NOVELS.
THROUGH THE EYE • OF THE NEEDLE.*
Ma. HOWELLS is always welcome in whatever guise his message comes, and a special interest attaches to his new romance, since it exhibits his distinguished talent in an unfamiliar light. It would be an overstatement to say that he has hitherto entirely abstained from social satire ; but if our memory serves us right, his method so far has been negative. He has not directly assailed the excrescences of modern civilisa- tion or pilloried the types that be regards as dangerous or objectionable. He is, as a rule, much more concerned with the portrayal of unostentatious and unobtrusive goodness than of resounding and successful unscrupulousness. The motto of his heroes and heroines is qui bens lethal hens visit. It is not that they shirk their work or their responsibilities, or are incompetent or useless members of society ; on the contrary, they are generally people of considerable culture and intelli- gence. But as a rule they avoid publicity, and stand aloof from the cockpit of politics or the whirlpool of finance. Here, ' however, the scheme of his romance brings him into closer touch with the crude actualities of modern civilisation. Through the Eye of the Needle is an impeachment of the American people, "who are above all others the devotees and exemplars of the plutocratic ideal, without limitation by any aristocracy, theocracy, or monarchy," and the form in which it is cast combines a record of the impressions of a detached onlooker from the Utopian standpoint with a visit to a modern Utopia by a modern American woman. In such fantasies the task of criticism is always easier than that of construction ; and though the pictures of life in Altruria are done with humour as well as geniality, we have found the first half of the book, with its measured but impressive arraignment of the modern cult of wealth, by far the more interesting part of the book. Aristides Homos, Emissary of the Altrurian Republic, deals faithfully in his letters to an Altrurian friend with the social system of his hosts ; but he regards the modern American more as the victim of his environment than as one who sins against the light with his eyes wide open. This compassionate attitude, we may note, is characteristic of the Altrurians, their way being to "pity the friends of those who have done wrong, and sometimes even the 'wrongdoers themselves." Still, though expressed in the most moderate language, the indictment is severe. Take, for example, this description of the relation of the sexes as typified by the case of Mr. and Mrs. Makely "She is, in fact, a very good woman, perfectly selfish by tradition, as the American women must be, and wildly generous by nature, as they nearly always are; and infinitely superior to her husband in cultivation, as is commonly the case with them. As he knows nothing but business, he thinks it is the only thing worth knowing, and he looks down on the tastes and interests of her more intellectual life with amiable contempt; as something almost comic."
The mode and cost of living, the inhuman treatment of their servants by women of fashion, the wanton waste on gluttony and entertainment,—these and many other cognate subjects are passed in review by the Altrurian visitor, who is neverthe- less so far from being of inhuman excellence that he falls in love with an American widow of great wealth and benevolence. Mrs. Strange, in fact, is already an Altrurian without knowing it; but the irony of her position is that, under the plutocratic conditions prevailing in her own country, she is quite unable to do any good with her money. The courtship almost ends in tragedy, for at the crucial moment when she has to choose between love and money her heart fails her, and she gives Aristides his mtge. However, second thoughts induce her to break away from her environment and follow her Altrurian lover to his home, with the result that we have • Through the Eve of the Needle: a E0111471. 'with an Introduction. By 'Sr. D. Howells. London: Harper and Brothers. fee )
from Dymchnrch—and this, perhaps, makes no a little unfair the reverse of the medal in her letters to an American friend.
Altruria as conceived by Mr. Howells is a land of gentle- ness and garden cities, where social barriersUre broken down, wrongdoing is not, and where, reared on a vegetarian diet, the sexes enjoy equal political rights and the women are as strong as the men. Speaking for ourselves, we have been more impressed in this part of the narrative by the humorous relations between the residents and their chance visitors from the outer world than by the intrinsic desirability of the millennial existence depicted by Mr. Howells. Through the Eye of the Needle is eminently a novel with a purpose, and that purpose is perhaps better served by the faithful descrip- tion of existing evils than the propounding of a fantastic solution. The book raises the question how far social satire is likely to be effective when it is expressed with an entire absence • of saeva indiguatio, or, indeed, of passion of any description. Reduced to its elements, the story is a plea for a return to the simple life; but it does not make for optimism to be told that such a life cannot be lived amid the environment of modern civilisation. That, however, 'is perhaps a rather cast-iron interpretation of Mr. Howells's delicate allegory, from which, if we read between the lines, it is possible to draw the more encouraging lesson that it is not necessary to voyage to Altruria to lead the Altrurian life.
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