Miss SHARP'S new book is so attractive and so well
written that fault-finding is an ungrateful task. Still, we cannot avoid the conclusion that it would have gained by condensa- tion. Nicolete, if not a life history, yet covers a period of some fifteen years, and falls into two parts, of which the first deals exclusively with the childhood of the heroine. On the resumption of the narrative after a few years' interval the romantic interest becomes and remains prominent, and this change impairs the homogeneity of the whole. The book is readable, and more, right through, but the humour and fresh- ness of the first part eclipse the somewhat long-drawn sequel, excellent though that sequel is as a study of an artistic tem- perament hampered by environment and the possession of a conscience. Miss Sharp has set herself so high a standard in the first seven chapters of her story that she cannot be blamed for having failed to maintain it to the close. Besides, it is a notorious fact that the most successful delineators of child life are seldom equally successful in dealing with
" grown-ups." The story opens in an old Tudor manor-house inhabited by a graceful, picturesque artist, his beautiful wife, and their seven children. It is a feckless, yet charming, household to which Miss Sharp introduces us, where the young people are brought up "on much love and a minimum of common- sense." The husband is devoted, yet neglectful, hopelessly casual in all that relates to business, disappearing for months, and even years, at a time, always welcome on his return; yet never able to endure the fetters of domestic routine for long. He inconsiderately saddles his children with romantic and exotic names—the outcome of successive enthusiasms—and one of the many delightful episodes of the opening chapters is that of the deputation of his children begging him to give the new baby a " nice ordinary name." All the children inherit his charm, all but two his graceful inefficiency and selfishness. Nicolete is the flower of the flock, combining the best qualities of both parents, but destined by her loyalty and unworldliness to be perpetually victimised by her brothers and sisters. In a very charming passage which follows a most humorous account of a luncheon party to which the Darner children have gone without their parents, Miss Sharp brings out the visionary and idealising side of her heroine's character :—
" Perhaps because the luncheon party at Wedderburn Place was her first experience of an outside world that contained difficulties, the drive home from it along the ridge of the chalk down remained in Nicolete's mind long afterwards as one of the most beautiful impressions of her childhood. It had rained slightly while she sat indoors on Lady Sarah's bed, and the moment after rain was always an exquisite one in that particular part of the country. As sensitive to sunshine as her mother was, Nicolete was filled with a glorious contentment when a faint watery sun struggled through the rain mist and sent a shimmer of radiance down across the valley that contained home and happiness and all the things she knew and understood. Behind her lay the wooded height on which stood Wedderburn Place ; and always, after- wards, she had a faint mistrust of houses that stood among trees on high ground. They brought to her mind a strange, uncom- fortable feeling of things not understood, things unfamiliar and a little unreal, all the things that children classify vaguely in their minds as not belonging to home, and that Nicolete had experienced for the first time that day. She sat in a dream of happy anticipation of home, while Arthur talked over his shoulder to the boys on the back seat; and she saw something she had never seen before in the tall red chimney-stacks of the old house down in the hollow, and in the caressing way that the sun rested on the dearest spot in the valley, and in the protecting attitude of the trees that grew round about it. She did not know at the time, of course, that she saw all that. She only knew that she was going back to her mother after a miserable period spent in somebody else's house, and that the rain had stopped and the sun was shining again, and that it was a beautiful summer evening, and, perhaps, they would have tea in the garden when they reached home. Everything in front of her was as delightful to look forward to as the episode of the luncheon party was horrible to look back upon ; just as the valley before her, into which they were descending at a gentle trot, seemed to her like a fairy country bathed in pale gold, while behind her on a gloomy height covered with dense woods, stood an ogre's castle haunted with evil spirits. Anxious as she was to get home, she felt as though it would be delicious to go on driving like this for ever, with something happy to look forward to, and no responsibility for the moment in connection with brothers who ate too much for dinner. Then Arthur's voice broke in rudely upon her dream, accusing her of 0...Nicola/. By Evelyn Sharp. London : A. ConetaUe and Co. [61.]
`mooning,' an unpardonable offence in the eyes of the family ; and Nicolete roused herself to repudiate the accusation indignantly by narrating the incident of Siegfried and the young man who turned him upside down after luncheon. No one was allowed to dream for long in the Darner family."
The happy period of Nicolete's childhood is abruptly terminated by her mother's tragic death on the eve of
her father's return. Darner goes abroad; the children are handed over to a prim maiden aunt, who pitches her tent in a Philistine suburb. Nicolete has already developed a talent for drawing, but the exacting demands of her charming but incompetent brothers and her selfish little pagan of a sister convert her into the drudge and fag of the house- hold. Torn in two by the ceaseless conflict between ambition and duty, she drifts into a loveless engagement with a commonplace but eligible young man in order to secure the future of her family. The prospect of marrage fills her with dismay, and a sensational way out is provided by the legacy of an eccentric lady, which enables her to throw over her suitor and settle her brothers and sisters in affluence on Campden Hill, while she spends two years travelling in Italy with her
father. As pensioners on her bounty her brothers and sisters, with one exception, become more exacting than ever, and a crisis is reached when Nicolete falls in love with the din- inherited son of the lady who had left her a fortune so long as she remained unmarried. Miss Sharp is careful to let us know that the condition in the will by which Nicolete profited was legally invalid, but that her con- scientious heroine and hero both felt themselves bound to respect the intentions of the testatrix. It is a very pretty, if somewhat artificailly constructed, entanglement, for the unravelling of which we must refer our readers to Miss Sharp's pages. But it is on delicate and leisurely character- drawing rather than plot that she relies for her effects, and though the dramatis personae are numerous, there is no blurring of their outlines. Nicolete's irresolution somewhat impairs our sympathy in the later chapters of the book, and the Socialist hero at times comes perilously near the confines of priggishness. Miss Sharp has, we fear, rather a poor
opinion of the normal average male, for with hardly an exception her men are selfish and inconsiderate to their womenkind. Still, this must not prevent a male reviewer from expressing his cordial appreciation of the fine poetic insight. the tenderness, and the humour which enrich and enliven Miss Sharp's romance.
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