The Circle. By Katherine Cecil Thurston. (W. Blackwood and Sons.
6s.)—This is an able bit of work, a first effort, we under- stand, and as such certainly full of promise. Probably when Mrs. Thurston tries her hand again she will avoid exaggerations to which a beginner is tempted, which seem to be strong, but really are weak. She will not in describing music talk of how "the sounds cut the silence into pain," nor will she attempt the curious realism with which she describes Anna Solny'a prayer-rug. The marks made by the knees are well enough, but what is to be said " of the great stain that the broom had never quite removed, the stain which her tears had made" when the friend of her child- hood was carried downstairs in his coffin? Can tears—except indeed such copious floods as the cats wept at Henrietta's grave—stain a rug? Would one try to remove such a stain with a broom ? Does this seem petty criticism, and somewhat spiteful ? It is not so meant. Mrs. Thurston has the power of producing broad effects Anna Solny, as a whole, is such an effect, quite a masterly figure. So is Johann, of a very different sort. Mrs. Maxtead is less effective, and has something of the conventionally mysterious about her. What part of Russia, we wonder, do such Jews as &lay, the enthusi- astic lover of old books, come from?
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