NOVELS OF THE WEEK.*
TEE- present age in the writing of • fiction might almost be -called the age of manner. That is to say that when a new ' novel by a fairly well-known author is announced the reviewers . and the public can, as a rule, foretell exactly by the name of the author the sort of entertain- ment which ,is to be put before them.. There is the humomist, who will make them . laugh, the expounder of passion, who will strive to excite their senses, and the moralist, who will edify them in excellent English,,--all these without speaking. of the writers of the school of romance, who rely a good, deal on stage properties. to season their adventures, and of the social expert whose personages walk the smooth paths of society with much decorum. When, however, Mr. Anthony Hope writes a new book it is impossible to.place it unread intoany particular class. The story-may be sparkling with social epigrams, some of them, it must be owned, of a rather two-edged kind; or filled with the glowing colour of the peculiar school of mock-Royal romance of which an early example is Louis Stevenson's Prince Otto. Again, the-reader may find in the book an ordinary social novel of everyday life with a slight flavouring of high politics to give it a zest. . It is as a social novel that we must class Mr. Hope's new story, Tristram of Blent, and though in this instance the high politico are only " half-suspected," yet they certainly "perr meate the whole," as the Prime Minister plays a subordinate, though very necessary, role in the piece. The book is really a study of family characteristics, and is interesting, not only in this light, but, as an amusing story. Perhaps the Tris- trams are almost too eccentrically whimsical, but there is something attractive about them even when their conduct is most reprehensible. The book is not such a tour de force as a study of character . as was , Quisante% but - the - ordinary reader will probably find it a good deal more interesting, though the vagaries of the heroine's moods in the last chapters are quite exasperating. However, to be exasperated by a character in fiction is to acknowledge that the fiction has the qualityof life,-7-a quality which in all his 'different Manners never entirely deserts the personages drawn by Mr.
Hope. . Les opinions ne soot que des pointer de .vues, and in Henry Bourland, a novel . of the South during the American
• (L) Tristram of Blent. By Anthony Hope. London : John Murray. [as." ----(2.) Henry Bourland. By Albert Elmer Hancock. London : 31aeaullati and Co. rj..--(2.) The Story of Eva. By Will Pa‘lie. Londoli Constable and Co. es —(44 Bel Shad:field. By-Heber -K. Baniels. London : F. .V. -White an . Os.] —(3.) The Domine's Garden : a Story of 051 New York. BY Imogen Clark. London: John Murray.Ses.]—(0.) 3fy BritliantCareer. By Miles Franklin. With a Preface by aenry LaW$OIL London : W. Blackwood and Sons. Os.] —(7.) d Rouse with a Victory. By Florence Warden. - London : F. Y. White and Co. 1:6s.:1--(8.) d Great Lady. By Adeline Sergeant. London : Methuen and Co. t6d.1 Civil Wai,Mi:'AlbertElnier Hancocl>,:although a Noun-emu' has contrived in ,a wonderfully olever-way to take the it-Mid: point of a Southerner, and to tell his istoiY-4iitirelY from't1i6t point of view: The alnitaildIfi:ieftcfestin°' to the Englishman 'as to the Anierican, ignorant as -the ' formes usually is that the bitterness of the South towards the North was engendered not so much by the actual fighting aibir mismanageinent of the -South after the war was over. -Tbie is as much as to say that had Lincoln lint lived to 'carry put his reconstruction policy; a' great part of the misfortunes Of the South and her hatred. 'of her victorious would hive. been avoided. For it was into the heart Of his own State and his own people that' Booth plunged -in assassin's knife when he ended the life of the 'great President.' Taking' the analogy of the great Rebellion and the Revolution in England, Mr. HancOck giyea his bbok AS a sub-title, " The Passing of the Cavalier," and he invests his hero, Henry Bourland, a Virginian gentleman; with 'no little: of the melancholy charm which is associated with the name of that graceful and gallant party. But
Bourland has more backbone than we are accustomed to look for in the followers of Charles and James II. ; 'he holds on doggedly to his position in his State, goes into public -life, and
nothing hut financial ruin causes his defeat at the end. American. local politics are, as a rule,*diffieult for the English. man to follow; but Mr. Hancock contrives to 'lead his readers safely through the maze and make the different-stages of his hero's career clear to -them. ' The novel is a fine though' gram piece of work, and the thoughtful- reader will nOtputit doWn without 'some : reflections on the possibility of a most serious prOblem lying before the Government of the United States,—, the problem of the eventual future of the American neg,ro.
Another American novel, though of a very different stamp from Henry Bourland, is. The Story of Eva, by Will Payne. Though the book is published by an English firm, the story is entirely concerned with life in modern Chicago. EVS, the heroine, leaves her husband in consequence of his repeated miademeanours, and goes to earn her own living in Chicago. After a first experiment she succeeds 'in getting-a place as cashier of a cheap restaurant, and succeeds very well in her business. Then, of course, comes the inevitable laire affair. The upshot of this is-that Eva, hearing that her husband has taken a: second -wife, goes to live with her loyer. The irregular union is not's, success, but in the end the husband dies, and Eva and Philip are married some months before the birth of her child. The marriage, " only a little formality: before a young clergyman who spoke through his nose; and a little fee," is described as making " a.very large point in their lives." As the whole fabric of society rests on this little forniality, perhaps this is not to be wondered at. The book is readable, and interesting to any one who wishes to hear about
the way of life of the middle classes in Chicago. - -
" If they was to see you in print, now, my stars ! but they'd say you was rather improbable,' wouldn''t they, my dear?" This remark, delivered by the " heavy uncle" to the heroine in 11.11. H. K. Daniels's new novel, pol.Shackfteld, is truer than the author imagines. Dol Shackfield herself is only less improb-• able than the way in which she is treated by Mrs. Cbam- pernelle, a lady to whose Country house Dol goes to perform the functions of an upholsteress. An upholsteress is a most estimable person, . but the effect on the household if the mistress of the house. were to make a bosom friend of her. may be better imagined than described. If, too, a young lady who came to behired in this capacity: at once addressed her possible employer as "Dear" she would probably not obtain the engagement. The book is written in a fairly lively way, but. it cannot be called convincing, nor is the story par titularly interekting..
The Domine's Garden is a remarkable novel; to which one could' wish a happier motive and conclusion. It is, as the title-page tells us, a story of old New York in the middle of- the eighteenth .eentury, and:- its -setting is made up of pic- turesque- contrasts between. the `!English, who . represent the People ofTashion,.and dwell at the Polite End of the Town. near-the Fort.where -his. Excellency resides," and the Dutch.. or those of mixed ancestry," who live in gabled houses with sharp-peaks pointing -skywards and. " trim .gardens big or little." It is in.one of these Dutch gardens that the story of the book acts itself out. Annetje Ryerssen is the domino's daughter—the child of his old age—and because of an old trapdy there is a lack of understanding between them. Annetje's mother eloped when her child was an infant, and the domino prekaded that she. had died. The shadow of the deception darken-4l-lives -of both, but Annetje, though she grows in the shade, is innocent and good and true. Captain Bellenden, of the English Army, comes to the quiet par- sonage first as the bearer of a dying gift and message from her mother, whom he has known by chance. The doctrine cannot bear that Annetje Shall be undeceived, and the gift and message are not delivered. But Bellenden becomes a friend of the house, and .Annetje's life is brightened. Complications arise when Bellenden asks hospitality for . Miss Peggy Crewe, a young lady of fashion and spirit, who, to save her brother from ruin, has ridden—and won—a race in 'the dress of a jockey, getting a fall at the close which has made it necessary for her to be taken care of by friends who can be trusted not to betray her escapade. The development is intricate and cruel; but it need not be traced here. The charm of the book lies in the characters of Annetje and her father; the dramatic motive in the awakening of womanly instinct in the audacious Peggy when she discovers, as the plot thickens, that she has brought clisaster on her friends. But Peggy's awakening comes too late to avert tragedy, and she realises that the birth of her own soul and the beginning of her own happiness hive cost the life—by her own hand—of Annetje. The story is beautifully told with poetry, grace, and dignity; and the Dutch idiom is used with tact and good effect.
My Brilliant Career is a novel that justifies the fashion of a preface. Mr. Lawson, who introduces the book to the world, has written vividly of "the bush," and no man is better fitted to speak the word of recommendation that should help a younger writer whose gift is related to his own. He is right when he announces that every reader must discover in the first page or two that " Miles Franklin " is a girl. The hook is a girl's book, and it has many, of the faults of* a young writer. It is crade, the English is very often slipshod, some of the emotion is morbid, and the phrasing often wants refine- ment. Above all, the vein is oppressively egotistical. But there is passion in the book, and there is power. And. the author, with the encouragement of success and the discipline of criticism, ought to go on and do much better. She will learn, we hope, not to allow a second heroine to say to the most contemptible boy who has proposed to her:—" If ever I perpetrate matrimony the participant in my degradation will be a fully developed man—not a hobbledehoy who falls in love, as he terms it, on an average about twice a week. Love! Hoh !" And she will find—it is also to be hoped—a more gracious motive to string her vivid scenes on than the aversion of an impracticable girl to matrimony. Sybilla is tiresome when she is showing off her own character. But she is admirable when she is sketching the different family groups in which she lived. First her own home, where she was miserable, with the dissipated father, the conventional mother, and the boys and girls all selfish. discontented, and unaffectionate. Nest the Bossier household, where she was happy, and it was part of her duty to attend to tramps :— " I interviewed on an average fifty tramps a week, and seldom saw the same man twice. What a great army they were ! Hope- less, homeless, aimless, shameless souls, tramping on from north to south, and east to west, never relinquishing their heart- sickening, futile quest for work,—some of them so long on the tramp that the ambitions of manhood had been ground out of them, and they wished for nothing more than this. There were all shapes, sizes, ages, kinds, and conditions of men,—the shame- faced boy in the bud of his youth showing by the way he begged that the humiliation of the situation had not yet worn off, and poor old creatures tottering on the brink of the grave, with nothing left in rife but the enjoyment of beer and tobacco.. There were strong men in their prime who really desired work when they asked for it, and skulking cowards who hoped they would not get it. There were the diseased, the educated, the ignorant, the deformed, the blind, the evil, the honest, the mad, the sane."
The preface tells us that " Miles Franklin " is barely one-and- twenty, and has hardly been out of the bush. Passages like this show that she has seen plenty of life, and has felt it in the way that goes to the making of literature. • But her style wants chastening, and she should renounce once for all the pose
of the defiant woman who attracts all men -and sends all men away. A House with a History is a novel that will please what le called a popular audience. It is full of incident, and mystery, and strange complications. The chief villain. Samuel Patcham, poses as a Christian philanthropist, and makes a good thing 'for himself 'out 'of Charity homes supported by the subscriptions of the good and silly people who are taken in by him. He adopts a niece of his wife's, and half-starves and overworks her as a sort of assistant maid-of-all-work. Nettie is the heroine of the story, and sud- denly into her miserable Cinderella life comes a wild man from the sea, whom she very indiscreetly receives into her uncle's kitchen, and feeds and comforts on a stormy night. By and by the man turns up again, shaved and decently clothed, in the character of overseer of the charity laundry, and becomes an inmate of the " house with a history." He awakens the soul of love in Nettie, and Nettie in return saves him from being murdered by her villainous uncle. The coinage of the " house- with a history " is anything but pleasant. Samuel Patcham's sons are coarse brutes, and his wife is a dipso- maniac with lucid intervals, in which instincts of kindness to her niece struggle with a sense of loyalty to her husband. In the end 'the house is swept away by a storm, which neatly drowns the villain and spares the innocent Nettie, her brother, and her lover.
Miss Sergeant's "Great Lady" was Erminia, sister to Lord Kenwardine,-and cousin of Libel Stanton, heroine of the story Lord Kenwardine was a very brutal person, whose manhera, we cannot accept as typical of his class. When Erminia told him that she had refused Philip Carteret---the eligible lover her brother intended her to marry—" Kenwardine, instead of speaking, raised his hand and struck her in the face." His signet ring cut her lip. " It bled a little, and she pressed her handkerchief to the place, then mutely presented the crimson stain upon it with an almost childlike, but silent, appeal for
pity He uttered an impatient, insulting word, and flung away from her." One is not surprised to find this very objectionable person selling his ward to the quondam manager of a music-hall, who looked to make his fortune out of her musical gift. Isbel was the child of a mesalliance, and the music-hall man was her kinsman on the father's side, label, struggling with her guardian on a bridge, had the mis- fortune to push- him into the river. Anthony Scholes, her music-master and the real hero of the story, interfered, but not in time to save Lord Kenwardine's life. He was charged with murder and imprisoned for five years. In the end label confessed 'her part in the affair, and Erminia married Anthony. A Great Lady is brisk and readable, but the story is highly improbable.
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