NOVELS OF THE WEEK.•
" The Goblin" is one of the most aggravatingly unequal books imaginable. It deals with the fortunes from childhood to early manhood of the three brothers Luttrell—the half-spoiled and wholly neglected sons of " a mad mother and a bad father " —aud their great friend young Lord Calliard. The joint authors have a keen appreciation of the humours of child-life, and the conversations of the young Luttrells amongst them- selves or with their elders abound in delightful examples of the candour and logic of the immature mind. Unluckily the " grown-ups " are, with few exceptions, simply enfants terribles of the worst kind, though we are bound to admit that the amazing Mrs. Luttrell—a miracle of callousness and grotesque eccentricity—could never have been wholly invented, but must have been drawn from the quick. Furthermore, these engaging boys 1 ose a good deal of their charm as they attain to manhood. One of them dies of lingering consumption; Archie Luttrell, the guileless " goblin," is cheated out of a love-match with the heroine ; and the latter in a fit of pique marries Calliard, who has lost his popularity as the most famous amateur cricketer by adopting an aggressive religiosity. Then• marriage turns out unhappily, but a reconciliation is effected by the rather stale device of a terrible hunting accident, by which Calliard is crippled for life. In regard to construction and serious incident the book leaves much to be desired, but it is full of exhilarating moments, and excels in a happy audacity of phrase, as, for example, the description of a certain sort of modern novel in which "the people talk like a lot of Christy Minstrels," or the hero's description of a mediaeval knight as "one of those jolly chivalrous sort of chaps who used to ride about the country lamming into chaps." The " Great Twin Brethren," the heroine's brothers, with their ludicrous hero- worship of Lord Calliard's athleticism, and their• sensational novel, are as amusing a couple of boys as we have met in print for a long time.
A Rogue in Love shows Mr. Tom Gallon at his best. The plot is ingenious and elaborate. A prosperous emigrant, believing himself -at the point of death, entrusts his servant with three thousand pounds to convey to his brother in England. The servant squanders the money, and ultimately, after serving a long term of imprisonment, is shot soon after his release while attempting to commit burglary. He in turn on his deathbed begs his partner, a gutter-bred gaol-bird named Badgery, to find out the injured relatives of his master
• (1.) The Goldin. By Catherine and Florence Foster. London : Wells Gardner, Herten, and Co. [ds.]—(2.) A Rogue in Love. By Tom Gallon. London : Hutchinson and Co. [6s.3—(3.) The White Battalions. By Fred. 2.1. White. London : C. Arthur Pearson. j—(4.) The Way Out. By G. B. Burgin. London : John Long. [843. —(5.) The Thin Red Line. By Major Arthur Griffiths. London: John cqueen. I tin.) —(0.) The Story of Ronald Kestrel. By A. J. Dawson. London : W. Heiuernauu. [Sti..—(7 4 The Irony Bride. By Thomas Pinkerton. London : Johu Long. [es. —(84 The Doctor Speaks. By W. .1. Dawson. London : Grant Richards. as.] — (0.) A Twofold Silence. By Edwin Hughes. Bristol : Arrowtmiith. t 3s. US.] —(10.) Son of Judith a Tale of the Welsh Mining Valteys. By Joseph Keat- ing. London : George Allen. itls..1
and tell them the truth. But when Badgery discovers Jacob Keeble and his daughter he has not the heart to tell them the truth, but conveys the original promise instead. Now Jacob Keeble, who earns his living as a waiter, has brought up his daughter Pattie like a lady, without her knowing his true call- ing. Pattie is beloved by a bard-working journalist, and the journalist's rich and fashionable friend, finding out that there is no fortune coming, forwards supplies to Jacob—purporting to come from his brother—in the hope of thus establishing a claim on Pattie. Then the long-lost brother actually does appear, fortune and all ! In the end Pattie weds the meritorious journalist. the rich man of fashion is discomfited, and Badgery is united to a faithful slavey." Captious readers will find Pattie too arch and skittish, the kindly journalist too blunderingly amiable, the fashionable friend too genteelly tailor-made, and the whole book too lusciously optimistic. But those who like the Dora scenes in David Copperfield will thoroughly enjoy A Rogue in Love.
The climatic experiences of the last week have lent a faint touch of verisimilitude to Mr. Whites violently sensational narrative, The White Battalions, an imaginary romance of the next great war. France, impelled by the insane ambition of a President's wife, plunges into win• with England. The British Ambassador, forewarned of the coming stroke by the English wife of the French Commander-in-Chief, General Palliser —Mr. White's nomenclature is not felicitous—and placed in communication with the inventor of a marvellous new explosive by another lady, an American " intellectual," the fabulously wealthy widow of a Russian Prince, is enabled to deal a colossal and paralysing counter-stroke to the schemes of the Franco-Russian Alliance. With the full consent of the United States, and by the aid of the new explosive, the Pacific and the Atlantic are united at Nicaragua, with the result that the flux from the Pacific destroys the Gulf Stream, and sends the thermometer down to forty degrees below zero all over Europe. The Franco-Russian fleet is ice-bound in the Channel; while the army of the Allies on the road from Paris to Calais and back suffers worse than in the retreat from Moscow. To make matters worse, the troops mutiny, the Russians quarrel and set fire to Paris, and in the issue England, which has simply " sat tight " all the time, comes to the rescue of her starved and frozen enemies. The idea is not lacking in ingenuity, and there are some clever pieces of cir- cumstantial imagination in the pictures of the sudden and revolutionary effects of this abnormal and unearthly visita- tion. But Mr. White has neither the ruthless logic nor the scientific equipment of Mr. Wells, his view of France as a fwrens feinina right through is belied by the course of current events, his knowledge of the French language is far from impeccable, and his pictures of the President, his wife, and entourage—remember that the time is that of the autumn of 1900—is a tasteless and offensive caricature in view of the dignified and cordial attitude of M. Loubet and his colleagues towards England. Lastly, the sportsmanlike reader will derive little satisfaction from the result of the imaginary conflict. England wins, but only by a trick ; not a single shot is fired, except by the French on each other.
We owe Mr. Bret Kerte a considerable debt of gratitude; indirectly we owe to him a great deal of mining melodrama, and romances of the bowie knife and the revolver from the pens of his disciples, for which we cannot profess to be so thankful. The father of the heroine in Mr. Burgin's novel, The Way Out, was a Canadian, with a magnificent blond beard and blue eyes, a genius for poker, and a complete com- mand of lethal weapons, who drifted to the Californian mines thirty years ago, and acquired the sobriquet of the
Deacon" from his piety and the respect of the community for his straight shooting. One of his amiable peculiarities was to "plant" the victims of his prowess in a burying lot adjoining his hut. Another was to marry a semi-Spanish barmaid with a tendency to homicidal mania.—It should be explained that in an interchange of amenities with " Alkali Jack," Juanita's skull had been chipped by a revolver bullet. From this auspicious union springs Delia, the heroine of the story, a young lady whose " short upper lip was curved and haughty," while the lower was " a crumpled roseleaf waiting to be kissed by a lover temerarious enough to invade such a sanctuary." The plot is punctuated by pistol shots. It may suffice to say that the heir to an English baronetcy, of chequered antecedents, having been forced into a marriage with Delia, considerately commits suicide in order to leave the field clear for Delia's lover, a young Canadian whose ribs bad been broken by the playful Deacon at an early stage of their acquaintance. It is difficult to see how this strange amalgam of violence and effusiveness can justify its existence save as a sensation novel expanded after the worst manner of the author of " Sensation Novels Condensed."
It is interesting, though irritating, at this moment to read a story about the Crimean War,—interesting because at this juncture everything which concerns soldiers is absorbing ; irritating because it seems a thousand pities that we did not learn more from our mistakes and disasters. At least, how ever, we may comfort ourselves with the reflection that the Army Service Corps is far more efficient now than it was in 1854. This is a good point, but it is disappointing that more has not come from our fifty years' effort at improve- ment, and that the result of the present war should again be a cry for reform. Major Griffiths is always ingenious in the ramifications of his plots, even if his characters are rather colourless puppets and his villains of a conventional pattern. As a set-off, however, his battle scenes are spirited, and readers who are not weary of " drums and alarms " will do well to get The Thin Red Line.
Mr. Dawson does not contrive in Ronald Kestrel to give more than a sort of hors d'oeuvre of his favourite Moorish setting. He brings in Tangier for the opening of his story, but the subsequent scenes are laid in Australia and London. The book has not much plot, and is mostly a study of a young literary man; in fact, the chief interest is centred in the account of this young gentleman's literary lyings-in and of his nervous breakdown and loss of productive power. All this is given with a good deal of force and insight into literary workings. Finally, Ronald Kestrel goes to live in a semi-literary, semi-artistic settlement in Australia, which is christened " The Sign of the Surf and Wattle." Here we leave him in the enjoyment of domestic and creative peace, and as we are told that he is about to give the world delight- ful stories we can only hope it will be our good fortune to read them.
The Ivory Bride is a romantic story of eighteenth-century Italy to which Mr. Pinkerton has contrived to impart a breath of real romance, though the story is laid out on lines which cannot be honestly said to have the merit of originality. We have the good and bad heroines, between whom the hero has a little inclination to oscillate, the final triumph of virtue, and the exposure of the subterfuges of vice. But all this enhances the credit of the author's achievement in contriving to interest his readers and to throw a gleam of romance and chivalry over his characters.
The Doctor Speaks, a series of stories which purport to be told by a certain John Selkirk, M.D., a London doctor in con- siderable practice, is not bad reading for those who will for- give an author for conducting them to the deathbed and the operating table. On the whole, the best story in the book is the last, " The New Ulysses," which deals with a mental rather than a physical process. It goes without saying that most of the stories are painful, but then, the author might plead, " so is life."
If Mr. Hughes's story had been called "A Sixfold Silence " there would have been no ground for surprise, seeing that all the characters are constantly engaged in hiding their identi- ties, motives, and movements from each other. This, in short, is an intricate enlargement of the shilling " shocker," with a good deal of ingenuity in its " mystery." Too much, indeed, for the reader is in great danger of ceasing to wish to pluck out its heart. However, lovers of this branch of fiction who are endowed with patience will find A. Twofold Silence fairly interesting.
Son of Judith, Mr. Joseph Keating's tale of the Welsh mining valleys, sets forth with a good deal of grimy detail the vengeance of a woman on her betrayer. When Judith Morris's son is eleven, she makes him swear to find and kill the man— Meredith, the manager of a colliery company—who wronged his mother. Ultimately, after saving his father's life, the son refuses to fulfil his oath, whereon Judith, in the act of pushing Meredith over a precipice, is herself dragged down to share his death. Finally, the son indrries the rich daughter of a truculent
Welsh squire, who had sought to force her into accepting the band of Meredith. We have only to add that the squalor of the theme is in no way redeemed by the meaner of its treatment.
Previous page
