3 OCTOBER 1885, Page 42

Esther. By Francis Snow Compton. (Bentley and Son.)—This La an

American novel of the type which Mr. Henry James has made popular. There is a good deal of sentiment, a good deal about art, some pictures of social life, much talk about these and other topics, and, we might almost say, not an incident of any kind. Such a novel has the advantage that you may take it up at any time and never are unwilling to pat it down. One does not sit op into the small hours of the morning to finish such books. From one point of view this is scarcely praise ; but Esther is certainly clever, the writer having a gift for realising her characters, though she scarcely succeeds in making us care about them.