" Mao al mondo e vane : Ne l'amore ogni
dolcezza"— and no one need therefore be disappointed if his novel is rather dreary reading. The theme of the story is to a certain extent
the same as that of a very recent book of Mr. Thomas Cobb,
only what Mr. Cobb treats in the manner of high comedy Mr. Hichens sees en noir, and describes in a manner verging on tragedy. This theme which has attracted two such dissimilar writers at the same moment is the effect on the fortunes of a
beautiful woman of the sudden loss of her beauty. Lady Holme, the heroine of Mr. Hichens's book, is a society beauty who has lived solely for-the delight of the luxury and beauty of modern social life. Her love for her husband, and his for her, is, as Mr. Hichens points out in the most intimate detail, entirely " the desire of the eye "; and even before the catastrophe Lord Holme's eye has wandered off to some one else. When, therefore, Viola Holme becomes, as the result of a motor-car accident, hideous to look upon, her husband deserts her entirely. And here the reviewer may be permitted, as a digression, to congratulate contemporary novelists on the introduction of motor-cars, which dangerous machines will completely fill the place of the small-pox, so convenient as a tragic agent in pre-vaccination novels. To return to Mr. Hichens. His heroine after this awful crumbling of her world retires to a lonely villa on the shores of an Italian lake,-where she is only saved from- suicide by a man whom hopeless love for her has made a dipsomaniac, and who calls upon her to redeem him. It will be seen, therefore, that this is one of the books in which immorality is so speciously presented that it appears to be a virtue, not a crime. The picture drawn of London society represents that dangerous and attrac- tive world whose inhabitants we hear so much about, but who are so difficult to discover in real life. Considering the thousands of virtuous and delightful people who make London their home, it is a little odd that the eyes of the modern novelist seem fixed on that small section who (the information is solely derived from the writings of these authors) live only for the enjoyment of "the pomps and vanities of this wicked world and all the sinful lusts of the flesh."
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