BOOK NOTICE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2389, 14 December 1899, Page 40

BOOK NOTICE.

"The Untold Half." By "Alien." Lo*. don: Hutchinson and Co. Dunedin :J

Whitcombe and Tombs.

This is 'a powerful, well-written, deeply interesting- book, very far above the ordinary run of novels; but it is not a picture of New Zealand life and manners, though) Mrs Baker, in her preface, would appear to wjsh her readers to consider it as such. It is a problem novel of the best type, and the four chief characters might have lived at any time from Utopia .to" the* middle, of the twentieth century.' The descriptions of mountain and lake scenery, 'are " beautiful, vivid, word-paintings of our fine fiord" effects. They are painted by the hand of au artist of the impressionist type — rolling mists, silver moonlight, moss-grown birches, lake shadows, are all admirably depicted ;' but the minor details are not so true to nature, and in the midst of an elaborate ' catalogue of flowers and trees, the express sion " the red and blue flora " is strangelyvague and almost deceptive, for, as a rule, the coloured wild flowers -of New •Zealand are rare and inconspicuous and add .bub little to the, general effect, unless .it maybe the scarlet rata, which is not even mentioned. There are also some errors \in grammar and composition, most of them probably due to careless' proof-reading, but we must protest against " Alien's " use of th 1 verb "pride," which is generally employed in the sense of "to take pride: to value," and is always followed by a reci-< procal pronoun ; therefore, the expression "I did pride in you.'" "The man eho once prided in," etc., sounds awkward and un--grammatical. If it is adopted ns a mannerism we consider it unworthy of the author. Other pecularities as : " the fatal law of reaping what sown" may— as. we h.ive already stated— be mere typographicalerrors, but this use of the verb pride cannot be so excused, as it occurs many times. Aftn'.l'cr "error is the spelling of ° Sutherland Falls" with an " o," " Southerland," a-s if it were named for the district, and not the fine aid i*xplorei and discoverer. This error occurs three times, and cannot, therefore, be a mere literal. But after all these aro spots in the sun. The book is a good bcok, clever, original,' well conceived; worth keeping, and reading, and re-reading. It is a woman's protest for women, set in an entirely new setting, not so much of New Zealand nature as of nature in the abstract, that Nature which speaks Jn the large silence of great solitudes. A Hindu of the Himalayas, a Tyrolean of Styria, a Norwegian of SuJitehna, might -have developed on , the same lines. The characteristics own their strength to the storm and stress of humanity, the injustice ot» fate, which gives unequal -consequences as the result of the same sin, and yet is for ever inexorable in its demand for payment,; s i that in very truth none may ever escape. If " Alien "' had done no more than f show\ this we should owe her a debt of gratitude ; but she has done far more, she has ehownjus how the whitest purity may condone and cover the exniated fault until it shall"

b? remembered no more. This is one of the books of which it would be manifestly unjust to give a detailed sketch, the plofc is but slight, and to the superficial observer there may be -little to tell; but the name justifies itself in the fact that " tha untold half" is greater than that •which is told, and transcends it as the soul transcends the body. It is psychic and mystical. Cordelia's pure white robe is typical of the purity and austerity of her nature, the spirit of the snow mountains ciystalised into life, and Marvel's scarlet cloak and gipsy colouring are no less typical of her passionate heart and of the disposition that acts first and thinks afterwards, "The Spirit of the Storm." These two characters are nearly perfect in their way; and one of the finest passages in the book is the description of Marvel's lonely ascent of the Mountain Pass, her battle with storm and tempest, mounting ever upward and upward in the dread solitudes — " The terrible wind robbed her of breath, sh". quailed with terror at the darkening day. A 'blast struck her, and^she lay face down till the hurricane had passed, and then up again and on.'-' She has not yefc reached the top of the Pass, and knows that if the rain and snow fall before she{ gains it all will be lost, " she. would be a prisoner if she readied shelter for the night. If not, then death." Then "the clamour and warfare in the air ceased, iti became ominously still, and sweeping down, came the mist curtain. She stood alone in the clouds." Willingly would we give the whole of this wonderful picture, but space forbids. The solitary girl straining, struggling, falling, rising, with snow flakes stinging her cheeks, blinding her eyes, and whitening her scarlet cloak, yet straining onwards and upwards ever. What a picture ! No wonder the artist;- -would havebartered his very soul to paint it. The men are .almost worthy of the women. Nob quite, for this is emphatically a woman's book, and in the time of mortal agony a, woman's heart turns to a woman, or should do so, if each is true to her sex. The individuality of the men is very strong. Wina Winter, the refined artist, whose proper place seems to be in Court circles, is not more carefully drawn than Max Hawthorne, the explorer, the rugged giant of the mountain. Each can attain his highest only by the aid of the woman "meet for him,'"and each has to pay the price before he* attains this supreme good. Each has to bs taught to love another better than himself, to learn the world-old lesson of re-< nunciation, faith, and obedience, of the law; that knows no abrogation, "in thine own.' body thou must pay the debt of 'the deeds of the body," and again. "If love be op-» posed to truth it cannot Jive. That which shameth love killeth it." As the work of a New Zealand author, we may all bo proud of 'this book, as the work of ai woman, all her sisters would rejoice with; her As the work of an .artist it is vivid, s realistic, inspiring, and we heartily con-< gralulate the authoi, and bid her "God spoed."

A tent occupied by an old man named Patrick Braughney, at Narrabari, New South iWales, was accidentally ».burned. The man's remains were discovered with the hands and feet burned off. Deceased was 65 years of

The oldest Australian native, John Dunn, born at Sydney in 1799, has just died at Castlemaine (Victoria). An electric explosion occurred near Charleville (Queensland) on November 15, jrhicli, jvaa lieard. over a jadiua of 60 miles.