BOOK NOTICES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14280, 31 July 1908, Page 6

BOOK NOTICES.

— o ( "The Bishop's Scapegoat.''" By Thomas < Jlaily Clegg. l/ondon anil New York: < John Lane. (3s 6d, 2s 6d.) ! Those who remember Mr Cletgg'e pre- j vions novels, "The Wilderness" and ' "The Love Child," will expect something ! more than usually good 1 at bis hands, and 1 they will not he disappointed. "The ( Bishop's Scapegoat," ifi a fine hook. We £ find in it the. same wide range of experi- 1 ence, the game extended, though occa- , sionally superficial, acquaintance' with many lands and many races which marked the author's previous work. "From the lone village in Devon to the tropical luxuriance of Queensland, and from the slums of Paris to Noumea, is a pretty 1 wide range of travel, and .Mr Clegig seems equally at home in each place. If anything, hits skill', as well as his sympathy, ' reeuis especially with the convict station, ' and his detailed account of the life and ) sulfering of the unfortunate prisoners stirs the reader's inind to a desperate 1 revolt.' against t'he whole pernicious eys-. ' teni; tut, just -as in "The Wilderness," the same author treated impersonally of the sufferings'of the kanakas of North 1 Queensland, eo here he merely states his : cafe, showing the abuses to 'which such { systems are inevitably subject, but draw- ' i"g no conclusions, offering no (suggestion ' for their improvement. He is not a. * reformer; merely a story-teller. finch { things are, and, knowing that they are, ' he u?es the knowledge for his own artistic ' purpose. The result is strengthened by ' this very reticence, and the story of an 1 innocent man of gentle birth and breed- ' ing condemned to herd with the vilest ' criminals, and that of his exquisite ' young (laughter, who desires to share his l . captivity and iiis life on the "'concession," ' gains rather than loses from the author's ' self-restraint. The chief interest of the ! story restG on the deep ethical question, ( not of crime, but of motive. A passion- 1 ate man, .still young, falls on the traducer and insulter of his sister, and in the mad- : ness of angev chokes the life out of him. * That the unintentional' murderer should ' be a clergyman neither adds nor detracts 1 from ithe fact that ho is a man who, 1 fo'- all his training, has his passions but ' little under control. The dying man, for ! he is not yet quite dead, is discovered by Bertrand, a doctor of medicine, whom j hf has mercilessly blackmailed and otherwise injured. The doctor l;nows that by 1 supreme effort he might restore the waai- ■ ing life; but why should lie? The man ( is a human viper, whose presence poisons 1 tlie air. He. leaves him alone, seeks for, ( and finds, t'he letters of which he has been ' robbed, and many similar documents. ' Ho commits them one by one to the ! flames. By this, time the man is dead. j Who is the .nurderer? The doator is ] seen, accused, condemned (partly,tin his ] own confession), and sent to the convict ' settlement of Noumea. The clergyman, 1 searching the papers for tidings of his crime, does not recognise- the murdered , man under one of his numerous aliases, thinks his deed undiscovered, suffers in mind and in health, and is made Bishop of Capricornia (North Queensland). Such is the central theme, 'and it is ona of profound psychological and human interest. To the last Dr Bertrand maintains ' that, he was guilty at heart, " The man '.! was not dead when • you let' him. I could have restored him to life. It was in .my power' by my skill a 6 a physician (to do it. But I did not because I wished him .dead. 1 let liim die—deliberately — 'because I wanted it so. At the time it did not seem to me thus, but now-1 know that I killed him. . Youhad no thought to kill him. . . I wished him dead, and -let him die." On tlio other hand Bertrand's chief friend, Dr Thißauld, declares that the Bishop is guilty before God, that "he should have faced the consequences of lvLs act." Whatever may be the opinion of the reader on this point, it is evident that the sensational title and t!ic vulgarly sensational picture-cover of the book are a direct injustice to the deep ethical and moral significance of a problem which the greatest sociologist nu'ight find it hard to answer. The Bishop gives Bertrand a written confession -which he is at liberty "to publish throughout Australia, throughout the world." Bertrand tears it 1 in two. " Burn it. We go, you and I, before the ■ Great Judge. . . . Leave ; it to .Hun to judge between us. We go as children, we who are old ones; it is not good' for us to carry vengeance to the feet of God. It is for Him- to judge and punish—not for me.'' Most admirably is this tome worked out in many characters—from the fathers to the children, in many countries and under many conditions, from the 1 conventions of the old ■world to the freedom of the new. There is bitter irony an the eccnes where the Bishop refuses to let his only son marry Bertrand's daughter because of the taint of. convict blood' which might cling to their' children. There is a fine sense of humour in the character and conversation of " the M-adaine," the sympathetic owner of " Mon Repos," the cockney wife of a French emigrant, the wealthy mistress of a wide domain, the friend dnd protectress of Cecilc," thfe whole-hearted, 6harp, Jaek's-as-good-as-his-master colonial, whose racy sa-yinigs mark her as a study from life. Cecilc herself is a sweet creature, half angel, wholly woman, the ideal of a mature mind, and just the sort of young ■woman that every, nioe father pictures as his son's wife and his own sympathetic attendant in old age, 'but not perhaps—we venture this statement in a'l humility—'the ideal woman of a young man's dream. The local colour is beyond praise. Mi Glegg knows his Queensland well, and never have we read a more thrilling description .of the Groat Barrier' Reef, ate appearance, and the dangers of its crossing, than tliat contained in his account of the escape of tho "evades," their'long and perilous voyage, and the tropical storm which scattered them and destroyed their hope.?. Nor are the details of the island pTison less realistic and less 'interesting. Taking it all round, "Tho Bishop's Scapegoat" is one of tho cleverest stories that we have read for a long time. •"Tho Grey Knight." By Mrs Henry de la Pasture. London: George Bell and Sons. Dunedin: Whitcombo and Tombs. (& 6d, 2s 6d.) We could wish—since this tale is avowedly " an Autumn Love-story" and concerned with the sentiment of persons no longer young—that the author had fonnd it possible to spare a little pity and a little sentiment for the unlovely daughter of 51, who lias spent her whole life in the narrow, stultifying limits of a London lodging-house in dose attendance on an invalid brother and an exacting mother. A life so pathetic and so apparently wasted might, one would think, awaken a little sympathy in the mind of the storyteller, al<so a woman; yet, from first, to ' last, Anna Owen is nothing better than a foil 'and the object of secret and 1 open contempt. To us she is the most pathetic . personage in the whole volume. The . heroine, proper is an impossible comfeina- . tion of all the virtues, softened by a dash ; of feminine weaknees that hates to give pain to herself arid ot.liers, and fears the ' anger of the 'beloved. Hor beauty and virtues win for Louise Owen endless admirer, . and her one weakness cements : the chain by that delightful touch of dcpendence on the superior 6ex which adds the crowning cliam to an exquisite personality. Like many modern novels, this , one might bo described as of the medical I type, for Louise, having nursed her first. ; husband for thirteen Jong and weary years in poverty and discomfort, wins the second ("the Grey Knight") by her de--1 vot-ion as a nurse and the eulogies of her ■ friend the doctor. Tho doctor adds to the general atmosphere of sickness by . being the victim of a "heart trouble, tho nature of which he divulges to his | friend the nurse, thereby setting up some ' little jealousy in the minds of his own , wife and the "Grey Knight." The Grev , Knight is the ideal woman's man—goner- . ous, domineering, passionate, eelf-wiUed, ■ big,- strong, splendidly handsome. He, ' too, has but ono weakness—the obstinacy ■ which never owns ilsolf iu tho 1 The inevitable niisundi'Ksta.iidmg—without j which there would have been .no storycomes from these two woaknesises. Louise deceives her lover to spare him paiu; ho finds it. out and, to the very last I, page, refuses to forgive; tho doctor'makea ' peace between tliem «ud dies. ides

of autumn is well. sustained throughout- tha story, the interest being closely centred on the mature actore. Nature herself ia called in to aid the illusion, tho beauties of autumn and the' charms of an autumn garden forming an appropriate setting to the pains and penalties, the alternating hoi>es and fears, whicli ever attend the passion misnamed gentle, which), according to -the legend, sometimes attacks the elderly even as death attacks the young, and in such cases spares them none of its pleasant torments.. ' " The Duko's Motto " By Justin Huntley M'Carthy London: Methuen and Co. Dunedin: Whitcombo and Tombs. (3s 6d, 2s 6d.) Once again this author ha 6 found inspiration _in that romantic period of French history comprised in the ixri<m of Louis XIII and hie powerful advisers. Once more that fascinating soldier of fortune Louis de Lagaixlere plays hie role of knight-errant, being, as it were, "a kind of seventeenth century crusader, with a sealed, a sacred mission to follow : and 1 while, as a stout-hearted and honest soldier of fortune, he bad no moro hesitation aijout killing a venomous human thing than he would have had about killing a snake, he was exalted by the belief that on such, occasions lit; sword was the .word of Justice, hiw 6word was the sword' of God." In tho present, volume this knight-emnt espouses the cause of the infant daughter of the Duke de Nevers: Nevers being his dearest foe, whom he would gladly have slain in honourable duel for the' mere fun of the tiling; but, finding his foe treaclterously attacked, he sides witli him instead of ag;iinst him, and, aiter his murder, devotes himself to the .preservation and, later on, the rehabilitation in 'all her father's possessions of Nevers'e daughter This chivalrous enterprise giv<s occasion for many spirited' and dramatic scenes in which Lagardere proves himself 'the "finest swordsman in .Europe," and kills singly or in battalions a whole crowd of enemies too numerous to particularise. The story works itself out to a brilliant denouement, and in reading it it is impossible to help thinking how exactly it is suited for the romantic, spectacular stage—indeed, the author himself in his dedication to Yictorien Sardou says that it is "-ather a play than a romance," though perforce "words take tho of action, words take the place of decorations, costumes, antd accessories." The little 6tory is fu'l of life and movement, and is a not alto- . getter unfaithful picture of a period when chivalry was already in its death-throes and tho romantic soldier of fortune was fast becoming an anachronism. The . motto of the-title-page is the motto of Nevers—"l am here," and 's introduced with' striking effect in the most •thrilling incidents of the narrative, being adopted by Lagardere as his own, and especially used in avenging the memory of bis • friend. " Uncle Bernac." By Sir Arthur. Conau Doyle. London: George Bell and Sons. . Dunedin; Whitcombo and tombs. (New and cheap issue; illustrated; cloth; 25.) The excellent and cheap form in which an old favourite i 9 here presented to the I public scarcely needs any recommendation. | "Uncle Bernac" is, justly styled "A Memory of the Empire." It is in tho author's well-known, mixture of history and romance. In it Napoleon, the unfortunate JosepTiine, and many other historical personages bear their part in a life-like, realistic manner; and the surly time-server Uncle Bernac, the highspirited, chivalrous Laval, the charming Sibylle, and the gallant Lieutenant Gerard (afterwards the famous Brigadier) bear* a part. There is one specially amusing scene in whicli Napoleon, entreated by his wife, goes to one of her receptions and shows the 6eamy. side of a singularly unbalanced character, impatient with ail weaknesses but his own; and there are many other 1 scenes and persons which rouse.and retain'the reader's sympathy. " Uncle Bernac " will be read and re-read with great pleasure.