BOOK NOTICES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2179, 28 November 1895, Page 53

BOOK NOTICES.

*,£ll Men are Liars." By Joseph Hockisa. Messrs Ward, Lock, and Bowdeo, L'.mitfid, London, New York, and Melbourne, The title is not a cheerful one, and if the t>ook is written in a somewhat sombre_key, the reader is surely forewarned by that brief 'cynical sentence. The motif of the plot is a powerful one — nothing less than the gradual conversion of a singularly generous, frank, and trusting nature into the joyless, loveless, , dissipated wretch who has plumbed life's lowest depths, all through the oorroding, cankering influence of cynicism. For ourselves, we confess that the depths which are more than hinted at are such, as it were, well cigh impossible for a man to finally emerge from as this man does. And the reiterated use ol the word "filth" is obj actionable, conveying a sense of physical repulsion which is probably not demanded by the actual position or fully realised by the author. The book, however, is a sterling one, and it is worth while to briefly glance at the plot, which is simple enough to give plenty o£ room to the character study, in which lies the teal power of the wiiting. The her,o is one Stephen Edgecumbe, only son. of a Nonconformist minister, who dies when the lad is 17, leaving him to the care of bis only brother, Luke Edgeoumbe. This man is a cynic of the bilte.resb type who has amassed -a fortune by jam-making and now lives in a handsome country seat. When his nephew arrives Luke Edgecumbe invites Daniel Roberts, th 9 son of bis solicitor, to etay with Stephen until tha Cambridge session begins, thus relieving himself of the bother of a young visitor. The first day of hia arrival Stephen saves the life of a young man who is related to the great man of the parish, Colonel Tempest. The jam manufaoturer is secretly pleased when this incident procures Stephen a cordial invitation to Colonel Tempest's house, but he cautions his nephew against expecting any gratitude or even good feeling from the man he has saved in tho following word?, which may be taken as a sample of the detestable doctrines of cynicism he never wearies of instilling. *• I've found out this — if you do a man a good turn he always has a grudge against you, and will serve jou out in after years. The old Jews were wrong. People don't give evil for evil, they give evil for good, and its always well to remember it." » And again, this is how the cynic meets bis nephew's simple faith in religious matters : — "Bub, uncle," cried Stephen, "if wh*t 30U ■ay v true, you destroy what is brightest and best-. You make Chiist'a'ury a mere mockery." ♦'Do I? " laughed Luke. " Well, ifc doesn't tnstt- r. All the world, S«phea, follows after that which pays. Some people are religious. Whj ? — be-ause they believe it pays. Others, again, are not religious. Why ? — because they don't believe it.ptys. It's all a matter of selfishness, my lad ; all a mutter of what will pay. For the present all this bitter teiching seems to roll eff Stephen as harmless as water Iff a duck's back. In the first place he has always by his side the true and honest influence of his friend Daniel R/b^rts — which influence through life takes the form of his good angel — and in the second place be is busily occupied in failing in love with; Isabella Tempest, the handsome, heartless daughter of old Colonel Tempest. By the way, the author has no idea of portraying an aristocrat. Stephen then reads with a coacb, a certain Richard Ilford, *a brilliant scholar, but a confirmed cynic, of whom ifc is said, "If Richard Ilford were to tell exactly in so many words what he believed, he would say something like this : — ' I believe that the world is as bad as it can be, and that life on the whole is a failure.' . . . • Never be in earnest — nothing is worth being earnest about.' ... * Every man has his price ; if you offer a pries high enough you can buy him. A woman can be more easily bought than a man.' , . . ' There is really no such 'hing as virtue. Morals are a matter of climate, country, &■:.' " And so on. Stephen E.igecambs spends four years in constant association with this prince of cynics, and is, moreover, deprived of the wholesome companionship of honest Daniel Roberts, who is studying for the medical profession in Edinburgh. In due time Stephen is. called to the bar, and, hia Blender income augmented by a. liberal allowance from his uncle, marries haudsome Isabella Tempest. The marriage is looked upon as a good match, for it is clearly understood that Stephen wiil inherit bis uncle's jam-made millions 1 Within a year of Stephen's mar liege, however, "Luke Edgecumbe, jam manufacturer, director of companies and general speculator," failed for a fabulous Bum. Then comes the crash of all Stephen's illusions, and it is in revealing the true character of the worldly old colonel and his mercenary daughter that in our opinion the author fails completely in artistic conception. However, "in their anger and chagrin they completely lost control over themselves, and scarcely knew what they were saying. All that was coarse and repulsive in their natures came to the surface, and Stephen's heart grew sick with pain." Isabella goes home to live with her father; Stephen bachelorises with the faithful Daniel Roberts, now a practising doctor, and slaves In his profession and in journalism to find the money to send for bis wife's " expenses." Then comes a shameful plot got up by her friends — a deliberate tissue of lies to prove Stephen unfaithful, and thus procure Isabella a divorce. Beaten, buffeted, cruelly wounded in his tenderest feelings, all the cynical teachings of his uncle and his tutor rise up in a great engnlpbing wave and claim Stephen for their own. He deliberately says unto evil, "Be thou my good." This is perhaps the most powerful, as it is certainly the most terrible, part ot the book, and it is not fair that we should further enter upon the working out of the plot and the ultimate salvation of Stephen Edgecumbe, the practical possibility of which every reader must judge for himself. One thing is certain : Daniel Roberts and Hope Hellyer are two characters wbloh it is delightful to meet and (0 admire.

" The Story of a Baby." By Ethel Tubnbb. Messrs Ward, Look, and Bowden, London, New York, and Melbourne. This certainly in, in one sense, the story of a baby, bub it is in a muc'i fuller and completer sense the Btory of that baby's extremely foolish but delightfully natural and lovable young parents. Dot and Larrie, as also the baby who forms the pivot round which everything revolves, are so charmingly depicted in the first chapter of the book that we oannot in this case land ourselves to extracts, but will give the whole chapter as it stands : — Larrie had been carrying it for a long way and said it was quite time Dot took her turn. Dob w»s arguing the point. She reminded him of all athletic sports he had taken part in, and of all the prizes he had won; she asked him what was the use of being 6ft 2in and an impossible number of inches round the chest if he could no> carry a baby. Larrie gave hsr an unexpected glance and moved the baby to his other arm ; he was heated and unhappy, there seemed absolutely no end to the red, red read they were traversing, and Dot as well as refusing to halp to carry the burden, laughed aggravabingly at him when he said it was heavy. " He is exactly 211b," she said. "I weighed him on the kitchen scales yesterday. I should think a man of ycur size ought to be able to carry 21lb without grumbling so." " But he's on spring?, Dot," he said ; " just look at him, he's never still for a minute. You cirry him to the beginning of Lee's orchard, and then I'll take him again." D->t t-houk her hea3. " I'm very sorry, Larrie," fha said, " bub I really can'fc. You know I didn't want to bring the child, and when you insisted I said to myself you should carry him every inch of the way, juit for your obstinacy." "But you're his mother," objected Larria. He was getting seriously angry, hia arms ached unutterably, hii clothes wtre sticking to his bhck, and twice the baby had poked a little fat thumb in his eye and made ib water. " But you're its father," Dot s-iid sweetly. "It's ea»ier for a woman to carry a child than a man" — poor Larrio was mopping his hot brow with his d'sengaged hand — "everyone cays so ; don't bs a httle sneak, Dot, my arm's getting awfully cramped ; here, for pity's S'ke take Lim ! " Do 1 ; sbo'>k hf r hea<l again. " Would yoa hive me break my vow, Sfc. Lawrence ? " she said. She looked provokingly ccol and unruffled as she walked along by his side ; her gown was whi'e, with transparent puffy sleeves, her hat was white and very large, sha had little white canvas shoes, long white Suede gloves, and ehe carried a whitd paraEol. " I'm hanged ! " said Larrie, and he stopped short in the middle of the road. " Look here, my good woman, s.re you going to ttka your baby, or are you not ?" Dot revolved her sunshade round her little sweet face. "No, my good man," she said, "I don't propose to carry your baby one Btep." " Then I shall drop it," said Larrie. He held it up ia a threatening position by the back of its crumpled coat, but Dot had gone sailing on. " Find a soffc place," she called, looking back over her shoulder once and seeing him still stai dug in the road. " Little minx !" he said under bii breath. Then his mouth squared itself ; ordinarily it was a pleasant mouth, much given to Uughter and merry words ; bub when it took that obstinate look, one could see capabilities for all manner of things. He looked Cirefully around. By the roadside there was a patch of sot, green grass, and a wattle busb, yellow-crowned, beautiful. He laid the child down in the shado of ib, he looked to see there ware no ants or other infects near ; he pub on the bootee that was hanging by a string from the tiny rosy foot, and he stuck the india-rubber comfoiter in its mouth. Then he walked quietly away and caught up to Dot. " Well ? " she said, bub she locked & little Rtartled ab his empty arms. She drooped the BUCfhade over the shoulder neartsb to him, and gave a haety, surreptitious glance backward, Lwrie strode along. " You look feartully ugly when you screw up your mouth like that," she said, looking up at his set side face. " You're an unnatural mother, Dot, that's what you are," he returned hotly. "By Jove, if I was a woman I'd fee ashamed to act as you do. You get worse every day you live. I've kept excusing you to myself, and saying you would get wiser as you grew older, and instead yoa teem rrnrs childish every day." She looked childish. She was very, very small in stature, very slightly find delicately built. Her hair was in soft gold-brown curls, as short »s a boy's ; her eyes were soft, and wide, and tender, and beautiful as * child's. When sha was haj.py they were the colour of that blup, deep violet we call the Cz*r, and when she grew thoughtful, or sorrowful, they were like the Leact of a great, dark purple pan*y. She was not particularly beautiful, only very fresh, and sweet;, and lovable. Lanie once said she always looked like a baby that has been freshly bathed and dreseed, and pufftd with sweet violeb powder, and sent cub iuto the world to refresh tired eyes. That was one of his courtship savings, more tbau a year ago, when she was birely 17. She was 18 now, and he was telling her she was an unnatural mother. " Why, the child wouldn't have had it 3 bib on, only I saw to it," he said, in a voice that increased ia excitement as he dwelt on the enormity. "Dear me," said Dot, " tbafc was very careless of Peggie ; I must really speak to her about ib." " I shall shake you some day, Dot," Larrie said — " shake you till your teeth rattle. Sometimes I c»n hardly keep my hands off you." His brow was' gloomy, bis boyish face troubled, vexed. And Dot laughed — leaned against the fence skirting the road that seemed to run to eternity, and laughed outrageously. Larrie stopped too. His face was very white and square-looking, his dark eyes held fire. He put his hands on the white, exaggerated shoulders of her muslin dress and turned her round. "Go back to the bottom of the hill this instant, and pick up the child and carry it up here ! " he said. " Go and insert your foolish old head in a receptacle for pommes-de-terre," was Dob's flippant retorb. Larrie's hands pressed harder, his chin grew equarer. " I'm in earnest, Dob, deadly ' earnest). I order you to fetch the child, and I intend you to obey me." Ha gave her a little shake to enforce the command. M I am your master, and I intend you to know it from this day." Dot experienced a vague feeling of surprise at the See in tho ejw th*i wtre nearly always

olear, and emiliDg, and loving ; then she twist?d herself away. "Pooh!" Bhe said, "you're only a sbupid, over-grown, passionate boy, Larrie. You my j masber ! You're nothing in tho world bub my husband." " Are you goiug ?" he said in a tone he h^d never used btfore to her. "Say Yes or No, Dob, instantly." " No," said Dot stormily. Then they both gave a sob of terror, their facea blanched, and they began to run madly down the hill. Oh the long, long way they had come, the endless stretch of red, red road that wound back to the gold-lipped wattles, the velvet grass, and thsir baby ! Larrie was a fleet, wonderful runner. In the little cottage where they lived, manifold silver cups and mugs bore witness to it, aud he was running for life now, but Dot nearly outstripped him. She flew over the ground, hardly touching it, hfT arms were outst'etched, her lips moving. They fell down together on their knees by their baby just as three furious, hard-diivea bullocks thundeed by, filling the air with duifc and bellowing. The baby was blinking happily up at a great fat golden beetle that was making a lazy way. up the wattle. It had losb its "comforter" and was suckiug its thumb thoughtfully. Ib had kicked off its white knitted boots, and was curling its pink toea up in the sunshine with great enjoy rne'nb. "Baby!" Larrie said. The big fellow was trembling ia every limb. * "Baby!" said Dot. She gathered ib up in her litt'e shaking arm*, she pab her poor white face down upon ib, and broke into such pitiful teu-3 and B<>b? tln.t it wept too. Larrie took them both into his arms, and sab down on a fallen tree. He soothed them, he called them a thousand tender, beautiful names ; he book off Dot's hat and stroked her little curls, he kit-sod his baby again and again ; he kissed his wife. Wlreo they were all quite calm nnd the bullocks 10 miles away, they statted again. " I'll carry him," eaid Larrie. " Ah no, leb mo," Dot said. , "Darling, you're tco tired — see, you can hold hU band across my shoulder." "No, no, give him to me — my arms ache without him " " But the hill— my big baby ! " "Ob, I mubt have him ! Larrie, let me — see, he is so light — why, he is nothing to carry." Now with &uoh an absurdly young and impetuous couple as this, life was sure to mean something oub of the common. Dot's father died 16 yeai # 3 ago ; Dot's mother lives in a big stone house among the orange and lemon trees ; a house that seems very big and lonely since Dob loft it to marry Larrie, and live in the pretty weatherboard cottage. All the cix brothers and sisters that preceded Dot died. " Ifc was because death had so broken and bruised this little frail mother that sho had never crossed Dot's will in anything since she was born. The days of insistanca and control and obedience-seeking were buried with the buried six, Dot ruled, and the mother poured out her heart at her foet, and worshipped with a love almost desperate." i Very pretty and pathetic, bub not very likely training to turn out a sensible life 1 Larrie apparently was a young man of 22, with an extremely attractive appearance, the profession of a barrister, an independent income of £250 a year, " aad no parents or guardians to give him unasked advice." Now Lanie had an attack of brain fever after passing his last exams, and his doctor prescribed a year'ri rest and travel before he began the practice of his profession. Instead of travel, Larrie married and rested with Dot. Ithad been a very dream of brightness and happiness ; but now that baby was some months old, and Dot still forgot articles of his clothing and still left her one faitbful servant all the work to do — still expected Larrie to take his " turn of minding the baby," things were becoming decidedly difficult I These little scenes between the young husband and wife are splendidly told — they are crisp, natural, and intensely humourous, jast a3 the •• making3-up " are pathetic. Yet the little rifts widen, widen. Larrie takes an office iv town and expects a decent dinner ready when he comes home to the pictorial cottage and the pretty wife 1 Larrie was exacting and tyrannical, and Dob was care!e33, and childish, aud unreasonable. Now to these elements for disturbance add the arrival of a musical enthusiast, Mr Sullivan Wooster, and the determination of sweet, self-willed Dot to train her voice, appear in public, create a world's sensation, and earn an enormous fortune for her darling Lanie and her sweet baby, and you have the material for pathos, for tragedy, for the wrecking of hearts if you will. But •• Tho Story of a B.iby " is no tragedy, only a bright, pretty comedy, with its underlying pathos and tenderness ; one, too, which we can confidently recommend as a pleasant and dainty bit of reading for anyone. "A Gray Eye or So," by Mr Frankfort Moore, is undoubtedly a clever, intense, and remarkably interesting book. Among recent novelists there are but few who have this author's enthusiasm, his compelling forcefulness. In the book under review he keeps the reader interested, surprised, and strangely moved by turns. The wit and the epigrams flash and scintillate among the pages of " A I Gray Eye or So " with true meteoric effect. Like Thackeray, Frankfort Moore is evidently at home among the aristocratic folk, who monopolise the greater part of his book. Lady Innisfail and her family, Lord Fotheringay and his son Harold, Professor Juliu9 Anthony Avon, the historian, and his daughter Beatrice; Edmund Airey, the wealthy professional politician ; and Miss Graven, the heiress, are all well drawn, lifelike characters. On the other plane we have Brian, the boatman, shrewd, humourous, and a retailer of traditional stories ; Father Tom, beloved of his flock, worldly-wise, yet tenderhearted ; Archie Brown, the good-natured-plunger ; Mrs Mowbray, professional beauty and actress— all typical beings. In the opening chapters the friends Edmund Airey and Harold Wynne, while boating, talk cynically about women. Brian, the boatman, who hears their conversation, diverts them from the subject under discussion by telling them a story. While in the boat Edmund utters the following epigram : — " No woman is quite frank in her prayers; no politician is quite honest with the working man." Later on his companion Harold says : — 11 1 merely suggested that the marriage ceremony it v I O U for tha debt, which ia lov©, rt Shis la how the author

| describes Edmund Airey, the poi"'"'in: — 11 He was always found In the Guv^iument Lobby in a division, and he was thus regarded by the Ministers as an extremely oonsoienlioiis man. This is only another way of saying that; he was regarded by the Opposition aj an extremely unscrupulous man. . . . His speeches were brief, but each of them contained a phase that told against the Opposition. He had the good sense to perceive early in his carear that argument goes for nothing in the House of Commons, but that trusted Governments had been turned out of office by a phrase. Hia power of perception induced him to cultivate the art of phrase-raaking." A delightful, if somewhat sensational, love story runs through the book. The reader follows with intense interest the current of events which brings beauty to the Bide of the natural man with good impulses in spite of the sysrematic cleverness of the selfish, I cynical, would-be supplanter. The delineations of Archie Brown, the plunger ; Julius Anthony Avon, the historian ; and of Mrs Mowbray, the actress, disclose characteristics which feuggeat a possibility that they may be portraits taken from life. " A Gray Eye or So " ia certainly a brilliant book.— B. B.