RECENT NOVELS.* The World Below is not only a good
story, but an ethically bracing and stimulating book. The "novel with a purpose" has a bad name, especially among readers of the more critical sort, and not wholly without reason, for the purpose is apt to prove a master instead of a servant; but people of middle. age will be surprised to find how many of the novels they remember most pleasantly and distinctly belong to the purposeful class. Charles Dickens and Charles Reads con- tributed to it some of their strongest, and certainly not least artistic novels ; and even as a mere story, one of the most deservedly successful novels of our own day is a novel which is simply saturated with purpose, Mr. Walter Besant's delightful AU Sorts and Conditions of Men. Mrs. Whishaw follows Mr. Besant's lead in finding her inspiration in the problems suggested by the condition of the toiling thousands in the East End of London, and though only in the third volume are we taken into the midst of the crowd, we are from the first kept in touch with it by the record of Tom Pwllmeyric's self- abnegating devotion to the cause of humanity. We have seen The World Below described as "a Socialist novel ;" but the description seems to us misleading, unless the epithet is used in the most general sense. Tom, the hero, certainly calls himself a Socialist; but his creed is never defined, and his work in life has no partisan element which need repel, but every element which must attract, the man or the woman who gives a practical affirma- tive reply to the question, "Am I my brother's keeper ?" or who is prepared to accept not with the lips alone, but with the life also, the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount. Unlike many of the heroically moulded men who figure in the books of feminine novelists, Tom Pwllmeyric is not only admirable, but credible. He is not a mere lay-figure, clothed with virtue as with a garment, but a real flesh-and-blood human being, not, indeed, unlike Kingsley's Tom Tharnall, as Tom Thurnall might have been had he possessed a finer and more sensitive organisa- tion. There are one or two little defects in the construction of the story. We feel that the author intended to do more with Love- day Owen's unhappy mother than she has done, while the painful episode of Walter Maynard's insanity has the slightest possible relation to the main action, and might have been omitted with manifest advantage ; but the tale as a whole hangs well together, and the interest never flags. We incline to think that Mrs. Whishaw, prompted, doubtless, by a true artistic love of restraint and hatred of exaggeration, has unnecessarily foregone some of those individualisiog touches which are perfectly legiti- mate, and Loveday is, in consequence, a little shadowy. Tom and Isabel have, however, plenty of body, and as for the delight- ful Miss Rhys, we should know her and love her in a moment if we met her to-morrow. Few novels of the season are better worth reading than The World Below.
The clever and popular novelist who has dropped from her Latest title-page the pseudonym of "Rita," begins The Ladye Nancye in the manner of Mr. Wilkie Conine as such manner was in the days of The Woman in White, and continues it in that
• The World Below. By E. M. Abdy.Williame (Mrs. Bernhard Whishaw). vols. Landon : Swan Bonneneehein and Co.—, The Lady, Renege." By the Anther ot "Dame Darden." 3 vole. London: Ward and Downey.—Esstof-Kin Wanted. By Miee Betham-Edwarde. 2 vole. London: R. Bentley and Sone.— Sv:eet Magenlea. By Maria Connor. 3 vols. London: F. V. Mute and Driven Before tile Storm. By Gertrade Fords. 3 vole. London : Huret and Blackett—Marrying and Gining in Marriage. By Mn,. Moleewortb. London Macmillan and Ca.—The Friend of the Family, and The Gambler. By Fedor
Dostoielfsky. London : Visetelly sad 0o.
manner of the late Lord Lytton which was exhibited in A Strange Story. The housekeeper who has been "asked by Mrs. Freer° to relate, as succinctly and clearly as possible," her "knowledge of certain facts relating to the mystery of Owl's Roost," dm., is a very old and familiar acquaintance, though her style has become more literary and lees dramatically characteristic than it was in the days when we first met her. "Different to" is certainly good housekeepers' English ; but one phrase hardly suffices for versisimilitnde, and, unfortunately, this special phrase is to be found in pages other than those supposed to be written by the faithful domestic, who seems apt to think that she is "Rita," and to forget that she is only Mrs. Deborah Clitheroe. As for the story itself, it is somewhat gruesome, and this will be a sufficing recommendation to those readers who enjoy having their flesh made to creep. Probably a little grue- someness, like a little nonsense, is now and then relished by the wisest men ; and our complaint of The Ledge Hauge would be that it does not make the flesh creep in a manner which we consider thoroughly satisfactory. Qui 8' eilet480 s'accuee, and the author seems to have some suspicion of her own weakness in this respect, for she writes a preface "to plead for the strange creation of the Woman in Black ;" but in spite of the preface, and in spite of the elaborate terrors of the woman herself, with her cave and her brazier, and her black robe and her flame-coloured girdle, and her mesmerism and her necromantic lingo, we do not believe in her one whit, and are therefore not one whit frightened of her. This is not what it ought to be ; but notwithstanding this failure in imagina- tive realisation, the book is a really good one of its kind, and those who begin it are not likely to leave it unfinished. We are less inclined to quarrel with the Woman in Black, ineffective as she is, than with Errol Glendinuing, a selfish, conceited, and obstinate prig, who is treated throughout with far more respect than he deserves. Happily, we see much less of him than of the good-hearted, loyal, and extremely lifelike boy Basil, who is in every way a much pleasanter companion. It would not be difficult to find absurdities in The Ledge Nan-eye, but it has one virtue which atones for them all. It is a thoroughly readable book, and this counts for much.
If there is little substance in Next-of-Sin Wanted—and there is certainly less than in any previous work from Miss Betham- Edwards's pen—it is very graceful, very dainty, very artistic as a whole, and very careful in elaboration of detail. The plan of the book is singularly simple. Mrs. de Robert, an eccentric, outwardly cantankerous and " contrairy," but not altogether nnlikeable old lady, advertises for the next-of-kin to her late husband, informing those whom it may concern that they will hear of " something to their advantage," the undescribed something being a considerable sum in money and some valuable heirlooms, concerning which the departed Be Robert has expressed a wish that they should revert to his family. The advertisement brings to the quiet North-country village where Mrs. de Robert lives, a curious group of persons, comprising two amusingly uneophisti- oated. maiden ladies; an elderly philosopher from America, accom- panied by his nephew, who is an honest and manly young doctor ; a charming and courtly Jesuit missionary; and a philanthropic army surgeon from Algeria. They are all pleasant, and more or less simple-minded people ; there is not a single adventurer or a money-grabber brought to act as a foil to the rest ; but they are individualised with the finest observation and the happiest humour, and the treatment of the six, singly and in combination, is in the best high-comedy manner. Perhaps, however, the most successful character in the book is the awkward, blundering, self-distrustful widower, Mr. Bacchus the curate, who, after mothlike flatterings round the beautiful Miss Ivory—in the course of which he cannons rather violently against his ecclesiastical superior the vicar—consoles himself at last very cheerfully with the devotion of Miss Prue, who, if neither young nor beautiful, compensates for some of her deficiencies by her ability to write a good sermon. Next-of-Sin Wanted is a very unpretentious cabinet picture, but it will charm all lovers of dainty workmanship.
It is not at all likely that any human being ever began to read a novel without noticing the author's name ; but if Sweet Magdalen were so begun, the reader would almost certainly believe himself to be perusing a book from the pen of that always facile and lively writer, Miss Rhoda Broughton. It does not merely remind us of Miss Broughton's novels in general, but of one novel in particular ; for though the story as such is very different from that of Bed as a Bose is She, the characters, the situations, the literary treatment, and the emotional tone act as constant reminders of the older book, and the effect of similarity is much heightened by an identity of the names of two of the principal personages, though in Sweet Magdalen Jack is the lover and Brandon the practical, unromantic, but utterly unselfish and devoted brother. We do not suppose that Miss Connor is a conscious imitator of Miss Broughton; were she this, the imitation would break down somewhere in the course of the three volumes, and Sweet Magdalen is not a book of any part of which the object of Miss Connor's admiring study need feel ashamed, for it has all Miss Broughton's brightness, vivacity, and command of passion and pathos, with some touches of her peculiar humour. Unfortunately, the artistic effect of the story is in a measure spoiled by two rather serious mistakes. In the first place, it is quite incredible that a man like Jack Howard would have calmly left the scene of the railway accident which had inflicted apparently fatal injuries upon his faithless wife without taking steps to ascertain whether she were to live or to die. In the second place, it is more than an improbability—it is an outrage upon all imaginative veracity—when Will Dash- wood is made to prove the unselfish loyalty of his love by the perpetration of a specially dastardly murder. This last blunder does much to destroy the pleasure of the reader in a good and well-told story.
Driven Before the Storm is a novel with too much sadness in it to be safely recommended to people who demand almost unadulterated cheerfulness ; but Miss Gertrude Forde is suffi- ciently considerate of these weak brethren to give them a com- fortable ending, and perhaps an ordeal less terrible than that through which Nell Lingwood had to pass would hardly have sufficed to vindicate so victoriously her heroic constancy. Nor is the book by any means gloomy all through. The early chapters, which take us to the coast of Italy, and tell us how Barrington de Witt fell in with the travelling party, with the members of which he was to become so fatefully allied, are full of brisk incident, bright character-sketching, and quiet humour. The Breretons, father and son, are solidly executed portraits, the former being the more successful of the two, as the churlish irascibility of the older man is better realised for us than the brutal caddishness of the younger, which surely passes the bounds of credibility. An equally clever and much pleasanter creation is the pretty American girl, Blanche Hopkins, with her piquant grace, her free but always self-respectful ways, and her wonderful knack of turning lovers into permanent friends. In these early days she is a more noteworthy figure than her friend, Nell Lingwood, whom we get to know slowly, though even here we become conscious of the reserve of strength which is to be drawn upon so largely when the storm bursts upon her and Barrington. It is, however, in the chapters im- mediately preceding and following the mistaken verdict which threatens to send De Witt to the scaffold that the writer shows her full power. There is no strain, no exaggeration, no melo- drama, but a vividness and intensity after which the dealers in these things strive in vain. The early part of the book is admirable, but it is this later portion which marks out the writer of Driven Before the Storm as one of whom great expectations may reasonably be indulged. We must not forget to mention the dog ' Waif,' who must always be classed among the persons of the story.
It is rather a curious fact that the writer who achieves marked success in any one field of art is generally supposed to be specially incapable of achieving success in another field. If, for example, a novelist announces a volume of poetry, or a critic a work of fiction, the majority of people will anticipate failure much more readily than in the case of a writer who has not previously dis- tinguished himself in any fashion. Those who thus judge have, we fear, already made up what they are pleased to call their minds that, just because Mrs. Molesworth writes almost perfect stories for children, she must needs be incapable of writing even a moderately satisfactory story for grown-up readers. To people who, by the aid of a theory, are able thus to estimate a book before reading it, we will not presume to recommend Marrying and Giving in Marriage ; but those who only avail themselves of the ordinary sources of information may be pleased, though not in the least surprised, to hear that it is a very pleasant and charming, albeit a very simple story. The not unaffectionate, but wholly worldly mother ; the sweet- natured, compliant daughter, perplexed in intellect rather than really weak in will; the noble and chivalrous, but impecunious lover; and the suitor—for lover he cannot be called—whose coarse brutality is hidden from the mother by his big estate, are not at all new or original characters, but they are very freshly con- ceived and artistically grouped, and the story is told with a certain easy, natural grace which is very winning. Most of the characters and all the chief actors are English people ; but the scene is laid in Paris, and the tale has that peculiar charm which belongs to so many of the English novels—such, for example, as those of Miss Thackeray—which take us across the Channel. Marrying and Giving in Marriage is, in short, a really enjoyable book ; though we are free to admit, sotto voce, that if we are asked whether we have enjoyed it as we enjoyed Carrots, our only reply must be a plea that the question is hardly a fair one.
Fedor Dostoieff sky is a strong writer of great talent; but Mr. Whishaw's translation of his two short stories hardly shows him at his best. "The Friend of the Family" is characterised by that farcical kind of humour which will not bear without almost entire loss of its essential quality, reproduction in an alien tongue and we should imagine that such an undoubtedly humorous piece of work as the trial scene in Pickwick would, if translated from English into Russian, be as flat and tiresome as we have found this story as translated from Russian into English. Indeed, Dostoieffsky's humour is, we should imagine, not unlike the humour of Dickens, for the central character is a sort of tempestuous, Muscovite Mr. Pecksuiff ; but when he is done into English he seems so utterly incredible that it is impossible to laugh at him as we laugh at the Salisbury architect. " The- Gambler " is more satisfactory, for it contains some powerful passages; but it is very straggling, and we have to wade half- way through it before we really understand the relations of the characters each to each.
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