The Romance of a Plain Man. By Ellen Glasgow. (John
Murray. 6s.)—Although Miss Glasgow brings her usual high ability to the task which she has set herself, yet novels in which the hero is autobiographer are never entirely satisfactory when the author is a woman. It is impossible to keep the feminine standpoint from occasionally appearing in a nominally masculine narrative. In the present novel Miss Glasgow tells the story of a small boy born in the Southern States of America very shortly after the war. He is the son of a stonecutter, and early makes up his mind to rise in life and become worthy of the affections of tho very delightful little girl on whom he has set his heart. The story of his gradual advance to the highest position in the business world is well told, yet the reader will feel that Miss Glasgow is really more at home in describing the mental attitude of the heroine, Sally Mickleborough, before and after her marriage to Ben Starr, the "plain man" of the title. The curious emptiness of the position of the rich American woman has never been more tellingly emphasised than in this story, though the narrator, who is, of course, Ben Starr himself, does not seem conscious of the extraordinary vacuity of the life which he describes the charming Sally as leading. Unless an American woman of means has the good fortune to lose all her money, and is therefore obliged to busy herself with the physical details of life, she appears to have no function in life except the dismal one of providing herself with perpetual amusement. No wonder an energetic person like Sally Mickleborough finds this extremely monotonous, and welcomes the change of fortune which for a brief period causes her to set her shoulder to the wheel and maintain her husband and child. The book is an interesting specimen of the business novel, and is of a type which is very popular with authors at the present moment.
Previous page
