BOOK NOTICES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15822, 22 July 1913, Page 8

BOOK NOTICES

"The Granite Cross." By Mrs Fred. Reynolds. London: G. . Bell ant Sons. (3a 6d; 2s 6d.)

This is a delightful Cornish story in which the local colour is so strong and firm that the reader appears to be bodily transported into that most romantic region where the wind-swept downs, haunt of fairy, folk, bask in the golden sunlight and the strong airs of heaven. On the downs where many roads meet stands the old Gothic cross of worn granite, relic u an ancient and, perhaps, a vital faith. It was so old none new its history, or could tell how or when or by whom it had been erected. "It stood for the past and the meaning of the past. It stood also, perhaps, for the future. In the present it stood alone." Seabirds wheeled and darted round it and the rays of the dying sun lit it with a strange unearthly radiance. Such-is the cross, which serves not only as a landmark on the downs, but as a landmark in the lives of which this story tells; lives chiefly of fisher folk who pursue their calling in the little sheltered cove of Colperra at the foot of the down, out of sight of the cross, but not uninfluenced by it. One of these fisher lads is a genius, a born painter in ,i whom the vision and the gift of colour compensate for the want of training, and finally overcome the opposition of the narrow Puritanism of an old father who destroys his son's work, thinking such presentation "the accursed tiling." In the end, of course, the divine gift prevails, and the old fisherman learns to be proud of his artist son. But before that happens much water runs under the bridge. The story of the cove and of the lives of its inhabitants, the fishing and all that appertains to it, together with the duties and the privileges of the "Covers" is told at some length and with a knowledge and sympathy altogether delightful. The story is full, of life and action, of the sharp tang of the sea, and of the healthy bracing work connected with the harvest of the sea.

"Father Ralph." By Gerald O'Donovan. London: Macmillan and Co. (3s ; 2s 6d.) This book presents an indictment <f Roman Catholicism that is likely to arouse much. discussion. Father Ralph is the case of the young man born, trained, devoted even before birth, to the priesthood, with every advantage of money, heredity, and environment, and it records the long fight between intelligent doubt and the sense of vocation. From first to last the •religious instinct is strong in the boy and the man, and he never lets go of the lofty. spiritual ideals which seem a part of his very. nature. On every side he sees the church that he loves on the point, of being swamped by the crass materialism of those who are her sworn defenders. A few humble, secular, parish priests; a few simple-hearted peasants, astonish him with their faith, and encourage him to continue the losing fight. The echo of modernist views from France and Germany gives him hope. Then comes the Pope's terrible encyclical and the anathematising of the modernist party. Finally, Ralph is admonished by his bishop, commanded to give up a workingman's club, which he has organised for the relief of his poorer neighbours, and to put away his modernist news. He re-, fuses to obey. Friends and comrades turn from him, even his mother refuses to see him until he has submitted to his. bishop. The bitter scourge of persecution assails him on all sides. Only a few peasants and two faithful priests hold ont hands of sympathy, and they are made, to suffer on his behalf. Nothing remains but to leave the land of his birth and go forth alone into a new life of freedom. So he talks of his "Roman" collar and all the other uniform of his order and becomes Ralph O'Brien.instead of ''Father Ralph," when, of course, his present history ends, with a note of interrogation and a faint promise of better things. j

The Midlandcrs." By Charles Tenny Jackson. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Met-

till Co. (Cloth; illustrated; 3s 6d.)

The drama of the great Middle West of the United States has as yet been scarcely attempted. It affords a fertile field for the coming novelist. Perhaps no man has told so much of it in one book as Charles Tenny Jackson has pressed within these pages. "The Midlanders" may well stand for the Middle West in its problems and its characters. And yet the setting is markedly individual; it invests with all the beauty of romance the Louisiana swamps, farms, and small towns of the lowa reserve. The plot is intricate and well worked out. It commences with the theft of a small orphan 6hild by two old soldiers who eke out a poor existence by the small industries of the swamp, and shows how "the little child led" them to better things. Some hazardous situations in the girl s own story are handled with delicacy and firmness, and are worked out to a triumphant conclusion. The story and its setting are alike extremely fascinating and effective. "The Midlanders" is of the best type of modern American novels.

"The Frontiers of the Heart." By Victor Margueritte (translated from the French by Frederick Lees). London: W. Heineman. Melbourne, etc.; G. Kobertson and Co. (3s 6d, 2s 6d.) This is a fine romance of the days of the Franco-Prussian War. The plot turns upon the marriage of a French girl with a German officer. They marry in time of peace, when all seems well between the two nations; but even then Marthe's father points out to her tho risks and the danger." that she is running. For a while all goes well. Marthe readily adopts the manners and customs of her German "in laws." Then comes a change. There are rumours of war, and finally war itself. Marthe is then on a visit to her parents at Amiens. 3he cannot return to Marburg, and her child is born in her father's house. But before this happens the horrors of the war, the feeling of the people by whom she is surrounded,and thecruel death of her brother turn Marthe's heart away from the conquerors. Her husband becomes to her, as to the rest of her family, the embodied "enemy." The sufferings of her own people rend her heart. She prays that lier child may not resemble his father. Thus, step by step, and little by little, the loving hearts of husband and wife are torn asunder, and tho grim spectre of war stands with flaming sword between them. No one can read this profoundly moving tale without realising) perhaps more acutely than ever before, the far-reaching and overwhelming tragedy of 1870-1871. " The Breaking Point." By Fred Lewis Pattee. Boston: Small, Maynard, and Co. (cloth; os 6d.) The theme of this novel of serious aim is made up of three simple elements of great dramatic power, handled with the firm touch of'the master story-teller. First, the struggle of John Gait, the minister of a great city church, to be the spiritual leader and teacher of his people Tather than the administrator of a livelv social organisation for their material well-being; secondly, the growth of the soul of a beautiful but .infortunate woman, Isobel Carniston, under Gait's inspiration; thirdly, the clash between Gait and his Church, resulting from the single-hearted enthusiasm with which the pastor seeks to save the woman, whose passionate nature rebels against anything like restraint and formalism. Basing his plot on these interesting themes, Professor Pattee has written an absorbingly powerful novel touching on the burning question of the present day—the relation of religion to life. The depth of feeling and the straight hitting in this novel gives it a universal appeal.

"Poison." By Alice and Claude Askew, London: G. Bell and Sons. (3s od, 2s 6d.)

In John Pleydell, the hero of the story, wo have presented to us a curious survival from mcditeval days of one of those strange and terrible beings in whom conscience and the sense of a common humanity appear to be dead or not yet awakened, and who march to the gratification of their passions without one thought for the rights or feelings of other?. To this man, selfish and unscrupulous by nature, conies :iie opportunity of gratifying his worst passions with'apparent immunity ; for, having purchased a rare old bureau, lie finds in it a secret drawer containing poisons of many kinds; Pleydell makes good (or evil) use of hie discoveries to such purpose that one

innocent Woman loses her life, and another is very nearly hanged for the crimo which she did not commit. In the end' the poisoner pays the due penalty of his crimes. " Molly Brown." By Mrs G. S. Reaney. London: "Leisure Hour Library" (paper; coloured picture cover; 6d.) A pretty English story of the wild ways and ultimate taming of "a handful" of a girl, who is, however, "worth 50 ordinary ones," inasmuch as she has a strong character, a good heart, a tender if unawakened conscience, and a magnificent pbvsique. " Molly Brown's" awakening, her double life, and her fine efforts in the cause of the sweated factory girls makes an interesting story with a high moral tone.