NOVELS.
TALES OF THE SEA.* THE three writers whose books we have grouped together represent an intermediate stage between the old-fashioned school of nautical romance and the modern school of which Mr. Joseph Conrad is the most distinguished representative. To writers like Mr. Clark Russell the sea-story is emphatically a "yarn," high-spirited, high-coloured, but built on conventional lines and purely objective in its interest. To Mr. Conrad the sea is a vast psychological laboratory in which to study the effect of elemental forces upon the human soul. His drama— and in this he is followed by a writer like Mr. Norman Duncan —is got from the contrast between the mystery and terror of the great deep and the homely lives of those who adven- ture themselves upon it. He shows us human passions in relief against a tremendous background. But mid- way come a third school, who aim mainly at what is called a "good story." They are not psychologists, there is no special subtlety in their plots, and they make certain con- cessions to the traditional mannerism. In the three books before us no tale, except perhaps Mr. Connolly's "The Truth about the Oliver Cromwell,'" treats of the sea as a pitiless elemental force. In most it is a cheery accompaniment to a rollicking and adventurous life. But the authors differ from the old nautical romancers in showing a greater realism and a more intimate knowledge. In this respect they are of Mr. Conrad's school, for they descend to the abysses of techni- calities, and with scrupulous care fill in the details of their pictures. The result is that the reader catches in their pages something of the authentic flavour of the sea. A good instance is Mr. Morley Roberts's "The Captain of the Ulla- water.' " The plot might have been conceived by any writer, but no novelist of the elder fashion would have described as Mr. Roberts has done the saving of the men from the wreck.
Of the three books, Mr. Morley Roberts's The Blue Peter contains the best tales. He calls them rightly "Sea Comedies," for in the main they all have the good-humour and deftness of touch which we associate with the comio spirit. "The Remarkable Conversion of the Reverend T.
• (1) The Blue Peter : Sea Comedies. By Morley Roberta. London: E. Haab. [88.]—(2) The Deep Sea s Toll. By James B. Connolly. London : Bickers
and Son. Os. Tales of the Fish Patrol. By Jack London. London :
W. Heinemann. J
Huddle "—the story of a sailor who is struck on the head, forgets his past life and becomes a missionary, but who, being struck a second time, relapses once more into first mate, in entire forgetfulness of his profession and his wife—is so fan- tastic as to approach very near farce. Another, "The Strange Situation of Captain Brol.Y,ger," belongs to too barbarous a world for comedy. But the rest are well named, and the author has been singularly successful in producing the effect
he has aimed at. We laugh, but not riotously, for we are as much impressed by the ingenuity of the author as by the odd- ness of the incidents. The best, to our mind, is "The Over- crowded Iceberg," which tells how a certain Captain Spink, a man of immense resource and a cheerful spirit, ran into an iceberg in a fog, transferred his crew thither, trusting to his indomitable luck, and in the end, when the berg was melting fast, found a derelict ship and returned home in triumph to claim salvage. It is an excellent tale, humorously imagined, and briskly told. Good, also, is "The Extra Hands of the 'Nemesis," where some rascally owners put to sea for a short voyage, and are compelled by the captain to work their passage to the Cape. There is an engaging mad- ness in Mr. Roberts's sailormen which differs from that of Mr. W. W. Jacobs's characters, as the high seas differ from the Thames estuary. Mr. Connolly's New England fishermen are of a different breed. They have their humour, but it is of a dry type, befitting those who follow one of the hardest of human callings in one of the wildest of seas. The Deep Sea's Toll is written with full knowledge and sympathy, and in the slow, involved talk of the men we get much of the flavour of the spoken word. The best tale is undoubtedly "The Truth about the Oliver Cromwell," but as a more typical instance of Mr. Connolly's work we should select "The Wicked Celestine,' "—a vigorous story of a ship inspired with a perverse devil.
We assume that Mr. Jack London's Tales of the Fish Patrol are early work. Certainly they have very little of the peculiar power which, we associate with the author of The Call of the Wild. They describe the adventures of a boy of sixteen with the fish patrol in the bay of San Francisco. It is an unwritten law that poachers shall come quietly to prison when fairly caught, and that in return the patrol shall not fire upon them when they are running away; so the point of each tale is some ingenious device for effecting a peaceful capture. The most ingenious, and therefore the beat, is "A Raid on the Oyster Pirates." All are told with vigour, but they are the kind of tales which any magazine- writer might have written, and admirers of Mr. London's work must confess to some disappointment.
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