3 MARCH 1928, Page 45

Fiction

Varieties of Human Experience

Wife to John. By Barnaby Brook. (Gerald Howe. 7s. 6d.)

MR. BRE'Pr YOUNG has accustomed us to expect from .hirri a psychology both delicate and passionate, as well as a vibrating sense of the beauty of the visible world—and many-,other things. So, aware of what he_ can do at his best, we are.: apt -to be ungrateful when, in a tired mood, he simply-relates the rather ineffective love-story of three rather ineffective people. It begins in a Shropshire spring, when the bluebells are .bhiet than heaven, and the cowslips are scenting the air ‘like wine, and the cuckoo is calling softly ; and it ends among the sands that drop from the ruined sides of- king&--and quetas-,-in ancient Thebes. Ruth Morgan nurses a Yogngozchaeolotist, Hugh Bredon, who is brought almost dying:to ther home; and loves his look as of-shattered ivory. 14-.A. rwqunded A49100— a broken Christ ! "—she thinks, so tuning, us,-to expectation of perilous imaginative passion. But he goes to the excava- tions in Thebes, and when she journeys out to marry bins she meets on the ship Dr. Henri Resuicleannt,-. a- ■roodeim: and slightly crude scientist with whom -sheinstantly„feelsjit

agreement. As he is also bound for,Luxor„a certain amop.nt of conflict follows, for Hugh is ill, neurotic; and desperately devoted to dead princesses. Vainly, however, are the mighty and terrible Egyptian symbols of ankh and weeps displayed

on the cover of the book. Ruth makes. usual sacrWce. The trouble is that the characteis all seem. singularly ,p0ty and colourless, unworthy of the sombre shadows of Thebes. Of course the story is not unattractive ; it seems merely to have lapsed from some higher and strangerinte,ntion..-,Equally, of course, some of the prose is beautifully writtent,-thefspi:ing scene in the beginning,-the acute and exquisite account -*lithe women's marriage-cry in Cairo, and the glimpse es. the lilac and purple poppies by the river on the way to Thebes.. Still, Mr. Brett Young does not seem quite at ease in immemorial Egypt.

it is a tale of East and West again with Mr. Donn Byrne, in whom some find more hope for. Ireland than in Mr. James Joyce. Crusade is bright with his rare historic magic and sweet with his siren harping on lyric words. Mr. Byrne does not write historical novels : by some occult conjuration he recalls the splendour of the past and proves it deathless by living in it. His is a late Crusade, when Frederic II., that astonishing half- Oriental Emperor, lies luxurious in Sicily, and the Templars mix black wizardry with the Mass, and knights and pilgrims rot richly in the soft Syrian soil. How Sir Miles O'Neill went on crusade under a Norman banner, and found the city and the chivalry of the Bani Iskander purer than the Christian ways, and how for the sake of the Sister of All he said the Fotha by the Lake of Galilee, nor deemed himself forsworn to the Lord who had trod that sea, I leave you. to discover. Yours will be all the spiritual excitement that rises from mingling nations and crossing creeds, the sense of legendary cities, the shock of strange encounters, the delight of the senses by decorative images and symbolic rites, the touch of love delicate and dangerous, wild adventure, a dream of Ireland, grey and violet, for a mirage, and little lost airs of beauty, unearthly airs as if from Atlantis. Smite of the loveliest passages concern the gentle African acolytes who keep their place by the Holy Sepulchre with golden dancing rites, and a mystical litany. Crusade is the kind of novel which feeds the mind, the heart, the inward eye and the inward ear.

Young Entry is a very different utterance from Ireland. In a faint and feminine way it might have descended from Lever. An Irish girl revolts bitterly against the conventions of her really incredible aunts ; but, aided . by her friend Peter (another girl), certainly contrives.. a lively ..existence. The two spend their days hunting, fishing, nursing clogs, - and playing.very crude practical jokes. The dogs seem somewhat dirty, and the girls' manners are non-existent. But there is plenty of open-air_life ; andinuch_talls abont foxtbunt.ing for those-who like it, Finally Prudence achieves a miraculous

ride, and is clasped by the " almost inanely beautiful " Toby. It is all rather silly and:perhaps because of a wild Irish candour; quite engaging.

Wife to John is a novel with an odd flavour. It has an old- fashioned style and a coolly unconventional ending. It is quite crowded with ehiracters ; and, if it had been written by William De Morgan, would have been delightful. In Vic- torian days Marian, wife to John, by virtue of her will to take, dictated his life to, him. He fulfilled her programme ; and then, between _fifty and sixty, he fulfilled his .own, which meant writing books and having a love-affair with his secretary. The characters are alive, though not exactly subtle. There is