A Modern Chronicle. By Winston Churchill. (Macmillan and Co. 6s.)—Mr.
Winston Churchill gives the subject of his novel in his title, the book being in very truth what Elizabeth of the German Garden would have called sehr modern. Honora Leffing- well, the heroine of the story, belongs to a type of woman with whom we are not yet quite familiar in England, but who may be met with fairly frequently in certain circles on the other side of the Atlantic. Honora's wish for a fuller development of her personality leads her to marriage with a young stockbroker who has nothing but his supposed residence in New York to recommend him. Her feelings when she discovers that he really lives in a dull country suburb may he imagined; but by her beauty and attraction Honors forces her husband upwards into the path of high finance, only to find, when in a social sense she has "arrived," that life is as unsatisfactory as ever. Her further essays in the art of living, including the use she makes of the divorce laws of her country, may be left to Mr. Churchill to describe ; but his book may distinctly be said to teach a useful moral, for Honora's neglect of the moral obligations of her marriage leads her to great unhappiness. Mr. Churchill's picture of the clever, beautiful American woman with no sense either of responsibility or of public duty is most cleverly painted. The book, however, from the very nature of its subject, is not attractive, and the reader's interest in the heroine will not probably be so great as that of the author.
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