A Puritan Pagan. By Julien Gordon. (Gay and Bird.)—" Julien
Gordon" is one of the cleverest of the modern analytic school of Americans, but also one of the most affected, as may indeed be inferred from the proneness exhibited in her new book to use such phrases as "moral tenebrre " and "demulcent influences," and her designation of one of its characters as " the cleanest man she had ever seen,"—indeed, "he smelled very good, a fact which affected her pleasantly when he approached her." These affecta- tions, which recall those of "John Oliver Hobbes," although they are very different in character, do not impair the author's powers as a story-teller. There is, at all events, no question whatever that, in A Puritan Pagan," Julien Gordon " has produced a book remarkable alike for motif, for plot-construction, and for the depicting of character. Paula Sorchan, the daughter of a scientist, who has been indeed too much of a scientist, marries Norwood, a very able, successful, and socially popular lawyer, without being really in love with him. Norwood, perhaps because he needs something in the shape of a clinging affection, drifts into a liaison which, although it is not of the vulgarest kind, justifies him to some extent in accusing himself to his wife as an adulterer and a murderer. Thereafter Paula leaves him, travels, sees life— especially in Paris—and returns unanswered the lettere pleading for forgiveness which her husband sends to her. Being (as it is perhaps superfluous to say) associated with well-to-do people, she is enabled, in spite of the failure of her matrimonial experi- ment, to have a thoroughly American " good time " in Paris and elsewhere, chiefly under the wing of Mrs. Heathcote, a charming creature, who is reasonably well married. A not too typical Frenchman falls earnestly in love with her, and she is beginning to be impressed by him, when, thanks to an amiable conspiracy between Mrs. Heathcote and the finished bachelor who smells so delightfully, she is induced to read her husband's letters. She returns to America, not only loving but trusting him. The plot of A Puritan Pagan is an intricate one, and it is evolved with care and delicacy. All the charade's, but especially Mrs. Heath- cote, are admirably sketched.
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