The Vanished Star. By C. E. Craddock. (Chatto and Windus.)
—In spite of the delicate drawing of the figures, the innumerable and exquisite touches of character, and the wonderfully vivid and impressive descriptions of natural scenery, C. E. Craddock's story cannot be called satisfactory. The atmosphere is a per- petual haze which never lift. s; indeed, the scene is laid as usual in the "Smoky Mountains." The dialogue is a marvel of human spontaneity ; by it, and by it alone, are we brought near to the "moonshiners," the old pioneer and his family, the sheriff, and the other characters in the narrative. Otherwise the slowness of the action, the almost dreamy indefiniteness of the plot and the by-play, beget a constant fear that old Luther Jems, the moonshiners, even the great Smoky Chain itself, will fade away into an impenetrable mist. The art of C. E. Craddock lies in a certain compass, and her characters exist in a certain sphere, and in her own province she is supreme; but even the skill and delicate touches of her moonshiners' dialect cannot blind us to the fact that the use of dialect has limitations. She has been compared to George Eliot, but George Eliot recognised the limitations of dialect. The natural descriptions are so vivid, so truly grand and impressive, and are used with such masterly skill as a background to the human figures, that we can say little against the occasional tediousness and redundancy of verbal painting. On the other hand, we cannot pretend any great or heartfelt interest in the story and the actors. They do not arouse any emotion but that of admiration for the careful delineation of nature—the tinted photographs, as it were, of the human characters—and the scene-painting. It is all admirably done, and it is eminently readable and at times quite fascinating.
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