BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXII, Issue XV, 15 April 1899, Page 489

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

THE ASHES OF EMPIRE. A novel well worth reading this. The scenes are laid in Paris, just before and during its seizure by the Germans in 1870-71, and the book is full of interesting incidents and particularly good description. The author evidently knows Paris well, the Paris of twenty-eight years ago, and has got the art of making his readers know it too: and its people, and the prominent men who. with the best intentions, misgoverned the city, and the rabble of its slums who. with the worst intentions, repeatedly sought, and at last successfully, to set up the commune in the poor beleagured city. The piquant little household of the charming Chalais sisters, which includes a lioness among its domestic pets, makes an attractive centre of interest, and the love stories of both Yolette and Hilde are by no means thrust into the background by the noise of the cannonading of the Prussians and the protective forts outside the walls of the city, and the shouts of insurrection within. The characters are all well drawn, though the author scores highest in his fine descriptive passages. SELAH HARRISON. Carlyle has said that only in selfsacrifice does life truly begin, and Selah Harrison, the hero of this novel, finds his life only worth living by the constant immolation of himself. Though we may not be willing to admit that all Selah’s ways of self-immo-lation were necessary or called for, the simple, faithfid. unselfish personality of the man has a strong attraction for us. We cannot help thinking, however. that his mission is rather in combating sin and helping sinners in the slums of London and the hopgardens of Kent than in the Island of Laro, in the distant Pacific. Constance and Janet, two very different types of good women, who both love Selah—each in a very different fashion from the other —are both pourtrayed with the same faithful sympathetic touch. THE PRIDE OF JENNICO. Captain Basil Jennieo is a young Englishman of very ancient lineage, in the service of the Emperor of Austria. who woes a Princess and marries her. only to be informed, after the wedding, that it is not the Princess but her lady-in-waiting, whom be has married. After driving his wife away from him with horrible words, he finds that he eannot live without her, and vainly seeks reconciliation, abasing his pride to the dust in his efforts to get her even to see him. In the eml. however, it nil comes right, though before he gets his wife again he discovers that she has undergone another

metamorphosis. The story is. from start to finish, a very readable one.

THE HEART OF DENISE. This is a capital collection of stories of varying length by Mr S. Levett Yeats. The longest by far is ‘The Heart of Denise.' which reminds me very much of some of Mr Stanley Weyman’s best work. Some of the shorter stories such as ‘The Foot of Gautama' and ‘The Treasure of Shngul,’ have an East Indian background. Mr Yeats has already shown, in other books of bis. an intimate acquaintance with life in India. Burma, and the Straits Settlements. There is not a line of dull reading in any of the stories.

The March number of the Pall-Mall Magazine contains in its varied assortment of reading matter, an interesting article by Frederick Greenwood on 'The Kaiser in Palestine.’ which strives to set forth the purposes of His Imperial Majesty’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and to assess the amount of success which has attended the fulfilment of those purposes. ‘Sketches in Egypt.’ ‘Mrs Merrington's Philosophy,’ ami ‘Among the Pines at Areachon,’ are three other articles which are sure to lie also read with interest. One of the best of the short stories is a quiet little thing entitled ‘Mysie.’ Mr Marriott-Watson relates Lord Francis f'harmian's fifth escapade. which turns out to be us amusingly extravagant as its predecessors, but with an underlying suggestion of bitter tragedy in it. The illustrations in this number are all up to the usual mark of excellence. I am sorry to see that Mr Quiller Couch, who has discoursed so ably and amusingly to the readers of the ‘Pall-Mall’ for the past year, now takes his leave of them from his ‘Cornish Window.' His place is to be supplied by Mr W. E. Henley, whose monthly chats will be entitled ■Ex Libris.’

•The Ashes of Empire.' by Robert W. Chambers: Macmillan ami Co.—Champtaloup and Cooper. Selah Harrison.' by S. Macnaughton: Macmillan and Co. — Champtaloup and Cooper. ‘The Pride of Jennieo,’ by Agnes and Egerton Castle: Macmillan and Co. — Champtaloup and Cooper. •The Heart of Denise.’ by S. LevettYeats: Longmans, Oreen and Co.