LITERARY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8002, 4 May 1904, Page 1

LITERARY.

;Vv:y : ) •■;■:*■; ;IfOTES. _. ' AQfajji (>a_t CO-ÜBESFOJTBEOT.] 'V V: i *y : 'v : y ■' March.ll. ,' ___om -who are versed in the fiction of toHay. always welcome th© appearance of a nerir novel by that versatile author Sir ffhomae Cobb, and 1 those who take up his fates* "Change of Face" will not be disappointed in tiheir confident expectation of / pleasure. Mr Cobb has generally a good :'•' rtory to tell, and tells it (always in a clear, y light style, whioh, in it^lf, give, pleasure. * v cu» 'las-effort, concerns a beautiful girl, ftch. y; ___nd in good society, who, looking forward V . jh> an; early . marriage with the man. she y,' ,IoT«s, is soi-dealy smitten with facial parf alysds, -which , turns her face into a • model V'-.... JK«'va>gz6b-9^ 'gvgoyle. The. vrhole story ...;. ■■■ ;'.4_ T«ry int^_estu_g, and the final chapters' . fchow a most intimate knowledge of the way a maid wath. a man. .&-'T?m...C—lkyk'x"J—vh!k- the Prodi- ... *-*■**," though depending! at vital points* on V x jbighly improbable coincidences, is one of ;V jthe best "corpse in a box"/ tale's I have _ "': jtead for a very long time. I read it through, v ]at a sitting, and had! no desire to "skip" AA it amy .point in the story. . Mr Gallon's y perous, a gaol-bird', and is a gaol-bird at fhe last, and in leaving him* so the author shown an artistic feeling uncommon to '• popular novelists of his generation. The ■Ay maa^ia A-yotsmhie 'creature, whose motives" . Ya aa^lataiitaehis.ate natural, and whose viryitoasiiare consistent with his vices. A» for j_fr Gallon's leading lady- (" heroine " she is A V/J-ot), Bridget Empson, she is particularly '■■■ ,effective, and reminds. one rather strongly ; :V )o_ .an earlier friend, Miss Betsy Trotwood. (Mr Bnrgin's latest novel -"The Land of SHence" is a freshly-imagined and serious ktory of the f aud between the dispossessed . .&dski_s and their supplanters^in the Ot- •'."'■' law* region of Canada, the prinoipal ohar-' licter being a highly-educated Indian docV tor, who comes to Mllva white sinner,, and V remains to save him-, and two parrs of y. lovers as -well, from a horrible death at the hands of the red men. Some of the mosfc 'pleasing pages tell of the healing in hearb Sd* body, by a particularly charming dian maiden, of a man whom despised ■ love bas driven to drink and deepair. Tho (story, which is full of incident and life, is /briskly -written, the chief fault inthe writing* being the author's habit of repeating •■.. the ends of sentences, with the apparent object of adding force or pathos. "I am } y _w -yotmg—-_o young " • " Ifc; ■ has all passed -' —•all passed " ; "Life is ao iong*—so long," and so on- '■■'-;' Mr Shan Bullock's Irish stories are usu;*lly well worth, reading, and his "Red A Leaguers "is no exception/ to the rule. He . Itae a fine dramatic instinct, and rarely fails V io get his ftdl effect, whilst his writing is that of the careful artiet, who knows how V much depends on" the right -word in the V .light place." In his latest work Mr. Bui- ■ • lock provides some very strong situations,' jHitably in the chapters entitled ."The yyv lion's ©en" and ■',« The Heart of a Dog." V Apart from a few American solecisms, V' littW fault can be found with Mr J. M. ..' 'Fprman's lively, pleasant and well-told story " Moneigny " — a novel founded on V orach the same idea as "The Second Mrs ; -.j^ijoefray." A divorcee resolves to 'V .marry a Peer^ who is a widower with an -only daughter.' Through his first ! :.■■■'■• wife, a Frenchwoman, he has come into an ; v estate, near Versailles, the Chateau Mongrighy*. ..When she has made up her mind to • capture 'theVPeer, ; her "fellow-guest at the ■-■,'■ chateau is the Htaa __)i_hton .Beresford, who Utaa actually Meeh the 1 nominal ■co-respondent v }n yh«*' divorce c^e, -^ without sin. He lias fallen ih . love with Lord Stratton's : Vdaughter, Isabeau. described •■ as the most beautiful woman in Europe. Ashtpn and Tsabeau become engaged, yet the divorcee, V , Mrs Marlowe, objects to their ; i wedding, though she has captured Lord Stratton, beYvaxm she still loves Beresford. The deV nouement need not be disclosed. A The latest example of what -day be <Je-; -v, scribed as "burnt will fiction" is Miss Aa Helen Bayliss's " An Act of Impulse." This '-, novel derives a certain atmosphere of fresh.y.n«Bi'from the character of a -doctor who ' V seems to he a speciesof villain till the end a oif the story, iand. then turns out to have A been irprking for good rather than evil. The various lovers whose fates are bound 1 . op with the testamentary documents on which the plot turns are brightly depicted, and though, neither .the men nor' the girls 1 are of any particular, fascination they are quite up to* the average demand in ' that class' of popular fiction .jwhicb. entails the reward of true love, in the last chapter. '"For those who like this : kind of fare ■y His an excellent dish," . might, be written '. of Mr W. Fuller's V^THe Gann-e of Love." The author is to be complimented on a "'■. A ; vposifcive genius for- inventing improbable situations and dragging his characters '•AAA through them, Akir> ta has created a v inke^-^e worst duke I have met :with ouir V side a) penny . ijtfveletfce; wicked nobleman-T-V* whose wickedness is inconceivably and who; y : Js*'a _^iiace;to the domestic felir vV city, el^, of nearly every woman in the : book, inolnding theY heroine, , who is also ; V tie vicar's d^'-ighter.. She is- also ambi-p r| ,yV tions, and, though madly loved hy the son ; V of ihe village postmistress (who has Stolen j « awel and publishect it as his own), d^- j yyod# to cut out Ellen Terry oxelse compel ''YY'''&¥*''. a^''l^^ to take back seats. s :She . yvdoes A neither, and in the end marries thie | VA. aaval thief, vbo_ be it isaidy. takes .to writ* ''

ing himself and finds he can produce better I fiction than the purloined affair. .... ._. The historical novel appears to continue in high favour, and 'Mr J. S. Fletcher's "David March" is likely to find favour with a large public. The story is set forth with considerable skill and simpli.ity, and the necessary ■ coincidences are " drawn mild." whilst the passages dealing with the lovemaking between the blacksmith's apprentice and the daughter of a knight of high degrefe are charmingly done. It is; a long time since I have read a better novel j than Mi- Halliwell Sutcliffe's " Through prow's Gates," wherein the author has abandoned romance amd given us instead a study of life on the moors bordering Lancashire and of the people who live ik Griff Lomax, the hero, is a man who has abandoned civilisation because of a fanciedcrime he has i»__mitt-d. He settled on a moor, and. devotes his whole energy to, " intaking " the waste ground so that it may be farmed. Two women come into his life, and both love him. He saves the honour of one and the life of the second, whom he eyentually marries. The story is aiaost epic, and the sketches of scenery \ i and of the people ai*e unusually good. Mr Sutcliffe does not mince matters in dealing with the crimes of the people*— their poaching, drinking, cock-fighting and lovemaking—but there is nothing ilUnafcured or repellent in his account, and the story holds the reader till the end. ' Josiah Flint's* "The Rise of Ruderick Clowd "is a story told uncommonly well Ruderick Clowd is a thief, of base beginnings, who becomes a champion in his particular "lay," which is bank robbery. His adventures .are many and surprising, and there-is real humour in the description of his own and his uncle's attempt to escape from prison, by getting transferred tb the lunatic ward; bis love affairs are told with commendable restraint, and you do not encounter too many phrases iri the slarig of American thieves. Ruderick takes a calm and practical view* of his profession. He exercises it like a hero, and abandons it with the equanimity of a philosopher, rather than the resignation of a martyr. In this story, the police and prison warders are rather less decent than the thieves, and, perhaps, the story, has a purpose visible only ia New York, whence it comes. Eng-: lish readers, however, will find it an entertaining yarn, and will not in the least mind if ifc is '<; one of those " novels with a purpose. The incidents that happen to American authors, while they are engaged on their new books, take one's breath away. American novelists, in particular (says the "Book Monthly"), seem to be martyrs to "excursions and alarms," which find their only justification in subsequent paragraphs. The latest case is that of a lady who has a couple of 'sisters as well as, on her own part/great literary gifts. Her habit has been fco exercise the latter in: the forenoon, and in the afternoon let the former into the new- progress of the story. But the interest got so exciting, as the novel drew, to an end, that the sisters camped outside the room where it was. being written, and had to be fed on successive sheets of "copy." It. was certainly distracting. Some specimens of the provincial .humour of America are given in the March number of" Chambers's Journal." The claim of Bdston to be the literary and intellectual centre of the United .States furnishes, we are told,. tlie scribes of the rest of the coun-. try with opportunities of -sarcasm. Ifc 'is a .Boston clergyman who is reported to have declared that Lot's wife was transformed into a monolith of chloride of sodium I Not long ago, in a discussion as to whether "expectorate" or "spit" should be used in the health notices in the New York street cars, it was mentioned that Mr Itbosevelt, when Police Commissioner, had preferred the simpler word. Thereupon a Chicago paper promptly expressed its regret, as this revelation would assuredly, lose for him the Boston vote! One more example may, be quoted : "lam agent, sir," said a travei* ler, "for the 'Great American Universal Encyclopaedia of History, Biography, Art, Science and Literature,' complete in two hundred volumes." "Don'fc need ifc," replied the business man j " I married a Boston girl." * ' ■ ' V