The Keys of the House. By Algernon Gissing. (Methuen and
Co. 6s.)—There is bold originality, and also a subtle distinction, in Mr. Algernon Gissing's handling of the domestic problem arising out of incompatibility of tastes in husband and wife. As in life, so in this novel the situation is saved—in so far as it is saved—only by the magnanimity of the nobler partner. In the character of Parson Brant the combination of austerity with tenderness is given an expression of absolute beauty, moral and artistic. It is indeed so admirable as to provoke suspicion in the beginning. The reader, like the son Yordas, inclines during the earlier chapters to an opinion favourable to the capricious and selfish Eleanor, the wife who leaves her husband's country par- sonage because it is more amusing and developing to live with her literary and dramatic brother in London. But as the story moves on quietly yet vividly, carrying in its stream a host of significant incidents and touches which catch the light and scatter it, a reaction sets in, and before the end the reader, again like Yordas, comes quite round to the side of Mr. Brant. And in coming round he catches enough of the good parson's mag- nanimous understanding to be able to gather the wayward Eleanor into his sympathy. The book is extremely clever, deli- cate, and interesting. The sense of poetry is in it, and a true feeling for Nature. And rustic inspiration is finely active in the construction of character.
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