FICTION.
THE PRETENDER:I.
Tam is not a story of the '15 or the '45. The bizarre wrapper as well as the sub-title make that sufficiently clear. The pretending in which the hero of Mr. Service's new novel indulges is that common to all children, and, according to Hiss Jane Harrison, it is characteristic of youth. But in the case of James Horace Madden it was temperamental and ineradicable. He was always under the spell of his histrionic imagination, and, to make matters worse, he had been for a while on the stage. When we first make his acquaintance as • (1) Hornalfaleing: o Book oi net. Household Hints. By 8. E. Stone. London i C. Arthur Pearson. Is. ]—(2) The Little Girt' Sewing Book. Edited by morn billatinnuo. widen Religious 'Treat Society. [Is. net] 1 The Pretender: a Story of the Latin Quarter. By Bobcat Service. Loudon T. Stasis Bunn, [Gs.] "the happiest young man in Manhattan" at the age of twenty-six, he was already at the close of the sixth period of his life, each inspired by a dramatic conception of himself, In a moment of autobiographical retrospect he sketches these divisions as follows:— " Chapter I.—Boyhood. Violently imaginative perioct—Devour- ing ambition to become pirate chief.—Organised the 'Band of Blood.' — Antipathy to study. — Favourite literature Jack Harkaway.
Chapter IL—Youth. Violently athletic period.—Devouring ambition to become great first baseman.—Organised the Angoras. —Continued antipathy to study.—Favourite literature The sport- ing rags.
Chapter III.—CubhootL Violently red blood period.—Devouring, ambition to become champion broncho buster.—Went to Wyoming and became the most cowboyish cowboy in seven counties.— Favourite literature: The yellow rags.
Chapter IT—Undergraduate days. Violently intellectual period.—Devouring ambition to become literary mandarin.—Gave up games and became a bookworm.—Commenced to write, but disdained anything lees than an epic.—Favourite literature The French decedents.
Chapter V.—Adolescence. Violently histrionic period.—Devour- ing ambition to become a second Mansfield.—Joined the Cruel Chicago Company as general utility.—Chief literature: the theatrical rags.
Chapter n.—Manhood. At the age of twenty-one wrote The Haunted Tari-Cab, and scored immediate success.—Devouring ambition to write the Great American NoveL—Published nine more books in next five years, and managed to hold my own."
But though consciously dramatic, Mr. Madden wae also con- scious of his limitations. Although he bad achieved fame and was making a handsome income, he knew that be was simply repeating himself and trading on his initial success. He overhears two of his friends, a precious poet and an atrabilious critic, discussing his books at the club. The poet calls him "the Indiana idol, the Boy Bestseller-monger." He is "a perfect bounder as regards Art. But he knows how to truckle to the mob." And the critic more subtly attributes his success to the fact that "he is the public, the apotheosis of the vulgar intelligence." Hence his sudden resolve—inspired, as usual, by his histrionic imagination—to sink his individuality, disappear, and achieve success on his own merits. Hence a steerage passage to Europe, drudgery in London, a precipitate marriage to a French girl, and a long struggle in the Latin Quarter. In the end, after his MSS. have come boomeranging back with great regularity, the tide turns and liberal fees come rolling in. All this time, be it noted, he has discarded the pen-name under which he achieved his repute as a "best- seller" and assumed a new alias. Also we are given to under- stand that he has become infected with the artistic spirit of his environment. But with the best of intentions he was unable to escape success. He was "doomed to popular applause " z-
" Yes, I had succeeded—no, I mean I had failed failed by those later lights that Paris had kindled within me. Here, amid art that is eternal, art that means sacrifice, surrender, renunciation. I had learned to despise that work which merely serves the caprice of an hour. I had come to crave form, to strive for style. Yet what can one do ? My efforts for art's sake were stilted and artificial ; it was only when I had a story to tell that I became entirely pleasing. Well, let me take my own measure. I would always be a bagman of letters. In that great division of scribes into sheep and goats I would never be other than a bleating and incorrigible goat."
The story of this adventure is told with great gusto and abundant humour. The flaw, from a moral point of view, is that in obstinately carrying out his scheme he does so not only at the cost of his own comfort, but at the expense of his devoted wife, and comes very near losing her in the process, though at any moment in the game he could have saved the situation by revealing his identity to his literary patrons. So that while we are attracted by his exuberant and engaging personality, we are, at times, repelled by his self-centred egotism. The heroic qualities are monopo- lized by the wife, who is a miracle of thrift, industry, and uncomplaining devotion. Thus, for all its extravagance and high spirits, the story is a real tribute to French womanhood, as it is also an act of unqualified homage to the immortal charm of Paris, and a brilliant picture of latter-day and ante- bellum Parisian Bohemia, emphasizing its joyous camaraderie, while not overlooking its sinister and even horrible aspects. The Pretender is, in fine, a gay, high-apirited, audacious book, with moments of frank indecorum inevitable in any attempt to paint the life of the Latin Quarter, and one or two episodes which we would have wished away; but no grown person could take mischief from ita pages. Here at least is a novelist who construes his functions in the spirit recommended by a writer in the Contemporary Bevies°, and has no desire to exchange the role of an entertainer for that of a war critic.
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