Stinging Nettles. By Marjorie Bowen. (Ward, Lock. 7s.) While nursing
a slowly dying husband, a woman falls in love with the doctor. This is the situation which Marjorie Bowen develops in her first modern novel. The man is a rather contemptible character and he is terribly ill with tubercle of the lungs. The repellent details of her work as nurse turn his wife's indifference to something like hatred. She has a sense of duty but none of pity. The fact that he still loves her as much as his nature and his condition permit never touches her heart. Strictly speaking she has no heart, though she imagines that she loves the doctor to distraction. When, however, after her husband's death the doctor himself falls ill she consents to see him no more. We leave her happily married to a third man and keeping up an interesting literary correspondence with the invalid. There is a crude sincerity about the character drawing which makes it convincing. The author loves her heroine and does not care whether the reader loves her or not. We feel we have been looking at a fine portrait of a detestable face drawn with sympathy. Herein lies the sting of the story—and its merit.
Previous page
