NOVELS.

LISTENER'S LURE.*

Ma. LUCAS has played so many different literary roles of late years—as biographer, editor, anthologist, and cicerone—and played them all so well, that anxiety as well as interest attaches to his first adventure into the domain of fiction. The anxiety may be at once allayed. Listener's Lure does not prove that he can write a first-rate novel, because the epistolary form in which it is cast throughout dodges some of the chief difficulties by which the novelist is beset. But when all deductions are made for this resort to a short cut, the welcome truth remains that Mr. Lucas has written a singularly fresh and delightful book, and introduced us to a larger number of lovable and likable persons than are to be met with in almost any modern novel. Even the impostors and parasites who exploit the credulous Mrs. Pink are engaging in their effrontery, while there are at least half-a-dozen characters whom it would be worth a pilgrimage to meet in the flesh.

The point of the somewhat fantastic but happily chosen title soon becomes apparent. Edith Graham, the heroine, has lived on the death of her parents for some years in the country with her guardian, Lynn Harberton, a man of letters, and assisted him as amanuensis in the preparation of a new edition of Boswell's Johnson. On the completion of the magnum opus Barberton decides that his ward ought to see something of London, and by the good services of his old friend, Miss Fielding, secures for her the post of companion to Mrs. Pink, Miss Fielding's sister. Mrs. Pink, the rich wife of a valetudinarian clerics, is a delightful variant upon Mrs. Jellyby, in that her beneficence runs in entirely unorthodox and anti-clerical channels, and • Listener's Lure : en Oblique Narration. By E. V. Lucas. London : Methuen and Co. [6a.]

that, while fascinated by charlatans, she is protected by her devoted friends from the results of her indiscreet patronage. As one of her admirers puts it, " her sympathy with revolu-

tionist and revolt stops short of any low-bred action—almost at action of any kind." Harberton darts for a long tour on the Continent, and leaves Edith Graham installed in Kensing-

ton Square, where her immediate conquest of Mrs. Pink makes her a very important person in the eyes of all the old lady's proteges and expectant relatives. The secret of Edith's success is very simple. She is extremely sympathetic, genuinely kind- hearted, and she has a genius for inviting confidences. The story is told in letters that pass between Edith and her guardian, her friends and suitors,—letters which are not only admirable specimens of various epistolary styles, from the slangy to the literary, but are rich in incisive self-portraiture.

All the people who frequent the unconventional salon of that "altruistic old Pagan," Mrs. Pink, are interesting, some of them delightful. There is Miss Adelaide Fielding, a Victorian

Sibyl, whose shrewdness and wit make her letters an unfailing pleasure. If justification be needed, we may give her reply to the request of her highly cultured nephew, Orme Rodwell, for financial assistance in starting a new paper :—

" MY DEAR THOMAS (as I intend always to call you, since you were named after my father), you surely cannot think I should ever give you money for such a purpose. If you were going to marry a nice girl I might be able to transfer a little stock to you, or rather to her, but I should never assist you in a scheme for a new paper. Discerner' indeed! What you want to be is a wage- earner. As for this modern fashion for discerning, I am very doubtful about it—I have seen it lead to so much trouble. A man who labels himself a discerner is certainly self-conscious beyond decency, and most probably a prig. In the healthy time thirty and more years ago, when I was your age, prigs were called prigs and treated accordingly : but now they seem to be as much petted and encouraged as pet dogs. As a matter of fact I don't trust your taste at all. Only last Sunday in my own drawing- room you dismissed Tennyson's poetry as middle-class artistry,' whatever that means, and the book by that unfortunate young man that died—Dawson or Dowson—which you left in the hall and called a work of genius, seems to me the most deplorable twaddle. I neither believe in your discerning nor your business acumen, which looks to me very like sweating, and I would rather send a cheque to General Booth—if it weren't for the disastrous effect of his Penitent Form on my poor parlourmaid Finch, who has done nothing but break Dresden figures ever since she was

saved. I am none the less

Your affectionate aunt ADELAIDE FIELDING.

P.S. I never thought you a poetical dreamer."

Then we have Cynthia Hyde, the personification of " sweet and merry motherhood" ; Sir Herbert Royce, the big-game hunter with a fine literary instinct, the most eligible and chivalrous of Edith's suitors, who, having been left behind by Harberton as a watch-dog, succumbs like every one else to the " lure of the listener "; and Dennis Albourne, an engaging young literary man with more brains than character or constitution, whose letters are amongst the very best in the book. Nor must we forget Edith's aunt at Grange- over-Sands, a pillar of irrelevant and incoherent orthodoxy ; or Miss Gwendolen Frome, the high-spirited daughter of a country clergyman, and her susceptible undergraduate brother. The book lends itself to quotation on every page, but it is no business of a reviewer to discount the pleasures of perusal by extracting plums, numerous as they are in Mr.

Lucas's pages.

To add a few words of criticism, we confess that we are not always convinced that Mr. Lucas's handling of his characters. For instance, Lynn Harberton's intervention on hearing of Edith's engagement is hardly in keeping with his

diffident nature, and betrays a certain fund of unexpected selfishness. At any rate, Sir Herbert Royce's withdrawal is hard to reconcile with the character of masterfulness which is ascribed to him. Then, admirable as the narratives of the

bull-fight and the water-finder's experiment are in themselves, they scarcely fit in with the general scheme. Lastly, and this is a very small matter, we resent the sentimentalism of the terrible word " Gardie," used by the otherwise extremely sensible heroine in addressing her guardian. But these are at worst trifling blemishes in a singularly enjoyable entertain- ment. Listener's Lure is the work of a genuine humourist who is not afraid on occasion to be serious ; it has lent freshness and charm to a mode of narration which too often. makes for irritation; and it is marked by that enviable

quality of sympathy which makes a friend of every reader.