Laura Arbuthnot. By John Meredith. (Sonnenschein.)—There is no doubt as
to the "power" displayed in this story, even although it is of the painful up-to-date, and, indeed, posi- tively repulsive kind. The writer does not make the mistake of .crowding his stage. There are not more than four characters in whom he asks his readers to be interested,—the brothers Dyson, the doomed, unfortunate heroine, and her weakling of a husband. Yet the story is too pronouncedly and artificially Ibsenish. One ean hardly help thinking that so clever and capable, as well as -affectionate, a woman as Laura Arbuthnot—how very capable her interview with Gerald's mother in the first chapter demonstrates —would have discovered the true character of that sensual Molthistopheles, the elder Dyson, long before she succeeds in 'doing so, and would have taken means to circumvent him. Although, too, an Ibeenite may justify Laura's suicide at the -end of the book as her only mode of escape from the difficulties by which she is surrounded, even he will allow that the morally fl bLy, insanely jealous Gerald was not worth dying for. As has been hinted, all the leading characters are well drawn. The best is the younger Dyson. He is an excellent specimen of the modern literary man whose practice is a good deal better than his preach-
ing, and who is permanently improved by even temporary associa- tion with an essentially good, though unfortunate woman.
Previous page
