FICTION.
AUTUMN CROCUSES.*
IN naming each of nine episodes or studies of which her volume is composed after a flower Mrs. de Selinoourt has adopted a system of nomenclature that has its drawbacks as well as its attractions. If it cannot quite be said that we are all gardeners nowadays, at any rate the cult of flower-gardens has extended and expanded immensely of late years ; and we cannot gainsay the ingenuity with which the author has used her floral symbols, either as typifying a personality, or from their association with some crucial episode in the life of the central figure. Still the process savours a little of a tour (1,e force ; in some of the studies very little is gained from the self-imposed obligation, though it is a pleasure to recognize the dexterity with which Mrs. de Selinoourt has surmounted the difficulty. With this reserve there is little to find fault with in the book, except that it does not make for exhilaration. They are mostly studies of war- time, its wreckage and the complications brought about in the relations of young and old. Out of many types one emerges conspicuously : that of a woman no longer young—even old, sorely tried by bereavement, yet bearing herself with fortitude and dignity ; Victorian in her self-control, yet endowed with tolerance and even sympathy for the hard and mutinous self- expression of the young. There is only one story which approaches gaiety—" Staking a Larkspur "—which might be described as a comedy of convalescence. An impecunious wounded officer and his wife are royally entertained by Lady Vera Dixon at her stately country home, but the hostess is an inveterate scalp-huntress and goes some way in detaching the gallant but simple-minded soldier from his wife, a dowdily dressed but really attractive girl. In the sequel Lady Vera is completely defeated by the bold strategy of her own cousin, the narrator, a young lady of courage and with a genius for dress- making. Judith takes little Mrs. Thornton in hand and decks her out in such splendour that Lady Vera is completely eclipsed and abruptly resigns the unequal contest. In the other stories the note of renunciation or self-sacrifice is persistently sounded— whether in the study of the bereaved mother who generously welcomes and endures the brainless little actress whom her only son had married in haste and left as a war-widow ; or in the magnanimity of Mrs. Delafield, who surrenders the grandchild whom she adored and understood in order to secure a reconcilia- tion between her son and his callous and wayward wife ; or in the unselfishness of the gentle scholar who gave up his beloved home in the country to gratify a young wife who hankered after the delights of town. The best of all is the sketch from which the volume takes its name, and which tells us how the resentment and bitterness of a nerve-racked officer were healed by dis- covering that the widowed lady who took him in as a paying guest had gone through an ordeal far longer and in some ways greater than his own, yet had preserved her equanimity. It is note- worthy that while the book is void of any misanthropy in the limited sense, the female characters are immensely superior in intelligence, wit, and ability.
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