Fiction
Faith and Fanatics
God in the Straw Pen. By John Fort. (Hamilton. 7s. 6d.)
TEE three novels listed above are studies, in widely differing environments, of the influence of Christianity upon life and character. One is on the credit side, two on the debit. I do not mean that either Aissa Saved or God in the Straw Pen is in any sense an attack upon the Christian faith, or does not exhibit positive instances of its power for good : but the total effect of each book is to emphasize its unhappier results in certain special circumstances. God in the Straw Pen is a study in hysteria, and Aissa Saved shows how the faith may, only too literally, bring, not peace, but a sword.
" One afternoon late in October of the year 1697, Euclide Auelair, the philosopher apothecary of Quebec, stood on the top of Cap Diamant gazing down the broad, empty river beneath him. Empty, because an hour ago the flash of retreating sails had disappeared behind the green island that splits the St. Lawrence below Quebec, and the last of the summer ships from France had started on her long voyage home."
If only Miss Cattier had followed up that admirable begin- ning, so direct in statement, so swift in action ! Shadows on the Rock is so leisurely that its ideal reader should be an invalid, able only to read a page at a time, and content to dream and meditate for half a day after each reading. The story of the Count, the Apothecary, the Bishop, Cicile, and the little Jacques, is delightful enough, when Miss Cather can be persuaded to get on with it ; but she fools and dawdles her way along in a manner almost shocking to the business-like reviewer. She digresses into all manner of histories, descrip- tions, and genealogies. Whenever she wants to tell an anec- dote, she is too lazy to invent a pretext for it : to stitch it neatly and plausibly to her shimmering tapestry. " It has been a long while since you told me a story, Reverend Mother " : or even, " Please tell me about Bichet again, and it will be fresh in my mind when I go to the Mass." More serious is an occasional tendency to document conversations
for the benefit of the reader.
" I have never forgot what a brave sailor you were on the voyage over. You cried only once, and that was when we were coming into the Gulf, and a bird of prey swooped down and carried off a little bird that perched on one of our yard-arms."
Conversation between the characters is one of the novelist's most valuable means of conveying information, but there must be a natural reason, inherent in the story, for its occurring just when and how it does. This is an elementary point, and Miss Cather's occasional indifference to it is distressing. She Iran had a great and well-deserved success ; we hope it has not turned her head, in the sense of encouraging her to write wilfully. But this is an unusual novel, full of delightful pictures, such as the scene of Cicile in the shop of the shoe- maker Pommier, examining one after another last of the feet of Quebec's great ones : and Miss Cather has beyond all ques- tion a vision, albeit sometimes sentimentalized, of the beauty of holiness.
So, I dare swear, has Mr. Cary, though it takes him dif- ferently. Aissa Saved is a remarkable and uncomfortable bit of work. Its theme is the consequences which can follow
when Christianity is introduced to the lives of savages who' have already a religion of their own. The scene of the novel is laid in Nigeria. The Carrs, a missionary and his wife, earnest), devoted souls, had achieved a great success, and made many converts. Their zeal was occasionally inconvenient to. Bradgate, the District Officer, but he liked them well, and they liked him. Some of the Carrs' converts had had chequered histories, notably Aissa, the affectionate, hysterical, and sen- sual village beauty, lover of Gajere the convict. The country needs rain, and, supplication to Oki having proved ineffectual, the Christians are blamed. Bickerings ensue, developing quickly into riot and bloodshed ; and Aissa, alternately back- sliding and repenting, becomes somehow to both sides the sym- bol of trouble, passing through numerous misadventures to an agonizing death. Mr. Cary convinces us that his reading of the native mind is based on knowledge. His book is not for the squeamish. It contains every sort of horror, including human sacrifice, and is written with a detachment and a refusal to take sides which make it doubly impressive. Everyone interested in the work of African missions ought, I fear, to read this book, painful though it is. Mr. Cary sometimes fails to stage- manage his mob of unruly characters, but this is the only fault that can be found with a memorable performance.
In Gad in the Straw Pen, the scene is shifted to a village in Ceorgia in the year 1830. Two Methodist preachers descend upon the village, and the minds of the people, repressed, starved of emotion, have no strength to resist them. To such people the Word is less a message than a germ, leading to fury amidelirium, before which they fall in hundreds. The story is further cram • plicated by the bitter rivalry between the two preachers ; Isham Lowe, old and inflexible, and John Semple, alive with the fervour and intolerance of youth. There is more violence than power in the book, and the writing, with its monotonous use of the present tense, is often melodramatic and crude : but there are effective scenes, the sermon and climax are more than effective, and most of the material rings true. .
Previous page
