THREE NOVELS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1682, 25 May 1904, Page 22

THREE NOVELS

“Myra of the Pines.” By Hermann Iv. Yiele. T. Fisher Unwin, London. Whiteombe and Tombs, Wellington.

This is a bright, clever and withal restful story of a happy and sunshine spreading girl. The author has rare powers of description, and the scenes of the burning pine forest and of the pigbreeder’s domestic life are remarkably realistic. Myra Dale’s troubles are not serious ones. Her father is somewhat eccentric, and MyVa lias a trouble with him, but more over a vulgar land agent, who desires her to wife. She is rescued from this fate by a Swedish speculator, and the end is pleasing. The style and merit of the author’s work may be noted from the following dialogue between Myra’and her mother:—

“To my mind we were guided here,” declared her mother, piously. “Oh, no!” protested Myra, undismayed; “our obvious destination was the poorhouse, and I am not at all sure it might not have been the best. Father would have invented a reversible coffin for paupers worth a fortune m itself, and you, mother, might have stamped yourself upon the age. Think of the copy for the “Inglenook” right at hand—- “ Poorhouse Papers,” “Letters from a Lazaretto,” “Chats with the Criminal Insane.’ Oh,, it was a sacrifice, our coming hore. Even I might have caused ill-feeling between the junior -warden —if there is such a person—and the assistant visiting physician—if they have one; now I shall never have another chance to be thoroughly interesting.” “Myra,” said Mrs Dale, becoming thoughtful, “of course what- you say is absolutely idiotic, but I wonder we never thought before of the poorhouse as a scheme of local colour.”

“Mother/’ rejoined Myra, gravely, “if you should study local colour in the poorhouse the result would be an intrigue of court life in the time of Charles the Second. When our surroundings are the shabbiest, your characters are always most refined.” “And slummy things are always in demand,” reflected Mrs Dale, pursuant of her former train of thought. “Let us sit down here and talk it over.” The roadside bank was smooth and clean, and springy with a mat of dead brown needles fallen from above; the low, sweet droning of the autumn wind among the pines a stimulant to 1 fancy. About the cross-roads the forest stretched a county’s breadth on every side, its trees all young and lusty, and of equal size—ail aftermath without history or tradition, but not without possibilities of its own. Here one was free to imagine anything that had ever been in any forest; and better, other things that do. net belong to forests. “Listen ! I am.sure something is coming,” cautioned Mrs Dale.

Myra shook her head. “If you listen in the woods, mother,” she replied, “you will always hear something coming. I hear it every day and every night, always nearer and nearer, but never here. Sometimes it is like the paddles of the Sound steamers that used to pass the end of our old street in Astoria ; sometimes a train of Pullman cars upon a, bridge, and sometimes only a funeral jolting over the cobble-stones from the Ninety-second street Ferry.” “No, not like that,” the other cried in protest. “Let us hear nothing but pleasant things.” “I don’t care much what they are, if they would only come,” said Myra, recklessly. In all the silent autumn day no'thing could realty happen in the pinela'nds, so it was safe to thrown a challenge’down to chance. And other days would he the same—the patient shadows and the patient sun, and in the trees a ceaseless mimicry of life and death. Nothing would ever come —except Mr Ramsey in his buggy. ’ “Wait till you father sells one of his inventions,” admonished Mrs Dale, as one recalls the cheerful fiction of the expected ship.

‘The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rugen.” By the author of “Elizabeth and her German Garden.” Macmillan and Co*, London. ‘The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rugen” show Elizabeth transported from her German Garden and on the enterprise of driving round the island of Rugen. Her original plan of enjoying solitude. tempered only by a silent maid, was carried out for some days, in which period she had ample time to describe her impressions of,the scenery and the less perfect inns. Then the scheme was shattered by tlie advent first of a strenuous woman-cousin, wedded to a Professor of European celebrity, but for the moment in revolt against the Professor ; next of the wife of an English Bishop and her son, passionate admirers of the Professor; and lastly of the old Professor himself. These personages m their mutual relations develop many complex situations, and Elizabeth’s failure to evolve a complete harmony is treated with her habitual lightness _ of touch. The old Professor especially is a new and charming addition to her gallery of German types. A charming story delightfully told.

“Rulers of Kings.” By Gertrude Atherton. Macmillan and Co., London. Mrs Atherton’s novel is an audacious experiment. She has written a histori-

cal romance; blending imaginary personages with real; but the kings of her romance are tlie living Emperors of Germany and Austria, and she has done her best to give a vivid portraiture of both in imaginary circumstances. To contrive her plot she invents for heroine a daughter of the Austrian Emperor young and beautiful; while her hero, is an idealised American, horn to countless millions, with brains and ambitions to use them. The conflicts in the book are not fought with weapons, but with money on the one hand, royal power and prestige on tlie other, forces wielded by strong and passionate character. The action centres about the ever-present Hungarian crisis, and the heroine is shown using her personal charm first to subjugate the Hungarians, then to detach from the Emperor William his {American ally, who. can furnish the funds of war. Mrs Atherton lias conveyed the atmosphere of romance which hangs about the ill-fated Hapsburg house not only by the figure of this imaginary princess, but by her presentment of the dead Archduke Rudolf’s personality.