A PAGAN'S LOVE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2671, 24 May 1905, Page 68

A PAGAN'S LOVE.

London: T. Fisiher Unwhr.

The story opens with a situation, demanding either a delicacy or a strength of treatment unrealised by the writer, and a* nice physiological point, therefore, drifts into commonplace banality. The narrowminded, excellent, and somewhat self-satis-fied young parson, on approval for an upcountry New Zealand township, is disturbed by a young girl's visit to hinx. Young, raw, unversed in clerical tactfulness, Mr Archieson is quite unable to assist Dorothea Wylding in explaining the cause of her unconventional visit. Only the girl's hysterical state of excitement* erables her presently to make the astounding request that, in order to help her to regain the love of the father whom she idolises, he will "act for a little, as if you were attracted by me. I cannot* live without my father's love. As a man and brother will you do this thing?" The conception is an excellent one 4 but there is not sufficient technical skill to render it ; the reader remains utterly unsympathetic; before the picture of Dorothea. "Rain dripped from the brim of her hat like large teardrops coming from the wrong place; while her soaked kid gloves clung to the* hands that nervously grasped a large,

drooping umbrella. . . . Underneatn the hat brim were girlish cheeks, pinched and slightly pendant, and pale, alarmed eyes with green-blue lights in them."

Beneath the handicap of crudity of stylo and painful inequality of .work the thought it-self is strong and real, for "Let it be recorded that there was a blessed space of time when John Arc Meson, Scotchman and cleric, rose superior to the burlesque of sex, and looked soul to soul with one who suffered. Let it not be remembered that that space of time was s>hort." In Dorothea Wylding we have the heroine of "A Pagan's Love." Probably, however, in all the history of her after- struggle for existence in Melbourne and Sydney, complicated by her courageous struggle against* the fascination of that unmarried love which is constantly and tenderly proffered her by the man she loves — Edward Rallinshaw, — there is nothing so keenly true to nature, yet fresh and original in literature, as this sketch of Dorothea's home life: the portraits « her father and stepmother, and Ihe terrible, unguessed-at retribution which, tinder the semblance of an edifying; deathbed, overtook Mrs Wylding. For those who may wish to read for themselves the curious but well-considered developments in character wrought by "A Pagan's Love/ assisted on the very eve of its triumph by one of those forms of "Deus et machina" which the novelist can. always find precedent for in tihe day's happenings of a great city, we think it inadvisable to indicate the plot. The sacrifice to the popular desire^ for "a happyending," implied in the last chapter, appears to us weak and somewhat incoherent?. And we very much doubt the permanenft happiness of the re-united Mr and Mrs; .Archieson. When Miss Clyde is content* to believe that literary strength does nofe lie in the bravado whioh deliberately defies canons of literary style by writing of "pinched cheeks,"" "lolloping waters," and! similar crudities, and has got rid of soma cheap cynicism, the real ability, which cannot be hidden under its present clumsy vestments, will, we doubt not, emerge triumphant. — Justice: "What's the charge againsft this prisoner?" Officer: "Yer Honor, he's ! a public nuisance. He's been goin around in th' dead of night, wakin' up night watchI men an' then runnin' away!" It'a good for the butcher, the baker, tha brewer, . . The carpenter, bricklayer, blacksmith, ana ehoer, , . The mistress, the servant, the maiden demure, The toiler, the clerk, the dtsoomsolafce wooer; It's good for the wealthy; it's good for the poor; Of the system cold-stricken a perfect renewer — When the air of New Zealand is cold and impure It's infallible— Woods' Gseat Peppermint Cubs*