Books and Bookmen

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 21, 25 May 1907, Page 24

Books and Bookmen

Till' FIGHTING GHANOE, Robert N. < Tmtnbers. With 14 illustrations by Fred. Pegram. Constable’s Indian and Colonial Library. In ' rhe Fighting Chance.” the author, V i tli rare skill and force, laying aside for the nonce his talent for glamourous romantic delineation and description. Iras emerged, like a giant refreshed, in “a novel with a purpose.” Never since Wilkie Collins’ “Legacy of Cain,” lias tiie subject of heredity been so masterly and exhaustively treated. The author’s motive is to show that however (strong an inherited vice may be. or however favourable to it- growth its owner's environment, there i- still left a “fighting chance.” That though vice may be inherited it need not doom. And magnificently has lie achieved his object, piloting his hero, •'■Stephen Siward,” a dipsomaniac by heredity, through the stress of public odium, private, suffering, struggle and dispair. until at the very mouth of hell, lie is snatched by the hands of love and friendship to the heaven of love, moral and physical regeneration, public and private social rehabilitation. How sordid the struggle •was, and how strong and true was the hand of friendship, may be understood by perusal of the Author's portrayal of it. Siwaril. at his desk, over which the May 6 iiisliuie streamed, his crut cites laid his chair, sat p-.ring over the plies of papers left there by Beverly Plank fetiine days 'before with a curt recommendation that he master their contents. Some of the papers were typewritten, gome appeared to Ik* engraved certificates of stock, a few wore in Plank’s heavy, ?opia: handwriting. There were several packages tied in pink tape, evidently legal jtapcfs of some fcort land ’also a 'pile of s»-rap-hooks coulaixiiug newspaper clippings to which Siw;tr*r referred occasionally, or read them nt length, resting his this, fatigued, fave between two bony hands. The curious persistence of youth in his features seemed unaccountable in view of the heavy marks imprinted there; but they were marks, not lines; bluish hollows under eyes still young, marred contours of the < itvrk hone; t hardness about the hollow temples above which his short, bright hair clustered with all its soft, youthful allure nmliinmed; and hi every movement, every turn of his head, there* still remained much of that indefinable attractiveness which had always characterised his race—much of Hie unconscious charm usually known as breeding. In men of Mortimer's fibre, dissipation produced coarser symptoms -distended veins and sagging flesh, w' »rc In Siward it seemed to bruise and harden, driving the colour of blood out of him and leaving the pallor of marble, and the bluish shadows of it staining the hollows. Only the eyes had begun to change radically: something In them had been quenched. That ho could never hope to become imumue hr had Learned at last when he had returned, physically wholesome, from his long course of training under the famous Irish specialist on the Hudson. He had ex--jncteil to be immune, spile of the blunt and. forcible language of Mulqueen when he turned him out into the world again: •Ye’ll be afther n din'.’ said Mr Mulqnevn. 'that a peonoh in the plexis putts a mon -Hl; but it don’t kill him. That’s you! Whin a num mbits it up wid the •booze, I’uvp him conic here an' I'll taehe him a thrick Put it’s not murther T trtrhe*. it’s a h<»«»k on the jaw that shtnps, an’ the ipoomh in the plexis that pints the boozedivil on the bum’ l.'ave him take the could; he'll nicer rt<e to the rhnno o’ the bell avc ye lave him <le. But he. ain’t dead. Misther Sayward; mark that, me son! \u’ don't ye be afilitr sayin’, “Th’ hdniy is d<-wn an’ onl fur good’! Vote lad! Sure. I'll shake* hands over a dhrlnk wid him. for he can do uio no hurrt aenv mure!” No, snrr! I.'.ive him rie rave’ the years av yer life eoimt him did: fur the day you di<*. Im dlrs, nn* not wan shako o’ the mixer sooner! ♦i’wau, now. fur the rubdown. Ye’ve f.oight yer lasht round, if y- ain’t a fool!’ He had boon r. fo.d. H.- had Imagined that he could control himself, and pracfbo the moderation that other men practiced when they chose. The pm rib- restraint nn■noye.l him; Ids Imolb-d Inability to master hhnsolf Uiunflfnfcd him. the more «n he♦ause, se.-retly. he wna horribly afraid In th remote depth’s of his h?art. Fracfly ’iow It happened he did not re*

member, except that he had goue down town on business and had luached with several men. There was claret. loiter he remembered another cafe, farther up town, and another, more brilliantly Lighted. After that there were vague hours—the tierce fever of debauch wrapping night and day in flame through which he moved, unseeing, unheeding, deafened, drenched soul and nody in the living fire: or dreaming, feeling the subsiding fury of desire pulse and ebb and flow, rocking him to unconsciousness. His father’s old servants had found him again, this time in the area; and this time the same ankle, not yet strong, had been broken.

Through the waning winter days, as he lay brooding In bitterness, realising that it was all to do over again, Plank’s shy visits became gradually part of the routine. But it was many days before Si ward perceived in the big. lumbering, pink-fisted man anything to attract him beyond the faintly Amused curiosity of one man for another who is in process of establishing himself as the first of a race.

As for reciprocation in other forms except the most superficial, or of permitting a .personal note to sound ever so discreetly. Si ward tolerated no such idea. Even the tentative advances of Plank hinting on willingness. and perhaps ability, to help Siward in the Amalgamated tangle were pleasantly ignored. Unpaid services rendered by men like Plank were impossible; any obligation to Plank was utterly out of the question. Meanwhile they began to like one another-at least Siward often found hhnsch looking forward with pleasure to a visit from Plank. There had never Loen any question of the latter’s attitude toward Siward. Plank began to frequent the house, but never informally. It is doubtful whether he could have practised informality in that house even at Siward’s invitation. Something of the attitude of a college lower classman for a mon In a class above seemed to typify their relations; and that reeling is never entirely eradicated between men, no matter how close their relationship In after life. One very bad night Plank came to the house and was admitted by Bumble. Wands, the second man. stood" behind the aged butler; both wore apparently frightened* d’hat something was amiss appeared plainly enough: and Plank, instinctively producing a card, dropped it on a table and turned to go. It may have been that the old butler recognised the innate delicacy of the motive or it may have been a sudden Confidence born of the necessities of the case, for he asked Plank to see his young master. And Plank, looking him in the eyes, considered. until his courage began to fail. Then he went upstairs. It was a bad night outside, and It was a bad night for Siward. The master-vice had him by the throat. Up sat there, clutching the arms of his chair, his broken leg, in its plaster casing, extended Ln front of him; and when he saw Plank enter he glared at him. Hour after hour the two men sat there, lhe one white with rage and helpless; the other, stolid, inert, deaf to demands for intercession with the arch-vice, dumb under pleadings of a compromise. He refused to interfere with the butler, and Siward lncsulted him. He refused to go and mid the decanters himself, and Siward deliberately cursed him. Outside the storm raged all night. Inside that house Plank faced a more awful tempest. There was a sedative on the mantel and he offered it to Siward, who struck It from his band. Once, towards morning, Siward feigned sleep, ami Plank. heavy head on his breast, feigned it, too. Then Siward bent over stealthily and opened a drawer in his desk; and Plank was on his feet like a flash, jerking the morphine from Siward’s lingers. The doctor arrived at daylight, responding to Plank’s summons by telephone, and Plank went away with the morphine and Siward’s revolver bulging in the side pockets of his dinner coat. The scene, is laid irt America , at “Shotover,” the country house amishooting box of “Kemp Ferrall,” where Siward and “Sylvia Landis” (the heroine) become mutually interested in one another, through the medium of “Sagamore,” a Setter pup. which had arrived by the same train as Siward, and V'hieh belonged to “Hector Quarrier/* Sylvia’s accepted lover. Siward some time previous to this had been expelled from his club, “The Patroons,” for introducing a notorious actress, dressed in male attire, into a The Patroons,”and the house party at Shotover wore, exceedingly surprised to see him there, as the cir-s cumstauces had been so disgraceful as to isolate him from public sympathy. Siward had denied introducing the Lady, but it hud boon proved that he had made

a bet that he cuuld, without discovery, n r diice a lady -so dreaded, ana riu», coupled with the fact that he had cobfessed to being ..u under tue Uuu-juvc oc •wine as to have been oblivious of wuat had really happened that night at “The tuuoous, ’ had thrown the balance in favour of expulsion. Siward, conceives a great love tor Sylvia, and is convinced that she , and she only, can save him from Ilia hereditary vice. But Sylvia, who lias inherited, in part, the failings of n house famous, or rather infamous, on its feminine side, for its lapses from virtue, could not. bring herself, though she loved Siward, to sacrifice wealth, position, popularity, all of which Hector Quarrier could give her to repletion, and id which Siward had been bereft. So each went their way, Siward descending lower and lower, until it seemed as though nothing short of a miracle could save him from the doom of the dipsomaniac, Sylvia too, losing both moral and physical tone in the struggle between her renunciation of Siward’s love, and her growing antipathy for Hector Quarrier. To make matters worse, Quarrier had been informed by “Leroy Mortimer.” a visitor at Shotover aud gambler, Mari complaisant, and Chevalier d’industrie, and in short, second only in villainy to Quarrier himself, of a midnight interview, innocent enough, between Siward and Sylvia, who is puzzled to account for a certain change in Quarrier’s manner to her, and which had only intensified her antipathy towards him. Quarrier being a consummate villian now sets to work to ruin Siward financially’, satisfied that he has ruined him socially. Before leaving Shotover Siward receives a letter telling him of his expulsion from his remaining club, “The Lenox.” Siward leaves Shotover suddenly, in answer to an urgent summons from home, and arriving there finds his mother, whom he has loved dearly, dead. Sylvia lost to him, bereft of his mother’s restraining influence, he now embarks on a round of debauchery, the portrayal of which reads like a second “Bake’s Progress.” From time to time Sylvia hears of him through “Beverly Plank,” dubbed by the select three hundred, a thick-headed parvenu, but in reality three hundred times their peer in real breeding, mental and moral worth. About this time Plank, whose friendship with Siward has made gigantic strides, having obtained permission to look into his affairs and act for him finds that Quarrier, in order to crush Siward, has been abusing his power as a director of a great trust opposed to that in which Siward is interested. After a terrible fight, in which a number of leading financiers are involved. Quarrier’s villiany is brought to light, aud in addition to this, the real truth comes but about the affair at “The Patroons,” and which as Siward already knew, Quarrier was at the bottom of. And as was fitting, Quarrier loses both Sylvia, wealth, and the public esteem which he prized so highly. Each of the characters portrayed are finished studies, full of interest. To those burdened with an hereditary’ vice this book should come as a new gospel. The pictures drawn of social, financial, and commercial degeneration in America, are depressing reading. Probably- at no time in that country’s history has that country’s vices and follies been so held up to the searching light of publicity, as the America of to-day, which in senseless display, and in worship of the god Mammon, is not one whit behind barbarian Rome in its idolatry and its Saturnalian orgies and display’s, and with less excuse, as it does not, as barbarian Rome did, “walk in darkness.” There are dissertations also, on gambling, public and private, and a strong sketch is furnished which shows the. depth to which the gambler will stoop in his lust of speculation. And, in short, no crusader of Saracen days ever set out on -a more laudable quest than Mr. Chambers in this work of his. It is at once a denunciation and a consolation, holding out the hand of hope for those who will ■lake their “fighting chance,” doom for those who don’t. It is one of those hooks of which one cannot afford to skip a word, so full if is of absorbing interest alike to the thoughtful, and the thoughtless. And the author, once having put his hand to the plough of reform of America, isannot consistently return to the lighter vein of his earlier delightfully romantic style. And it will not bo the fault of her writers, who, as well as being seers, hold the keys of her public conscience, if she be not purged from the sins and follies •which, threaten to lessen her moral status in the council of the’ Nations.

LI FI LE ESBON: 8. R Crockett. (Wa4 Lock aud Co., Limited, London.)

Mr Crockett’s new book, at the outset, is strongly reminiscent of that i»imitablc creation of du Maurier’s brain, ‘"Trilby.” But the author, realising that an attempt to deport the life of the Latin quarter to Creelport in Scotland would end in fiasco, wisely refrained, aud the similarity during the rest of the narrative is confined to the uso of the diminutive in the name of its hero. There is a great tendency nowadays with author# to present co-heros, heroines, and villains, with the result that it require# great discrimination on the part of readers as to which hero is entitled tn wear the laurel wreath. In this case honours will have to be divided between “Terence Fairweather” and the holder of the title, “Little Esson.” The story opens where “Mina Hilliard” bursts into the joint studio of the four artists, who furnish the material for the character studies of this book, and to whom, in turn, she has posed as model, asking one of them to marry her at once, iu order to protect her from the brutal violence of her debased, decayed gentleman father, “Claud Hilliard.” Each previous to this episode had offered her marriage, but the only one she had favoured was “Hunter Mayne,” at once the most attractive and the most ineligible. But only one responded to her extremity, for reasons worthy and unyvorthy, Terence Fairweather, who at once takes Mina to his aunt, “Lady Grainger,” and as soon as a license can be procured, marries her. Directly after the marriage they start for a Continental tour, where shortly afterwards Fairweather dies of consumption. He leaves a will in which, assuniedly, Mina is left very poor. Tn reality-, she is left enormously rich. Fairweather, after providing- for Lady Grainger and her daughter “Hilda,” “the green girl,” has left every- penny he ha# to Mina, but only to be secretly used, in order to protect her from fortune-hun-ters. Mina returns to Creelport, where a cottage and a Scotch servitor, has been hired for her by her old friends, “Dr. John Broadbent,” of the Creelnort Manse, and his sister “Bee.” “Fleckie Itberwood” is the usual type of Scotch servant, who manages to save on £0 a year, and is as zealous, rude, and honest as the typical Scotch servant, to “whom all hearts are open.” and from whom no secrets can be hid. Innumerable difficulties begin to spring up to prevent Mina living the life of peaceful seclusion she had planned in coming to Creelport. First a visit from her father, who proposes to quarter himself upon her. But Fleckie takes upon herself to dispose of Claud Hilliard's claims and he troubles them no more. Tic is shortly afterwards pensioned by Mina, while thinking his pension cornea from an unknown benefactor. The next difficulty was Mina's drunken artist brother, “Jerome,” who is finally converted by a travelling missioner, who, with an eye to profit, avails himself of Jerome’s skill as an artist to illustrate in coloured chalks on a blackboard at the revival meetings held by- him, the place and fate prepared for the unconverted. Strangely enough, the conversion is real, and Jerome finds his niche in the scheme of life. The most serious difficulty was the persecution of Hunter Mayne, who, shrewdly surmising that Mina was richer than appeared on the surface, insists on proposing marriage to her. But any love Mina may have had for Hunter Mayne had received its death blowon that day in the studio, when she proposed to the quartette. Definitely refused, Mayne enters into a conspiracy with “the green girl,” the result of which is that Mina is informed that Fairweather had already a wife when he married her, and is offered documentary proof. Little Esson, who has all tuft time loved Mina, but has never declared his love on account of his poverty-, lierc steps in, and proves to Mina’s satisfaction the untruth of the story by producing the so-called wife, who proves to be very much married to an indigent •artist whom Fairweather had assisted in the hour of need. About this time news conics to Creelport of the failure of the bank in which nearly all Mina’S friends arc shareholders or depositors, and ruin stares them severally- in the fact. But one by one Mina, through the medium of her lawyer, manages to convince them that at the time of thS bank’s failure, their men of l>usi<

nes.-<. seemingly omniscient, had seen fit to withdraw their deposits and reinvest them. Tattle Koson had been one of the losers, and to avoid paying the calls to be levied leaves -Credport and takes to the road with his artist friend, “Calvinus MeCrom.” who hires a horse, which he facetiously names I-adas 11., anti van, and they set out for an indefinite tour. Ladas If. seems to have been as eccentric as his ertswhile proprietor. McCron, having but one eye, and a habit of sitting down on his haunches like a dog—generally iu the descent of a hilt—and a fancy for prefnier place in all or any public assemblage. Alter divers misadventures they, by natural gravitation, reach Creelport at the time of a great public ceremony, and MeCron and Ladas 11. behave so (outrageously that Esson thinks he is choosing the lesser evil by staying and bearing the brunt of paying the calls, and accordingly dissolves partnership with MeCron and Ladas. Absence has done for little Essou what his presence had failed to effect, and the story ends with the usual tragic end of the wicked and the uplifting of the good. 'A stranger medley were never, surely, brought together than the characters of this book. The promise given in its beginning is not realised, and the ending is tame and colourless. We have inet villains of various degrees who have concealed their villainies in many and devious ways; but a villain like “the green girl,” who, at each encounter with her vicHin, openly throws down before her the hand she means to play, is ridiculous to tire point of sublimity. “The green girl’s" exit is as sensational as her entrance—death by the inhalation of sulphurous fumes. But Mr Crockett may be congratulated on a unique creation in the person of “the greeu girl,” the possession of which, it may safely be predicted, no writer of note will wish to rob him. Nevertheless, the book is distinctly amusing reading, the humours pawky, as becomes a story of which the. setting is Scottish. But Mr Crockett's former admirers will strongly regret the unreality that is creeping into his later work, and destroying the earlier reputation be held for pure, fresh, natural delineation and correct atmosphere. DELTA.