The Faithful Failure. By Rosamond Napier. (Duckworth and Co. Gs.)—Although
it is impossible to approve of the conduct of Christopher Serocold, the hero of this story, he is on the whole a very engaging figure. The present writer confesses to being irritated by finding bars of music in the text of novels, and in the case of this book there are also long poems, which are generally attributed to the hero's pen, to be encountered. The pictures, however, of the large English country house, and of Christopher Serocold, the talented but sickly heir, are well drawn, and the heroine would be an attractive little figure were it not for the feeling of disgust which her extreme fickleness excites. It may be true to life for a girl to find out on her honeymoon that she is not in love with her husband, but only, like St. Augustine, "in love with loving." At the same time, the discovery does not tend to increase the reader's sympathy with her. The book Las a plaintive and rather morbid charm. Disapprove we never so justly of its ideals, it is impossible to deny that the charm is there.
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