OF LITERARY INTEREST

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 2, Issue 3, 1 September 1923, Page 28

OF LITERARY INTEREST

VICENTE BLASCO IBANEZ, the author of '' The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," can write a tale of a simple people with a force that survives the crucial test of translation. In "The Mayflower" (T. Fisher Unwin, London) he gives a prose epic of the fisher people of the Cabanal on the sea-coast of Valencia. They are primitive in their greed, cruelty, and passion. They are brutal as the sea that provides their food in fine weather, but in storms takes generous toll of husband, brother and lover. For the men, life is rough and hard, and few of them die in their beds. As to the women, their lives are a long tragedy, save for depraved creatures like Dolores, the wife of Pascualet, the owner of the '' Mayflower. '' Clumsy, good-natured, but ever a blockhead, he could believe no evil of his younger brother Tovet. But Tovet's awrul treachery to him is revealed in the end, and the finale is terrible. There are some vivid pen pictures in the book. That of the fish market with the great crowd of vituperative hags reviling each other in the early morning while waiting for the Customs agents to weigh their fish-laden baskets is among the unforgettable ones. IN "Lilian" (Cassell and Company Ltd.), Arnold Bennett has had the temerity to write a story that may surprise some of his admirers. Its chief merit consists in its every-day-ness, if such a word may be permitted. Lilian Share is the typiste at Felix Grig's typewriting office in Clifford Street. She is very beautiful. She has a unique walk. She has a smile that "intensified her beauty, lighting it, electrifying the eyes, radiating a charm that enraptured.'' Of all this she was well aware, for she had carefully studied her effects. She felt that she had been intended to live the life of a great lady— furs, splendid jewels, a limousine, of course. Enter Faust in the shape of Felix Grig. His wife lias just divorced him, and Lilian knows it. He natters the girl. She swallows all avidly, and waits for more. It comesa journey to Paris, the Riviera, nice clothes, all that her luxury-loving nature asked for are hers. Phase 2 follows quickly. Maternity approaches, and she makes known her plight. Felix, though in the early stage of a severe cold, arranges their marriage with all proper formality, and makes his will, leaving his wife sole legatee. This done, double pneumonia does its worst, and the widow finds herself rich. She returns to London, takes possession of her house and visits the typewriting establishment to receive the homage of the girls. Then she motors to Piccadilly to purchase a layette! IN "December Love" (Cassell and Company Ltd., London), Robert 1 lichens has taken a new departure. He makes a brave but vain effort to invest Adela, Lady Sellingworth, with the power to attract and hold the affection of a man only half her age. The day was long past when she had reigned a queen in London society, and little of her beauty remained, but in her vanity she imagined that she could still hope to win the love of Alick Craven. Genuinely attracted for a .time by her graciously charming manner, and the exquisite fineness of this accomplished grande dame, he was on the point of proposing, when she herself drew back. In the meantime the freshness and youthful beauty of Beryl Van Tuyn became a more powerful magnet, and from that moment the older woman's fascination had vanished. But Beryl had a love affair of her own. Attracted by the mystery sur-

rounding a handsome stranger, Nicholas Arabian, she was hypnotised into promising to marry him. And here fate —or Providence swiftly intervenes. Lady Sellingworth proves herself a thoroughbredwhich Beryl never could be —and the girl is saved at the eleventh hour from wedding a denizen of the underworld. As a portrait of the typical American girl, Beryl is rather striking. She is beautiful, wealthy, vain, hard and pitiless to the older generation, and unconventional, with a strong leaning to Bohemianism that nearly wrecks her life. Like other works by this author, "December Love" is finely written, and if at times the self-analysis of the characters is somewhat exhaustive, one would not wish to miss a single word of it, for each is essential. On Divorce FAIRFAX contended that the great weakness of the American people lay in their lack of stability, that they could be swept along on a wave of enthusiasm, but that when it came to the steady tide of determination they wouldn't even tread water; that lack of stability was at the root of the divorce habit, which, if it wasn't checked, would insidiously undermine the character of the nation. ' * * * Divorce! While I acknowledge that there may be situations when it is unavoidable, I hate the word. Always to me it takes on the semblance of Medusi 's head in my school mythology, its snaky, hissing locks sti iking, stabbing, stinging, scarring indelibly. 1 believe in keeping covenants. ... I fancy that the future first families of America's ' Who 's Who ' will be those who can count back at least four generations of ancestors who have, in spite of disappointment and disillusion, poverty or riches, sickness or health, kept their marriage covenants. '' Emilie LORING, in '' The Trail of Conflict.''