Red Riding Hood. By Fanny E. Milled Notley. 3 vols.
(Hurst and Blackett.)—This is a story about Nihilism, which seems likely to become a favourite subject for the writers of fiction. Novelty, of course, is desirable, and novelty daily becomes more and more diffi- cult of attainment. But surely Nihilism suggests a very obvious difficulty. The drawing-rooms of duchesses are more or less acces- sible, and anybody who can pay for the price of a pint of beer may enter a tap-room; even when it is inconvenient to be present in per- son, it is not difficult to evolve out of one's consciousness what is said and done in such places. But who knows what goes on in the secret councils which doom emperors to death ? There is an inclination to rebel, not so much at the imaginary, but at what we know must be imaginary. There has, however, been no great effort of imagination made in this part of Red Riding Hood. The hero has broken with his associates, and is doomed, according to custom, to die; the doom, however, is not executed. A minor character is, it is taw, poisoned by the agents of the society, but the great catastrophe of the drama is brought about by private vengeance. The story is some. what slow in its movement in its earlier part. There is far too mach fine-writing, for a book which is meant, we suppose, to depend for its chief interest upon incident. Here is a specimen of what has been said before, and said better :—
" The young cling passionately to hope, and as they press forvrard to their desire, they fling the hours from them impatiently, they count the days heavy and slow ; they would fain tread them down beneath their eager feet, forgetting that these are portions of their inheritance, their share of time ; and each day falls into its place in that strange mosaic pattern they are weaving, upon which they will look back in age and say, in wonder and sorrow, 'That was my life.'
In the third volume there is a manifest improvement. The action is vigorous, and the plot well contrived. Is not this, by the way, a new arrangement of familiar words ?-
Quo disble allait.il faire Lens oette gelere?"
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