NOVELS.
THE ROSARY.* The Rosary is a decidedly engaging specimen of a class of novel which has of late years been partially submerged by the floods of realism,—the novel of sentiment. A critic of the Bludycr type would dismiss it as a sublimated Family Herald novelette ; but such a classification would do an injustice to the genuine merits which redeem it from the category of fashion-plate fiction. On the surface there is much to warrant such a condemnation, for the society to which we are intro- duced is highly aristocratic, the good genius of the plot being a Duchess, and the majority of the dramatis personae decorative personages who mostly spend their time in lavishly entertaining one another in sumptuously appointed country houses. But the book has several qualities which distinguish it from the modern novel of high life. Thus we may note that these gay and gilded butterflies, though given up for the most part to frivolity, are in the main quite amiable and respectable in their private life. Here are no bad Baronets, wicked Peers, adventurous sirens, or unscrupulous millionaires. The Duchess of Meldrum's guests are giddy without being vulgar, frivolous without lapwing into indecorum. Underneath a'teneer of indifference or levity their lurk depths of tenderness and idealism which are generally supposed to be the monopoly of an enlightened democracy. Take, for example, Garth Dalmain, the brilliant portrait-painter, Adonis and Admirable Crichton in one, idolised by society, and flattered by all the beautiful women in London. His conversation is flippant, his dress outré; but once you pierce this mask of self-protective cynicism, he is revealed as an idealist of the most austere type, resolved never to marry any woman who is not approved by his old Scots nurse Margery.
• The Rosary. By Florence L. Barclay. London : G. P. Putnam's Sons. [6s.] •
And then we have the massive and monumental Miss Champion, who reminds us in appearance of Thea in Keats's Hyperion :— "By her in stature the tall Amazon Had stood a pygmy's growth. She could have ta'en Achilles by the hair and bent his neck, Or with a finger stayed Ixion's wheel."
"The Honourable Jane," as she is commonly called, was a great athlete and a " scratch " golf-player ; laconic in speech and masculine in her tastes. Her friends were mostly young men, who called her " old chap," and spoke of her as " old Jane,' for though " divinely tall," she was not " divinely fair." But although Miss Champion seemed to be such a perfect gentle. man, and Garth Dalmain so ladylike, appearances were utterly deceptive. Jane was, in reality, bursting with suppressed sentiment ; she was also a splendid musician with a superb and perfectly trained voice. As soon as Garth Dalmain heard her sing "The Rosary" he realised that she was the only woman in the world to satisfy his higher aspirations and win the approval of his nurse. Of course Jane could not believe in the genuineness of his devotion, and refused to admit to herself that she was in love with him until they had parted. Then Garth becomes blind, and Jane, disguised as Nurse Rosemary Gray, plays the ministering angel until she is satisfied of the genuineness of his devotion, and then reveals her true identity. The reunion of these strangely assorted lovers is described in a vein of effusive ecstasy which would be ludicrous if it were not perfectly sincere; but we confess
that the sentiment of the Nurse Rosemary episode is almost too rich for the palate of the hardened reviewer. Strangely enough—and this is the really distinguishing feature of flu book—Miss Barclay has a very pleasant vein of comedy,
the occasional emergence of which corrects the prevailing lusciousness of her story. Nothing could be better than the account of Lady Ingleby's efforts to master the Tonic Sol-Fa system in order to instruct her men and maids in part-singing :—
"It was at a time when she owned a distinctly musical house- hold. The second footman possessed a fine baritone. The butler could do a little bass,' which is to say that, while the other parts soared to higher regions, he could stay on the bottom note if care- fully placed there, and told to remain. The head housemaid sang what she called seconds' ; in other words she followed along, slightly behind the trebles as regarded time, and a major third below them as regarded pitch. The housekeeper, a large, dark person with a fringe on her upper lip, unshaven and un- ashamed, produced a really remarkable effect by singing the air an octave below the trebles. Unfortunately Lady Ingleby was apt to confuse her with the butler. Myra herself was the first to admit that she had not 'much ear' ; but it was decidedly trying, at a moment when She dared not remove her eyes from the accompaniment of 'Go( d King Weneeslas,' to have called out: Stay where you are, Jenkins !' and then find it was Mrs. Jarvis who had been travelling upwards. But when a new footman, engaged by Lord Ingleby with no reference to his musical gifts, chanced to possess a fine throaty tenor, Myra felt she really had material with which great things might be accomplished, and decided herself to learn the Tonic sol-fa system. She easily mastered re, do and so, fa, fa, mi, because these represented the opening lines of 'Three Blind Mice,' always a musical landmark to. Myra. But when it came to the fugue-like intricacies in the theme of They all ran after the farmer's wife,' Lady Ingleby was lost without the words to cling to, and gave up the Tonic sol-fa system in despair."
We sincerely hope that in her next venture Miss Barclay will give freer play to this instinct and keep a tighter rein on her sentiment.
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