23 MARCH 1895, Page 27

A Daughter of this Wend. By Fletcher Battershall. (W. Heinemann.)—The

people who figure in Mr.—or are we to say Miss P—Battershall's story are of a very strange kind, and the strangest kind of all is that which is typified by "Father Axon." That a man's soul can become a battle-field of very diverse powers, we quite believe ; but the powers which struggle for the mastery in Father Axon are like the Virgilian winds, which blow from all quarters at once. Only less surprising is Mr. lanes, and that because he is still more unintelligible. The whole story, for all the unmistakable signs of cleverness that may be discerned in it, is fantastic and extravagant.