NOVELS.
COME AND FIND ME.*
THERE is an old saying that the Devil came from the North. On the other hand, a proverb was current in Italy in the sixteenth century to the effect that "all good comes from the North," and actual experience seems to show that voyaging to the Arctic brings out of men the best that is in them. It is dangerous to generalise from particulars, but certai nly in the domain of fiction an affirmative instance is fur nished by the case of Miss Robins. She has felt, not the East, but the North "a-calling," and when she has yielded to this Drang nach Norden, as in The Magnetic North, and again in her new novel, she has undoubtedly appealed to a wider circle than in her other deviations from the conventional paths of romance.
Come and Find Me belongs primarily to that class of fiction. which Mr. Balfour several years ago recommended to the notice of novelists who found ordinary themes hackneyed-
• Came and Find Me. By Elizabeth:Robins. London: W. Heinemann. Pad,
or exhausted,—the "life history." From first to last it covers a period of some thirty years, about ten of which are treated in detail. The " take-off " is a journey to Alaska made by a Californian named Mar, who discovers gold, but loses his specimens on the way home, and on his return is unable to convince any one—even his own wife—of the genuineness of his find. Crippled by an accident, and hampered by the necessity of providing for his wife and children, be settles down in California as a bank manager, earn- ing a small income by laborious drudgery, a slave to domestic duty, yet possessed by the unconquerable desire to return one day to Alaska and make his fortune. The tragic position of Mar, contingent master of possibly boundless wealth, yet condemned by a sense of duty to wear out his life in ignoble inaction, despised as a dreamer by his wife and sons,—that is the main motive of the first half of the book. It is not until be has been superannuated at the bank and is nearly sixty years of age that his chance comes, and, as may readily be guessed, when he does set off to recapture his treasure he finds himself forestalled, and returns empty-handed. Still, the close of his life is not without its consolations. His daughter—the only member of his family who believed in him—proves her faith by journeying to Alaska to find and bring him back ; and though others have reaped where he sowed, his wife atones for her scepticism by a reluctant but genuine respect. Yet though Nathaniel Mar engages our sympathy and respect, he is eclipsed by the representatives of the younger generation,— notably his daughter Hildegarde, her girl-friend Bella Wayne, Louis Cheviot the young Californian banker, and Jack Galbraith the explorer, whose love was vanquished by the furor Arcticus, and who, partly by ill-fortune, partly by his insane scruples, was debarred from enjoying the reward of his unique achievement. The relations between these four are as perverse as in Heine's famous lyric. Cheviot is all along in love with Hildegarde, but soon realises that Galbraith is the only man she cares for. When, therefore, Galbraith becomes engaged to Bella, his hopes are raised, only to be once more dashed when the engagement is broken off. But the love- interest of the story is not its strong point. Gold-hunger and Pole-hunger are the ruling passions illustrated in the narra- tive. For the rest, the two girls are excellently contrasted : the one attracting by her grave and Junonian charm—hardly done justice to in the frontispiece, representing a young lady negli- gently emptying a waterpot on her own skirts—the other by her vivacity. There is acute observation also in the portraits of Mrs. Mar, the ex." school-warm "—a lady happily described by her husband as being possessed by a spirit of implacable industry— and of her two sons, types of the level-beaded, but rather cold- hearted, American "hustler." An obvious criticism of the book is that the interest of the reader is distracted between too many characters. That is an inevitable result of a narrative which deals with two generations, and owing to its wide range and episodic treatment lacks concentration and unity. Miss Robins has been overcome by the wealth of her material, and has tried to put too much into one volume. But with all deductions on the score of structure, Come and Fend Me is a remarkable and suggestive study of the conflict of love, duty, and ambition.
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