RECENT NOVELS" Miss FAIRFAX EMIRS is a writer who has
taught us to expect mach from her, and whom we instinctively and fairly judge by an exceptionally high standard. We will not say that in the present novel she falls conspicuously below this standard, though The Heir without a Heritage is at once more ambitious and less satisfactory than its immediate predecessor, Entangled, a book which was from beginning to end full of that talent which only just falls short of genius. The reason for this comparative unsatiefactoriness is not far to seek. Miss Byrrne has, doubt- less under the pressure of strong and earnest conviction, burdened her story with a polemical purpose which has the double disadvantage of being difficult to utilise artistically, and of being in itself of a nature to repel rather than to attract the majority of readers. In a brief preface she describes her story as an endeavour "to depict the meeting of the new thought of a coming with that of an old and established age ;" and in the course of the novel we discover that by the new thought is meant Agnosticism, and by the old and established thought, Christianity, though Miss Byrrne is anxious that her book should not be regarded as "a mere attack upon cherished ideas," but rather as "an attempt to delineate a conflict only too likely to occur," and to inspire in her readers "a more
* The Heir without a Heritage. By E. Fairfax Byrrne. 5 vole. London: B.. Bentley and Son.—Thmea. By George Gieeing. S vols. Loudon: Smith. Elder. and Co.—Hidden in My Heart. By Dora Russell. vols. London F. V. White and Co.—Anchorage- By Mrs. Horace Field. 2 vols. London Sampson Low and Co.—An Soil Spirit. By Richard Pryce. 2 vols. London T. rusher Unwin.—A Tangled Chain. 13} J. E. Pantem 2 vols. London Ward and Downey.—Out of Tune. By Lewis Armytage. 2 vols. Loudon: Swan Sonnensobein and Co.—Under a Delusion- By Joan St. Leger. 2 vole. Edin- burgh and London: W. Blackwood and Sons.—A Great Platonic Friendship.
By W. Dutton Burrard. London : Hurst and /Hackett. sympathetic) comprehension of the attitude of mind of those whose thoughts differ from their own." From the point of view of a lover of simple and natural art, this sounds un- promising; but Miss Byrrne is too thorough an artist to allow her polemics entirely to spoil her story. They may, and do, spoil it to some extent ; but when the author has said her say, the book remains an effective novel, but an ineffective argument. A man who in years, in force of character, in native intellectual power, and in acquired experience of the world of men and of books, had such tremendous advantages over the quick-minded but ignorant and unformed country-girl, as the hero of this book, should have been confronted with faith of a very pure and deep kind if he were to fail to acquire dominance over her, and to impress upon her the stamp not only of his individuality, but of his thought. Had Germayne been a Roman Catholic, a Swedenborgian, or a Buddhist, the chances,—so far as mere intellectual causes were concerned,—would still have been im- measurably in favour of his making Judith one with himself. This being so, and Judith's faith not being supposed to have any supernatural root, which of course no agnostic could by any possibility concede to a Christian's faith, the story of the two naturally fails to accomplish the intended purpose, for if an imaginary passage at arms between the so-called old and new thought is to have any intellectual value, it is clear that the re- presentative combatants must present at any rate the appearance of being fairly matched. From the purely intellectual point of view, as we have said, Miss Byrrne is right. Had Germayne and Judith met on equal terms, something would have been gained, but more would have been lost, for her book it would no longer have been a legitimate novel, but a mere fictitious controversy, like a dreadful little story we once read which was written to prove the irrationality and unscripturalness of infant baptism. Indeed, we have dwelt far too long on Miss Byrrne's " purpose ;" but the responsibility is hardly ours, for if a novelist will write a preface telling us what she intends to do, the critic is not to blame if he is thereby thrown off the true scent. Apart from its anti-theology, which does not come to much, The Heir without a Heritage is an admirable novel, strong in grasp of character, and delicate in its delineation, with a style which has both vigour and culture, and is at the same time devoid of either exaggeration or tameness. Rick Blakedeane, the studious ruffian who borrows books from Germayne, and repays him for his brotherly comradeship by endeavouring to murder him, seems to us a rather melodramatic personage, who could be made real only by an inheritor of Emily Brontd's mantle, which does not appear to have descended ; but all Miss Byrrne's other characters are imaginatively satisfying, and the story as a whole is one which, in virtue of both conception and execution, is not likely soon to be forgotten.
Mr. Gissing is another writer whose name on a title-page rouses pleasant expectations, and Thyrza is in no respect dis- appointing. It is, indeed, just possible that the ordinary novel- reader, who has ruined his taste by imaginative condiments, may think that a book which deals mainly with the life of simple workpeople, and lacks the spice of crime, vice, or mystery, is somewhat flavourless ; but for ourselves, we must confess that, though our reading of fiction has been extensive enough to rub off the fine edge of susceptibility to the charm of tale-telling, we have found Thyrza, considered merely as a story, decidedly interesting. The novelists who of late years have found imaginative material in the experiences of the crowd of toilers, have, as a rule, taken us to the East End of London; Mr. Gissing leads us westward, and on his canvas, Lambeth is as effective a background as Stepney or Whitechapel. As is often the case, some of his greatest successes are achieved in the portraits of his subordinate characters. Totty Nancarrow, for example, the careless, free-spoken, self-reliant,but always self. respectful work-girl, is practically a supernumerary who might have been dispensed with; but we really know her much better than we know the heroine, Thyme. We are afraid we shall vex Mr. Gissing by saying this, for Thyrza is evidently the result of much conscientious labour, while it is very likely that Totty has given him hardly any trouble; bat this is only another illus- tration of the law that the things which we do most easily and without any consciousness of effort, are also the things which we do best. Still, we should be very unwilling to seem to depre- ciate the characters who play the principal parts in Mr. Gissing's homely drama. Walter Egremont, the idealist, possessed by the enthusiasm of humanity, who begins his career of philan- thropy by presenting Lambeth with a free library, and who apparently ends it by unwittingly stealing the love of his
librarian's sweetheart, is a very masterly study of a not uncommon eharacter,—the character in which inherent nobility of nature is rendered ineffective by a latent element of weak- ness. Egremont's confession, after his two years of absence, that his passion for Thyrza is a thing of the past, is, from a sentimental point of view, decidedly disappointing, and will probably be resented by the majority of Mr. Gissing's readers, though it is the one thing which they ought not to resent, because it proves the imaginative veracity of the novelist's insight. Thyrza's lover, Gilbert Grail, the shy student-workman, is a more obvious triumph, because the lines of character are in him much less complex than they are in Egremont, and he can therefore be made real by creative imagination alone, without the aid of explanation by critical analysis ; but, after all, Egremont remains the centre of interest in a book which is interesting from its first page to its last.
Miss Dora Russell is a novelist who relies mainly on plot. invention for the production of her effects, and after reading two or three of her books, we discover that her inventive range is somewhat narrow. She has, however, such happy skill in the concealment of her limitations that probably nine out of ten readers do not observe them, though the perusal of Hidden in My Heart impels us to express the cautionary hope that success in such concealment will not induce over-confidence in the obtuseness of the public. The three-volumes-a-day young lady, who is the most influential patron of such novelists as Miss Russell, does not soon tire of mysterious murders; but she likes her murders to be pleasantly varied, and Miss Russell is not quite sensitive enough to the force of the maxim, "Variety is charming." The locality and general surroundings of the murder of Mrs. Orme bear a perilously close resemblance to those of the murder of the young heir in A Broken Seal, and similar devices are employed to prevent the reader from " spotting " too soon the real criminal. We think we have pre- viously noted Miss Russell's ingenuity in keeping a secret, and in the present story her hand shows no sign of having lost its cunning, for we may frankly admit that the confession of the murderer took us by surprise,—an admission which is, perhaps, the best possible testimony to the writer's aptitude for story- weaving. The construction of the book is, indeed, workmanlike throughout ; the style, though not impeccable, is bright and un- affected; the characters are as lifelike as we can fairly expect them to be; and the tale altogether is a very fair specimen of the class of fiction to which it belongs.
There is a certain suggestion of quiet, peaceful repose in the title of Mrs. Horace Field's novel ; and the anticipations which it vaguely inspires are not falsified by the book itself. True, Olga Vincent has to pass through some very stormy waters, and for a time the stress of the tempest that bursts upon her la terrible enough; but Mrs. Field has none of that morbid delight in the picturing of pain, or in rousing the emotions which such picturing excites, which is the besetting weakness of so many feminine novelists, and which makes their work not only de- pressing but enervating. In fact, if we were restricted to any single epithet by which to describe Anchorage, we should speak of it as pre-eminently a healthy book. In both substance and style it is characterised throughout by that winning refinement which shrinks instinctively from exaggeration of line and garishness of colour, and the whole of the second volume is very rich in intellectual and ethical suggestion; but the greatest charm of the book lies in something which can be felt better than it can be described,—a bracing, energising quality in its whole atmosphere, like that of the atmosphere of the moor- land or the sea. Mrs. Field has done wisely in choosing to tell a very simple story,—the story of a girl who, in her inno- cent trustfulness, makes a mistake which, had she not been strong as well as gentle, might have wrecked her life, but who rides bravely through the tempest, and at last finds anchorage in the love of a noble man, and in participation in the work to which he has devoted all his energies. Of mere incident there is not much, though what there is, is adequately treated; nor is there much of deliberate character-sketching, our knowledge of Mrs. Field's personages being derived mainly from their influence on each other. Here and there, there is a little vagueness. We cannot, for example, feel that we realise distinctly the per- sonality of Olga'e nurse, Mrs. Henriques, though her portrait is more elaborate in workmanship than that of any of the other characters, and some of her talks with Theodore Watson are among the best imaginary conversations we have recently Been. The weak, selfish De Lannay is an admirable portrait, and on the whole, we think the two principal masculine characters are Mrs. Field's most successful portraits, though we should not like to depreciate even by implication the charming figure of Olga Vincent.
People who do not enjoy studies in semi-physical, semi-moral disease, had better refrain from making the acquaintance of Mr. Pryce'e novel, An Evil Spirit. We shall not be at all surprised to hear that this story of a refined, cultivated, and originally noble-natured girl, who, like the wretched criminal, Lamson, ruins herself body and soul by sub-cutaneous injections of morphia, has proved a salutary warning to some reader in peril of like catastrophe ; but the mere chance of such a result hardly suffices to justify a pathological novel which is so essentially revolting. Mr. Pryce writes powerfully, and we should say— though this is a point on which we cannot speak with authority —that he has carefully studied and truthfully presented the facts which he utilises in his gruesome story ; but he is so lacking in experience of the constructive art, that we have seldom read a novel equal in talent to An Evil Spirit which was so awkwardly and inartistically put together. The really important part of the story, which deals with Isabel Gordon's descent from prosperity and happiness to uttermost destitution and lowest degradation, is told twice over—once in the writer's own person, and again in the sinner's written confession. This is not only clumsy but wearisome, and equally wearisome are the long wrangles between the silly middle-aged sisters, Mrs. Gilmour and Miss Howard ; for though empty-headedness may be made amusing—witness Mrs. Nickleby—the task demands a Dickens, and in Mr. Pryce we do not find one. As will be seen, the book is the reverse of pleasant, and it is full of faults; but it would be unfair to deny to it a certain sort of crude power.
A Tangled Chain is a very able and arresting story, and is much richer in purely intellectual interest than the average novel, raising as it does the very difficult questions as to whether it is possible for an otherwise normally constituted human being to be entirely destitute of the moral sense; whether such sense, supposing it to exist in germ, can be to all appearances absolutely killed by any system of education ; and whether, after such killing, it is susceptible of revivification by the mere agency of love. Pat into a concrete form, these three questions resolve themselves into one—Is the story of Liza Standen within the range of credibility P—and though it is difficult to limit the potentialities of human nature either for good or evil, we cannot see our way to an affirmative reply. Still, whether possible or impossible, Liza is a startlingly original and impressive creation, and her story is in essence a painfully realistic paraphrase of the story of Undine, the birth of love being for the English girl as well as for the German water-sprite, the birth of the soul. There are reasons which would make it specially unjust to indicate more definitely the course of the tale, but it is well worth reading by any one who can dispense with cheerfulness. Not only is there strength in the central character, but there is admirable workmanship throughout ; and the book certainly inspires us with a desire to read Mr. Panton's previous novels, which we know only by a vague recollection of their names.
In the story of Romanelli, the hero of Out of Tune, Mr. Lewis Armytage professes to give a covering of flesh and blood to the skeleton record of the life of Paganini. As, however, the details are admittedly speculative, and as many of them leave on the mind anything but a pleasant impression of the great violinist, we shall ignore Paganini, and treat the book as an ordinary work of fiction, merely remarking that if the author had anticipated us in this course, he would have been well advised. The story is by no means perfectly planned ; it is noticeably wanting in compactness and symmetry ; but it has life, colour, and movement, and therefore, in spite of all its faults, it is never dull. It is perfectly safe to say that Mr. Armytage is a warm admirer and a careful student of the novels of " Ouida," and those who share his admiration are likely to find in Out of Tune a book to suit them. The critics have had many hard and true things to say about " °aide's " weaknesses ; but in some respects they have done her less than justice. We think, for example, that sufficient note has hardly been taken of the sympathetic skill with which she delineates the pure artistic temperament ; and in such delineation Mr. Army- tage is fairly abreast of his model, for Remand% Teresa, and little Elmo, though conceived in the romantic rather than in the realistic spirit, are genuinely lifelike characters. He has also a good command of effective pathos, which, however, 18 a dangerous gift, as the temptation to be pathetic over-mach is
very strong, and Mr: Armyhtge yields to it rather too con- stantly. Still, when all faults and defects have been noted, the final verdict must be that Out of Tune is an interesting and able story.
It is impossible to find much to say that is worth saying about a novel like Under a Delusion, which is utterly wanting in character and individuality. The young man and woman who fall in love with each other, who are separated by a cruel parent, who are kept apart by the delusive belief in each other's inconstancy, and who are finally freed from the delusion and- brought together to live happily ever afterwards, are very old and not very entertaining acquaintances. Bernard de Queraya and Kathleen Burnley do not differ in any noticeable manner from their innumerable predecessors. While under the delusion, he writes cynical books and she devotee herself to works of benevolence, these being the traditional methods of bearing up under the burden of love disappointments. Our interest in such a story is naturally languid, and it MI not stimulated by anything like vivacity of style ; but the book has, at any rate, two merits,—it is short and it is perfectly harmless.
Happily, we cannot remember all the novels that have passed through our hands, and therefore we cannot eay with absolute- certitude that A Great Platonic Friendship is the silliest, most vulgar, and most sickening story that we have ever read, though we think that if we had once known its equal in these respects we could not easily have forgotten it. The only respectable thing about the work is the publishers' name on the title-page, and we heartily regret seeing it there.
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