NOVELS.
MRS. MAXON PROTESTS.*
Ma. ANTHONY HOPE makes in his new novel an eminently characteristic contribution to the perennial controversy, " Is marriage a failure?" It is turned out in thoroughly work- manlike style, it abounds in shrewd observations, embodies the wisdom of the intelligent man. of the world, and it is discreet in its handling of dubious situations. The story is told with urbanity, detachment, and at times with a cer- tain subdued humour. But the general impression is neither exhilarating nor stimulating. Mr. Anthony Hope has not the zeal of the propagandist. He writes of the established order and those who revolt against it in a spirit of equally sympathetic but somewhat wearied acquiescence. The social code, he shows us, works out harshly in certain cases, but those who break its rules have always to pay for transgressing them, and the trouble is that they are not always made of the staff which enables them to accept their outlawry with equanimity. That is not the sort of lesson• which will satisfy either enthusiastic feminist emancipationists or supporters of the status quo. In fiction, as in Irish politics, there is not much room for the moderate man.
Mrs. Maxon, with whose " protest " we arc concerned, was the daughter of a poor clergyman and married a handsome, deeply religious, and rising barrister. Cyril Maxon, K.C., was one of those frigid prigs who have not a single re- deeming vice, while Winnie was an attractive young woman who was starved for lack of admiration, though her husband was fond of her in his egotistic way. He expected her to regulate her wishes strictly in accordance with his own and to suppress her individuality. He was in short a bit of a moral' bully, and somewhat patriarchal in his view of matrimony, but I otherwise a young Aristides. They bad been married some years, and it is hardly necessary to add that their only child' had died. (When will novelists, if only by way of a change, give us for heroines revolting matrons who abandon, not only their husbands, but large families of children ?) But Winnie, if she thought herself treated like a door-mat, appears to have acquiesced calmly enough for a considerable time. We gather that- she was a timid woman to the end of the chapter, also that she had a most persuasive way with all men. The latter quality makes us wonder why she never succeeded in humanizing her excellent but trying husband; . the former renders her sudden resolve to leave him for good and all well-nigh incredible. We ought to have heard more of their home life to enable us to understand bow so amiable and unassertive a woman came to hale a man who was at least honourable, straight, and clean-lived. With the data before us the motive of her action is quite inadequate.
Mrs. Maxon, having quitted her husband. goes on a pro- longed visit to some highly unconventional cousins, patrons of faddists, antinomians, and cranks of all sorts, who encourage her in her revolt, and aid and abet her in forming an irregular alliance with a young man of artistic tastes but bourgeois parentage. They set up house together, but the dead weight of tradition and the steady pressure of his family are too much for Godfrey Ledstone, who deserts his mistress in order to "range himself" by a respectable marriage. Maxon, on principle, re- fuses to take action against his wife until the opportunity of marrying a lady of rank overbears his scruples, and Godfrey is punished for his cowardly reticence by losing his fiancee. Meantime the deserted Winnie has made a fresh start under the wing of Mrs. Lenoir, a. widow who has lived down a stormy past, and under the alias of Miss Wilson engages the affections of a promising young officer. At the advice of her patroness she abstains from enlightening Major Merriam about her antecedents until the undefended divorce suit has been tried, with the result that he reluctantly sacrifices her to "the regiment." They part good friends, and, on the death of Mrs. Lenoir, Winnie returns to the roof of her Bohemian cousins and marries an Irish journalist, who, though a Roman Catholic, resolves to defy the ordinances of his Church.
The author's comment on Winnie's career of self-assertion is best expressed in his own words. When her Irish lover rallies her with being wrongheaded, she replies that it was not
*Mrs. Maxon Protests. By Anthony Hope. London: Methuen and Cy. res.)
her fate to settle questions, but that it seemed as if she couldn't help raising them :—
" To those who would see design in such matters—in the inter- action of lives and minds—it might well seem that here she put her finger on a fanction to which she had never aspired, but for which she bad been effectually used in several cases. She hal raised questions in unquestioning people. Her management of her life put them. on inquiry as to the foundations and the canons of their own. For Dick Dennehy even her chimney-pots had streaked the sky with notes of interrogation ! She had been, es it were, a touchstone, proving true metal, detecting the base, revealing alloy ; a test of quality, of courage, of faith ; an explorer's shaft sunk deep in the ore of the human heart. She had struck strata scantily auriferous, she had come upon some sheer dross, yet the search left her not merely hopeful, but already enriched. Twice she had found gold—in the soldier who would not desert his flag even for her sake, in the believer who, for her soul's sake and his love of her, flung himself on the mercy of an affronted Heaven. Both could dare, sacrifice, and dedicate. They obeyed the call their ears heard, though it were to their own hurt-4n-this world or, mayhap, in another. There was the point of union between the man who forswore her for his loyalty's sake and the man who sheltered her against his creed. In the small circle of those with whom she had shared the issues of destiny she had unsettled much; of a certainty she had settled nothing. Things were just as much in solution' as ever ; the welter was not abated. Man being imperfect, laws must be made. Man being imperfect, laws must be broken or ever new laws will be made. Winnie Maxon had broken a law and asked a question. When thousands do the like, the Giant, after giving the first- comers a box on the ear, may at last put his hand to his own and ponderously consider."
• Mr. Anthony Hope always writes well, but he has seldom used his talents to so little purpose as in this half-hearted onslaught on the established social code. His somewhat flabby toleration will offend the orthodox while he is not nearly audacious enough to satisfy those who hold that the family system has broken down and needs a drastic revision. Winnie is at best a havering sort of molluscous creature, who makes no strong appeal to the sympathies of the reader; none of the other characters excites more than a mild interest or contempt ; and the faint vein of comedy which occasionally emerges is insufficient to mitigate the general dreariness of the whole.
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