Feet of Clay. By Amelia E. Barr. (James Clarke and
Co.)— Miss Barr has written here a fine story, as, indeed, it is her wont to write. If the restoration to right and goodness of George Pennington and the wonderful self-sacrifice of his father are moral miracles—as, indeed, they are—we can see no reason to find fault. To believe in Christianity is to believe in moral miracles. Speaking, however, from the artistic point of view, we must say that George Pennington, who stands for the hero, fails, and in- cessantly fails, to arouse sufficient interest. We have seen too much of his weakness and selfishness, and have to take his better self so much on trust, that it is difficult to feel any sympathy for him. The best thing in the book, as far as literary merit is concerned, are the admirable sketches of the proud Manx fisher.. men, quite unfamiliar, and if Miss Barr draws them correctly, quite exceptional types of Celtic character. Miss Barr makes the trifling mistake of representing her soldiers as wearing uniform in private life (pp. 12, 66). Colonel Sutcliffe, whose regiment was stationed in the island, might possibly have been in uniform ; but George, who was on leave, could not have been clad in " one of the handsomest of cavalry uniforms," however becoming it may have been.
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