NOVELS.
THE FOUR FEATHERS.*
THE mainspring of Mr. Mason's interesting and exciting story is akin to that of Mr. Conrad's sombre and powerful romance, Lord Jim, and doubtless other romancers before either of them have exploited with varying success the poignant theme of the coward-hero, forced by irresistible stress of circumstances to embrace a career in which physical courage is a prime necessity, collapsing at a crisis, and then strenuously endeavouring to rebuild the shattered fabric of self-respect. The motive is not unfamiliar, but • The Four Feathers. By A. E. W. Mason. London : Smith, Elder, and Co. [651
everything depends on its treatment, and we may say at once that Mr. Mason fully justifies his choice by his vigorous and ingenious handling of a subject which derives an added interest from its eminently topical character. Mr. Mason is an admirable narrator, with a gift for framing strong situations, and the interest of the reader is enlisted at the outset in the picture of the highly strung schoolboy—the only son of an old soldier renowned for his intrepidity, designed from childhood for his father's calling—at once fascinated and horror-stricken by the old Crimean veterans who, amid other reminiscences of their campaigning days, recall various tragic instances of that lack of nerve which he has already recognised in himself. Harry Fever- sham's secret remains unguessed save by his father's oldest friend ; he enters the Army, and carries on successfully for a few years until, when at home on leave and the accepted suitor of a high-spirited Irish girl, he obtains private intel- ligence that his regiment is to be ordered to the front in the Soudan and resigns his commission without informing his comrades. Unfortunately, three of his brother-officers pro- cure conclusive evidence that he knew of the destination of the regiment before his decision to resign, and send him a packet which, in ignorance of its contents, he opens in the presence of his betrothed. The packet contains three white feathers, and when he frankly explains their mean- ing, Ethne tears a fourth from her fan and gives it to him in endorsement of their verdict. Thus, banned by his comrades, dismissed by his lady-love, disowned by his father, the hero disappears from England to set about the toilsome task of self .redemption. The one person who does not despair of him is the man who knows him best, the old sailor who had loved his mother, and all along has been his father's closest friend. It remains for him to recognise, even during the hero's recital of his disgrace, the existence of those qualities which make for rehabilitation. The young man is conscious of his infamy, he makes no complaint against the verdict of his messmates, but he also makes it clear that be would have run the risk of dis- gracing himself in the field had it not been for his betrothed. It should also be noticed that by his mode of procedure on the re- ceipt of the telegram Harry Feversham, so far from taking effec- tive precautions against detection, positively courts discovery. All these points, then, are calculated to enlist the sympathy of the reader on behalf of a man who is at most the victim of an imsistible impulse, and can hardly be regarded as a free agent at all. The question is, do they prepare one for the well- nigh incredible endurance and courage Harry Feversham dis- plays in fulfilling his sudden resolve to force his comrades to take back the white feathers ? If a man has been dominated by physical fear up to the age of twenty-six, will anything ever exorcise the demon ? We are afraid that experience is against Mr. Mason ; but at any rate his story, if not altogether con- vincing, is both plausible and exciting. The worst of it is that Harry's rehabilitation carries with it as a necessary corollary the disappointment of the chivalrous comrade who never pressed his own suit until he had the best of reasons for believing that Harry was out of the running,—a disappoint- ment, too, which is gratuitously aggravated by his loss of sight. It is courageous in a young writer nowadays to indulge so freely in sentiment ; but the appeal, to be effective, should not transcend the bounds of probability, and Dur rance's bad luck is of the nature of a portent.
Mr. Mason's sketch of society in Donegal—the home of his heroine—is more remarkable for its sympathy than its inti- mate knowledge of Irish character or manners. We regret to have to add that the unfortunate references to Ethne's accom- plishments as a violinist will render it difficult for any one with the most rudimentary acquaintance with the fiddle to regard her as deserving of sympathy. At all the crucial points of her career she finds vent for her feelings by playing a piece which is called indifferently the Melusine and Musoline overture. Now, in the first place, people do not play overtures on the violin any more than they play single-handed quartets In the second, to allude to an existing and well-known piece like Mendelssohn's Melasine overture, and then to call it Musoline, not once but two or three times, is one of those things that no reviewer can understand. Mr. Mason no doubt errs in distinguished company : George Eliot spoke with enthu- siasm of a passage of descending fifths. But then we are by way of having become a much more musical people since her day. We can only say that this episode illustrates the curious 'fact that a writer may complacently parade the grossest ignorance of musical matters with comparative im- punity, when a corresponding blunder in regard to literature or painting or sculpture would expose him to the severest castigation. To find a literary parallel for Mr. Mason's exploit one would have to imagine a novelist representing one of his characters as periodically, reciting Keats's "Hyperion," and alternately calling it "Hyperion" and "Empyrean."
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