Anthony Langsyde. By Olive Birrell. (Osgood, MoIlvaine, and Co.)—The writer
of this rather too closely packed volume describes it, not quite accurately &haps, as "a modern love-story." Certain of the characters, indeed, talk in a quite fin de sitIcle way of love and other matters, but the plot is in its essentials as old as it well can be. Anthony Langsyde, jilted by one woman, marries another, falls under the influence of his first love, and is finally subjected by his wife. What could be more hackneyed P And, indeed, the story does get a little wearisome, even although it introduces us to a Dodoesque young woman in the person of a certain Violet who "throws her arms over her head—beautifully shaped arms from which the loose arms of her tea-gown fell back—and trifles with her cigarette." Langsyde's flirtation, too, with Lady Ledbrooke, strikes one as not based on sincerity—the sincerity even of passion. At the same time, it is undeniable that Katie, Langsyde's wife, is an excellent and painstaking sketch of a good, patient, loving, and loveable woman, driven by circumstances over which she has but imperfect control, to despair, and almost to death. The folk around her in her first borna have all the charm of freshness, and the journalistic episodes in laingsyde's career are dramatically told.
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