Under Two Flags. By Ouida. Three vols. (Chapman. and Hall.)
—This story is sometimes interesting, and often exciting ; but it is simply absurd and impossible. The rose-pink atmosphere of a Guards- man's life which pervades the first volume is utterly preposterous. Algerian adventures occupy the other two volumes, and are much over- strained ; but they are preferable to the mawkish twaddle of the beginning. Ouida tells us in her or his preface that the story has already gained popularity in military circles. If gallant officers like to be represented as throwing away thousands which they have not got, as drinking liqueurs all day and yet developing magnificent muscle, as uniting cleverness and imbecility in a remarkable degree, they cannot do better than accept Ouida as their historiographer. But we think they will hardly believe the possibility of her or his imaginings. A style which is based partly on Guy Livingstone, partly on the autumn controversies in the Times, and partly on all other writers of the day, has the advantage of being encyclopaedic, and without reading many books military men might have a fair tableau of modern literature. But all the faults of modern literature are magnified in Ouida. Whether the bearer of that name is a man or woman is a moot point, and the tone of the books seems to us distinctively epicene. The life which is described is not taken from nature, even at second hand. With all the cleverness of reproduction apparent in the present story, there is nothing that can survive, nor will the Arabian Nights of beatified Guardsmen bo accepted by the most depraved palates.
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