• The Translation of a Savage, by Gilbert Parker (Methuen),
is a wildly improbable, delightful, and wholesome story. Frank Armour, of the British Army and the Hudson's Bay Company, is jilted by Miss Julia Sherwood, and, having nerved himself up to the task with brandy, marries tali, the daughter of the Indian Chief Eye-of-the-Moon, with whom he is in the habit of doing business. This he does, not because he loves Lail at al!, but to bring down the pride of his family, who, he believed, had helped, out of mere selfishness, to n tumble his happiness into the shambles." So he sends her to England in the 'Aphrodite,' in "her Indian costume of clean, well-embroidered buckskin moccassine and leggings, all surmounted by a blanket." Armour's relatives, and particularly his brother, are not nearly so selfish as his revengeful fancy has painted them. They take kindly to the "savage" whom he has thrust upon them. She develops—thanks to some extent to their tamest fostering care—into a beautiful and fascinating woman, and, happily, also into a good mother. Her superficially selfish husband comes home to find that he has to conquer the love of a wife who can no longer be regarded as a mere savage, and who does not love him, because her eyes have been opened to the heartless character of the transaction which has bound them to each other. How he fares, it would not be quite fair to Mr. Parker to reveal. It must be allowed, however, that he has shown great care and delicacy in the treatment of difficult situations, and that he has told an essentially idyllic story with perfect grace and almost perfect simplicity.
Previous page
