SOME RECENT FICTION.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2193, 4 July 1914, Page 9

SOME RECENT FICTION.

TWO NEW AMERICANS. It is n pity that the' plot of such u well-written novel, "The Lapso of Enoch Wentworth." by Isabel Gordon Curtis (l'\ G.* Browne," Chicago), should have such an inconceivable starting point as the staking—on a poker baud —of a man's will. Cleverly as the author leads up to the incident, I find it difficult to accept as possible tho. opening scene, wherein Enoch Wontworth, n New York journalist, and his friend, a young actor named Andrew .Merry, play for a document which pledges the loser' to tho winner till death—"to do your every* bidding, to obey your every demand, to. the extent of my physical and mental ability, vou to furnish mo with support." Tho game over, Wentworth emerges the victor, the friendsttreating the matter as-a. joke. Hut Wentworth has for years been ambitious to become n successful dramatist, and when Merry writes a play and reads it to his friend, tlio hitter, who recognises tho drama as being of exceptional merit, is torn by jealousy, and yields to a sudden temptation to exact complianco with tho bond l)e had carelessly thrown into his safe. Merry cannot believe his ears, bul deems it duo to liis personal honour to accept tho position. The play is produced as Wentworth's, and is a lingo success, the leading male role lieiiig taken by Merry, tho heroino being played by Wentworth's sister, with whom "Merry is passionately in love. Such is roughly the start of wbat develops into a* capital story of theatrical lifo in New York. It would ho unfair to the author to disclose her ingenious rescuing of Wentworth from the consequences of his dishonesty, which, however, is effected, despite tinfact that the real authorship of the play' is made public. Fine a story as is, iii many wavs, "Tim Lapse of Enoch Wentworth." I cannot ret over tho opening- and basic improbability. Will Lovington Comfort's latest story. ''Down Among Men" (Hodder and .Stougliton"). has for its leading character John Morning, a young American journalist, who goes mil to Japan as a war correspon-lont, but fails, . through tlio jealousy of an older and.rival correspondent, in getting to the front with the Japanese armies. In company with another correspondent, Duke- Fallows, Morning makes his way to Niu Chang, and is present at the' great battle of liiaoyang, of which he writes the only account by an eye-witness which can reach the American papers. After alii'Ost_ heroic adventures ho reaches he is smuggled on board in American warship by a friendly doctor, and eventually rciohes San Francisco, there to he feted by his brother journalists and simply bombarded with requests for "war copy" from scores of newspapers and magazines. Later on, in New York, Morning becomes serious. Tv ill as tho_ result of injuries inflicted by tho Chinese bricands r.-lu. had ■robbed him of his original account of the battje. ami is ivrilouslv ii".ir becoming, a victim to drink and drugs. A young nurse saves him fiom physical min, ami lie tries his luck afrer.li n« a playwright, the story .ending with his marriage to the faithful Betty. ' In his war scenes Mr. Comfort gives us some vcry_ strong stuff, but his striving after continuous vividitv degenerates in places into somotliiiiT like verbal hysteria. In the New York scenes Snrinlism plays an important part, and tho interest slackens not a little. All the characters talk too much, and tlio old American jibe, "Why don't von hire a hall?" is apt to be recalled by tho reader. A strong character in tho book is Fallows, an elderly.war eorrosjpondenty whn.w hatred of-war is -destined to send him forth throughout tho world ns a strenuous and eloquent advocate of um'ver'al disarmament..,"Dawn Among Men" has.nil th" defects of the wmo author's "When Rnntledae Hides Alone," but in its earlier chanters in nartioular it is .1 convincing and powerful piece of work. "FRANK DANBY'S" LATEST. "Frank Danby" (Mrs. Njulia Fnnkau), whose "Baccarat," "Pijjs in Clover," and so many other well-written novels are gratefully remembered, gives her admirers, in her latest effort, "Full Swing" (Casscll and Co.; per S. and W. Mnokay), a story of considerable originality and no small charm. If only for two characters, tho middle-aged Agatha WansTead, lady of the manor of Marloy, and_her faitliful lawyer lover, Andrew M'Kay, this would bo a quito notablo novel. Marrying at forty an Irish peer, who, easy-going as a young man, develops, in his middle and' later of one of Lever's hard-drinking dissipated Irish lords, in his middle and later age, into a coarso caricature of one. of Lover's hard-drinking dissipated Irish lords,-Agatha eventually divorces this iindosirnblo incubus. She is wrapped up in her son, who, however, makes a had break by being cozened and cajoled by a •wickel red-haired adventuress (a nurse)", into a marriage which, fortunately for-him, turns out to havo been illegal. But thero is a child of thin union, and when tho reckless young Lord Grindolay is purged" and morally cloansej in the South African war, and comes hack to England to marry an old playmato of his childhood, tho sudden disclosuro of tho fact very nearly ruins tho two young people's happiness. "Frank Danby" Ws written an excellent story, with many stronglydrawn characters, the nurse-adventuress alone leing somowhat stagey—a story too,' which carries with it a very wholesome moral. A HOSPITAL STORY. Eleanor Hallowell Abbott, whoso "Molly Make Believe" and "The Sickabed Lady" may bo remembered, introduces us to a general atmosphere of iodoform in her latest story, "Tho White Linen Nurse" (Hodder and Stoughton; per Whitoombo and Tombs). An emotional, not to say hysterical, hospital nurse is tho leading figuro, and on a highly pitched note, tho author describes the jealousies, flirtations, and, bo it also said ,in all fairness, tho ccvoro mental and physical work of somo trained nurses. There is a gru(T, grim, rather rude, and not a littlo tyrannical chief surgeon, who is duly worshipped—or hated—by the whitecapped sisterhood, but, of course, he eventually, succumbs to the charms of tho "white linen nurse." "Tho White Linen Nurse" will, no doubt, bo hailed, in certain feminine quarters, as a novel of supreme excellence Mere men, however, will probably sniff and snort, and dismiss Miss Abliott's. latest story as being "tho mixture as before." SHORT STORIES. Recent additions to Messrs. Hurst and Blackctt's "Colonial Library" (per Whitcomho and Tombs).include* "The Lovers of Mademoiselle," a well-written story by Clivo Holland, of country and Parisian lifo during the French Revolution; "The Home Breakers," an antimilitant Suffragette novi-1, by "a popular and well-known novelist, who desires to remain anonymous" (for fear of Pankhurstiau wrath, I suppose!); "Tho Honour of the House," a romance of seventeeiitli-century Italian history, bv Mrs. Hugh Eraser and J. L. Stahlmaun; and an exceptionally well-writ-ten and interesting Anglo-Indian storl by E. W. Slivi, entitled "Baba and the Black Sheep." The Indian scenario has by this time, thanks to .Mrs. Pen-in, Mrs. Penny, Mrs. Flora Annie Steel, and others writers too numerous to mention, become somewhat frayed, not to say well worn. But Mr. Savi's story iv possessed of a decided originality, ln.<h as to iUs plot and in its characterisation. Its local colour, so far as a nou-expert

may judge, n e\eeptinn ill\ stroiy md conviiieni!:.

Mr. Joseph llnrkinp, n. t)\ till , - tinio, a much practised st«r\ telli r ,iii! Ins latest imvol, "An Km mi lintli Diim Thin" (Ward, Lock mi'l Co, pe. .> ami W. is i norkinnnjikc effort.' A hiuiiti.il houv on a wild Cornish moor r.l milt'l mule who keeps a inotliT mid d milliter, whom In , has robbed of tner nrisoiiers 111 > tlio InieK ni.ui'-iiii, a liamlsoiue and i-nur.igi'ims jnniiß (loco., who rescues lieaut\ in 'hitrois, aim outwits tlio villain of the pm . .1 111 1tish {Tonornl iiiijuith nwuwd vi imiiit; sold yalualilo milit.Tj 'co r o'i> a French ditto against nhoin a (."iinlir rhargo is tlireatenrd —all tliesi- am fei--111 re a of a sensational but ri.illj r.rlltold story. And for nice there 11 noi .1 siiiglo wickedly plotting Honirn Clholio wiest in tlio nliolo «tor> Winch, for Sir. Hocking! is nuked a new departure. As usual, the Corni'h scenes aro .specially well done. Tlio striking inccofs of Joseph Conrad's last storj , , "Chan*e," hn« proinpte<l Fisher Unmii, his first puUislicr, to reprint "Almoner's roily" ami *'\r Outcast of tlio Islands" Gd net) "The Nigger of the N'wifsu -, ' n'ul "Ixird Jim," two of ihe biit oi Coi»rad's stories, can now '00 I'ud in shilling wlitions. r ,