FICTION.
FOE -FARRELL.* Tux great majority of novels take account in some form or another of the tender passion, but here we have a romance, whioh is at the same time a highly edifying parable, founded solely on hate. A brilliant man of science finds his career ruined in a moment by an unfounded charge levelled against him at a public meeting by a vulgar municipal politician. His laboratory is burned by a mob of fanatics, and all his data, based on many years of patient investigation, irreparably destroyed. Professor Foe at once maps out a plan of revenge, and devotes his life to persecuting the offending Farrell, a rich, middle-aged furniture-maker. His friends vainly point out that Farrell is not worthy of his steel, but the Professor is implacable. He had long studied the causes and effects of rage in animals, but not as a vivisectionist ; he is now resolved to carry the process further on the live human organism. To this end he becomes Farrell's shadow, gives him no peace, hunts him out of England, haunts and follows him, pursues him in his down-sitting and uprising, in France, across the Atlantio, and to the tropics. Farrell is anxious to make lavish reparation, but his offer is of no avail. The chase goes on for years, and with strange vicissitudes, for Foe pays the penalty of alienating his friends, sinking to the level of his prey to the extent of even coming to resemble him physically, while per contra Farrell is improved by his persecution, learns from his persecutor, and for a while gains a certain ascendancy over him.
The story is told in a dug-out to while away the tedium of trench warfare by Foe's best friend, Major Sir Roderick Otway, R.F.A., after the pilgrimage of hate has reached its tragic conclusion. The mode of narration sometimes recalls the oblique method of Mr. Conrad. Sir Roderick frequently apologizes for not being an expert novelist. As a matter of fact, he (or " Q ") is almost too expert, for he has every trick in his bag. There are pages in which the Stevensonian manner is reproduced with a fidelity that is almost uncanny. There are tropical scenes d la " O. Henry," studies of municipal politics, Soho restaurants, Riviera gambling-tables, the horrors of ship- wreck, and the sufferings of the marooned. Sir Roderick was a sportsman and a double Blue, and, though modest as to his equip- ment, very well read in English literature—almost as well read as .` Q." Even his engaging friend Jimmy Collingwood, though he had great difficulty in achieving a pass degree, had a pretty wit and a felicitous gift of quotation. To put it crudely, they both talk rather too well for their labels ; " Q " does not always sink himself in his characters. But it is captious to insist on this point when an original idea has been worked out eo completely, for the plot is developed with a patience and minuteness rare in " Q's " • Fee-Fanv11. By • Q " (Sir Arthur Qui/ler-(:ouch). Loudon : Co1Hnr. [Se. net.] novels. Foe-Farrel{ is in its essentials a long nightmare, with plenty of relief and entertainment thrown in, but still a nightmare, though it has an excellent and thoroughly topical moral. " Q " is no lover of the German, but his notion of getting even with him is not by the road of slavish imitation. He takes for his motto the saying of Marcus Aurelius, " The best kind of revenge is not to become like him," and the most appropriate oomment on his story is furnished by Otway in the Epilogue : " As I see it, the more you beat Fritz by becoming like him, the more he has won. You may ride through his gates under an Arch of Triumph ; but if he or his ghost sits on your saddle-bow, what's the use ? You have demeaned yourself to him ; you cannot shake him off, for his claws hook in you, and through the farther Gate of Judgment you ride on inseparably condemned."
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