14 SEPTEMBER 1901, Page 21

NOVELS OF THE WEEK.*

THE great talent of Lucas Malet, first fully revealed in Colonel Enderby's Wife, has of late years been exercised with results hardly proportioned to her rich and manifold endow- ments. In Sir Richard Calmady she has abandoned her ex- cursions into the bizarre, and given us what is probably the ripest fruit of her genius. The canvas is large, almost pano- ramic, peopled with a multitude of well-contrasted figures, and illustrates the life history—the action extends from first to last over a period of thirty years—of a hero perhaps more cruelly handicapped for the race of life than any other representative of the beau role to be encountered in the range of modern fiction. For the curse of the Catmadys, a curse which came home to roost regularly generation after genera- tion, is finally lifted, in fulfilment of a prophetic jingle, by the advent of an heir half angel, half monster. The cardinal • episode of the narrative, we may note, raises in an acute form the whole question of "maternal impressions," and assumes, for the purposes of the plot, the possibility of a causal connection between a specific injury to a father and the physical development of his unborn son. The intrusion of the mysteries of gynmcology into a work of fiction will seem to many out of place, if not gratuitous, though quite in keeping with the modern view that there are no limits to the subject-matter available to the novelist. Still, while we hold that the legitimacy of the choice is gravely open to question, there can be no doubt as to the impressive- • (1.) Sir Richard Calmady, By Lucas Malet. Loudon: Methuen and Co. r3s.1—(2.) Corbett. By Constance Smith. London: Hurst and Blackett. 6s.]—(3.) Bunter's Cruise. By Charles Gleig. London: Methuen and Co. 2. 6d.3—(4.) Franks: Duettist. By Ambre;se Pratt. London Hutchinson and Co. [6s.]—(5.) TheDevastators. kiy Ada Cauiloidge. London Methueu and Co. [68.]—(8.) The Year Our. By J. Binumlelle.Burtou, Loadou: Methuen and Co. [t3s.]—(7.) The COltalli. By Ii L. Jeffersou. London: Ward, Lock, and Co. als.1—(8.) A Modolt Slave Dealer. By A. P. Crouch Loudon WarJ, Lock, aw.TCo. ,3e. 6&j ness, the seriousness, and the poignancy with which Lucie-- Malet has developed a gruesome theme. For by the irony o: fate Richard Calmady, though in the literal or physical sense only half a hero, is liberally endowed with precisely the qualities that would have won for him distinction in a life of action. As a child, girt round as he is by the vigilant care of his mother, and even up to the time of his leaving the University, the consciousness of all that his dis- abilities mean for himself and those with whom he is casually brought in contact, though now and then rudely and pain- fully awakened, brings him no abiding mental anguish. That comes with his entry into the wider world, and leads him into an acute phase of revolt, in which, resolved to be avenged on an unjust Providence—as though God acted on the lines of Le .Rai s'amuse—he determines, in his own words, to have just all that his money, his position, and even his deformity can bring him of pleasure and notoriety. And this, the Venusberg phase of his existence, is traced with the same relentless logic that has marked the earlier chapters of the story. In the long run, seared in soul as well as maimed in body, he wins his way into the haven of domestic peace, thanks partly to the ultimate triumph of the nobler side of his nature, but chiefly to the inexhaustible devotion of his mother, in whom Lucas Malet has given a picture of maternal love by turns tender and terrible. On the other hand, in his cousin Helen we have a realistic portrait of the eternal enchantress, the Belle Dame sans 3ferei, the Venus of the Venusberg, whose baleful sorceries bring Richard to the nadir of his fortunes. The book has so many of the elements of greatness—in its admirable presentation of the sum total of the heritage of a great English squire, in its portraiture, by turns mordant and sympathetic, of aristocrat and bour- geois, priest and man of pleasure, in its poetic appreciation of the amenities of country life and the beauties of the English landscape—that we cannot help regretting that the author should have succumbed to the temptation to make artistic capital out of a situation so abnormal as to be, if not incon- ceivable, at least extremely improbable. Classic tragedy affords a precedent for achieving the cathartic aim by the spectacle of a blind hero. For the hero deformed from birth, and driven by the sense of his deformity into an attitude of revolt, there is no parallel, and in our view no adequate justification, for the annals of real life have shown that where great mental ability has been combined with great physical drawbacks, the temper of resentment, defiance, and rebellion has been conspicuously absent.

Corban deals with the self-imposed martyrdom of Honore Lagrange, Cure of St. Quentin. He first leaves Paris, where he has achieved fame and popularity as a preacher, because he realises that he has been more occupied in exciting the interest of his charming cousin Herminie than in fulfilling his duty to God, and banishes himself to a dull little village. There, after many uneventful years, a new distraction arises in the person of his little half-brother Paul, but as Paul grows up Honore once more finds the creature coming before the Creator. The remainder of the story is concerned with the fortunes of the two brothers, and culminates in a strong situation, when the priest, knowing his brother to be innocent of a charge of murder, is yet unable to rescue him without violating the seal of the confessional. The story is decidedly moving, and the pictures of French village life are. charmingly

• drawn.

In Bunter's Cruise Mr. Gleig tells how Ned Bunter, having gone without leave to say good-bye to iris sweetheart, finds her more interested in novels of high life than in the realities of an A.B.'s career. He is pursued by the water police, takes to the water to escape, and on coming to shore appropriates the clothes of his own captain from a bathing machine. In these he drives off to a hotel, where, having looked at his letters and found out whose name and status he has appropriated, he determines to brave it out. Thus when the true captain arrives (he has just been appointed to the Belleville,' and no one therefore recognises him) Bunter puts him in irons, and later on gets the ship's doctor to certify that the man is suffering from mania. Naturally enough the impostor gets on very well with the A.B.'s, with whose grievances he sympathises, and when the real captain falls overboard while trying to heave the lead, the impostor jumps after him, and at great risk saves the Hon. Roger Laxdale's life. Finally, on the news of the death Then they effect a change, Laxdale benefiting by

manages to bring Laxdale on shore packed as a box of curios. A Lord Boldrewood, the captain's father, reaching him, Bunter Bunter's act cA gallantry in saving his life and thereby winning a wife. The story is wildly farcical, but, unlike many wild fame; decidedly amusing.

The period of which Franks : Duelist treats no doubt left

much to be desired in regard to manners and morals, and in the book before us, whether the manifold adventures of the hero with the fair sex, or the amusements of George IV. en Prince, or life at the Court of Napoleon are the author's theme, we have no lack of adventures illustrative of this quality. To those who find bloodshed and strong language an indispensable sauce to their diet in fiction, Franks: Duelist may be confidently recommended.

There is nothing very devastating about Miss Cambridge's Devastators, for this is merely the name she gives to those of her characters who possess "II dono infelice della bellezza." According to the idea of one of the characters of the book, of whom the author apparently makes a mouthpiece to air her own views, the good people on this earth are all severely plain,—this is a theory which if authoritat:vely proved would send many persons to peer with very mixed feelings into their looking-glasses. Like the sea captain settling the ship's time, the 2;tovelist has always the power to "make it so" when proving a favourite notion, and Miss Cambridge has carried out her idea thoroughly. Of the two handsome people in the book, one is wicked and the other weak, while dark hints are given as to the peccadilloes of the heroine's father, who possessed the fatal gift,—which, however, he was not so cruel as to transmit to his daughter. According to the modern fashion, the action of the book is spread over a long period of years, and we leave the erstwhile handsome hero as a stout middle-aged gentleman gathering round the fire with the other fogeys at his daughter's first dinner party. But the interest of the book is not strong enough in the first instance to last in this way into posterity, and though a lovely moral is pointed by the degringolacle into a wig and paint of the bad heroine, the reader is decidedly weary of the story before he reaches the last chapter.

If the title of The Devastators were applied to Mr. Bloundelle- Burton's new story, it would certainly be more obvious than it is when given to Miss Cambridge's novel. There is a fine amount of devastating in Mr. Burton's book, The Year One, which is a story of the French Revolution, and includes a lurid description of the September massacres in La Force. Kr. Burton does not even spare us a hint at the brutal story of Madame de Lamballe's trimidess head and " coiffez moi cela," which is something like devastation. The story is a brisk and bustling romance, and blood flows like water through its pages. However, all at last ends well from the point of view of hero and heroine, who escape "looking out through the little window" by a series of hairbreadth adventures. Readers will feel a sense of renewed thankfulness on finishing the book in having lived a hundred years too late to have witnessed such horrors.

Mr. Jefferson's story, The Coward, is not a very satisfactory book to read. It is the history of a literary youth who seeks his fortune in London, and all through his life tumbles into every possible sordid scrape. The figure of Detheredge, the clever, drinking editor to whom the hero attaches himself, is drawn with a certain 'rigour; but the whole atmosphere of the book is so flat with stale tobacco and alcohol that it is diffi- cult to take an interest even in the studies of character, which are undoubtedly drawn with a certain amount of power.

An island off the West Coast of Africa forms the un-

familiar scene of most of the adventures of A Modern Slave Dealer. There are kidnappings, rescues, and escapes in the book, and as the date is the present day, it is obvious that Mr. Crouch was quite right in choosing a locality belonging to Spain and situated some way off (in the Bight of Benin, te be precise) to invest these lawless doings with any semblance of probability. The story is not bad reading in its own particular line, though it can make small claim to origineitti- for. Indeed, in this class of book originality is hardly to be hoped