Fiction
'Ey L. A.
G. STRONG.
The Chazzey Tragedy. By .Frank Prescott. (Matto and Tins is a lucky week, presenting us with at least three novels of pre-eminent quality. It is difficult to know which of them to take first. As, however, The Chatzey Tragedy is a first novel, Mr. Prewett's more experienced colleagues will not mind if he is given pride of place.' His subject is taken from a very black, but comparatively little-known page in English rural history, the revolution of the agricultural labourers in the early 1830's. The revolution was a gesture of despair, and its consequences were terrible. The labourers sank then to such humiliation and want as never were known before on English land. They were found dead of hunger in ditches. Their children were sold and driven'away in gangs to die in mine and mill. They were beaten, transported. and put up to auction for their mere poverty at the very moment when the English people were most clamant about the iniquity and brutality of negro slavery."
Mr. Prewett tells us of the revolt as it concerned a single Berkshire village. There are several elements in the struggle. At the top there is Squire Harbledon, shutting his ears against the murmurs around him and against the tidings brought from the world outside by the Reverend George Chadwick. There is Pinfold, the rich farmer, uncertain of his new position and his privileges; and best concerned to maintain them by keeping his labourers .in subjection. Among the laboureis theiriselves there is the eternal struggle between a patient idealism, here typified by Carter 'Costar, and the creed of reckless violence, fomented by Bob Lonsley. Lonsley, the most dangerous malcontent in the village, is forcibly recruited to the side of the governing class by Pinfold, who kneW too much about him. Appointed foreman, he soon sees the way to rise in the world. Pinfold's illness gives him a chance to dig himself in at the farm ; the misery and despair of the village labourers give him the chance to incite them to violence, and so play into the hands of the forces of law and order. He is aided in his work by the weakness of Costar's character. The idealist, who has made friends with Emily, the squire's daughter, and might have reached a position of some influence thereby, forfeits his chance through his fond- ness for the village women. The coarser part of his nature loses him Emily, the more refined part loses him the villagers. All is made easy for Lonsley. The brief, abortive rebellion is crushed almost before it has begun. There is-an assize, a grim scene in Abingdon market-place ; the villagers are broken, and Lonsley is left triumphant.
Mr. Prewett tells his story objectively and with rare restraint. When a fine poet approaches a theme which has moved him, and describes a life he has long known, we expect great things. I have read nothing better for-years than the village scenes in The Chazzey Tragedy, the talk of the labourers, the subtle differentiations of inflexion and character ; the very soul -of the country made articulate. When he deals with squire and parson, Mr. Prewett is less successful. Any faults his novel has, and they are all faults of inexperience, lie in his handling of this tide of his ,subject. We could do with a little less of the talk between the Squire and Mr. Chadwick. We could do with a little More between Costar and Emily ; indeed, more is actually necessary. Nothing matters, however, beside the mastery of the village scenes. Every Laver of rural England should read this book. Indeed, I recommend it to all readers save those likely to be offended by the plainness of rustic speech.
AU Night at Mr. Stanyhurst's is an assured, delicate, and highly successful performance. Its quality is best suggested by comparing its two illustrations. In the first, a sailor, his face thin and drawn, his eyes fixed upon some place far beyond the snug candle-lit room where he sits, is telling a tale to three listeners. One, a vivid young girl, sits close beside him. The second is a man with a cruel, cultured face, dressed in coat and breeches and lace cravat. The third is a priest. In the second illustration, the same four are still in the same room. The priest's head droops, the man is brooding. The sailor, his story told, has hidden his face in his hands, and the girl tries to comfort him. The morning sun is shining in at the window.
The priest had come to dine with Mr. Stanyhurst and with young Madame his " housekeeper." He knew of the wreck of a ship in whose cargo Stanyhurst had been interested ; and he brought in the only survivor, a steward named Thomas Pidgeon. It is Pidgeon's story, told in the drawing room, which takes up the whole night. Mr. Edwards gets his effects from the contrast between the atmosphere of the perfectly appointed room and that of the storm, the wreck of the Blanchefieur, and the' wanderings of the survivors in Africa. Soon Pidgeon and the little girl Lucy, whom he loves and cherishes, are the only two left alive. Then there is only Pidgeon. It is a strange and pathetic story, gaining enormously by being told in the simple language of the sailor. I do not wish to exaggerate in my first enthusiasm after reading the book, but it seemi to me, within its limits, a little masterpiece.
Mr. Bullett has never courted popularity, nor been drawn as an artist to any subject likely to attract it. It must soon be his, however, for he possesses in very high degree the power to quicken and to warm the heart. Few writers have known better how to evoke childhood or to depict simple human goodness. Both faculties are exercised to the full in Isis new novel. A man remembers his childhood. Calamy, the simple upright shoemaker, discovers that the boy he has believed to be his own is not his own at all: Unfortunately for all concerned, the knowledge is not confined to him. Goaded on by the monstrous Mr. Fleer, the neighbours persecute and ostracize the little family. The boy's mother wilts and dies, and the story ends on a note of hope for the stricken Calatny. Nothing of Mr. Bullett's has given me such deep pleasure as this short novel. The truth shouts from its pages—though the metaphor is inappropriate enough, for they arc level and quiet, and the narrator's voice is never raised._ He simply tells us his memories. Mr. Bullett knows, what grown-ups so often forget, that a child will remember any detail of a scene or_a_ conversation that means nothing to hini at the time, and interpret it later in the light of adult .understanding,_ This book not only recalls the narrator's childhood : it makes us more vividly remember our own. - Miss Elizabeth Jenkins' Partrait-of an Actor is delightful reading. It is almost perfectly done : but she is so accom- plished a writer that small faults shovr large in her pages. In its central purpose her book is an unqualified success. All that has to do with Henry Brandon, from his playing of Henry Vin a school performance to his triumphant appearance as Coriolanus, is exceedingly welLtold. The pictures of stage life, on tour with Mrs. Waveney-Gunter's Shakespeare Com- pany, under Sir Fanfare Blennerhasset at the Diadem, at Stratford, and 'afterwards, are-amusing-and entirely credible. It is only in describing his love affair with Katheryn that Miss Jenking" hand seems to me sornewhat_to. _falter. The stage for the affair is clumsily set—which is surpriiing, when one considers the much more difficult task Miss Jenkins has accomplished with such ease it( the early parts of the book. Moreover, there -are ehanges of 'focus: she drops her impar- tiality to view through -Ratlieryn's eyes Henry's Conduct on hearing about Cyril, and once or -twice, as on page 196, she lets her dislike of Cyril run away with her. Small matters : but they mar the even and otherwise flawless surface of her book, like small knots in a piece of grained and polished wood.
Mr. Stacpoole, despite his horrors and his split Chinamen, chases lighter game. His story of a castaway child who grew up to be a beautiful woman is all moonshine, but.how consummately he tells it ! When a writer can make a reader start up in his chair, almost crying aloud " Look behind you, you fool ! " to one of his characters, we need ask little more of- him. The; scene where -Trent awaits the arrival of the Chinese boat is exciting enough even for the arteries of youth. Yes, Mr. Stacpoole-entertains us well ; and it is ungrateful of us to heave a sigh, . remembering. books of his that promised—and offered=.something more than entertainment.
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