17 JULY 1920, Page 22

FICTION.

THE BUILDERS.t

Miss Grasoow's new novel serves a double purpose. It is partly an interesting study of Virginian politics and politicians in the early years of the late war, when the majority, loyal to the Democratic Party, strongly resented intervention, but were opposed by a small group of far-sighted idealists of whom the hero is the chief. The successive phases of feeling—and en- lightenment—are skilfully traced, though unhappily the author's

• The Child Welfare Movement. By Dr. Janet Lane-Clayton. London : Bell. Us. net.] t The Builders. By Ellen Glasgow. London : John Murray. [Ts. net.] confidence in America's awakening to her world-mission has not been justified by the sequel to the Peace Conference. The book is, in this aspect, a generous record of great expectations which have not been fulfilled. "The builders," the idealists who have America's true greatness at heart, are far worse off now than they appear at the close of the story, before the war was ended. Where Miss Glasgow has succeeded is in giving us some charming sketches of Virginian society and, above all, in a minute and merci- less study of a special type of female impostor, not peculiar to America, but possibly more highly developed there than anywhere else. Angelica Blackburn is beautiful as a dream, fragile as a flower, who inspires idolatrous devotion in nine out of every ten persons she meets. She is believed to be the victim of a harsh and cruel husband, a martyr to conjugal fidelity, a model of maternal tenderness. In reality she is a miracle of callous egotism and ingratitude, only distinguished, apart from her looks, for the diabolical ingenuity with which she fosters the legend of her fictitious martyrdom. The reader is let into the secret pretty early, but the gradual process by which the real heroine is awakened to the true nature of her idol (and worst enemy) is somewhat exasperating: Caroline Meade is a courage- ous and high-minded girl ; she is in other respects intelligent and a good judge of character ; but her protracted infatuation for Mrs. Blackburn, who had been read like a book by her old coloured nurse and her housekeeper—delightful but subsidiary characters—comes near alienating our sympathies. The awaken- ing does come, but .Angelica—who reminds us much more of the sophisticated sweetmeat than the celestial choir—lives to keep her husband apart from his affinity. Though she is terribly frail, her vitality is amazing, and as she goes on from deception to deception, this minx-Madonna recalls Calverley's perversion of the "dear gazelle "—the parakeet, "green with an enchant- ing tuft," who would "look inimitable stuffed ; He knows it but he will not die." Her last achievement is to survive a serious operation, and we have very little doubt that she outlived both her magnanimous and much-maligned husband and the girl whom she had so odiously defamed. Angelica is detestable, but she is intelligent : the impatient reader too often wants to shake Caroline for her blindness and to shake Douglas Blackburn for not shaking Angelica.