A MASTER OF MILLIONS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18347, 10 September 1921, Page 2

A MASTER OF MILLIONS.

THE MORAL OP A NOVEL. By Constant Reader. An arresting feature of Sir Hall Caine’s new novel, “The Master of Man: The Story of a Sin” (London; William Helnemaun. Dunedin Whitcombe and Tombs. 6s 6d), is to be found in the final pages of the book, wherein, is a record of the remarkable success of this Popular author s previous stories. This is all the more interesting in yiew of the announced fact that the publishers have gone to press with an edition m English of 100,000 copies of “The Master of Man.” Moreover, the novel is being issued “as nearly as possible simultaneously” in Bohemian, Danish, Finnish, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish translations. No details are available as to the circulation which Sir ’Hall Chine s stories have attained in their foreign translations, but the figures in regard to the editions in English are certainly startling. Tabulated, and with the date of the issue of each novel appended, they read as follows, no exact figures being supplied in some cases:— Publication. Title. . Circulation. 1885 .. The Shadow of a Crime 1886 .. Son of Hagar .. •• 1887 .. Tho Deemster ... •• 52 1890 .. The Bondman. .. .• 1891 .. Tho Scapegoat „„ , 9fi 1894.. The Manxman .. • • ■ ■ 1897.. The Christian 653. 1901 .. The Eternal City .. 1.000.6™ 1904 .. The Prodigal Son .. 500,000 1909 .. T3ie White Prop-net .. 1913 .. The ' Woman Thou _ Gavest Me .. •• 475,W 1921 .. The Master of Man .. An analysis’ of this list admite of .certam deductions being made. it was JMe Deemster’ that brought Hall Caine fame, says Mr Gerald Cumberland. though ‘The Shadow of a Crime and A ‘Jon of Hagar’ were in no sense failures, yet they had* not met with tho success for which the young novelist was so ardently ongng " In the opinioti of The Times “The Scapegoat” was Hall Caine’s best, novel yet. P its circulation presumably is not sufficiently large to compare with the author’s other successes. The White xro phet” admittedly bung fire, and booksellers .everywhere were left with stocks in hand. This Teave* six of ?ir Hall Came s stones which unitedly attained ■ a circulation of. nearly three and n-hnlf million copies. It is this feat, probably unique in the annals of publication, since it took P lace l n th ® author’s lifetime and within less than a quarter of a century which ranks Sir Hall Caine as “a master of millions. . The itr e f | s w s inevitable conclusion is that Sir Caine s stories. answer a Popular demand and confnin Rome quality which excites a pathetic response in the public mind. This particular quality, call it what one will and decry it how one may, is supplied in full measure, pressed down and running over in “The Master of Man.’ That quality Is embodied in theenb-titeofthenovel “Tho ?torv of a Sin, the oin a capital S symbolising that offence committed bv man against woman which has f° r med the theme of so many of the great mantelpieces of fiction. and which, once perpetrated, has such „terrible and lasting CO rrauthor’ 9 note to his new book Sir Hall Oaine challenges comparison with one The novelist, it will be remcmu a presents a situation m which Nehludo P the aristocrat, finds h-mself Nehluaov, iudgment on Maslova, called uponjaio when she was in i V - h ° m otWs service he had seduced. The “resurrection” consists in the efforts made bv Nehludov to redeem Maslova from her ovil iffp and rescue her from the penalty a soiourn in the prisons cf Siberia. Tolstoy- presents a pitiless picttiro, grim y »• . i ■ ftVGrv sordid detail, and for realistic m its mety » ; n . c , d t i, 6 cen . o R f Tmmv of his admirers. . Powerful as “Resurrection” undoubtedly is, it. will never be popular, nor will it attain a W &ir takes in hand, a similar theme, and contrives to impart to it such « miaiity as will doubtless create a we 1n i<rh universal demand for the h°°k. Stripped of its Manx atmosphere and its Hall Caine glamour, the plot is commonplace enough, and the . incidents are of everv-dav occurrence. Victor Stowell, son of the Deemster, is expelled from school on a charge of which he is guiltless . He adepts the sentence to shield a boy friend. The offence is connected with a farm girl, Bessie Collider. Growing up, Victor falls in love with Fenella Stanley, who, fired with a desire to champion tho cause of woman, gives Victor up in order to become the lady warden of a woman s settlement. Suffering the pangs of rejected affection; Victor under circumstances of extreme temptation, spends the night with Bessie—th<2 author emphasises the fact that in a similar situation tho majority of men would succumb—and nature takes her relentless course. Some nine months later. Victor, having succeeded his father as Deemster, is called noon to try Bessie for the murder of her child: and while he has to sentence her to death he recommends her to mercy. Victor’s recommendation is overruled, and he helps Bessie to escape from prison; but. finding that another man is suspected, as her accomplice, he makes a full confession, and is sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. Finally Fenella marries Victor on tha day previously fixed for their wedding.

To understand the fascination which such a book has (or so large a number of readers some allowance must be made for the romantic atmosphere of the Isle of Man. Dilating on this in an introductory chapter prefaced to the American edition of the novel, Sir Hall Caine says—recalling the days of his youth:— I _ had not been long at my various duties before I realised that by much .the most threatening force over the Manxman’s life in those days was not that of the self-elected Keys, or yet of the Crown-appointed English Governor, or even that of the Bishop, with his astonishing prerogatives, but that of’ the Deemster, the Judge and President of the Supreme Court of Manx law. This personage, usually of native origin, was .in reality the Master of Man. Others might have the show of ruling, but it was he who really governed; others might make the laws, it was he who administered them. In earlier days the Deemster’s powers must have been practically absolute, for many of the laws'whereby he judged the people were called “breast-laws”—tho Jaws which were not_ written in any statute book, but only in his own breast, and therefore to be revealed or concealed according to his will. And if he was the solo authority on what was law he was also the absolute iudge of how it should bo executed. Within the memory of living men the mere presence of the Deemster constituted a court. He could halo a man to trial at any time or anywhere, in the middle of the night, or at the side of the road, and from his judgments there was practically no appeal—none, at least, nearer than the High Courts which were in . London, and might almost as veil, for the ordinary Manxman’s purposes, have been in the monutains cf the moon. Naturally, the power of such a person to bring heads under the axe was a constant terror, and even in my young days the frown of the Deemster in court, , or even in the streets, was enough to whiten the faces that had been furrowed by half a century of storm, and to make the voices that had been wont to bellow like a harbour master’s break into tho tremor of a frightened girl, This explains both the title of the book and the purport of the story. In addition. Sir Hall Caine has the gift in largo measure of imparting a guise of probability to the most improbable incidents. The book is a long one, running to 432 pages, but while the narrative is detailed to a degree there is a sufficiency of sensation to carry the reader on to the end. Above all—and this lies at the root of the popularity of such a tale—the novel has a moral, and from the traditional and sentimental point of (.view the moral is irreproachable. Sir Hall Caine has summed up in one lengthy sentence “the ethical, intention of my tale of sin and its consequences and the way of escape' from it.” These are his words:— To show that a young man’s highest duty both to himself and his species is to marry, as early as he can, the woman he loves; that until that woman appears, and becomes possible to him, his nearest duty is to remain pure, to control himself, and to abide his time; that such restraints and such unions have their moral blessings ns well as .their physical benefits, and that in the present effort toward the reconstruction of the world the races which openly disregard this law and aim of human life are doomed to' extinction, while the future is to those who preserve the purity of marriage and the sanctity of the family oh the sole foundation of love.