A THOUSAND PITIES.

Wanganui Chronicle, 27 August 1901, Page 2

A THOUSAND PITIES.

The London correspondent of a contemporary writes as follows : — New Zealand has added another to the growing lists of novelists born in that colony who have found publishers in Lon-1 don and circJes of admiring readers. Miss Ellen Taylor's New Zeaiana novel, "A Thousand Pities," will be brought out by Mr Fisher Unwin next Aveek, and already advance copies have reached the leading j papers, one of which describes it as "a stirring novel by a new writer." I I am indebted to the publisher's courtesy for one of these early copies, and I have read Miss Taylor's stor(y with much pleasure and admiration. • While there t may be passages here and there that betray the unpractised band there is abundant evidence which cannot be attained by practice or imparted by tuition. I suppose that the true novelist, like the poet, is born and not made. If. so, Miss Taylor may be cited as the latest instance. She writes because she has something to say and must needs say it. Manifestly she has a keen eye to the conditions which make a powerful plot, a vivid pen-pic-ture, a strong situation. ' Her perceptive and descriptive faculties are good and even in tins first effort she shows much, subtle appreciation of ■ personal characteristics and skill in their depiction. Her scene is wholly laid in New Zealand and in the Wellington Province, alternating between the City of Wellington and the West Coast country north of the Ohau River. Her hero—at least the "jeune premier"—isya newly-arrived Englishman', lan Dungarvon, around, whose experiences the principal interest of the story clings. But the more powerful and heroic character of its particular rugged and forceful type is Hector Mackenzie, the Scotch settler, whose part in the final tragedy is so sensational and startling. The heroine Esther is a very vivid and attractive personality, while the minor individualities, including the bush poet, his elaborate wife, and the feminine dipsomaniac, are cleverly drawn. It would not be fair to disclose' the plot which readers will enjoy discovering for themselves. Among the most effective touches of "local colour" may be cited the picturesque fording of the swollen Ohau' Kiver and the grim experiences of the hero'and heroine in a bush fire. The slight anachronism of making lan Dungarvon arrive "by the s.s. Gothic from Plymouth 23 years ago" might advantageously be corrected in a future edition, substituting some fictitious name for that of so wellknown a. vessel as the Shaw-Savill liner which is still a long way from being the age indicated. This, however, is a minor matter, and does not, of course, impair the interest of the story or.the excellence of its treatment. lam not surprised to learn that on the strength of this first work the same publisher • has already accepted Miss Taylor's offer of a second novel from her pen without even seeing it. That work she has now well in hand, and I understand it will be finished and delivered before she leaves for New Zealand—toward the end of this month.