SOME REGENT FICTION.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1913, 22 November 1913, Page 9

SOME REGENT FICTION.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE ROSARY." Jlrs. Florence Barclay has her own public, and a big public it is. Also, she knows exactly what that particular public wants,- and duly and regularly, about twice a year, supplies the desired articlc. But surely in her latest story, "Tlio Broken Halo" (Putnam's Sons; per George Robertson and Co.), she has out-Barclayed the Barclayan record for mawkish, positively sickening sentiment. Not even in ."Through the Postern Gate," with its elderly heroine and-its youthful hero, "Little Boy Blue," was there more liberal supply of positively nauseating gush than in, this story or a silly old woman's infatuation for. a handsome young doctor. Mrs. Barclay asks us to believe that a young man can become enamoured of a secondtime widow,-a woman old enough to bo his mother, tho "Little White Lady" of the story. As-a matter of fact, the handsome young doctor is a frightful humbug, for he goes to Somerset House and pays his' shilling, for a perusal of a certain will—the will of his "Little White Lady's" first' hubby. The "Little White Lady" is a- most pious .person, whereas the handsome young man is' an ■Agnostic, and,' as usual with; this, writer, we get a mixture of oleaginous.' religiosity and sickly sentiment. - In the end the "Little Wilito Lady" conveniently dies,- thus leaving the way clear for a second and younger wife—again a widow-1 Ism getting very tired of Mrs. Barclay's harping on this unpleasant theme of the infatuation of old women, for strikingly handsome and virile young men. And whon sickly, mawkish.sentiment is alternated by frequent quotation, from Holy Writ, the combination, to my may-be old-fashioned mind, at least, becomes positively nauseous. However, as I.said before, Mrs. Barclay knows her public. Chacun a son gout, and no doubt "Tho Broken H.alo will sell in its' scores', its hundreds of thousands, as did its predecessors. SOMETHING NEW. . A year or so ago I warmly commended a novel, "Old Brent's Daughter," for its admirable pictures of life in a sleepy-English country town. .The author's second novel, "Something New " (Duckworth and Co.; per George Robertson and Co.) is a clever study of a, young lady of wealth and good family, w'ho when the story opens, is engaged to a man in her own set, older than herself, well to do, and pleasantly mannered, but both egotistical and not a little selfish. Tessa Hartiiig is only twenty-one, and has seen little of life outside her own cotafortablo and rather narrow environment. Gradually, there comes upon her a sense, of the emptiness of her ordinary life, and the sudjlen death of her sister's fiance affording a pretext for the postponement of her marriage with the highly eligible Lyngate, Tessa goes to an unfashionable, seaside town, w'here a poor cousin ■ i<.conducting a.'boarding-house...Here, she meets and comes under the influence of a very fine :fellcw, a designer and builder'-of--yachts, l and slowly but surely conies to recognise that she has novor. really, loved the man to whom she is .engaged.-. : The cousin, a very fino character, -believes herself , to. bo illegitimate,- and proudly and coldly rejects the; friendship and '.assistance' of tlio line young .lady from London.-. In the end,,-however, thiOugh a curious dis-' covorv made by Tessa, tlie- cousin's honourable bir.th is established, tho ppor relation's mask .of reserve is dropped, and tho two girls live together until the -Londoner break's her en■gagenient with Lyngate and finds a •pinch"'more congenial husband in tho handsome but unconventional builder of yachts. -- Lyngate, who, 011 his .side, : had begun to find , the- "aw;akoned" Tessa decidedly unsympathetic, quite cheerfully •' consoles' 1 himself - with an .elder-;sister.-'- Tho' story '.lias a 'fine psychological'quality, "and' cltyerly illustrates tlie growing teri'deiicy of-so many well-educated' English -' girls-', to free theiriselvos" from; the shackles .of society, conventionalism. • ~