NOVELS OF THE WEEK.*
A NOVEL from either of the Misses Findlater is always web. come, and A Narrow Way will certainly enhance the obliga- tion of the reading public, as it has heightened the gratitude • 1. A Narrow Way. By Mary Findlater. London : Methuen and Co. 6s. — .... The Suva Fount. By Henry James. London : Methuen and Co. 6s. . Little Grey Sheep. By Mrs. Hugh Fraser. London : Hutchituson and Co. gm.1—(4.) The Black Tortoise : being the Strange Story of OW Prick's Diamond. By rraderick Viler. Loudon : W. Heinemann. [38. ea1.]—(5.) Mira &Aden. By Irving Baeheller. London T. Fisher Unwin. [6s.]—(6.) Street-Dun. By Quids. London P. V. Mite and Co. [3s. 6t.]—(7.2 The Golden Wangdio. By Fergus Hume. London : John Long. [Gs.)—(8d irewerni a Tale of the Thirties. By It. St. Thomas. London T. Asher nwin. [65. ---(9.) The Beyr's Blunder. By Fox Bunnell, London Gardner, Darten, toad Co. [63.] of the present reviewer. In a sense the story before us is marked by a spirit of revolt, or at least protest, against the chilling restraints of Puritanism, but in emphasising the irre- concilable antagonism between old forms and new aspirations Miss Mary Findlater shows none of the cruelty of the youthful critic. The picture of the old spinster aunt, with her futile social ritual, her endless washing of cups and platters, her deliberate refusal to recognise the existence of the insurgent and irregular forces of humanity, is so void of caricature or bitterness as to excite compassion rather than indignation. But the real interest of the book is centred in the gradual emancipation of the old lady's orphan niece and companion, one of those loyal, serene, yet thoroughly human characters who inspire confidence and radiate cheerfulness wherever they go. "Moat people," says the author of her heroine, "who knew Kitty smiled when they remembered her. To think of her was to be refreshed." And, again, when her friend told the hero, "All our children say that Kitty is the nicest person in the world," Dr. Marks was pleased, "for he knew that the praise of children is a difficult thing to win; honours, favours, or fascinations are powerless to extract it ; it can be bought only by truth and a gentle heart." But whether we accept that test as conclusive or not, there can be no doubt that Kitty is a most delightful and satisfying heroine. The story, which opens quietly in a suburb of Edinburgh, is an excellent example of the way in which legitimate materials for romance may be found amid the most homely and unpromising surroundings. The immediate instrument in Kitty's release from the hothouse of ineffectual Puritanism is a relative by marriage, a widower named Marks, but one realises from the outset that the heroine is one of those who have freedom in their souls, that sooner or later she would have emerged from her prison house, and that no contact with the world could smirch her innocence or taint the sweetness of her nature. The transition from the commonplace to the tragic in the course of the story is logically and naturally effected. The elements of disaster are inherent in the situation, there is no wanton or gratuitous aggravation of the inevitable catastrophe, and in the end Miss Findlater brings her heroine safely and naturally into the haven of domestic happiness for which she was destined.
Whatever view may be taken of the ethical tendency of Mr. Henry James's recent works, they are at least entitled to attention as one of the most remarkable and significant literary products of the times. In no other author of the day is there such an extraordinary disproportion between the intellectual equipment of the writer and the moral futility of the characters he undertakes to dissect or interpret. They have all, or nearly all, a high social status, they are bens nati, bene vest iti, and at least mediocriter educati. They are invari- ably and uniformly clever, if somewhat cryptic conversation- alists. Their manners are generally above reproach, they avoid unseemly ebullitions of temper, and are so far removed from the vice of calling a spade a spade, that they seldom get within a measurable distance of alluding to it even as the pro- verbial agricultural implement. Their talk, in short, is a perfect treasure-house of those figures of speech known to the gram- marian as aposiopesis, litotes, meiosis, ellipsis, and so forth. Some of them have presumably professions, but one never associates them with the "intricacy of practice," the pursuit of fame, the realisation of an ideal, the service of humanity, or the discharge of parental duties. As presented by Mr. James they are detached from the arena of action or the struggle for life; they are wholly and solely absorbed in the cultivation of exotic emotions, the exe- cution of bizarre and fantastic variations on the normal themes of domestic and social relations. Wars may come and go, new stars swim into our ken, science unfold undreamt- of wonders, Socialism, industrialism, capita lism assume new and alarming aspects, but Mr. Henry James, with imperturbable aloofness, continues, with unimpaired industry and unflagging interest, to apply his microscope to the sophisticated emotions of corrupt and luxurious idiom. In the volume lbefore us, The Sacred Fount, the narrator finds himself confronted, during a visit to a superbly appointed country house, with a mysterious problem. A lady of forty-three, the wife of a man some thirteen or fourteen years her junior, has since her marriage put the clock back at least a dozen years and become handsome into tho bargain. Simultaneously. her boyish husband has turned into a sort of modern Tithonus, and, miracle number three, another man (also one of the party) has been converted from a handsome dullard into a brilliant wit. It remains for the narrator to solve the mystery of these strange cases of physical and mental palingenesis. Having formulated a theory which can best be described as a sort of sublimated vampirism—the difference being that the victim willingly consents to being exhausted by a living and beloved object instead of being the prey of a dead enemy—the narrator sets to work to verify his surmise by the application of a method of transcendental espionage in I which the aid of the various members of the party, including the persons primarily concerned, is successively enlisted. The ingenuity displayed by Mr. James in pursuing this strange investigation is at times positively fabulous, but in the end it carries one no " forrarder" than the speculations of the schoolmen as to how many angels could dance on the point of a pin. We can only express our profound regret that Mr. Henry James should continue to squander his immense talent on the study of malarial psychology.
Mrs. Hugh Fraser has in A Little Grey Sheep deserted the domain of fantastic sentiment for that of a somewhat squalid, if fashionable actuality. The surroundings are ornate, the characters well born and well groomed,—one has an incredibly happy note in his voice, another is too good-looking for com- plete manliness, while a third, the Helen of the plot, is endowed with so superb a physique that we are told "a woman built like that could have a face like a mangold- wurzel—she would always be the most beautiful creature in the world." As a matter of fact, Nina Carysford's face was not like a mangold-wurzel ; it was just as beautiful as her figure. But she certainly had a heart like a turnip, or what- ever is the most degraded vegetable on the face of the earth. After flirting with the dangerously good-looking youth, she married the man with the incredibly happy note in his voice, but finding life with so blameless and chivalrous a husband dull, resumed her flirtation with the other man, and in a mad fit of rebellion tried to commit suicide while out driving with him. In this she failed, but succeeded in sacrificing the life of her unborn child. Unmoved by the astonishing patience and forbearance of her husband, Nina later on consents to elope with her worthless Adonis, but though surprised at the moment of their departure, escapes from her husband's wrath by the splendid mendacity of her cousin. The 'injured husband happily shoots the seducer in the back, rendering him a cripple for life, but, owing to the self-sacrifice of his wife's friend, is condemned to the agonies of gratuitous remorse. This strange hotchpotch of luscious sentiment and strong meat, which bears a family resemblance to Ouida's early novels, would not have called for extended notice had it not been that Mrs. Fraser's earlier work had been marked by grace, delicacy, and humour,—qualities which are lamentably lacking in her new noveL The point of the title, we confess, has escaped us. There are no neutral tints about. the chief characters. Sir George Marston is a thorough "black sheep," and Nina, to speak plainly, is a wanton whose ultimate regeneration, hinted at in the concluding chapter, is rendered extremely improbable by her antecedents.
The facts that the scene of The Black Tortoise is laid in Christiania, that all the principal characters but one are Norwegian, that the villain is an Englishman, and that a not altogether complimentary reference is made to English detective stories seem to point pretty conclusively to the non. British authorship of the volume. Now, the accession of a new and brilliant recruit to the ranks of the disciples of Poe and Gaboriau is a cause for such international gratitude and rejoicing that no patriotic bias is likely to interfere with the attitude of the reviewer. We feel quite certain, for example, that if Dr. Leyds were to write a novel dealing, say, with the secret service of the Transvaal, it would meet with a most impartial and sympathetic hearing. But when it comes to a dull detective story,—that is a thing which non di non homines non concessere columnae. The utmost that can be said on behalf of The Black Tortoise is that it constitutes a remarkable, if somewhat peculiar, tribute to the national virtue of the Norwegians. Crime cannot be very rife in a country where detective fiction is still in so primitive and unsophisticated a state. The methods of Ur. Monk, the here of this story, are enough to make Sherlock Holmes
turn in the grave to which he was so prematurely consigned by his inventor.
A pleasant book, if a little long-winded, about "Paradise Valley" in "The North Country, U.S.A.," is Eben Holden. Uncle Eb, who sustains the title-role, although he is not the nominal hero, is the faithful servant of Romance, whom it is interesting to see in American guise. Uncle Eb is, of course, on a more nominal equality with his masters than, for instance, Caleb Balderstone. But to find his exact equivalent in English Literature we have only to go a little further back, for Old Adam is the very type of Uncle Eb, and in his pilgrimage with his master into the forest the only difference from Uncle Eb's journey is that Orlando is grown up and carries Adam, while Uncle Eb's nursling is a child and is carried. Mr. Bacheller gives us a glimpse of the war, and a short scene with Lincoln is introduced towards the end of the book, in which the great President of course tells an anecdote. To sum up, Eben Holden may be recommended as very agree- able and easy reading.
Ouida does not even wish to afford us easy or pleasant reading in Street- Dust. This is a collection of stories setting forth with unrelenting realism the miseries of the lower classes in Italy. The stories are well told,—too well, for the feeling of blank and hopeless misery engendered by their perusal is not easily shaken off by the reader.
The Golden Wang-Ho is one of Mr. Fergus Hume's usual " mystery " stories, and the sauce with which it is served is this time Chinese. It may perhaps be opportune that it should appear in the same week in which a public sale of loot from Pekin is announced in the Press. The story may point the moral to the superstition that the possession of a Chinese " joss " is not always productive of good luck.
Trewern is a fairly interesting, if not very exciting, story of life in Wales just before the Victorian era. It is doubtless by a slip that the author speaks of the Court of Queen's Bench (p. 170) just before the first elections after the Reform Bill. Had the book appeared in November no one would have noticed this, but writing in the second month of 1901 it is pathetically noticeable.
The Boer's Blunder is the story of a very bad Boer indeed. No colours, in fact, are black enough to paint his insolence and perfidy. However, in the end his evil intentions are fru.s- trated, and the English whom he has kidnapped, with the aid of natives, are released by a gallant body of British blue- jackets. It miist be admitted that the adventures are exciting and crisply told, if the personages of the drama are somewhat crudely drawn.
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