A MUSICAL ROMANCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14566, 31 December 1910, Page 4 (Supplement)

A MUSICAL ROMANCE.

' Mk. Bi..ukwooi> is a master y>f the art. of writing stories dealing with the occult and teeming with fantasy, and in "The lima?) Chord " (Maeniillan. London) has excelled himself, producing a - romance which every musician, a] least. will "read with vivid intercut, lie possesses a convincing style, and can use effectively that se-mi-seiontitic form .of language which tends to indtke in the mind of the unsophist icat-cd reader, a belief in quite imaginary investigation, but have ically no foundation in j.';u t. A young man named liobett Spinrobin is engaged as so.touiiv by a clergyman, who is on the point of completing a long series of researches having for their aim the creation in bodily ir spiritual form of an almighty being with no other means than a wonderful chord of scund. which chord is to he obtained by four persons singing its name in mi't-or:. Put down in black and white ihe scheme seems lidiculous. and even profane, but Mr. Blackwood has sustained his idea right through, and employs with line, effect a lot at colour of Hebrew, of sand figures, of tuning forks, and of huge vaulted Receivers made of v.ax and hung with the colours conesponding to the various note* of his chord. A clever writer never permits* his readers to see clearh the logical termination to j a phantasm of this nature: he must sooner I or later fall from the clouds ol his imagination to the terra firma of actual lite, if he is to keep up the division to the very end: and the success of the work depend* in large- measure on the way this return to- the world of ordinary mortals is hendled. Through the medium of the beautiful love-story of Spinrobin and Miriam, who each sing one of the notes of the chord, the author has solved the problem, .aid solved it. too, so naturally and with such fine artistic feeling, _ thai we are almost persuaded to believe in the reality of his characters and the feasibility of the pan they play.