FI CTI ON.
TENTS OF A NIGHT.*
WHETHER she writes independently or in collaboration with her sister, the work of Miss Mary Findlater is always welcome. The quality of exhilaration may be lacking, for her view of life is in the main serious, and she does not shirk its tragic 'aspects. But her stories remind one of the pensive beauty of a fine autumn day. The sunshine is subdued, and it is cool and refreshing. To read Tents of a Night after, say, Dodo the Second is like exchanging the surroundings of a railway station for a glade in the New Forest. Here are none of the signs of rapid manufacture; the story is the leisurely product of thoughtful and sympathetic observation. It has an excellent moral, though this is not aggressively enforced, and it is written with a distinction which never deviates into preciosity. And when the indefinable quality of charm is added, some notion may be gathered of the gulf which sunders Miss Findlater's work from the fiction which caters for the fashions of the hour.
Titles are often mere labels, but this is something more. Miss Findlater borrows it from a phrase of Emerson's in which he observes that "we are often made to feel that our affections are but Tents of a Night. . . There are momenta when the affections rule and absorb us, and make our happi- ness dependent on a person or persons. But in health the mind is presently seen again—its over-arching vault bright with galaxies of immutable lights." The truth of the observation is illustrated by a romantic episode in the life of a normal young Woman of to-day. Anne Hepburn, an orphan who lived with her aunt and uncle in Scotland, belonged by upbringing to the older generation. She had suffered from the austerities of Scots Sabbatarianism, but independence had brought no violent reaction, only a certain gentle envy of her juniors.' The sight of the schoolgirl, Barbara Lennox; made her wish to be ten years younger. "It makes me think that all the pushing, and striving, and talk about women has rolled things round toward the light somehow. She just 'stands up to life, and looks before her, much better Shari girls
74 Tents of a Night. By Mary Findlater. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. [130.] did even a few years ago." Anne is a critical and fastidious young woman, yet it is her fate to illustrate the truth of the French saying that while one chooses one's friends one submits to love. At the house of some friends she meets a young officer —Montenegrin on the father's side, French on the mother's—an engaging but somewhat volcanic youth, who attracts her by his romantic personality. No declaration is made, but the attrac- tion is mutual, and Anne becomes so distraite on returning home that her aunt and uncle propose a trip to Brittany as a means of diverting her thoughts fromwhat they consider an unsuitable attachment. Anne's readiness to fall in with the scheme is not wholly disinterested, because she knows that CaptainVoinovich has relations in Brittany, and of course they meet. The young man has archaeological tastes, and while acting as cicerone to Uncle Peter at Carnac finds opportunities for renewing and advancing his suit. But Anne is a shy bird ; she fully recognizes the disparity in temperament between herself and her lover, and resents his tempestuous methods of courtship. But Captain Voinovich is not his own master. His mother is a Frenchwoman, and, on learning that Anne has no fortune, she vetoes the match and promotes his engagement with his cousin, Madame Beauregard, a rich and attractive widow. The sudden announcement of the engagement is a sore blow to Anne, and the wound to her pride is not rendered easier to bear by the subsequent behaviour of Voinovich. The sequel is concerned with the gradual process by which Anne regained her equanimity, a process which was undoubtedly more helped by the breaking off of Madame Beauregard's engagement than by anything else. Whether she ever met her lover again we do not learn for certain : but we infer from one passage that the severance was final Yet she faces the future in a cheerful spirit, treasuring her romance with gratitude, and fully emancipated from the "fear of living "—in M. Bordeaux's phrase. Apart from Anne's love story, the book is noteworthy for the admirable portraits of her aunt and uncle, whose refined yet invincible insularity is brought home by many touches of quiet humour in the account of their Breton pilgrimage. But we are not at all sure whether Miss Findlater's most successful achieve. ment is not her fascinating picture of Barbara Lennox, the very best type of the capable modern girl. Her unlikeness to her mother might be regarded as improbable were it not for the shrewd comment of Mrs. Hepburn : "A child with a selfish mother is seldom spoilt. It's the good, devoted ones
who see to it that their children are indulged. doubt if Nita would forget a hair-curler even if Barbara's life were at stake."
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