A Winnowing. By Robert Hugh Benson. (Hutchinson and Co. 6s.)—Father
Benson boldly takes a supernatural incident as the foundation for his new novel. But if we grant that the facts were madly as he states and as his heroine, Mrs. Weston, believes, then it must be confessed that the end of the book is decidedly unconvincing. Surely if Mary Weston, by the non-fulfilment of her vow, had put difficulties in the way of her husband when he wished to redeem his recovered soul, his death in the circum- stances described would have filled her with the most poignant remorse. But though she embraces the religions life in the last chapter, we are not told that it is for any reason but the actual fulfilment of the vow taken at the beginning of the book. As the whole novel turns upon the religious sentiment of the characters, this seems a great omission. Believing what Mary did, she must have considered herself the means of depriving her husband of his second chance of salvation, and surely this is a responsibility which should, granting her character and the incidents of the novel, have weighed her to the ground. Only those who like their fiction to deal with purely spiritual matters should attempt to read this book, but even so it seems to the present writer that Father Benson strikes a false note. In the beginning the reader will be inclined to chuckle over his humorous presentment of the dismay of Mary Weston when her husband, on recovering from his mortal illness (the word is used advisedly, as Father Benson represents him as having really died), begs her to allow him to become a monk and to enter a Religious Order herself. But when later in the book Father Benson tells us that the recovery of her husband was owing to Mary having vowed herself to religion, a vow which she tries to get out of fulfilling, the point of the joke rather dis- appears, and the reader feels that the author had no business to make so serious a mental situation amusing. What may be called the "lay characters" of the book are rather conventionally painted, but readers who like a Roman Catholic point of view and, as said above, a novel dealing with spiritual matters will find A Winnowing decidedly interesting.
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