NOVELS OF THE WEEK.*
Ma. HORACE HUTCHINSON'S decided gift for fiction—such is the distrust amongst us of versatility—has hitherto been probably hampered rather than aided by his reputation as the literary interpreter and historian of pastime. Henceforth, however, if only on the strength of the touching tale which gives its title to tlic volume before us, his claim to recognition should be as securely based on his achievements as a novelist as upon his contributions to the annals of golf. We have long waited for a really sympathetic portrait of the uncon- ventional modern woman of fashion, but that difficult task has never to our knowledge been carried out so successfully as in the heroine of the first of these two stories of self-sacrifice. "Little Lady Mary" has a good deal of the audacity and reck- lessness without any of the vulgarity of "Dodo" ; bat under- neath all her "Christian-naming" and friendliness for smart young men there is a fund of devotion which reveals itself in the heroicyet pitifuldisappoarances which threaten to estrange her from the man she loves so well. The central idea of the plot, which is entirely original, might in some hands have proved repellent, but the tenderness and tact with which it is handled will reconcile the most sensitive reader to its choice. Curiously enough not by the title alone but by the style and delicacy of method, we have been reminded more than once in Little Lady Mary of the late Mrs. Oliphant. The story which serves as complement and pendant to the first is well conceived and told, though it hardly attains to the same plane of distinguished excellence.
We are glad to find Mr. Bindloss turning to practical account on a large canvas the wealth of accumulated ob- servation and experience on which he has hitherto drawn so effectively within the compass of the sketch or short story. Where still life and the humdrum or full-dress portraiture of English home society is concerned, Mr. Bindloss is conventional to the verge of commonplaceness. On English soil and amid pacific surroundings there is nothing to differentiate his hero, or his fickle-hearted fiancee, or his villain, or his wastrel from the types which have done duty in a hundred other novels. Mr. Bindloss evidently holds with Lucretius that- " In dubiis hominem spectare periclis
Conveuit adversisque in rebus noscere qui sit "- and the setting of doubt and danger which he understands so well how to depict is that afforded by the climate and the natives of the West Coast of Africa. Whether on sea or land or river, Mr. Bindloss's pictures of Nigeria and its inhabitants are illumined by a hundred touches only possible in a writer who has seen what he describes. The motive of Ainslie's dll-fic is furnished by a rubber-hunting expedition into the Hinterland of the Niger Protectorate, in the carrying out of which the hero, Gordon Ainslie, undergoes terrible privations, loses two of his comrades, but owes his life to the mysterious ju-ju or talisman, originally given by a native chief to another white man, and passed on at his death to Ainslie. The chapters which describe the march from the interior to the coast give an astonishingly vivid account of the sufferings of the adventurers from pestilence, drought, and the attacks of hostile natives.
The experiences of three strangely ill-assorted fellow- pupils at a London crammer's are set forth in All Fools with a sense of farcical humour that makes in the main for
• (1.) Little Lady mare, and Her Best Friend. By Horace G. Hutchinson. London : Smith, Elder. and Co. [6s.]—(2.) Ainslies Jit-Ju. By Harold BIndlo. London : Chatro and Windus. [3s. 6d.] —(3.)All Fools. By Martnal uke PIckthalL London : Swan Sonnenschein. [Gs.]—(4.) Gifts of Enemies. By 0. L. Litton. London: A. and C. Black. (6s.11—(3.) A Fair Brigand. By George Horton. London : Ward, Lock, and Co. [3s. 6d.]—(6.) The Second Lady Del.ombe. By Mrs. Arthur Kennard. London : Hutchinson and Co. [ss.]—(7.) A Martial Maid. By Anne Elliott. London : Hurst and Blackett. (es.1—(8.) A Loyal Lacer. By Mrs. Lovett-Cameron. London: C. Arthur Pearson. [tis.]—(9.) The Disenchantment of :Curse Dorothy. By Florence Baxendale. London : Sket1ington and Son. [ha. 61.1.1—(10.) Lore's Guerdon. By Con! a1 11. Carroler. London F. V. White and Co. L6s.1
exhilaration, though fastidious readers will be repelled by a certain lack of reticence displayed by Mr. Pickthall in deal- ing with the exuberances of calf-love. The trio in question consist of a robust young Militia officer, a feeble-minded fopling, and a supple Hindoo with an admirable command of Baboo English. The heroine, a typewriting girl, encourages the suit of the dandy to escape from the importunate attentions of a vulgar middle-class admirer, and plunges into an engage- ment before she realises the fatuous silliness of the former. The sentimental side of the plot is concerned with the growth of the tender passion in the heart of the Militiaman, who, after acting for a while as a benevolent onlooker, makes the running on his own account, and finally, and under very strong provocation, cuts out his selfish and pusillanimous rival. The love interest, however, which is commonplace, and even vulgar, is redeemed by the vigorous, if undistin- guished, humour shown by the author in treating the various episodes and incidents that grow out of the chief fool's clandestine courtship. In particular, we are introduced—in the brother of the heroine, Mr. Percy Woodward, the Prime Minister of a suburban Parliament—to as exquisite a specimen of the inoffensive cad as has been portrayed in fiction since the inimitable Mr. Hoopdriver in Mr. Wells's Wheels of Chance.
The career of Neil Hawtrey, the hero of 6'ifis ,!/ Eseeti#s is rich in the element of the unexpected. On the death of his father, a Baronet and a faux boahomnie, finding himself ruined, horse and foot, by parental extravagance, Neil promptly turns professional cricketer. Owing, however, to his having unjustly incurred the suspicion of " selling " a county match —the real culprit being his younger brother—he loses his place in the Yorkshire team, and tarns financial journalist, ulti- mately achieves distinction with his pen, and marries the widow of a speculator and gambler. Betty Ventris, the lady in question, and the good genius of the versatile hero, is a curious specimen of the modern woman, for, in spite of a somewhat showy exterior and "flirtatious" manner, she is a disciple of Maeterlinck, cherishes high ideals, and revolts against the materialistic atmosphere into which her marriage has thrown her. Her relations with, and influence on, Neil Hawtrey constitute the most agreeable surprise in a story which conveys a decidedly sordid impression of " smart " society.
The scheme of A Fair Brigand reminds one faintly of About's Roi des ..liontagnes. Dr. Joseph Brown, a Scholar of Harvard and expert in Argive bronzes, is induced by an American friend to leave Athens for a holiday in Mount Olympus, where they are beguiled by a treacherous guide into the hands of the brigands. At the instigation of his friend, Brown, who is a good-looking prig, is induced to encourage the admiration of the chief brigand's beautiful daughter, with the result that she engineers their escape and accompanies them to Athens, where Brown is driven by popular opinion rather than inclination to marry his rescuer. The story, which has been hitherto conducted mainly on humorous lines, now takes a sudden plunge into tragedy, for the fair Kyriskonla, piqued by the neglect of her selfish husband, vindicates her lineage by stabbing the philandering young English officer, into whose company she has been thrown, on learning that his affections are engaged elsewhere. It is a pity that a biiok which is nine-tenths comedy—and good comedy—should be vitiated in its crude and lurid dinouentent by a concession to the modern convention of the unhappy ending.
If the reader can suppress his surprise at anybody caring twopence about such a trumpery fellow as Lord Delcombe, he will find good entertainment in the story of The Second Lady Delcombe. Mrs. Kennard's novel suffers a little from the wilful postponement of the inevitable understanding between husband and wife, but, of coarse, as soon as this point is reached the book has to end, and the story is quite amusing enough to prevent one's wishing it were shorter. If it were the custom in novels to give a list of characters at the beginning, the list in this instance would sound rather like an extract from Kelly's Handbook, but probably in a novel of this order this is to a certain extent inevitable. The character of the heroine, the little American Countess, is certainly rather attractive, and her portrait is cleverly drawn. That Lord Delcombe should have inspired his wife's affection is surprising rather than unconvincing, for no one can say. that it is not • true to life for a thoroughly nice husband or wife, as the case may be, to care intensely for a most worth- less partner. As a whole, the book is a- good, if not exactly brilliant, specimen of the modern novel of society.
The Australian heroine of • Miss Elliott's new book, A Martial Maid, does not actually don doublet and hose and take the field like a second Joan of Arc. Her mar- tial doings are confined to obtaining rightful recognition for a child of whom she has charge. The child's mother has been shipwrecked in Australia just before its birth, and Mrs. Bertram, the mother of Claire, the "martial maid," takes in the unfortunate stranger, whom the shock has entirely deprived of her memory. The unconscious husband in England of course marries again, and his wife having recovered her memory and seen the announcement of his wedding in the papers, declines to come with her child "like ghosts to trouble joy." However, at her death—for she does not survive very long—she induces Claire, whose mother also dies, to take the child to England and vindicate his parentage. The girl very thoughtfully—for otherwise there would be no story—contrives to lose all documentary evidence, and is of course taken for an adventuress. The remainder of the book is occupied with her struggle to assert the child's rights and rehabilitate her character for honesty. Of course, in the end the missing piece justificative turns up and all is well. The story, if slight, is ingenious, the characters are well drawn, and the book is certainly above the average.
There is no special reason why Mrs. Lovett-Cameron should have called her new book A Loyal Lover, for the lover in question does not display more loyalty than is expected of any gentleman entrusted with that r8le in a modern novel. The book is written with the author's usual "go " and fluency, but there are no special features in the •plot. which call for comment.. The characters are drawn with a lively pen, and the book is a fair specimen of the author's methods—though not of her special gift—for there are no horses in the story, and without horses Mrs. Lovett-Cameron's work is not noticeably different from that of, any other clever lady novelist.
The Disenchantment of Nurse Dorothy deals not solely with hospitals, but with life in general. However, "a made a good end," like Falstaff, though her end, as is befitting in a novel, is in matrimony, not death. The book is less remarkable for its wisdom than its readability ; indeed the author's reflections are seldom distinguished by their sagacity.
Mr. Carroder's new novel is an extremely well-meaning story, purporting to be written by a country doctor, and chiefly concerned with a young man, Harold Giddens by name, who wishes, but fails, to enter the ministry. The author gives a good many extracts from Harold Giddens's sermons and serious talks with his friends, which would have to be written with a pen of genius to justify their insertion in the pages of a novel. Now, genius cannot be honestly predicated of Love's Cuerdon, in which, for the rest, there are too many death-beds, not to mention that the hero and his sister are both victims of consumption.
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