NOVELS OF THE WEEK.*
IF the present age is not distinguished for the cult of letters, it is at least remarkable for the cult of the literary man,— literataritis, as it has been called by a convenient adapta- tion of the current medical jargon. By an act of what cannot fail to be regarded as desertion, if not of literary cannibalism, amongst the coteries of penmen, Mr. Barrie in his new novel has ranged himself alongside of the dead- liest enemies of this cult. For nothing kills like ridicule, and the aim of Tommy and Grizel is to render the literary mart • (1.) Tommy and Cried. By J. IL Barrie. London : Cassell and Co. [68.] —(3.) St. Peter's Unsbrella. By Kilroan Mikszath. Translated from the Hungarian by B. W. Worawlek. With an Introduction by R.. Nisbet Bain. London : Jerrold and Sons. (6&]—(3.) John Charity: a Romance of Yesterday. By Horace Annesley VachelL London : John Murray. [6&]—(4.) The Lane that had No Turning. By Gilbert Parker. London : W. Heinemann. [6s.)- (5.) The Puppet Show. By Marian Bower. London : Constable and Co. [66.] —(6.) The .Blessing of Esau: a Romance of the Marchlands. By Frank Savile. London: Sampson Low, Marston, and Co. 6&—(7.) The Pretty P011Y. By W. Clark Russell. London : Chatto and Windus. tbs.]—(S.) Rue with a Difference. By Rosa Nouchette Carey. London : Macmillan and Co. [6a]
ridiculous, and even contemptible. The hero is that " senti- mental Tommy" the story of whose childhood and boyhood was set forth in an earlier volume, a complex yet engaging person- ality about whose further intellectual and moral expansion Mr. Barrie excited natural curiosity. A sequel was inevitable, for life-histories—the form of fiction most in vogue amongst the serious writers of to-day—cannot be broken off at the age of sixteen. Mr. Barrie has now gratified that curiosity, but in such a way as to disappoint many of his warmest admirers. Tommy comes up to London, where, after serving a short but 'Or severe apprenticeship as the amanuensis of a hack-writer, he achieves instant fame by his first work, and returns to Thrums to exploit his celebrity, and alienate the sympathy of the reader by an unseemly exposure of the foibles of the artistic temperament. Still, though this gradual process of self- revelation is distressing enough, it is redeemed in the Grub Street and Thrums chapters by a sufficiency of diverting episodes. 0. P. Pym, the burly Bohemian, is mildly enter- taining ; Corp and Gavinia, and Aaron Latta retain a good deal of their original raciness. But the further Tommy emerges from boyhood, the more frankly unendurable he becomes. What was amusing in a boy and a literary apprentice becomes repulsive in a grown man. His impulses are mainly right; at half a dozen critical moments he behaves with generosity, courage, even heroism. But the psychological surroundings of every action are detestable. Directly he has done anything fine he whips out a mental notebook and turns himself into " copy " in the spirit of Jack Horner. He is an experimentalist in emotions, who sees the romantic or tragic possibilities of every situation as it occurs to him, works it out then and there (always with himself as hero), and awakes to the world around him by suddenly thinking aloud. This experience is common to all of us ; it has been described by many writers, notably by Daudet in his charming sketch of the amiable vagaries of M. Joyeuse, but it has been reserved for Mr. Barrie to represent the habit in its most contemptible and un- dignified manifestations. The story reaches a critical stage with the resumption of Tommy's friendship with GrizeL The Painted Lady's daughter sees through Tommy's posing and affectation, but in spite of the grotesquely contemptible incident of the sham sprained ankle, yields to his magnetism. Their chequered courtship and inevitable estrangement—for Tommy is ex hypoth,esi incapable of loving any one but himself —described in a number of long-drawn scenes of distressingly unbridled sentimentality, are sufficiently trying, but these amantium irae are infinitely preferable to the preposterous sequel of Tommy's flirtation with the egregious Lady Pippinworth, Grizel's pursuit of Tommy across Europe, his amazing marriage to her while out of her mind, his speedy return to the society siren, and his ludicrously bathetic death,—the most deplorable denouement that we have ever encountered in a work by an author of real talent. It does not help us in the least to regard Tommy's death as an elaborate joke. It is deplorable enough if taken as a serious satire ; viewed as farce, it becomes an almost incredibly tasteless essay in frigid folly. It is true that in the earlier stages of the book Mr. Barrie indulges in con- stant " asides " at the expense of his hero, "grins at him at the end of every paragraph," as we heard a reader say ; but there is not an iota of internal evidence to show that be means the catastrophe to be taken otherwise than in earnest. It is painful to see a writer of Mr. Barrie's gifts and conscientious- ness descend to such depths of ineptitude as he has done in the last half of this volume. But no critic worthy of the name can hail it as a masterpiece, or even a good book, without stultifying himself and renouncing the most ele- mentary responsibilities of his post.
Messrs. Jarrold have deserved well of the novel-reading public by introducing them to that delightful Hungarian humourist, Kálmán Mikszah. It is not every novelist who, like Mikszah, enjoys the honour of being translated by a reigning Monarch, but King Oscar of Sweden (so we read in Mr. Nisbet Bain's preface) has acted as his interpreter in Scandinavia, and now, better late than never, Mr. Worswick has given us a capital version of the series of " humoresken" collected under the title of St. Peter's Umbrella. The freshness, geniality, high spirits, and humour of Mikszith make him a most fascinating companion. His peasants and priests, Jews and gentlefolk, are amazingly human. Nothing happens in the way in which things happen with us, but this surprise is a source of delight rather than perplexity. Mikszaith's style is quite his own, un- conventional and unstudied, and abounds in whimsical touches, as for example :—" The dog's name was Vistula (The Hungarian peasants generally give their dogs the name of a river, thinking it prevents hydrophobia.)" Or again, in speaking of a very poor soil : "A soil like that can- not be spoken of as 'Mother Earth,' it is more like • Mother- in-law Earth.' " And how delightful is the legend written on the door of the Jewess's clothing shop : "Only the lilies of the field can dress themselves cheaper than you can in this shop." In fine, Mikszith is a born storyteller, and these charming sketches of the humours of Slovak life will not only repay perusal, but stimulate the desire to know more of so engaging a writer. His gaiety is always unforced, be can be tender at will, but his pathos—to judge from this book —is wholly free from any falsetto notes.
Unless it be Mrs. Atherton, there is no living writer who can excel Mr. Vachell in realising the magical charm of California before the influx of the Outlander. John Charity opens spiritedly enough in England in the "thirties," where the nar- rator, a Hampshire yeoman, and his foster-brother, the son of a Baronet of the Regency, are involved in a series of embarrass- ments, leading to their abrupt flight to Monterey, where John Charity takes service under Alvarado, loses his heart to the affianced bride of a villainous Mexican, an intrepid girl, who returns his love, but after many thrilling adventures sacrifices her life to save that of the wife of John's foster-brother. It is a most picturesque story of Alta California, steeped in sun- shine, and full of murderous swordplay, daring horsemanship, and tropical love-making. The reader may resent the tragie, catastrophe, but after all Magdalena, fascinating as she was, was ill fitted for the trials and disappointments of everyday life.
Mr. Gilbert Parker—whom we have to congratulate on his Parliamentary honours—has collected in The Lane that had No Turning a number of short stories and sketches dealing in detail and episodically with those phases of French-Canadian life already illustrated on a larger canvas in his earlier romances. The story from which the collection takes its name has for its theme the devotion of a famous though humbly born singer to her husband--the seigneur of the district—on whom the curse of hereditary deformity has fallen after his marriage to big brilliant and gifted wife. The portrait of the seigneur, who is more than half a rebel, and is only restrained from active dis- loyalty by the tact of his wife, is a fine picture of the brooding visionary embittered by the ever-present consciousness of his defect. To complete the tragedy Madelinette discovers the missing will which bequeathed the estate to her husband's rival and enemy. Another powerful story is that of the sufferings of the excommunicated voyageur and the gradual breaking down of his recalcitrancy. The homely life and simple manners of the habitant are of peculiar interest at a moment like the present when the exploits of the French- Canadians are fresh in the grateful memory of the British reader, and readers of When Valmond Came to Pontiac need not to be told of the sympathy and skill with which Mr. Parker interprets and illustrates these engaging traits. A propos of the singer-heroine of the first story, we suppose it was of set purpose that Mr. Parker gave her the same maiden- name as Madame Albani,—Lajeunesse.
The Puppet Show is a novel of cross-purposes in which the wrong people all fall in love with each other. Whether the delaisses, the respective objects of whose affections have married each other, are intended at the end to administer mutual consolation Miss Marian Bower is far too modern to indicate clearly. The last sentence is duly ambiguous, and every reader is allowed to finish the book according to his Own taste. For the rest, the story is a good modern novel of society, written in a lively manner. The character drawing is clever, and Miss Bower's " puppets " dance with more individual life than those of many of her contemporaries.
Mr. Frank Savile has put much more entertainment into his "romance of the marchlands," The Blessing of Esau, than the novel reviewer is accustomed to look for in the average semi-historical romance. The characters, or at least several of them, have no lack of vitality, and the story abounds in movement and incident. The best thing in the book is the portrait of Prince Eugene, the "little grey-clad. horseman" who would seem to have been the prototype of a more modern general whom we all delight to honour.
Plot is not a strong point with Mr. Clark Russell ; indeed, he can hardly lay claim to have more than an "air with varia- tions." The variations in his latest book, The Pretty Polly, are not very novel, but happily there always remains the in- comparable charm of phrase with which Mr. Clark Russell writes of the sea and of sailing ships. This is given us as freshly and melodiously as ever in his latest story.
Even Miss Carey has never introduced a more transparent atimmderstanding to separate two lovers than that which estranges the sub-hero and heroine in Rue with a Difference. The names of these young people are Gurth and Pansy, and from this the ingenious and experienced reader will quickly judge of their natures. Miss Carey always appeals to those who are interested in the particular world she writes about, and this book is at least a fair specimen of her amiable talent.
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