NON-INTERFERENCE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11717, 6 June 1916, Page 7

NON-INTERFERENCE.

NEW NOVEL BY BASIL KING. "On tho Sid'o of tho Angels," by Basil King, tW author ot : "The Inner Shrine " and 'other novels, seems to preach tho doctrine of " mind your own riffairs." It is a. "well told story and undoubtedly / interesting. Tho author is skillful in his managementof his plot, nnd now and again develops some lin'o descriptive passages. The account of a light between two brothers in a room is told with an air of oxci lenient which attracts the reader at once, but thero is a tendency in the work to become unduly concerned with psychological discussion, and' to develop, the characters into tho subjects of a clinic. ■ Tho author evidently urges tho advisability of non-interfer-ence, \iut unfortunately, though his hero is > a fine charatceiy strong and never giving any suggestion of a real break away from absolute rectitude, one feels that his troubles were due not merely to his interfering in the love affairs of his brother but only because ho himself- was in lovo with tho girJ. Certainly, with the best intentions, ho wrecks his brother's life and the girl's, and nearly brings his own to ruin. But again the author, to throw the hero's nobility into relief, commits an error and paints the brother darkly, and one gathers the impression that if tlio hero had not interfered the brother would have ruined the girl's life. Tho girl certainly is saved, and lives to marry happily someone else, and' her lover js killed, murdered bv her father. The hero linally returns to happiness with his wife,'who, by the way, puts a barrier between them on learning the fact that he loved this other girl beforo he asked her to marry him. The hero admits that ho loved the girl, and the wilo puts up a proposition, which for a nico adjustment of balances is difficult to beat. I did not lovo you,'' sho savs in cvlfccfc, "but I thought you loved "me, and so I learnt to love you because you loved me. Xow I iind that at that- time you did' not lovo me, and therefore the lovo I bore for you because you loved me has no foundation. And I must lind a new basis for my love oil discover if my love has gone smash.'' It is a position which the modern Bacheloress of Science would revel. What opportunity for a nice calculation of "my lovp for you and vour lovo for me and our love for us?" Anyway, she 1 finds the hew basis'and learns that the hero lias grown to love her after their marriage. But she. has had her run with the proposition all the same. Still, it :an interesting yarn for an idle day, in spito of this persiflage. On_ the Side of the Angels." by Basil King. London ; Messrs Methucns. Brice, 3s Gel'. 1 . —'-'Delta."