NOVELS OF THE WEEK.*
MR. TREHERNE'S From Valet to Ambassador is far removed from the category of books of which From Log-Cabin to White House may serve as a typical example. If it be true that no man is a hero to his valet, few valets can be heroes to the world at large. In the present instance, Smedson, the narrator, after acting as " gentleman's gentleman" for several years to a spendthrift Marquis, is recommended by his bank- rupt master to a parvenu millionaire, Mr. Bolingbroke Barnes. This eccentric plutocrat, however, engages Smedson not in the capacity of body-servant, but as major-domo, master of the ceremonies, and confidential adviser. The situation is developed with a good deal of legitimate humour at the expense of the cadging aristocrats, would-be celebrities, and social parasites who intrigue for invitations to the millionaire's parties. Bolingbroke Barnes, in spite of his ostentation and extravagance, is really a far better fellow than his noble hangers-on, and proves well able to take care of himself. He sets to work much like an Egyptian pyramid-builder to revolutionise the structure and surroundings of his feudal castle, and the account of his country-house party, including a Piccadilly swell, an emancipated society siren, a gushing poetess, a painfully shy literary genius, a truculent general, and sundry other acutely contrasted types, is genuinely diverting. Unluckily Mr. Treherne deviates towards the close of the story from satire into farce. The episode of Barnes's nocturnal masquerading as a knight in armour and his expedition to Central Africa are treated in a spirit of forced facetiousness which impairs the effect of the excellent fooling that has gone before. But with these reserves the book can be recommended as a diverting squib on certain unedifying aspects of modern materialism.
Jock Graham, the hero of Miss May Cromzuelin's new story, was the seventh son of a seventh son, born on the night that his father perished in a fire, and further equipped at the outset of his career with the prophecy of a spas-wife. Of these romantic opportunities Miss Crommelin makes good use in The Luck of a Lowland Laddie. Endowed with a fortune, as the result of his exploits as a child-burglar, but heavily handicapped by the incubus of a disreputable brother, Jock Graham falls in love with the daughter of his hereditary foe, discovers but refuses to profit by a long-lost will leaving- the foe's property to him, contracts a Scottish marriage with his lady-love during some private theatricals, emigrates to Peru to seek his fortune, is nearly annihilated by a carnivorous tree endowed with powers of locomotion, and finally returns to England, where, after a desperate conflict with his wastrel brother—who employs forgery, chloroform, and lethal weapons to oust the rightful heir—he vindicates his claim and weds his faithful Elsie. The story is a farrago of improbabilities, but Miss Orommelin's vivacity renders the whole quite acceptable to readers who wish neither to be harrowed nor edified.
The modern novel-reader will soon be obliged to insist on some clue being afforded him in the heading of the first chapter to indicate in which hemisphere the scene of the story before him is laid. In A Princess of Arcady much perplexity would have been avoided if this simple plan had been adopted, for English and American names being similar, a close analysis of the context is needed to discover whether the Union Jack or the Stars and Stripes wave over the dramatis persona. In its essentials, however, this is obviously an American story, though the Britisher may experience a slight shock in finding education at a bond -fide convent considered as much a matter of course for a young girl as if the characters lived in France. There is very little plot in the story, which is rather an analysis of the development of character. But as a set-off we find a great deal of poetic feeling, and there is real charm in the description of the garden and of Uncle Christopher, the tender-hearted lover of • (1.) From Valet to Ambassador. By Philip Treherne. London : Sands and CO. [SS. 6d.]—(2.) The Luck of a Lowland Laddie. By May Crommelin. London : J. Long. [6s.d...7.4:(13.) A Princess of Arcady. By Arthur Henry. London : J. Murray. 6s.]—(4.) Anthony Delanal LL.D. By Geraldine Hodgson. London : J. ueen. [6s.]—(5.) A Gentleman. By the Hon. Mrs. Walter Forbes. London : J. Murray. [6s.]—(6.) TheLady of Dreams. By Fun L. Silberrad. London : W. Heinemann. [6s.]—(7.) Pharaoh's Daughter, and other Stories. By William Waldorf Astor. London : and Co. [6s.]—(8.) Monies the Matador, and other Stories. By Frank Harris. London I Grant Richards. [13s.]—(9.) An Obstinate Parish. By M. L. Lord. London : T. Fisher Unwin. [2s6d.]—(10.) A Woman's Soul. By Beatrice Heron-Maxwelland Florence East.wick. London : Horace Marshall. [6e.]
plants and flowers. The conditions of a hard mundane exist- ence necessarily do not affect a Princess of Arcady, and the reader will be quite prepared at the close to accept the betrothal of hero and heroine at the ripe ages, roughly, of twenty and eighteen, as a matter of course.
People who like a quiet story will find much to their taste in Anthony Delaval. The book is carefully written, and in places the author shows a certain sense of humour. It is, however, a pity that Miss Hodgson has not compressed her material. An elaborately painted Dutch interior is an interesting picture, but the canvas should be small or the spectator will be fatigued by the minute workmanship.
Most of the characters in A Gentleman occupy such very distinguished positions in the Peerage that it seems hardly decorous for a mere commoner to accept the responsibilities of reviewing it. There is a Duke, an Earl, and Italian nobility by the dozen ; in fact, till Book III., " Australia," is reached there is hardly any one but the hero and his mother whose name would not figure in Whitaker's Titled Persons. For the rest, the mystery attaching to the hero's mother is well conceived, and it may be admitted as a necessary corollary to the plot that the majority of the characters engaged should belong to the " smart set." In fine, A Gentleman is readable, though the uniform coruscation of the epigrams in which these distinguished characters indulge tends to engender monotony. Champagne is excellent at dinner, but its use at breakfast and afternoon tea is not commended by the faculty.
Readers of The Enchanter will be rather disappointed with The Lady of Dreams. The story is not only unpleasant, but— so at least it seems to the present writer—quite gratuitously unpleasant, for the husband of the "Lady of Dreams" is at least as nice as the husband's friend. Miss Silberrad has, however, not lost the art of throwing a dreamy and romantic glamour over her subject, and this may be considered a tour de force in the present instance, as the principal male character is a doctor in a modern London slum.
"No scandal about Queen Elizabeth, I hope ? " Mr. Astor has disregarded this time-honoured axiom with regard to Pharaoh's daughter, and suggests a closer tie than that of adoption between her and Moses. We can think of little else to say of these stories, except that they have all appeared in the Pall Mall Magazine.
Montes the Matador, the tale which gives its name to Mr. Harris's collection, recounts the murderous revenge of a jealous bull-fighter on a rival who was luckier in love than in the bull-ring. The description of Montes's youth at Ronda, and how he learnt to manage and master bulls, is well done, and the brutality of the closing scene is vividly rendered. Another story has for its central motive the heroic rescue of a negro child from a burning house by the man who had set the house on fire. A third deals with the liaison between an Englishman and a Russian girl, who disappears and is executed for her share in the assassination of the Czar. On the whole, we are inclined to think that there is a good deal in what Months is made to say about bulls : "Bulls, I found, were just like men, only simpler and kinder." At any rate, we prefer Mr. Harris's bulls to his men and women.
There is so much charm of portraiture and grace of ex- pression in An Obstinate Parish that it is to be regretted Miss Lord should have assigned the role of marplot, not to say villain, to an Anglican priest. We do not for a moment imply that Miss Lord is animated by extreme or unfair partisanship. There is no trace of "Kensitism" in her method, but the mere fact we have mentioned impairs the chances of general acceptance of what is essentially an attrac- tive story. Squire Hazledean and his two daughters—the cheer- ful and admirable Bertha, and the visionary, impressionable Sylvia—are excellently realised; so, too, is the lady bounti- ful and patron of the parish, and her trusty friend and loyal suitor, the Evangelical parson, Henry Aske. The family of Keens, with their picturesque semi-paganism, are less con- vincing, and there is at times an element of effusiveness in Miss Lord's eulogy of the good looks of her characters.
The heroine of A Woman's Soul, Miss Daphne Dunmore, married a, Marquis for his money and rank, though she was really in love with Mark Stacey, a handsome litterateur. Some months afterwards, by refusing to explain a compromising incident in which she was associated with the same Mark Stacey, Daphne offends Lord Lynmouth, who goes off in a huff to
China and, according to well-authenticated reports, dies there, whereon Daphne marries a Canadian millionaire named Hale. Some years afterwards, while yachting in the Mediterranean with their boy, Hale and Daphne encounter Lord Lynmouth, who escaped from China, and is now, though semi-idiotic, engaged as a common sailor on another yacht, After great searchings of conscience Daphne at last heroically decides to arouse, if possible, the dim intelligence of the idiotic Marquis to a consciousness of her identity. She succeeds, and he very considerately dies of the shock, on which she is quietly re- married by a registrar to her millionaire. This novel seems to us to have been named much on the same principle as the chapter entitled " The Snakes in Iceland."
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