LN SEARCH OF HERSELF. By Mrs. Steuart Erskine. (Herbert Jenkins.
7s. 6d.)—Good dialogue, penetrating observation of modern manners and the modern girl, and some interesting pictures of European and African travel combine to make this an uncommonly readable novel. It is the more satisfying, too, because the plot takes those unexpected twists that reflect life far more truly than the neatly-worked-out pattern of the conventional happy-ender. The story is told in the first person by Claudia Merivale, a middle-aged woman, disillusioned yet kindly, and it follows the development of her young friend, Lulu Henderson, who, the daughter of a politician, has found her home a " forcing house," against which she rebels. She feels that she does not know herself, and, having six times refused the only man who has so far proposed to her, she travels abroad with Claudia in the hope of seeing things in better perspective. She meets various men and carries on a few flirtations before passionately falling in love with Arnold Proctor, who is unhappily married. She lives with Arnold for a time, and all goes well until news comes that his wife is to have a child. The incalculable element in Lulu's character now shows itself. Her search for herself ends in the " house of self-undoing." In self-abnegation, she enters a convent. But Arnold, still deeply in love with her, commits suicide. While, however, the story ends in tragedy, it is predominatingly light and vivacious. it is a convincing analysis of temperament, and is thoroughly fresh and spon- taneous.
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