NOVE LS.
FOUR CHIMNEYS.t
WE always expect to meet pleasant people in Miss Macnaughtan's novels, and the expectation is not dis- appointed in Four Chimneys. Readers who cannot dispense with the "love Interest " may he dissatisfied, for the heroine is a married woman with five children, devoted to her hus- band, and, even when her eyes are opened to his short- comings, incapable of even beginning to think of con- soling herself. Of romance in the limited sense in which it is understood by the ordinary novel reader there is little or none. Barbara Leslie had the fortune to be born good and beautiful; she always enjoyed perfect health ; as a young woman she inherited a beautiful country place and • Reminiscences. By James Stuart. London : Cassell and Co. [10s. ed. net.]
t Pour Chimneys. By S. Meenaughtan. London : Thensas Nelson and Sons, [2s.
a• handsome income ; she married almost from the schoolroom ; and when we make her acquaintance, in her early 'thirties, her cup of happiness seems to be overflowing. True, she was
troubled with a conscience, and took herself a trifle seriously in the rille of Lady Bountiful ; but in the main her life flowed on in a placid stream of contentment. She " ran " the village,
but there was nothing condescending or dictatorial about her patronage,and she enjoyed the respect as well as the adoration of her friends. Of course it was too good to last, but it would have been impossible to invest so gentle and serene a character as that of Barbara Leslie with the attributes of high tragedy. The blow when it falls is largely mitigated by her own limita- tions—above all, her incapacity for feeling righteous indignation against a husband, with whom she had lived happily for some fifteen years, when she discovers that he had tried to cheat ler out of her fortune and then muddled it away by idiotic speculations. Barbara's husband was endured by her friends for her sake as a harmless picturesque person until the crash .came. Then they all sided against him, and in some cases did not abstain from expressing their opinions with brutal frankness to his principal victim. But this only roused her chivalry to come to the support of the weaker vessel and invent all manner of excuses for his conduct. He knew—so she urged —nothing of business or of the value of money, and had been fleeced by unscrupulous financiers. And as a matter of fact Montagu Leslie, though full of self-pity and self-indulgence, was above reproach on the score of the amenities of life. He was too fastidious to be vicious, too sensitive and self-protective to sin strongly. His life was a feeble protest against modernity :-
" His special period was the sixteenth century, and be often said that he knew he had been born three hundred and fifty years too late. In saying this Montagu was conscious of a certain regret and pity for the ago that had missed knowing him. His fervour for the past and his regret for departed customs found an outlet now in Morris-dances, folk-lore, and pan-Celtic conferences. He explained any idiosyncrasies in his nature by saying, ' That is the Celt in me.' His religion was a wide ono. He believed in most creeds and in all heresies, and the smaller the sect the larger his faith in it. At present Buddhism claimed his attention, a cult to which he had been converted by reading The Soul of a People. Doubtless Buddhism embraces many millions of believers, but its esoteric teaching has not become vulgarized in England yet ; if it should ever so become Monty would probably pro- fess something else. He ignored politics, but had leanings towards the restoration of the temporal Papal power ; and had written one violent poem, not devoid of genius, calling down the wrath of Heaven on the Americans for the war in Cuba. He was never violent, except on paper ; for he was a gentle follow, one who could not hurt a fly, as they say, and who ou his part did not want to be hurt. Many things hurt him—ugly wall papers,
loud voices, vulgar women, self-opinionated mon. He avoided them all, and lived in a library exactly suited to his tastes and his requirements. It was book-lined and smolt fragrant of calf bind- ings. The sun shone temperately through the leaded panes of the windows, making faint patterns on the polished floor of the
interior, where all was harmonious and quiet and beautiful. Only his wife was ever allowed to penetrate to the room unin- vited, and oven she must leave all disturbing things outside it. The very walls preached peace, and Mrs. Leslie loved to cones there and rest and sit with Montagu."
The only person who came within measurable distance of tell.
iug him home truths face to face was Barbara; but her capacity for forgiveness was unlimited, and in the long run
she was able to silence hostile critics and secure for her
husband a continuance of the comfort indispensable for the cultivation of his flabby artistic egotism. If Monty Leslie had been a real genius there might have been some excuse for his claim to live on his friends, but he was only a parasitic dilettante who escaped his deserts because be was physically delicate. There are, as we have said, no elements of real tragedy in the :story of Barbara's ordeal. The recital of her economies, of the reduction of her establishment, of the putting down of carriages and horses, and the bargaining for cheap clothes excites our sympathy, but has no deep poignancy or ve.thos. Nothing terrible exile l has to happens, and though in the iase tempered let her beautiful house and live abroad, Leer e mpered by y the generosity and devotion of her friends, and is, after all, only temporary. In so far as the story is one of "new men and old acres," Miss Macnaughtan holds the balance very fairly; indeed, the way in which the nouveauce riches turn up trumps, after a rather unprepossessing di:but, is one of the agreeable surprises of a novel which is neither exhilarating nor harrowing, but engages the reader throughout by its genial portraiture, gentle satire, and graceful description. The identification of Barbara's personality with the aura of Four Chimneys is done with real poetic charm.
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