NOVELS OF THE WEEK.*
THE scene of Mrs. Steel's new novel is laid in an Indian city, the centre of a dispossessed native dynasty, and is concerned ° (1.) The Hosts of the Lord. By Flora Annie Steel. London : W. Heinemann fes.)—(2.) The Inner Shrine. By Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick (Mrs. Andrew Dean) London : Harper and Brothers. (66.)—(3.) Love in a Mist. By Olive Birrell London : Smith, Elder, and Co. [68.]—(4.) The Journal 01 a Jealous Woman. By Percy White. London : James Nisbet and Co. [68.]—(5.) The Monk Wins By Edward H. Cooper. London : Duckworth and Co. Os ].--(6.) Edward Barry : South Sea Pearler. By Louis Becke. London : T. Fisher Unwin. f61 —(7 .) Joan Brotherhood. By Bernard Capes. London : C. A. Pearson. Ds. —01.) I'd Crowns Bea" By J. Maclaren Cobban. London : John Long. (68.
with what she calls "the greatest social problem the world has ever seen or is likely to see—the mutual assimilation of East and West without injury to either." With what tragic consequences the attempt to solve this problem must inevitably be fraught it is the aim of the novelist, drawing on her long and intimate observation of Anglo-Indian society and the life of the bazaar, to set forth in the romance to which she has given the title of The Hosts of the Lord. Of the English characters the most prominent is Captain Vincent Dering, a beau sabreur diverted from his attachment to the attractive wife of an absent-minded engineer by a genuine passion for an Italian girl, Laila, Bonaventura, granddaughter of a soldier of fortune, the favourite of the last Nawab of Eshwara. Laila has Indian blood in her veins, for her grandmother was the Nawab's sister, and on the death of her parents she has lived on in the palace as the ward of an old Jesuit priest, who, on the downfall of the native sovereignty, secured to Bonaventura's heirs the confirmation of the Nawab's grants. By the convergence of destinies, a young Mahom- medan risalclar, Roshan Khan, the nearest male descend- ant of the Nawab, is ordered to Eshwara with his regiment on the occasion of the Viceroy's visit, and being vain, turbulent, and ambitious, is gradually seduced from his allegiance to the British role by the flattery of his female relations, and encouraged to assert his claim to the hand of his cousin, the Begum Laila. A variety of causes conspire to fan the embers of native discontent,—the drying up of a sacred pool by the new waterworks : the injudicious treatment by the military authorities of a jogi : the conflict of superstition and modern science over an outbreak of cholera. Roshan, possessed by the dream of recovering the throne of his ancestors, is marked out by his blood and ambition as the ringleader of revolt, and perishes in the attempt, but not before he has avenged himself on Laila for preferring his English rival by taking her life. On the other hand, Captain Dering redeems his fame by dying in the defence of the woman he had so nearly compromised. The common and just criticism of Mrs. Steel's novels—that she fails to enlist deep interest in her principal Anglo-Indian characters— applies less pointedly to The Hosts of the Lord than to her recent works. The slangy talk and reckless frivolity of the soldiers and officials—though explained by Mrs. Steel as a not unnatural recoil from the perpetual presence of the great social problem mentioned above—compare unfavourably with the dignified bearing and sententious dialogue of the natives. But Dering is a good deal more than a mere philanderer; Erda Shepherd, the devoted lady missionary, forfeits none of our respect by her ultimate surrender to her natural affections ; the trials of Mrs. Eugene Smith, the engineer's wife, are handled so as to make just the right appeal to the reader's sympathies, and no more ; while two admirably contrasted types of officials are given us in the Governor of the convict prison and the witty Irish Commis- sioner. But the semi-Oriental characters, Laila, and her guardian, Father Ninian, are far more interesting, and the natives the most interesting and arresting of all. The two amphibious fishermen, Gu-gu and Am-ma, Gorakh-nath the jogi, Roshan and his grandmother Mumtaza, these and half- a-dozen other characters are endowed with the magic of a distinct and interesting individuality. In regard to the presentation of her romance Mrs. Steel's workmanship is as usual very unequal. Her style, vigorous rather than distin- guished, lacks lucidity and repose. The narrative is often hard to follow ; Mrs. Steel's fondness for the figure of speech known as aposiopesis amounts to an affectation, and in her account of the revolt the effort to match the excitement of the moment by a spasmodic mode of description is not always successful. Nor can we acquit her of melodrama in the duel to the death between Roshan and the old priest. Men of eighty can hardly be expected to retain their skill with the rapier unimpaired. But these blemishes in presentation do not seriously detract from the remarkable psychological interest of a striking novel.
A novel from the pen of Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick is always welcome ; for while she steers a middle course between the rose-coloured optimism of the mid-Victorian novelists and the devotion to the doleful of their successors, the excellence of her matter is always enhanced by the alertness and vivacity of her style. The Inner Shrine may best be described as a modern version of the knight-errant and the distressed damse,L Celia Blake, the heroine, the sister of a poor parson, is taken abroad as their companion by a vulgar couple —Mrs. Sidgwick does not hold with the modern craze for glorifying caddishness — who, gratuitously reading evil into her innocent relations with an English officer, desert her at a moment's notice. Major Ascham, who is engaged to be married to his cousin, a beautiful, gracious invalid, behaves in the trying sequel with tree chivalry, but the situation is naturally open to misconstruction. Accordingly, when his wife subsequently meets, takes a great fancy to Celia, and engages her as governess for her little niece, Celia and Major Ascham agree to say nothing about their former acquaintance. But the Clatworthys—the vulgar pair referred to—hunt down the innocent Celia ; Mr. Clatworthy endeavours to blackmail Ascham, and, failing in that, tells his version of the story to Lady Helen. In the scenes which follow Lady Helen emerges as a true heroine by her exquisite loyalty to her friend and her husband. She knows him to be innocent and to have behaved like a chivalrous gentleman, but she receives her death-wound in the knowledge that his heart is given to Celia. Mrs. Sidgwick has never done anything better than the rout of the Clat- worthys and its tragic sequel. The epilogue deals simply and naturally with the foregone conclusion of Celia's marriage to her rescuer.
Another novel in which the heroine needs to be rescued from her surroundings is Miss Birrell's Love in a Mist. Sibylla. Lincoln is the daughter of a high-minded but impracticable Socialist, so deeply devoted to the regeneration of humanity that he is blind to the sufferings of his own wife and children. This fanatical devotee of the religion of poverty has sacrificed the happiness of his wife and the life of one of his children to the furtherance of his schemes. He has renounced his relations, abandoned his social status, and lives in miserable discomfort amid a menagerie of his proteges. The story traces the gradual growth in Sibylla of a spirit of revolt dating from the advent on the scene of a rich friend of her mother's. Keith Hamilton befriends the lonely, half-starved, neglected girl, but when he asks her hand in marriage, her father will only consent on the understanding that her brother shall stay with him. Realising only too clearly what this means, Sibylla resolves to stay with the boy until he can look after himself. The barrier between the lovers, aggravated by the theft of their letters, is removed by the death of Sibylla's father in circum- stances which open her eyes to the nobility of his character; and their reunion is brought about by a heroic act of self- effacement on the part of Sibylla's humble admirer, a poor clerk named Hudson, of insignificant exterior but extraordinary unselfishness. The sadness of the story is relieved by a good deal of quiet humour. The strange and ill-assorted houseful of Socialists is vividly brought before us, and it is to Miss Birrell's credit that there is not the slightest trace of animosity in her portraiture. The novel is to be cordially recommended for its judicial yet sympathetic treatment of an interesting problem.
Mr. Arthur Thorold, the mercurial husband in The Journal of a Jealous Woman, really loved his wife better than any one else, but, unfortunately for her, there were many occasions on which his preference was not convincingly manifested. Hence the ravages of the green-eyed monster, portrayed with his familiar urbanity and vivacity by Mr. White. There is some excellent satire at the expense of the modern newspaper proprietor in the account of Thorold's journal, the Drum, while the ultimate reconciliation winds up the story with a graceful act of homage to sentiment and domesticity which the emancipated reader will regard as positively reactionary.
Another entertaining novel is The Monk Wins, in which Mr. Edward Cooper has worked out a fanciful notion with a good deal of ability and humour. His heroine, a young heiress with 2413,000 a year, is obliged, under the terms of the will to which she owes her fortune, to maintain a stud of race- horses and run them in her own name. So far, however, from resenting these conditions, Margaret Branksome takes to the turf like a duck to water. It is only right to add that Mr. Cooper has no illusions about that institution, and is on the side of the angels, or at least of Lord Durham. Margaret is certainly not improved by contact with trainers and " bookies," and comes very near marrying a thoroughpaced scamp. In the end, however, the scamp, by a heroic death, is the means of extricating Margaret out of a rut of self-indulgence and pleasure-seeking, and so bringing about her union with her solid and altogether eligible cousin, Hubert Douglas.
Mr. Louis Becke's intimate and exhaustive knowledge of the South Sea Islands is turned to excellent account in Edward Barry, a most exciting romance of the pearling trade in the " sixties." The hero, who finds himself asso- ciated with a gang of murderers and thieves, turns the tables on his villainous employers in the most handsome style, and wins the hand and shares the fortune of the widow of their victim. There is a good deal of savagery and brutality in the story, but the claims of poetic justice are amply recognised in the long run.
We can always rely upon Mr. Capes for ingenuity of plot and gallantry of style. The heroine in Joan Brotherhood, who contracts a clandestine marriage with a clergyman, is beguiled by her ambition to shine as an actress into surroundings where she is victimised by an unscrupulous man of busi- ness, a jealous rival, and a self-indulgent man of fashion. It is 'enough to say that the author's undeniable talent entirely fails to reconcile us to his choice or handling of an essen- tially unpleasing theme.
Last on our list is Mr. Maclaren Cobban's genial comedy of courtship, rd Crowns Resign, in which a susceptible German Prince, in spite of the indefatigable exertions of his Cancellarius, forfeits his succession in order to marry a charming Scottish lady. The episode of the Prince's rescue from drowning by his lady-love is delightfully told; indeed, the whole story is full of light-hearted and wholesome merriment.
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