THE LATEST FICTION

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1685, 15 June 1904, Page 24

THE LATEST FICTION

“Tomaso’s Fortune.” By IT. Setoil Merriman. Macmillan and Co., London. J. W. ‘Davidson, Wellington.

The average novel-reader lost much by the death of Mr Seton Merriman, for his work had attained a high level, and was always interesting. In a recent notice of this novelist, one writer observes that “Mr Merriman never outraged convention, or broke roughly with well-estab-lished tradition. He had, to a striking degree, the faculty of handling a concentional type and making out of it something just a little unusual. . . His diplomatists were inscrutable, silent, potent men, just the sort of diplomatists we like our diplomatists to be, but which, alas, they seldom or never are. Their potency remains potency to the end of the story; they never say anything clever or do' anything remarkable, but we feel all the time we are with them that they are just on the point of surprising us.” Tjuder the title of “Tomaso’s Fortune” we have a series of short stories, but they are not up to the standard, of “Barlasch of the Guard,” for instance, and they ought not to be compared with so finished a piece of workmauship; hut they are all of good character, and are altogether satisfactory, and those who> have read all the late novelist lias written will not miss reading “Tomaso’s Fortune/’

“Misrule of Three.” By Florence War- --- den. George Bell and Sons, London. Gordon and Gotch, Wellington.

This Is/ certainly one of the best stories Miss.,Warden has yet given to the public. It turns on the extraordinary behaviour of a wealthy old gentleman, who lives in seclusion in a little island near Guernsey, . to his nephew. Not having seen his relative for many years, the young man runs over from London to pay him a visit, accompanied by two friends. So inexplicable is bis reception that he makes inquiries, and is thereby led to investigate what turns out to be a very queer and puzzling situation. In the end Mr Baytlett Bayre, jun., has no cause to regret that he undertook the inquiry. The plot is cleverly constructed' the interest never flags, and the reader’s curiosity is kept

awake to the very last. It is safe to say that the denouement, when it conies, is the last solution of the mystery expected.

“Life in a Garrison Town.” By Lieut. Bilse. John Lane, the Bodley Head, London. Wliitcombe and Tombs, Wellington. This book created a great sensation in Germany. It struck every German on a tender spot—his love and admiration of the army. It exposed its corruption, the cruelty of the non-com-missioned officer towards the common soldier, and the degeneracy of the life of officers. The Kaiser was wroth. He ordered the suppression of the bock, and the dismissal of its author from the army. Lieut. Bilse had, however, sent in. his resignation, but it was not accepted before his book was published, and he was court-martialled and is now in gaol at Metz. But the effect of his hook will not be stifled by his imprisonment, nor will its influence be minimised by its suppression. Forbach, the garrison town described, was full of the book before the trial of Lieut. Bilse, and even the day labourers throughout the Fatherland were devouring its pages. The characters were drawn to life, and what added to the trouble was that they recognised themselves, that they were recognised by others, and that the trial revealed how true were the descriptions of the book, even to the musical evenings among the officers and their wives, and the dances and illicit love-making, with accounts of which the book rather flagrantly abounds. Altogether it is clever, but not elevating, ft is too realistic, and it exhibits little or no delicacy of feeling. That, of course, is how it hit the Emperor and all the Germans who are of the army and official caste, and it ivas on that account it was tabooed and suppressed. A telegram from Berlin last month shows that Lieutenant Bilse's work is not likely to be forgotten in a hurry. “The trial of Lieuteuaut Bilse in connection with the revelations in his book 'Aus einer kleiner Garnison’ continues to exercise the public mind, and to cast a cloud over the army. The case has again been brought to the fore by a lively discussion on the dismissal from the army of three high officers who acted as judges in the court-martial, and who are believed to have incurred the serious displeasure of the authorities on account of not having conducted the trial with closed doors.”

The “Vossische Zeitung” is attacking the system of courts-martial, and says that while the Emperor was greatly displeased at the fact that the Bilse trial was a public one, Count von Bulow, in .tlie Reichstag, has expressed his satisfaction that it was so l . Debt and corruption are the causes that are devouring the Gorman Army system, and there is a deplorable degeneracy from the condition that obtained in the decade preceding the fall of Sedan and the siege of Paris.