The Unforeseen. By Alice O'Hanlon. 3 vols. (Chatto and Windus.)
—There are some obvious criticisms to be made on this novel. The plot has some unnecessary convolutions. It might have been worked out, for instance, without any mention of the old love-affair between Douglas Awdry and Olivia Ashmead. And the heroine. Madame Vandeleur, is a character of fiction rather than of real life. Her schemes are too audacious. It is possible that plans equally bold have been conceived and even attempted ; but they are not within those limits which are the limits of art. The scheme by which she changes one boy for another, and falsifies their ages, seems, for in- stance, beyond them. Still, she is a very remarkable person. From the day when she is introduced to us as the ruling spirit of a little French-Canadian settlement down to her exit from the scene, an exit not altogether unlike that of Empedocles into the crater of Etna, we follow her career with unwavering interest. Her force of will, her single devotion to the one aim of her life, the supreme skill by which she moulds circumstances to her will, and climbs step by step to the eminence coveted by her ambition, are described with remarkable force. She is a vigorous creation, and a distinct addition to the gallery of fiction. No reader of The Unforeseen will easily forget Madame Vandeleur ; and that, we take it, is no slight praise.
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