Time and the Woman.. By Richard Pryce. 2 vols. (Methuen
and Co.)—Mr. Richard Pryce has written a rather clever and ex- ceedingly provoking story. It deals with the misfortunes of a very unsophisticated young lady whose ugly baptismal name is Arabe' la, but who is generally known as Araby,—a pretty but rather geo- graphieal diminutive. Mrs. Ruthven, her mother, is by no means unsophisticated, and on the question of the girl's matrimonial settlement in life the older and the younger woman have very different views. So far, the situation is ordinary enough, none more so, though one would hope that the dog-in-the-manger motive which actuated Mrs. Ruthven in separating Araby from Gerald Ventnor, is not usual among mothers. At this point, how- ever, Mr. Pryce's originality asserts itself. In the ordinary novel, some kind of happy accident always comes to the aid of the weaker combatant in this kind of campaign, and we know that however roughly the stream of true love may run for a time, it is sure to achieve smoothriess at last. Mr. Pryce will have nothing
say to this pleasant fiction. Mrs. Ruthven'e cleverness makes it natural that she should be the victor, and the victor she accordingly is,—a handling of the narrative-theme that is doubt- less true to life, but is nevertheless unsatisfactory and depressing.
he hankering after what is called "veracity" in imaginative art is rapidly becoming a nuisance, because the special veracities aimed at are nearly always disagreeable; and though the old- fashioned idea that the object of a novel is to give pleasure, has been much discredited by the superior people, it will not soon lose its hold upon the world at large. As in this matter we side with the Philistine majority, we fail to see what there is in the story of Time and the Woman which made Mr. Pryce think it worth telling.
Previous page
