A NEW ZEALAND NOVEL

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 146, 21 June 1924, Page 17

A NEW ZEALAND NOVEL

"The Tired AngeL" By Else M. Story. London: Arthur H. Stockwell. (From Wbiteombe and Tombs, Wellington.)

, The writer, a N-elson lady, has taken her title from a quotation from Olive Schreiner, viz.: "&o that it may be at last that sexual love—that tired angeL .. ." This, by way.of introduction might, lead the prospective' reader - to suppose that "The Tired Angel" was going to prove yet another of those novels by young people of both sexes, who brag that they call a spade a spade and leave nothing to he inferred,' imagined, or understood when they portray lewdness and, call it life. '•The Tired Angel''_ is nothing of that-sort. It is a quite simple and innocuous story of (for the most part) wholesome homely folk; in fact, quite unexceptionable characters. It tells how a pretty New Zealand girl, married. when very young to a titled Englishman, leaves her. unprincipled and uncongenial husband and returns to her native land to be at peace. Unfortunately, and against her better judgment she had listened to her mother's counsel—as any decent girl would do, nay, is generally exhorted to do—with the result that, although her husband was a younger son of tie Earl of Crashe and had £15,000 a .year, the marriage was a catastrophe. To add insult to injury, the baby born of the union was "an old, wizened," flaccid little creature of unmistakable type.-: Blind and feeble, it clung to me,, crying'weakly, seeming to ask why I'had called it into being. .And I —I was horrified—dismayed. . What'could one make of such material as that? The child did not live more than a fe.w weeks, however. And I was glad. I love'little children; but that— *^at •" This quotation is word for word, point for, point from "The Tired Angel." If the Biblical. definition of a "few" be acceptable, .the child could have lived-but eight weeks. Although the newborn baby, as a rule is not prepossessing yet, unless it is malformed, to its mother, at least, its good looks are seen in advance.' However, with such repugnance shown towards her offspring, it was no wonder that Rosalind Brannington fled from austere England back to sunny New Zealand. There she met the nicest of fictional people, told all her sad life story to a fine and sympathetic man, a typical New Zeaiander of the noveb'st; and after a stormy reunion with her husband, met with an accident that terminated fatally, tjut not long 'after, allowing her to complete a novel to be published after'her death. ■ ■ - <....;

Elsie M. Story, if this work is any-i thing to go by, has riot had' a very wide experience of life. That is a good thing ■ because it implies tasting its bitters'as well as its sweets. Bnt such experience always comes out in one's work "The Tired Angel" is slight in structure, hut well written. It is' not overburdened witn descriptions of scenery, and contains much that young girls will read with avidity and he none the worse for It is not every'novel written by women Anu^ eS\ ds ys of Which that can be said. Although described under different place names,_ parts of Nelson will be recognised m "The Tired Angel" hy those familiar with that delightful district The novel may be taken as a modest contribution to the still very small quantity of fiction that has been written with New Zealand for its background