NEW BOOKS.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 609, 11 September 1909, Page 9

NEW BOOKS.

<1 "Priests- of Progress.!' By .G; Colmoro. . London: Stanley Paul and Co., Is. and 2s. 10. '■ Tho third edition of this novel with a pur- . peso bears .on its cover a series of quota: r, tious- from'various English reviews . which n liavo praised it, and. so the reader ' knows that lie may expect to be impressed with the . powerfulness ' the story. As a matter of fact, the. subject is ono that calls for power- • -ful • treatment, and makes it fairly easy, for it with the. cruelties wrought, upon animals and human beings" by vivisectors. .. It is a ghastly book, and begins with a hornblo account of tho rescue of a dog which, is being experimented upon, going on to-an d. oven more horriblo account .of an inexcusable operation upon a poor patient in a pitb'lic hospital,'. and making numberless ; statements ,as to the' cruelties which are practised ® upon-animals and human patients - in the ~ countries, whero vivisection is permitted by -. l&w. . There is a certain amount of story in tile book; • Tho heroine is tlio daughter of a . famous surgeon, and marries another scien- ,- tist oven more'famous in his profession. '. Before her' marriage "she has ' bccomo very friendly' with - Judith Home, a .-leader among . the anti-vivjsectionists, who . shakes her faith ... in the. -; methods of tho advanced surgical school, but it.is.not'iintil sho'by mischance , witnesses a ghastly operation, performed by. , her hushing-in his own laboratory, that she definitely decides' to : join tho . . ranks of. Judith's jiarty. Perhaps, tho .best'scene in' tho book is; that where sho tells her. quiet ' littlo: broken-spirited mother, what, she has seen and felt,, and finds that years before '• the mother y had gone through a similar, ex- . :pcrienco, and had never forgotten it. Lady Lowther tells how an operation, through ■■ which sho had passed, had made her realise : the. great sufferings of the animals who had been experimented 011. "Wo took a house in' ; Campbell Squaro," sho says. ' "What I went: >. 'through "there, I* cannot.;say,, - Night after night, I was kept awake. by. the • howls' and : groans" of' the' animals belonging- ' to " the ■ Campbell Street Hospital. I could not stand it. I told' Bernard so," and begged him to give up tho experiments, and bo a' doctor and not ,a physiologist." : Lady Lowther had nover been reconciled to her husband, and had found her only consolation, in . knitting an endless supply of. stockings, which sho sold for -the ; 'benefit of_ the Anti-Vivisection Society., Her ; daughter is-boldtfrv and faces both her father and husband, telling them ..what she- thinks '. of 'their. methods, but, before matters have . . gqno . any- further her husband;'dies—dies as •> tlie;result'-of- an^' injectfdii ,; .ma{lp at tho Pasteiir.' Institute after'lw'had been bitten, but - ijot inoculated, by ni'ad dog'.'. The story. . is wellHold,'.'and;Sev J eral;;of the minor characters are portrayed;' with great skill, but inevitably tho in the_:theories , and, forward in their' support-'than-in-tli6-thin -thread-of . story or the shades of characterisation. Tho writer, claims in. tho first place that 110 . amount of .scientific laohiovenierit; in ■ surgical knowledge, wptold •-justify 'th& inflic- • tipn of such pain on dunib creatures, thai the value of all such experiments 1 has 'been •: exceedingly' sm'dll, and that-the. disregard for life-and suffering whicli results' from \ho free practice of vivisection" in hospitals and laboratories, has led ■ to great carelessness and oven cruelty in the treatment of. human patients. Some dreadful stories are told of .the 'experiments carried, otit oil human beings, and .for every'Stafemontijinado some sort 'of justißcation.''iisfgivbh / :in'-.an' :: 'appendix , at the .end of the',book,V^ost;-6fi';tho:'.refor-j. onces' '.being to ~medicaid jjournals?: ■' In' ; ono . chapter.thoro, istatt\cxtrabrdinary,'ahd''sen'sational' account of■ -an" Deration'; for, i appeh'diciti?,' which' :_w6uld'''ccrt'ainly;'amaze.*any [ .''Ndw Zealand patient, land- o'nfeV.wondcrs,//whether :. the rest ..of, the; book', is-asiexaggerated. I "The Goose; Girl," By ; Harold . MacGrath', , ; ; Bobbs "'Merrill and Co. '.(George. Robertson and Co., Melboiirne.V . . . Harold MacGrath is already familiari to ; novel readers'as the author of the dolightful ; "Man/on tho Box,' 1 : "Tho Grey Cloak," "Half'a Eogue,". and several other books. 1 His latest work is the charmingly fanciful . story of a humblo. littlo gobse.'girl, who . was | ill reality, hef , lover, a' king in [ ,disguise,;a princess who was not; a princess, , an American young man, and various other j characters ' who moro.or less complicate matters. 'The. scene is laid in tho German duchy of Ehrenstein,-.whoso ruler, tho Grand Duke, •: has a deadly grudge against his neighbour, the King of. Jiigeiulheit. Some, years betorfa; tlio story opens, tho Grind Duko's daughter, then a tiny girl,' had been stolen, and for sixteen years nothing was heard • of.her, till-.ono;day;a'n : opera singer in Paris was discovered by Count von Harbeck, ~ Chancellor ■ of'.Ehrenstein,;to bo the missing , princess.- In ; the. meantime the Grand ' Duchess, had-died'without' ever seeing her daughter again; and tho..,Grand Duke swore a ; life-long enmity against . the King of . Jugendheit, ,whom he suspected to havo been responsible,', with the connivanco of Von' i Arheim, then his oiyn Chancellor, for : the abduction' of his daughter, Overtures for the hand of tho Princess had been mado on bolialf of the "young King of Jugendheit, by the Regent of; that country,, and the Duke had been persuaded, altogether against his will,'.that . i it was. necessary 'to allow the marriago to take place—tho/ Princess, liko all princesses, having no say. in tho matter. Just' after ; tho, engagement -had . been announced ;to tlio country at large,'a letter is received from' tho King," whoso whereabouts is unknown,-; to say that ho, absolutely refuses 'to-have anything to do. with the marriage that has been arranged for him, and he asks the Princess to give it out that she has changed Jier mind.' The Princess is overjoyed,.as she is really in lovo with 'Carmichael, the young American Consul, hut her. father is nearly beside, himself with rago at. tlio "affront,' but can really do nothing. Grotchen, the beautiful,' lo'yal, generous tender-hearted, goose girl, tends her flock of geese day by day, heedless of the complicated issues around her, loving and belli" beloved by, a. young vintner, Leopold Diet" rich, who had lately como into tho country. Unkind circumstances, htiwevcr", rudely break in upon her dream. Her lover is arrested, together With an old mountaineer, who" lias taken a great interest in her. Strange evi- . . dences are produced by a German lately returned from America,. and a gipsy, and Gretchon, Who had thought'to make a name as a great singer,. and win happiness and fortune for her-lover and herself, turns out to bo tho real princess, and Hildcgarde, tho apparent princess, is acknowledged ' by von Harbeck to be his own daughter. Tho book is charmingly illustrated . by Andro Cas- . taigne. "The Romance of Beauty (Winifred)." By Roy Horniman. ; (Wellington: Whitcombo and Tombs.) 2s; Gd. ' , "This is an" uncommonly interesting book, ' written witlr ( much skill- and powor. Its ; characters and period aro of tlio early 'seventies, when England was emerging from a, stato of intellectual, dullness and ugliness into the light'of'culture and knowledge—a > light that was presently to sweep over the 1 laud, utterly transforming its ideals of beauty in art, in literature, in verse, in music, anil ' in religion. Only .the faintest gleams, however, ,wero as yet beginning to show. Wag- ■ nor was spoken of as being a crazo, a genius,

but a mistaken one, and people said that music would nover develop along tho lines 110 initiated. One of tho characters in tho book speaks of Whistler as being a voluble 1111poster, with literally 110 more idea of colour than Ills man-servants, and yet tho speaker was supposed to be an exceedingly cultured ma ! l- „^ ltu ?'.' n religion was held to bo vile, and all religious energy tho. height of bad form. County society was'insufferably dull. Into this environment was Winifred, tlio heroino of tho story, born. The book is tlio history-of a Wonderfully beautiful and alluring woman—a pagan—full of vitality and love, of lite, intensely susceptible to beauty, and cursed with an intense need of love.. Her beauty is equalled by the keenness and power ot her mind, far in advanco of those with whom sho is thrown in contact in her early life. Given such beauty, such fascination, and such a temperament, with circumstances that aro adverse from tho very beginning, what else could befall her but the things that como to pass? The gradual unfolding of her charactor from tho' timo of her early tomboy days, through a careless- unfettered girlhood with no restraining, guiding, influences about her, into womanhood with all its fateful crises, is sympathetically and cleverly portrayed. Her. childhood held littlo promise of tho wonderful beauty that was in later years to make her so famous all over Europe; it was only after her marriage with Nicholas Hollington that it suddenly dawned upon ail astonished world that' a marvellous beauty had ripened in its midst, and only then after a famous painter.had.painted)her portrait, nnd. royalty had pronounced an unqualified verdict in her favour. It was inevitable 'that her marriage with Nicholas Hollington, wlioip she married boTore she was old enough to realise what sho needed, should become a failure. Ho was worn out beforo they -met, was intehsely limited in his outlook, full of self-love and egotism, domineering, shallow, and utterly incapable of comradeship with such a woman as Winifred. Inevitably, also, she finally meets tho man who responds to overy need of her nature, loves liini with all her heart and soul, and tragedy follows. Winifred is at. her finest when;, with her back to tho wall, she, defies her world, _ and while Groonibridge is-lying crushed, with his mind completely gono, she, the celebrated s society beauty, becomes an actress,-determined to'win wealth and power for'the sako of her son, who, but for the accident- that befell his father, would have had a name and an earldom. The ending of tho book is disappointing. It was surely unnecessary. to bring in do. Hahn, and, having done so, it makes the final situation with which tho book ends impossible. -

| "In the Shadow of tlie Peaks." By Stata B. Couch. London: Greening's Colonial ' Library, 2s. fid. and 3s. 6d. '(Welling-- . ton: : Wliitcombo. and. Tombs, Ltd.). .' This talo of adventure in Mexico is written in a very readable manner, but ' with- a carious misusej of. English idiom, that can only bo explained, on the supposition that 'the-.writer's, acquaintance with tho Spanish languago lias impaired her knowledge of her .own tongue.. The-horoino of tho story, Hazel Cowley, is a young American girl, who has como-with-her parents and elder sister to make, a stay for a time in the old city, Cuornavaca, where- they engago a Spanish tutor..; There is no clear reason why tho wealthiest and. most influejiti.il man in tho country-sido should wish to spend his timo teaching two'young girls a smattering of his language, but it is' necessary 'to tho'.story that he should do so, for almost'immediately lie'-kidnaps Hazel, with whom he has fallen violently- in love, and carries her off"to his ranch, intending to keep her there until she returns his' love. The. tamily take this .misadventure, very calmly, and Hazel thoroughly enjoys tho first period of her captivity, durwliieh she is taken, on a pleasure trip to tho summit of Popocatepetl—called persistently I'opo. Hazel returns from her journey unscathed, though the several other members of the party fall victims, to-smallpox,, and after nursing-them; devotedly, Hazel returns triumphantly to her- friends. ••

Mr. W. D. Howells,, who has-only just made-acquaintance with the novels of Eden Phillpotts,.; has a paper on that , subject in tho current .'''North'American Review." .At first .Mr,-Howells regarded'.Mr. Phillpotts, as. a'"minor Thomas Hardy," but this, he says,' "though>right, was not quite right": , "Ho is. a ..minor Thomas Hardy, but much roore. Ho-has . a like''joy in .tho.ifacD'. and heart of, tho. earth, arid.-'ho. gets very close' to- tho secret that,' remains hers,, however wo ■try. to surprise it. But somehow the -last mystical meaning of our great mother is withheld from him, that indiciblo .' charm which Hardy imparts to-us almost as wordlessly as it, was imparted to him." Mr. Phillpotts, ho adds, gives us '.'noble, landscapes, honest, faithful, . impressive, which' he cloaHy does from loving to do them . . . . but thej 'do not take the . oyo or, hold the memory liko those I .counterfeit presentments of peoplo in which' ho . excels: What of effort is evident in his work .is the effort. to relate his action to,his scene; but his peoplo would'bo as fully alive anywhere else as they 'arc'-in Devonshire Among other "faults", and• "dislikcs'Vwhich Mr.' Howells finds in Mr. Phillpott's'books are an over-supply of adventiiro, more talk by the characters < than, is needed, and overmuch love-making. Still,/ho admits the talk is very , good talk, and tho love-making very good love-making.', He readily ■ acknowledges that tho world abounds in (younger readers who .may-not yet have, had their fill of lovemaking, and who have their- right to be. appeased. . A novelist cannot always, ,ho says, be: writing for readers over soventy. Returning to a comparison with Mr. Hardy, Mr. Howells says : "I tremble at this point to sa.v_ that ho seems-often to go deeper in motive than his predecessor and that lie betters his instruction iu finding nobler types bf women. I hate to own that anyone : can be better. than 'Mr. Hardy in \tho same air, and, besides, I doubt if anything is to bo accomplished by this sort of comparison. But, to. keep to tho: safe positive ground, we may recognise that ho penetrates recesses of the heart-not hitherto explored and deals with fresh surface facts of lifo. in a way he seems to liavo-found out for himself." Mr. Howells-does not claim Mi-; Phillpotts "the cause or effect-of anything epochal." Ho arrives in his order, not because Gcorgo Eliot and Thomas Hardy were beforo him, but becauso the revelation of ;tho' moral government of tho univcrso perpetually demands prophecy, and' when, one voice is exhausted finds another.- \