Sara's Seven Husbands, by Richard B. Ince (Roberts, 5s.), will
remind those who were fortunate enough to discover the Bible for themselves in their childhood as a great, bewildering story. book, of some exciting hour during a country holiday when, in a huge old volume, they struck the hitherto unknown isles of the Apocrypha. " The Book of Tobit " seemed peculiarly rich in picturesque incident, and lively with a certain amusement not very clear perhaps to infant minds, still safe from sex- education, and careless of obscurity in a tale where TobiaS caught fishes with his archangel. A story with such elements of comedy, and a Jehovah less than reverential, is attractive to the modern satirist ; and Mr. Ince has made it into a thing of Eastern colours and pungent spices. He is amusing, pictorial, and incisive. His version has a touch of the Arabian Nights and a touch of Anatole France ; but the fierce and nimble satire is his own. Doctors of the soul and doctors of the body reveal their folly over Sara's historic case ; the mockery is not unfair. The incidents that amaze Ecbatana are described with humour, with great romantic beauty, and a captivating effect of wild, pure colour. Sara is like a Dulac princess. The story of Zathoe is a sad and lovely idyll. Raphael and Tobias move as charmingly together as they do in early Renaissance pictures ; and the final speech of the angel rises to poetry.
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