FICTION.
A YOUNG MAN FROM THE SOUTH.* Mn. Lzaisox Roan: sores novel has a curious history. It was begun in the autumn of 1914, laid aside, finished on the last day of. 1915, and burned in the publishers' Dublin office during the out- break of the following Easter. A new version had to be made from an imperfect and confused manuscript, but the author has resisted the temptation to connect it with the events of Easter, 1916, although " certain persons who had suggested certain characteristics in the story were closely concerned with the Siam Fein Rebellion and had suffered, in consequence, imprisonment or death." Reflection convinced him that such a course would offend the living and be unjust to the dead, and he decided to let the story stand for what it set out to be—an attempt to reflect a phase of Irish thought and feeling—contenting himself with the statement that if the story had been rewritten, so as to combine real events with imaginary persons, Willie Powell, the central figure, " would have been found fighting not far from R. H. Pearse and Sean McDermott." As it stands, however, it shows a remarkable prescience as to the way in which the " seething pot " was likely to boil over, as well as that almost uncanny detachment with which young Irish writers and playwrights discuss the burning questions of Irish politics. The prevailing tendency of these pages is Nationalist, but they dis- play no animosity against England. The only Englishman who appears is a somewhat pragmatical bore who descends upon Ireland " wanting to know " everything, and is represented as not alto- gether unsuccessful in his quest. None of the dramatis personae inspires more respect than Willie Powell's aunt Miss Carnegie, a shrewd, straightforward, kindly old lady, but invincibly Unionist and frankly suspicious of the artistic temperament. The narrative is contributed by three persons, two men and a woman—the oblique method reminds us in a simplified form of the device adopted by Mr. Conrad—and the burden of it falls on a middle-aged man of letters, whose Nationalism is divorced from action and tempered by chronic disillusion and a relentless candour. The lady is hardly less severe in her attitude towards visionaries, and it is only in the third narrator, Clancy, that the uncompromising section finds free expression. This critical attitude—this refusal to force the note—is shown most of all in the choice of a central figure, for one can hardly call Willie Powell a hero. The " young man from the South " was the son of a doctor, a " black Protestant " and an implacable Unionist. He inherited and acquiesced in his father's views, but excited the parental disapproval by his literary tastes, and on coming up to Dublin as a clerk in a business house he inevitably gravitated into the opposite camp. Kathleen ni Houlahan began his conversion ; he achieved a rapid success as a playwright, but literary fame failed to satisfy his vague but sincere desire to help his country, and after a period of stagnation, which was really development, he abandoned letters for Socialist politics, and became the leader of a League for ignoring the British Empire. An English Royal visit on an ill-chosen date afforded the oppor- tunity for a hostile demonstration, but the scheme proved abortive ; his associates showed lack of judgment or loss of nerve, and, mortified by failure, he abandons the struggle and disappears, leaving no clue to his friends. In fine, this is a book of uncommon interest alike for the charm and the impartiality of its presentation. The self- effacement of the author is remarkable ; but we shall probably not err in identifying his views with those of the principal narrator, Byrne, whose sympathy with Irish Nationalism is leavened by an invincible desire to play the part of the candid friend.
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