24 MARCH 1883, Page 25

Eve Lester. By Alice Mangold Diehl. (Bentley.)—The girl who gives

her name to this novel shows force in her vigorous efforts to overcome the obstacles that a bad education has placed between her and a life of true womanhood, and her portrait has been carefully finished. It is difficult, however, to have patience with her half-mad father and his wretched Brotherhood of Freedom, or her lover, Ross Grant—or Grant Ross—with his morbid imaginings, his habit of lec- turing, and his strange hospital or menagerie. If Miss Diehl would wait a little before she writes again, forget all about the course of loose, pseudo-philosophical reading she has evidently gone through, and pay strict attention to English grammar, she might produce a fair story.