The Water Tower. By Mrs. Hibbert Ware. 3 vols. (Tinsley
Brothers.)—Mrs. Ware has about as curious a notion of telling a story as any writer that we have ever had the pleasure of reviewing. Whatever plot there is in her book consists in an incident which she frankly confesses to be an anachronism, and its consequences. But all this might be put into a very few chapters. The book really con- sists of a succession of scenes, mostly of a sub-humorous character. Mr. Robert Norris is the principal hero ; into what misadventures he falls, how unhappy, with the best intentions in the world, he makes those about him, we are told at a length which becomes, we must own, somewhat wearisome. Yet there is plenty that is amusing in the book. If we could only get rid of the idea that a novel should have something artistic about its construction, something of an orderly development of plot and character, we might give the Water Tower high praise. Mrs. Ware has taken great pains in studying her period. She has caught its tone of thought with much success; she describes its manners vividly and freshly. Take it up where we will, it is pretty nearly certain to be readable. This is not exactly the treatment which a first-class work of fiction demands, yet it is no small praise. There are too many novels, as we know to our cost, that, whether taken whole or in fragments, read from beginning to end or read at haphazard, are equally a vexation.
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