NOVELS OF THE WEEK.* IN attempting a criticism of "Lucas
Malet's " new novel, The Gateless Barrier, it behoves the diffident critic to walk as deli- cately as Agag. For, as is implied in the prefatory quotation from the works of Mr. Lafcadio Hearn, this story is practically a " Dhyana text," and " they are not explanatory," for " any thought narrowed into utterance loses all Dhyana quality." Wherefore the critic who narrows his thoughts on this book into words sufficiently definite for the unimaginative columns of a newspaper has by the mere act of writing down his reflec- tions removed them from the plane of thought of the book. In view of this disastrous consequence, the only thing left seems to be to refrain from revealing the thoughts which arose during the perusal of the book, and merely to give the reader a slight sketch of its contents. Put briefly and brutally, the book is the story of a spiritual infidelity. For Laurence Rivers, though he has left a brilliant living wife in America, falls desperately in love with a ghost, and through the strength of his passion almost succeeds in re- incarnating her. The situation is further complicated by Laurence himself being a reincarnation of the ghost- lady's former lover, killed at Trafalgar. This fact, indeed, makes the question of infidelity doubtful, for the be- trothal of the former Laurence to the ghost-lady in life took place of course many long years before the marriage of the fin-de-sieele Laurence to his American wife. Which only shows into what dreadful tangles marital relations would get by the introduction of the theory of reincarnation and of the memory of old love affairs. The ghost-lady (whom Laurence calls his "Fairy Lady" as a more poetic name) is gradually enabled to talk and walk like a real woman. She has no objection to going into the garden (presumably through the window), but cannot without a terrible struggle pass the threshold of the room she haunts. As a spectre, therefore, the ghost-lady is what " Elizabeth's " gardener would call " zehr modern." Yet, nevertheless, she "faded on the crowing of the cock " every night near the place where her body lay in its unconsecrated grave, and she is practically " laid " like any old-fashioned ghost in shroud and fetters, by having her coffin buried in holy ground. It is true that she has first given up her lover on fully realising the " gateless barrier" between them, but peace follows holy burial all the same. When one is given spirits as the dramatis persona of a novel, one is inclined to apply the ordinary rules of conduct to them, and it is difficult to understand why, when these two unhappy lovers were both dead together near the beginning of the century, they did not stay dead. Why did one come back to an earthly body, and the other remain in the spirit P This thought, however, has undoubtedly no Dhyana quality, and should have been at once suppressed. But one thing we will venture to say in all seriousness. To our feeling " Lucas Malet" in this book con- founds the love which is immortal, eternal, and ennobling with the human passion, which, though natural and necessary, is none of these things. The human passion of the live man for the spirit is not natural or necessary, and it is difficult for the most clever pen to make it even tolerable as a subject for fiction.
Mr. John Oxenham gives us what Stevenson's Pinkerton would call " a monster olio of attractions " in his new story, A Princess of Vascovy. We have in Book I. adventures with American Indians, a shipwreck, a tidal wave, and an adven- turous voyage of thousands of miles in a small boat constructed by a shipwrecked captain of a yacht. Then, not considering this material enough for one novel, he turns two of his adven- turers into Royal personages inhabiting that convenient "East of Europe" ; and in Book II. gives us a modern "Royalty" romance, with secret passages, Highnesses, Kings, • (1.) The Gateless Barrier. By Lucas Malet. London : Methuen and Co. [3s.]—(2.) A Princess of Vascovy. By John Oxenham. London: S. H. Bonsfleld and Co. [6s.]—(3.) The Silent Gate: a Voyage into Prison. By Tighe Hopkins. London : Hurst and Blacken. [6s.]—(4.) “Ritra." By Barry Pain. London : S. H. Bousfleld and Co. [Is.]---(5.) Agatha Webb. By A. K. Green. London : Ward, Lock, and Co. H. 6d.]—(6.) On Parole. By Mina Doyle (Mrs. C. W. Young). London : John Long. De. eiLj and revolutions ad libitum. It is obvious that in a novel crammed with events as is this one, there is not very much
room for subtle characterisation or charm of writing. At the same time, the style is above that of ordinary books of adven- ture, and the heroine, Alia, remains a distinct personage to our minds. Little King Karl, too, is a delightful and living child, and altogether the book is decidedly to be commended to readers who enjoy a novel of adventure.
Though Mr. Tighe Hopkins represents his gaols as suffi- ciently unpleasant places, the prisoners who figure in his stories are, on the whole, a fairly lively set. His book, The Silent Gate, contains a collection of stories dealing with prisons and nothing but prisons. The most ingenious of the series is "Miss Pocket in B Wing," a lady who is "wooed and married and a' " in prison. She manages to become engaged by exchanging remarks with the objet aims in daring inter- polations of the hymns sung in chapel. The book is good reading to people who are not particular as to the mental company they keep. Perforce, seeing only the punishment and hearing little or nothing of the crime, the reader's sym- pathies are all on the side of the prisoners, and against " the brutal minions of the law." Prison literature is never very cheerful reading to those who take the problem of the re- formation of prisoners seriously. We must all of us long for a " Mikado " who will be sufficiently ingenious to invent a system by which " his object all sublime, he will attain in time, to make the punishment fit the crime." Students of Mr. Herbert Spencer will remember the stress he lays in his book on education (we quote from memory, and hope we do not misrepresent Mr. Spencer's views) on the necessity of parents inventing punishments which shall be the logical sequence of the faults committed by the children. For instance, the child has carelessly made a rent in his best clothes,—therefore, because he has no clothes fit to appear in, he must forfeit the privilege of coming down to a birthday party,—a hideously harsh measure from which some way out would be found by the ingenious parent. This system of inevitable consequences is what the logically-minded among us would apply to ideal prisons,—for it seems at present such a complete non sequitur that the man who has committed a forgery should be set to picking oakum. In the story of the boy-prisoner, " Turkey,"
Mr. Tighe Hopkins gives us a picture of the horrible inverted Public Opinion current among the criminal classes. The boy
is ashamed of this being his first conviction; he tries to repre- sent himself as an "old hand," and envies the aristocracy of the prison, the "toffs " with long sentences. It is obvious that when once a man or woman becomes a prisoner he changes his class and his species. He becomes one of the fraternity whose profession is crime, and will remain in that class for life. So that although, as said above, the prisoners suffer no great cruelty, and their lot while being punished is no harder than they deserve, we may still write with bitter truth on the threshold of our prisons "All hope abandon, ye who enter here."
As a study in involuntary self-revelation "Eliza," by Barry Pain, is extremely clever. The " self " is the nameless gen- tleman, the husband of Eliza, who writes the book. He is a small clerk in the City, and unconsciously exhibits his narrow little character, his petty aims and objects, in a most in- genuous, fashion. The little story is only a slight sketch, but we must congratulate Mr. Barry Pain on having in its pages dissected the mind of a man, and given him to the world "in his habit as he lives."
The author of The Leavenworth Case is no mean disciple in the school of Gtaborian and Fortune du Boisgobey. Mrs. A. K. Green is always ingenious in the windings and ramifications of her plots, and though perhaps she has never quite attained to the level of her first story, Agatha Webb shows no falling off in her usual method. There is very little to be said about this class of book, but readers who want a good " murder " story will be well advised to send for this one.
When one has said that Mrs. C. W. Young handles her pen with a certain bright felicity of expression, one has given as much praise as the book deserves to her story, On Parole. It is impossible to speak well of the credibility of the plot, nor do the characters detach themselves in the least from the " common form " of the personages of fiction. The fact seems to be that though her story is not original in any way, Mrs. Young tells it freshly and well
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