THE NOBLER LOVE. By Briggs Davenport. (Brussels : Elmer S.
Prather.)—This American story, printed in English but published in Brussels, does not conform to any of the ready-made classifications into which most modern novels fall. It has an element of mystery and sensation, which might better have been left out ; and there are two villains of a Dickensian type. But an old Quaker lady is one 'of the dominating characters, and a Quaker-like spirituality is the pervading feature of the book. The period is that following the Civil War, and the hero is a young New York lawyer who, of mixed Quaker and roué ancestry, is torn by the warring elements within himself. His wife wins him at last by dis- playing " the nobler love " that is ready to sacrifice itself. Felicia is, indeed, almost too good to be true. But the author's sincere, unobtrusive idealism, and the old-world flavour of his leisurely narrative, should appeal to many readers as a change from the sophisticated conventions of the hour.
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