The Lordship of Love. By Baroness von Hutton. (Hutchinson and
Co. 6s.)—This is a modern story of an Italian singer who, after snaking a success in London, falls in love with a married man of doubtful reputation who is separated from his wife. Baroness von Hutton encourages by implication the doctrine, so often com- bated in these columns, that it is impossible to resist a great passion which falls upon its victims like fate. The singer and her lover, however, do not as a matter of fact give way to their love, but at the end we are left to the belief that they will marry after the death of the lover's Wife. It must be acknowledged that the friendship between the wife and the singer is not very consistent with good taste. The early part of the book is much pleasanter reading than the later, and the struggles of the heroine, Beatrice, with the beginnings of opera-singing aro most entertainingly described. Why, we wonder, does Baroness von Hutten insist that the Italian diminutive Bice can be adequately rendered in English by Beeehy ? Every time the word appears it is an offence to eye and ear, and no one with the slightest knowledge of Italian would imagine that Beeehy could possibly be given as an equivalent of Bice except in a traveller's phrase-book.
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