FICTION.
MOUNTAIN BLOOD.* Ix a note upon the dustcover of Mr. Hergesheimer's Mountain Blood the publisher explains that this was the second novel to come from the author's pen, but that it is now published in England for the first time. A dubious practice, surely, thus to unload his immature work upon people already famiiiar with his best ; they are bound to make comparisons, and should they happen not to see this publisher's explanation it would tend disastrously to confirm the gathering suspicion that some- thing—someone, perhaps—has been " getting at " Mr. Herges- heimer, that his artistic bolt is shot, and that he is now degeneratimg into a first-class producer of commercial fiction. But the present writer has no intention of forestalling these comparisons ; he is going to pretend for purposes of this review that he is as unfamiliar with Mr. Hergesheimer's later work as he necessarily was when Mountain Blood was first written, and to discuss his subject on its original merits. This is no easy task, and he is constrained to call to his aid that way of country divination whereby young girls, petal-pulling, say in turn " He loves me—loves me not " ; and so, too, to turn over the leaves of the book with alternate verdict "Good—bad —good— " until he reaches the end.
For the first petal pulled he cries—"Bad.." It would take a great novelist indeed to live down such an opening paragraph
" The fiery disc of the sun was just lifting over the shoulder of the hills that held the city of Stenton when the Greenstream stage rolled briskly from its depot, a dingy frame tavern, and commenced the long journey to its high destination. The tavern was on the outskirts of town ; beyond, a broad level plain reached to a shimmering blue silhouette of mountains printed on a silvery sky ; and the stage immediately left the paved street for the soft, dusty country road. Stenton was not yet awake, except for an occasional maid sleepily removing the milk from gleaming marble steps, or early workmen with swollen sullen countenances, the streets were deserted."
It is one of the most promising features of this book that Mr. Hergesheimer does contrive to live it down.. Again and again he startles the reader by the purity of his descriptive power, the convincing character of a piece of psychology, a cunning invention of technique ; but then belies it again by some ful- someness of language or conception. Lettice is romantically in love with Gordon Makimmon, a man of far coarser tem-
perament and upbringing than herself. What more delicate use (though it is true that here Mr. Hardy has anticipated him) of an age-old symbol could the author have made than this :—
" Lettice walked silently by his side ; he could hear her breathing, irregular, quick. She was very close to him, then moved suddenly, consciously, away ; but almost immediately she drifted back, brushing his shoulder ; it seemed that she returned inevitably, blindly ; in the gloom her gown fluttered like the wings of a soft white moth against him."
The whole of this scene, with Gordon's perfunctory love- making and Lettice's ethereal acceptance of it, is admirably done. And then, too, the catastrophe. Gordon has married her, shamelessly for her money, and by his conduct brought her to a miscarriage :—
" He proceeded directly to the bed. ` Lettice,' he said ; Lettice. Then he saw the appalling futility of addressing that familiar name to the strange head upon the pillow. Lettice had gone : she had boon destroyed as utterly as though a Sinister and ruthless magic had blasted every infinitesimal quality that had been hers. A countenance the colour of glazed white paper seemed to hold pools of ink in tho hollows of its eyes. The drawn mouth was the colour of stale milk. Nothing remained to summon either pity or sorrow. . . : It mocked at the supposed majesty of suffering.. . . He sat bowed by the bed. A moth perished in the flame of the lamp, and the light flickered through the room—it seemed that Loftier) grimaced, but it was only the other."
But extracting passages from these chapters can only give an inkling of their force. And, alas, that one must confess
that from the death of Lettice the novel steadily deteriorates, except for some minor character drawing, and ends on a note of sentiment and melodrama. True, it begins on a note of romanticism, but that serves to lend the force of contrast to
the catastrophic turn of events ; for the ending there is no such excuse. Moreover there is a terrifying psychological inevitable- ness about all Gordon's earlier actions that forbids condemna- tion ; and in his later ones a lack of conviction that equally precludes commendation. Bad—good—bad—good—bad ; but • Mountain Blood. By Joseph Hergeahelmer. London: Heinemann. 17a. 6d4
it is an interesting book, and tempts one to prophesy that some day young Mr. Hergesheimer will write a really good novel . . . perhaps he will call it The Three Black Pennys, or Java Head.
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