NOVELS OF THE WEEK.* THU "short line war" is a
war of directors on rival American railway companies to obtain possession of a short line which "feeds" two trunk lines in which they are respectively in- terested. But the ways of "the men who fight with stocks," to paraphrase Mr. Kipling, are very nearly as bloodthirsty as though they were employing Maxims, and there are marches and counter-marches, all on the "cars" of the disputed "M. and T." line. The story is well put together, well told, and exciting. But to speak language appropriate to the book, it makes the English reader " tired " to read how the dramatis persona whiz about from Chicago to "Tillman City," a journey of apparently five hours, which seems to count there as little as a journey to Richmond would here. Some one of the characters is perpetually stepping on the last car of some "Vestibule, Limited," just as it slips smoothly away on its journey, and no one apparently thinks of such a trifle as going home to fetch his luggage. To English ideas the commercial morality of the story is a little startling. Indeed, we may apply to it the words of a modern singer talking of the scenery at an autumn revival in an English opera-house,--" Ifise-en- sc4ne n'y en a pas ! " There is uncommonly little com- mercial morality about the "short line war," and it is not a little surprising to read of the calm way in which both sides practically retain the services of a Judge. These learned brothers then proceed to pelt each other with injunctions and counter-injunctions just as is most convenient at the moment to his own side. The character of the hero, Jim Weeks (not the jeune premier of the book, but the real hero), is good, and the reader has nothing but sympathy for the way in which he, as the real boss of the "short line," defends it from what is practically an act of brigandage on the other side. The way in which Weeks's side are reduced to stealing their own books at midnight in defiance of a posse of Pinkerton detec- tives which they themselves have engaged is really Gilbertian in its whimsicality. There is no help for it, for Weeks knows that the Judge on the other side will grant an injunction for the delivery of the books in the morning, so it is essential that the books should be lost. The necessary love-story is so cleverly worked that, far from hindering, it actually helps the development of the plot.
In Stuff o' the Conscience we are introduced to a very different world,—the world which frets out its mimic life behind the footlighta. The book is really only a minute study of the character of the hero Arthur,—later, when Arthur is no longer sufficiently romantic for the playbills, Roland Withington. In the first chapter he gives up his position as a small clerk to become an actor ; and, wonderful to relate, from the beginning of a small part with a company on tour he gradually rises to be a fashionable actor-manager in London. One of the most amusing passages in the book— perhaps the only " amusing " passage, for the novel suffers decidedly from lack of humour—is the scene which describes Roland's first visit to a smart country house. Highly enter- taining is the nervous shyness with which the actor, accus- tomed to sway large audiences, regards the impassive superciliousness of the footman who looks after him. His anxiety as to whether the modest contents of his bag will pass muster in the eyes of this calm functionary, will strike a chord of sympathy in the breasts of those persons who, living at home under the mild sway of a parlourmaid, are exposed on visits to the intolerant rule of the domestics of the great. The catastrophe is less well conceived than the rest of the book. It is very difficult to believe in the "Prince of Monte- bianco," a potentate who rules apparently over one of those highly convenient principalities in the South-Eastern corner of Europe where modern novelists would have us believe so many strange things happen. We cannot feel convinced that the personality of this Prince was so attractive that Roland, who was generally quite absorbed in his own personality, would have thrown up his theatre and broken with the whole of
* (L) The Short Line War. By hiervein Webster. London : Macmillan and Co. [6s.]—(.2.) Stuff o' the Conscience. By Lily Thicknesse. London Harper and Brothers. [6s.]—(3.) Both Great and Small. By Arthur E. S. Legge. London : John Lane. [6s.]—(4.) Richard Carrel. By Winston Churchill. London : Macmillan and Co. [6s.]—(5.) In Guiana Tirilds. By James Rodney. "The Overseas Library." Leaden T. Fisher Unwin. [29.]—(6.) Satan Finds Some Mischief Still. By B. V. Beaufort. London : T. Fisher Unwin. [Ss. 6d.] —(7.) The Sport of Circumstance. By 0.0. Chattertom London : John Long. [Ss. 6d.]—(8.) Jennie Baxter, Journatist. By Robert Barr. London : Methuen and Co. as.]—(9.) Philip Bennion's Death. By Richard Marsh. London : Ward, Lock, and Co. [Ss. 6d.]—(10.) The Fortress of Yadasara. By Christian LP. London : F. Warne and Co. LW.] his past life to go and live in a vague and aubordinste position in the Prince's kingdom. Roland, of course, suffers from the self-introspection and preoccupation common in people whose bread-and-butter depends on their emotions being presented in an agreeable fashion to the public. But his discovery that, as Mrs. Gamp says, "life is a wale which likewise is the end of all things," would not have been likely to lead him to so far-fetched and drastic a remedy.
It is a pity that the two plots which run side by side in Both Great and Small should ever have been connected even by the very small thread which binds them. Certainly the book at present contains something for people who like clean reading and something for those who like the opposite. But on the whole it would be pleasanter to have the two themes separate. The" good" story is a clever Dutch picture of life in a quiet place in the remote West Country. The portrait of the old widower clergyman, with his delicate scholarship and his unvarying gentleness and courtesy—save to his opponents in the fields of classical literature—is excel- lent, and the heroine, his only daughter, has a really fresh charm which all heroines should have, but which the makers of the race do not always succeed in imparting. Almost better, as a whole, is the study of the family of the young squire of the neighbourhood, Lord Chesterton and his com- plaining mother and ugly sisters. In short, all this part of the book is, though not very original or exciting, full of quiet and clever observation, and written with a good deal of descriptive talent. The " bad " story is an account of the unhappy marriage of Lord Chesterton'a distant cousin, Jim Bargrave, and has the colouring which for the time has become conventional in fiction.
There is a great deal of very solid reading in the pages of Richard Carmel. In fact, worthiness and solidity are the epithets by which it would be best described. The book is not dull, for the accounts of the old life in Maryland in the days of the Georges is decidedly interesting, but somehow the author rather fails to carry his readers along with him. He is not convincing. The reader does not believe in the great beauty of Dorothy Manners, or rather he accepts the statement but fails to feel the fact. So, when the scene of the story passes to England, the figures of Charles James Fox and of the other personages who pass across the stage remain only figures, and never kindle into life. This, of course, is the great pitfall of the historical romance, and though Mr. Churchill's book is, on the whole, interesting, he has not the power of endowing his historical characters with life or probability.
An interesting experiment is being tried by Mr. Fisher 17nwin in the publishing of a series of stories written by the inhabitants of distant parts of the Empire, with a view to making the life of their fellow-subjects more intelligible to stay-at-home English people. In Guiana Wilds is the third book appearing in this series, and no lover of adventures will call the book dull. Mr. Rodney appears infinitely to prefer black people to white, with which taste we have but very small sympathy. But he can tell a good story, and it is a compliment to his powers that the reader feels disappointed in the breaking off of the book at a critical part of the hero's adventures, and welcomes the prospect held out at the end of the last chapter, of a probable sequel.
We may bracket together Miss Beaufort's Satan Finds Some Mischief Still and Miss Chatterton's The Sport of Circumstance as harmless little stories of modern life. No indication is given of the sex or status of the respective authors, but in both cases " Miss " seems the most appro- priate prefix. Of the two little books, The Sport of Circum- stance is the more readable, and it contains a good piece of character-drawing in the figure of the heroine's unlucky lover, the curate, Herbert Mallaby.
Messrs. Methuen publish as the second instalment of their Gd. paper novels (Is. if bound in cloth), Jennie Baxter, Journalist, though "Jennie Baxter, Amateur Detective," would seem perhaps a more appropriate name. The story, which recently ran as a serial in a, sixpenny magazine, suffers a little by being arranged in watertight compartments, each adventure being practically complete in itself. But we all know the model from which are taken adventures like these, and it would be captious to object in the followers to a fault which is essential to the plan of the great original The stories are ingenious and well devised, and quite exciting enough to while away a tedious railway journey.
Another sensational story is Philip Bennion's Death, which catastrophe, in true " Gaboriau "style, is brought about by the only apparently trustworthy person in the book. As is usual in works of this kind, the probabilities and possibilities are not a little strained. A certain disappointment is felt by the reader on finding that the murder was not after all committed by the key of the Medici cabinet. There is something so satisfactory about a mysterious cabinet that it is almost a pity that though the key was full of dire possibilities, this one should have proved as void of interest as the black and gold japanned cabinet which we have all of us opened with beating hearts in the company of Catherine Morland.
It is very doubtful if the attractions of a romance of the school of Mr. Rider Haggard are increased by laying the scene in a mysterious land somewhere near the foot of the Caucasian Mountains. This is what has been done in The Fortress of Yadasara. It is straining one's belief too far to try to imagine so near home an undiscovered country still living in all the traditions of the Middle Ages, and originally peopled by the descendants of the Crusaders. If the reader can succeed in swallowing this huge pill of improbability and will persevere with the story, he will find it a good example of a bustling medimval romance of knights, ladies, and Princesses, varied by dolorous descriptions of dungeons and adventures literally by field and flood. Perhaps now that the summer holidays are within measurable distance, it might be a prudent thing for the father of a family to keep the book. It will come in useful for one of the long, dull, wet days which will inevitably cloud that delightful seven weeks to which Master Jack is looking forward with such intense excitement.
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