FICTION.
LOVE'S PILGRIM.*
Mn. J. D. BERESFORD is hardly as successful in describing the amatory passions as in dealing in a prophetic vein with Revolution in England. It is difficult to believe in the early sentimental and matrimonial adventures of Foster Innes, and " Tertia " and " Grace," as well as the fleeting vision of "
do not impress us as real flesh-and-blood women. It must be owned, also, that Claire Martin or Morton, who comes at the end of the story, is not very much more substantial than the others. The interest of the book is intended to lie in the hero's introspective view of his own personality. This is so overlaid and obstructed by his sensitiveness as to the mal- formation of one of his feet as to be entirely abnormal. His relations with his mother are very much more living than those with the above-mentioned young women, and incidentally a curious ethical problem is presented by them. At one moment in the story, Foster and his mother having got on each other's nerves, Mrs. Innes, who is a widow, proposes to remarry. After a short period of reflection Foster rushes into her room and, throwing himself on his knees by her chair, exclaims, " Oh ! mother ! I don't believe that I could go on living if you married that man!"
The question of the morality of the sacrifice of a child's prospects to its parent's has often presented itself for dis- cussion. But the problem whether a mother has a right, when between fifty and sixty, to spoil the remainder of her life for the sake of her son presents a new point of ethical interest. In this case the mother gives up her own wishes, only at the end of the book to be so dissatisfied with her son's marriage that she passes out of his life. It seems as if Foster would have been far better off had he been left to find his own soul without his mother's interference, and though, owing to the shorter expectation of life, there is no such grave objection to the old sacrificing themselves to the young as there is to the burden which age too often imposes upon youth, it seems in this particular instance that Mrs. Innes would have been wiser to live her own life without reference to her son's sensibilities. To tell the truth, Foster Innes is a weak creature, and it is sometimes difficult for the reader to follow his mental vicissitudes with patience.
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