The Conflict. By M. E. Braddon. (Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.
6s.)—Miss Braddon, having written much about this world, sighs, it would seem, for other worlds to write about. This present story is a very weird tale of a revenant—not the ineffectual shadow that haunts old houses, but a very active and energetic spirit which incarnates itself in expiring men, these being of a character as unlike as possible to itself. This is done with the force that we expect from the well-known pen, yet we must own that this part of the book has failed to please. But there is much that is excellent reading ; in fact, we should have preferred The Conflict if the element which gives it a name had been absent. It is a book of no common excellence when we regard it as the latest of a series which has now passed threescore. Miss Braddon has remained loyal to her creed, and remarkably level in her perform. ance. "In an age," she writes, "when style is the sole measure of literary excellence, morality has become an unconsidered detail."
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