FICTION.
THE FOOLISH LOVERS.*
Mn. ST. Joel ERVECE has chosen an old theme—the story of the young man from the country who comes to London, in spite of the advice of his family, to make his fortune with his pen—but he has invested it with the freshness and vigour which we have come to expect from his work. John MacDermott is an Ulsterman, immensely proud of his race ; he tries his hand at journalism, he writes novels and plays ; and there is probably no one living who is better fitted than Mr. Ervine by birth and experience to handle such a subject with sympathy and Imow- ledge. How far the novel is a record of actual life we have no 'means of judging, but it can only be autobiographical to a limited extent since John MacDermott, after a brief and on the whole disillusioning experience as a journalist, author and dramatist, abandons letters for business and returns to his native town to carry on the grocer's shop which has belonged to his family for four generations. This unromantic conclusion is all the more surprising in view of John's romantic, combative and independent character.; it is only rendered plausible by his pride of race and family bias. He would rather be Caesar in Ballyards than one of twenty thousand notables in London. Above all, and for all his self-assertion, he was not enough of an artist to sacrifice his family to his art. Love with him was, in the long run, a liberal education in self-sacrifice. He was not accommodating enough to be a good journalist or a popular novelist. But if he was unlucky in letters he was luckier than he deserved to be in love, for after being jilted by a heartless minx he succeeded by sheer importunity in inducing a good and well-bred girl to marry him. John is an interesting rather than attractive young man ; our sympathies are much more closely engaged by his uncles, notably the dreamer and book-lover who wrecked his life by an explosion of quixotic loyalty, his narrow but devoted mother, and the delightful Ulsterman Ilinde, who came to London to try to do great work and remained as a journalist, hating the life and yet fascinated by its excitements. John MacDermott's experiences in the office of the Daily Sen- sation, his relations with music-hall artists, and the account of the debate on marriage at Hampstead furnish humorous relief to the more serious episodes of the story, which amongst its many merits achieves the distinction of avoiding political con- troversy though the scene is largely laid in Ulster and the author is himself a convinced believer in the genius of Ulster. That does not prevent him from paying a handsome though ironical compliment to England through the mouth of the Ulsterman Hinde " Never acknowledge to an Englishman that you think well of him. He'll think little of you if you do. Tell him he's a fool, that he's muddle-headed, that he's a tyrant, that he is a materialist and a compromiser and a hypocrite, and he'll pay you well for saying it. But if you tell the truth, and say he's the decent fellow he is, he'll land you in the workhouse ! "
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