PUBLICATIONS

New Zealand Tablet, 17 April 1913, Page 15

PUBLICATIONS

Faustula. By John Ayscough. Chatto and Windus, X, ■ London; pp. 332. 'Of the making of books there is no end,' says King Solomon; and with equal truth it may be said of Catholic fiction that of tne making of books about the early Christians there is no end. Fabiola was the great prototype of a host of stories about the catacombs, and the martyrs and confessors of the Christian era. And before the time of Cardinal Wiseman, French dramatists had discovered the possibilities of the period, and Corneille's Polyeucte had started the vogue in 'martyr' plays. But from the first page of Faustula the author strikes out a line of his own. His ancient Romans live and think and talk as if they were alive to-day; and we have the novel experience of being on intimate terms with a classic Roman who had a haunting dread of growing fat; and with his daughter, who finds it impossible to keep the unaccustomed headgear of a Vestal Virgin from dangling into her plate. To have achieved a result such as this, where we indeed see the characters in their habit as they lived,' is in itself a triumph; but the author of Faustula has done more than this. lie has given us a portrait-gallery of exceptional merit. The noble yet convincingly human figure of Faustula, her shamelessly yet attractively selfish father, Sabina with her Spartan characteristics, the Vestal Virgins with their various idiosyncrasies— are drawn with a firm and skilful hand. And in the latter part of the book especially, we find a rare beauty of thought and expression, evidenced in phrases such as these:—'Nevertheless Faustula thought of her father, and drew him under the seamless robe of Christ's unreasoned love.' Those who ask few favors are heard for their nobility.' God lets me give, He is not like a vulgar king that overloads servants with big gifts, but will not stoop to take anything in exchange.' And John Ayscough knows a thing hidden from many novelistshe knows when and where to stop. The conclusion of his forty-third chapter, unexpected as it is, is as dramatic, as pathetic, as restrained, and therefore as effective, as Thackeray's recital of the death of George Osborne at the end of a chapter in Vanity Fair. Without betraying the secrets of the plot, we venture to predict that many readers will be surprised at the finale of this book. But the author, we think, has a definite object in view by his unexpected denouement. His gospel is evidently that there are other careers open to noble women besides that of Virgin Martyr. His heroine is a martyr in will; and, as he puts it—'Martyrs have their Queen also, and Faustula was one of her handmaidens.' A book-review is of course incomplete without a complaint or two; and ours are: we do not quite understand either the incident of the sleepingdraughty or the reappearance of Fabian. Was Tacita attempting to poison Faustula, or was it the scheme of Flavia; and why did Volumnia recommend her to take the draught ? One gathers, of course, that Fabian was saved from death somewhat after the manner of St. Sebastian; because that is the only possible explanation; but we think both incidents might have been.made a little clearer. These, however, are small defects in a very fine novel which should prove interesting reading to Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Corinne of CorralVs Bluff. By Marion Miller Knowles W. P. Lmehan, Melbourne; pp. 197. Price 2s 6d. This is the Australian story of an Australian authoress, published by an Australian firm; and as such, has special claims on our attention. It begins well, with plenty of local color, its heroine being the young hostess of an . accommodation-house in a rough seaside resort. The book concerns itself with her adventures and those of her three suitors, one of whom succeeds to the English earldom of Poppledene, while the two others are respectively a struggling country doctor and a true 'son . of the soil.' The book breathes a Catholic spirit throughout; and though the action of. the plot violates the probabilities in several instances, .that is a fault which the authoress shares with

many of her most famous and successful confreres. The shortcomings in style, however, are not so excusable. The book alternates between faults of slipshod construction and sentences which smack too much of artificiality and constraint. On adjacent pages, for instances, occur the two following sentences:— Second to an arranged visit to England, to take place when the result of his final examination as a physician was known, and there to take his degree, and find among either the moneyed or titled a wife who might be an ornament in the house of Poppledene, was, he knew, a union with Isabel Lascelles, as far as the wishes of both parents were concerned.’ ‘ Corinne was beautiful, of course—beautiful and graceful, too but she lacked the grande dame ” manner that was like murmuring melody to his conservative soul.’ In conclusion, may we suggest to the authoress, who is so well known as a contributor to the Australian press, to make her next novel still more Australian, and to let us see more of Such characters as hard-worked Larry Hayes, the backblocks doctor. There is a big field for fiction in the country districts of Australia, and we would like to see the authoress of Corinne of CorralVs Bluff adventuring a still more distinctively Australian story. Our Own Country. By Louise M. Stacpoole Kenny. James Duffy and Co., Ltd., Dublin; pp. 142. Price 2s 6d.

I his is a pleasant little story of modern Irish life, with many charming and convincing scenes, notably that of the Midnight Mass at Carrow. But there are two points we would like to take exception to. There are three religious vocations introduced into the book. I he first is that of a girl who thinks she is called to the religious life, and subsequently finds she is mistaken, and very properly leaves the novitiate and marries. The heroine, a widow of forty, who'is represented as devoted heart and soul to the memory of her dead husband, becomes a Religious of the Sacred Heart. And the hero, upon her refusal to marry him, becomes a priest. Now these three incidents are quite possible, though we have doubts as to the probability of the second but surely this kind of thing is common enough in Protestant fiction. One can forgive non-Catholic novelists for utilising the religious life as a kind of asylum for their sentimental and unfortunate characters; but a Catholic writer should portray at once a truer and a more exalted idea of religious vacation. There are, no doubt, priests and nuns who have become so as a result of disillusionment with the world; but as a general rule, a religious vocation is a positive, not a negative one, and arises from an attraction to religious life strong enough to overcome the natural attraction towards life in the world. The too prevalent idea of convents as hospices for the heart-broken should not be countenanced by Catholic writers. And we hope Mrb. Stacpoole Kenny’s knowledge of modern Ireland is at fault in her delineation of the charming Irish Catholic convent-bred girl of seventeen. Let her be as wild and wayward as she will ; but we hardly like to read of her indulging in such language as: ‘ The postman is confoundedly late,’ and ‘ It’s deuced dull for her.’ That is exceeding the ordinary limit of school-girl slang even in the colonies ; and we in these new countries like to think of our Irish sisters as better than ourselves in these matters.

The Lady of Mystery. By Alice Dease. James Duffy and Co., Ltd., Dublin; pp. 159. Price 2s fid. Sir Walter Scott remarks in the preface to one of his novels that an author who misleads the public by his title, whether deliberately or accidentally, will find himself unpopular among the reading public. We are far from wishing such a fate to the authoress of The Lady of Mystery, but we must confess that the title of her book led us to expect a story of some dim, far-away period, with perhaps a touch of the .supernatural in the plot. Instead of this, it is a tale of contemporary Ireland; and the Lady of Mystery is an Irishwoman of the present day who loses reason and the power of speech in a railway accident, and whose antecedents are consequently shrouded in mystery. How that is cleared up, we must leave the authoress to relate; and no doubt, also, readers must peruse for

themselves the love-stories of the four attractive' young people whose fortunes are intertwined with those of the heroine. The book is a pleasant picture of the quiet little village of Drinagh, which furnishes an attractive frontispiece to the volume; and one of the characters introduced is an Irish philanthropist of the right type, whose energies are devoted to providing home industries in his village, and so stemming the tide of emigration.

We have also received four exceedingly fine publications from the Australian Catholic Truth Society— The Choice of Boohs, by Rev. A. Murphy The Vocation of the Celt, by the Rev. Robert Kane, S.J.; The Birthright, by Constance M. Le Plastrier; and Sister Etheldreda’s Experiment, by M. Elizabeth Walton.