BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13355, 8 December 1906, Page 5 (Supplement)

BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

The Car op Desti.vt: By C. X. and A. M. -Williamson, Methuen »nd Co., London.—The WilMumsons have made the mote novel iheir *pedal business, and if there is a tendency for tin se novel.* to becom... a ]rtfk* too; much like advertisements, and guide-books that is pardonable if the ear .doe* prodigies and tlie twrr is enchanting when the ink itself it good. This tale is good 'enough, though not equal to ?": that charming moto-story. "The Princes Pass*.*,*' It tells bow ft Carlist life's son, forbidden Spain, ventures in through love * of an English girl who is attached to the mite of -the' Princess Ena. A black-browed ft! Spanish duke with * Moorish taint arid -ft boorish manners, has set his heart on win- ' : ; ft ning the girl of the Carlist count. . The Carlist has a faithful English chauffeur and "4 a faithful American friend, and they 'meet , some Spanish "O'Donnels,'* whose .founder ■■■ii went, in with Wellington and never came out. and who take the wooer to their bosom and pass him a* their brother. Everybody uses motors?, of course, and after many J adventures, attempted assassinations, ab-/ft ductions, and so forth, the last run of the ; ; incomparable car of a. special brand— this kind, no other—is made to a bull tight, where the lovers are united and the black, ;ft duke exposed and disgraced. in this clos- '•'-'! ing act of the drama the. reader may look '."\ on, with our English princess, at arealiV lie scene of this Spanish game of pricking ; and sticking and torturing dumb beast*. ■

, Tin; PCTtTRK is Amkri. \: By M, U. k Well." George Bell and Sons, London.— *ft The name of Mr. Wells is so associated .ft with the pseudo-scientific, wonder story and particularly with dreams of "what may hap- V pen in the far,future, when -the Marxians invade us or a comet strikes the earth or somebody invents a fowl that grows men to 60 feet high with corresponding minds, that one naturally expects this book to lie ft something similar. ii„ the contrary, it is- : fti a series ot carefully-written impressions of America m it actually is in the tilings which are .ikelyJo have most influence upon its .mure. One may even say that, thev;aro r elaborated "notes," from which Mr.- Wells ft might construct one of the tales that have such a semblance of probability, because >»• logically deduced frt Ul the actualities of today. .; Much of them have already been / pub.isl.ed in an English journal. They«ft deal with a dozen of the leading features of American life, the immigration, the colour question, the industrial question, culture; '-'ft child labour, political corruption, aspects of ■ wealth and the race after wealth ; and dealwith them all in a masterly fashion. And s his conclusion from them is:— "I came to : ; America questioning the certitudes of pro-ft gress, lor a time I forgot my question- -'- lags;, I sincerely believed, "These people - can do anything.' and, now I have it all : in perspective, I have to Confess tint doubt : has, taken mo again. 'These people,' I say, might do anything. They are the ; finest peop.o upon earth—the most hopeful. But they are vain and hasty; tliev "ft are, thoughtless, harsh, and undisciplined. In the end it may be, they will accomplish nothing.' I see, I have noted in its place, ;" tho groat.forces of construction, the buoy- ft ant, creative, spirit of America. : But * I have marked, too. the intricacy of: snares and. obstacles in its path. The problem of iZTA% sa.ve in its , ■ stale and freedom. £no different from'tho problem of Ureal Britain; of Europe, of all humanity ;ft is ; one chiefly moral and intellectual rit is to - resolve a confusion of purposes, traditions : - habits, into a common ordered intention '.'ft Everywhere one finds what seem to me tlm ' beginnings of thal-and, for this epoch it is all too possible, they may get no further than beginnings. Yet another Decline and " J? alll may remain to bo written, another and another, and it may be another, before the. Vvor.d State comes and Peace. A ; "After all lis said and done; I do find ft the balance. of my mind ..tilts steadily to a : ft belief m a continuing and accelerated pro- ? gress now in human, affairs.- And in spit,, of my. patriotic inclinations/in spite ; too of the present high intelligence, and efficiency of Germany, it seems to me that in America., by sheer, virtue of its size, its : : ; i free traditions, ,and the habit of initiative - ,-m its people, the leadership of progress must ultimately rest. Things like the Chi- ft cago scandals, the insurance scandals, and all the manifest crudities of the American-ft spectaele, don't seem' to me to be mom than relatively trivial after all. There are the universities, the turbines of Niagara, the New York architecture, and theft? quality of tho mediocre people to set against ft these." ...

. CiumsGE: By .-Stanley... P." Wevma;*. Macmillan and Co., Ltd." London.~Thi.« story may -not he as i immediately and phenomenally popular as " A Gentleman- of i! ranee, but it will do more for Mr. v\Vey-' man's permanent fame as ; a historic novelist. For in every r respect lit is' on; a higher plane than that usually aimed at by; the writer of popular novels. * It deals with a great political crisis in the United Kingdom, the .agitation for the Reform BiK in lSul, when only the knowledge that the King was on the side of the People prevented revolution from sweeping away th« abuses of the rotten borough : system. Chippinge is a rotten borough with thirteen voters, and on the schemes and intrigues for securing its' two members the plot mainly depends. Most of r the 'great' characters of the day are introduced;" the incidence of Wetherell, the bitterest opponent of the Bill, serving to introduce the riots at Bristol, -whereto'he was sent as Recorder. In the love story, the herb ~of the book, a young politician of good family and popular sympathies, falls in love with**' pretty schoolteacher, who turns out to be his. cousin, and his uncle's heiress, hidden, in babyhood by her mother. The uncle is the Tory landlord of Oitippinge, arid the nephew's acceptance of the Bill causes a, bitter quarrel, which is made.'up when th» nephew rescues his cousin at Bristol, and. leads the troops in the charge that. scattered the rioters. The story i* well and carefully told, the history of the times''ami: topography of the places art: closely followed, the characters are etched with giw»* skill and the dramatic situations are introduced and sustained with all Mr. Wevman's old skill. Altogether, it. is on of the books which everybody who wants to keen abreast of modern English . literature wif -'i sooner or later have to read. . .';'--:.:...

( A Happy Mabbiaoe : By Ada Cambridge George Bell and Sons, London.—The average colonial .writer .throws at tho public a book whose only commendation is that it is a "local industry," and deals with local topics. But the "Happy Marriage" is a Melbourne story, which might be of anywhere without (spoiling it, for it is readable in itself. A happy-go-lucky Melbourne journalist, son of a well-to-do ironmonger, falls in love with an Anglican rector s daughter, because she is so simple and true and so contemptuous of the pre. tensions of life. And when he marries he V finds out that she is rather fonder of the pretensions of life than most women are, 'C and the marriage becomes a tragedy. They .1 practically separate,: but when in deep . v trouble she sends for him and lets him have his own way, which apparently leads to hap- ' piness. This is quite heretical; teaching, > but Ada Cambridge (Mrs. Cross) is herself; j! a long-married woman and ought to know. ;'