and scrawled beneath it the angry words, 'This is my father! let all the world see and abhor him!' O, Goneril! O, Regan! could woman's hate do more? Oh, dear and sweet revenge upon a parent! because, forsooth, the white-haired old man, who, even now, totters daily up his office stairs to earn a livelihood, possessed too much calm wisdom to impoverish himself in order that she might sit a queen--because he deemed it sufficient, in all love and justice, to support her comfortably, as his means afforded--because her own indiscretions, and extravagant and unreasonable demands, had called down upon her head deserved severity and reproof--this is the fire kindled in her heart! We are sorry to speak in this strain. But if we speak at all, we must utter what justice and truth call out of us. Even were Mrs. Farrington's charges against her father well-founded, we could not but cry out in condemnation of the parricidal spirit that seeks so devilish a revenge.