AFTER HARVEST. By Charles Fielding Marsh. (Allen and Unwin. 78.
6d.)
14Ir. Marsh is an author who deserves commendation, if only for his industry and his honourable ambition. In conception and treatment After Harvest is distinctly above the average, but it is uninspired and uninspiring, a rural novel in which the expected always happens. It concerns Priscilla Postle, a town-bred young woman who lends herself, though with con- siderable reluctance, to a plan whereby John Thirtle, a farmer of dissolute habits, is to be won from his evil courses. This plan, conceived by his widowed mother, is simply that he shall marry a virtuous girl who, by precept and example, will keep his mind on higher things, namely, herself and the welfare of the Sarni. Mr. Marsh is admirably clear-sighted in his view of his heroine, whom a less intelligent or less conscientious writer would have glossed over with the varnish of sentiment. Priscilla Postle's passion for self-sacrifice is born, as her author recognizes, of a certain priggishness or spiritual pride. The characterization of Mrs. Thirtle and of son John is equally penetrating but Reuben, John's half-brother, is a somewhat insubstantial figure. The story moves forward at the leisurely pace we have learned to expect of such stories ; and, though it suffers in our esteem by reason of its fidelity to a dull formula, it has enough of sober merit to have been worth writing.
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