SOME RECENT FICTION

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2630, 27 November 1915, Page 9

SOME RECENT FICTION

THE LATEST WELLS. How Mr. H.'G. Wells, the Wells who gave; us the immortal "Kipps"; who oreated the delightfully humourous "Mr. Polly," and the farcically, riotously fuiiny. "Bealby," could have sat down in. sober earnest to write the life story of such an ineffable prig and sententious" bore as the hero of his latest novel; "The _ Research Magnificent" (Macmillan), is really quite_ beyond my comprehension. For William Por pliyry Benham is the personified sublimation of priggishness. Early in his life,' he came to the conclusion that he must live ■ the "aristocratic life." ''Nobility for him was to get something out of -his individual existence, a flame, a. jewed, a splendour—it , is a thing easier to understand than to say/'- His mother,encouraged him in the idea that he was born to set the .world straight, and both at school and at.Gambridge lie steadfastly , strove after the accomplishment of tiliis ideal. It would be amusing to draw comparisons between W. P. Benham's exporiencos of university life and those; say, of Mr. Compton Mackenzie's hero, Michael Fane (in "Sinister Street"), bui I mercifully refrain. At the university, Mr. Benham set himself out to conquer "Fear," his 1 experiences in that direction, in driving a very spirited horse in a -light gig, being somewhat unpleasant,..- though numorously reminiscent of a certain episode in "The Pickwick Papers." Ho leaves Cambridge, _ and comes up to London to study life, and is soon and quite easily captured by a skittish lady, a widowed Mrs._Potiphar, all of the modem time. To his oredit, be it said, he soons tires of sensual intrigue, recovering therefrom' .to make what seems to be a. highly satisfactory marriage with' a young lady named Amanda, his tidy little fortuno of five or six thousand a year convem« ently aiding the wife to swallow, for a time at least, her husband's ever-in-creasing egotism and emegious selfconceit. ' .Next, Mr. Walls takes his hero abroad, to Russia and elsewhere, an ex-Cambridge friend, a dirty-minded fellow, named Prothero, accompanying him, mainly, it would appear, for his amorous escapades to provide a foil to the somewhat, oppressive virtue of William Porphyry. The negleoted Amanda, in his absence, philanders with a gentlewho has no yearnings after ah Heroic pose as a "natural arfcistocrat"; the searcher of the "Quest Magnificent," the wonld-be discoverer of somo metier in life wherein he may achieve something really great for an unconsciously , suffering - world, can be as blind . as / a bat where his own domestic honour is concerned. Mr. Wells takes his hero to India, where,' by the /way, he meets a tiger "uncaged; uncontrolled," and quells the savage beast by simply lifting his hand "I am Man," he said, "the Thought' of the World," and the King of the Jungle sneaks off—at least so Mr. Wells would have lis believe. Next William Porphyry ,11(16 .'something liko a dream, and hungers and thirsts after his Amanda. He arrives back in London rather suddenly, and catches that lady, if not exactly iii flagrante delicti;, at least very ileal it. _ Whereupon_ ho stalks off again in disgust to Ohina, where the unsavoury Prothero meets a tragic and dis gusting end, tho story closing with tho hero's death in the Square at Johannesburg General Smuts's soldiers failing to recognise tho uplifted hand of the sorely-puzzled and indignant Engfall man. Mr. Wells must surely have been writing with his tongue in hia cheek when he created Mr. Benham, but it. must not be supposed that this story makes dull reading. Mr. Wells gives us, it is true, far too many long aitcourses on war and peace, on politics, on various social and economic problems, and somo of these might have been shortened with advantage. Also the eroticism of Mr. Prothero ia nob a' very pleasant subject to dwell upon, and it is somewhat too insistently dwelt'upon. Still tho story is full of good things, and must not bo neglcctcd. It contains sovoral well-drawn miivor characters, notably Benham's father and mother, and a mail servant, Merlile, who is worthy of Dickens's Littimcr in "David or Thackeray's clever creation, in tlio same gonre. Morgan tho valet, in "Pendcnnis." Benham is a well-meaning follow, and ,6ome of his disquisitions 011 life aro disquieting in their perception of the chaotic state of present-day socioty, but it is not men of the Ikubam type who wHI restore order out of chaos. A spocially clover featuro of tho novel is the quite astonishing impression of vividity and accuracy which Jlr. Wolls gets into his local colour. The honeymoon cf f/enliani and Amanda takes' in the , Balkans, and Mr. Wolls contrives to convey tho impression that he knows that part of Europe as well as he does London. He seems equally at homo in , Moscow, Canton, Port au Prince; and

Johannesburg, yet I bcliovo he has never visited these cities eavo in imagination. It is all very clever, but honestly I think Mr. Wells is writing too much nowadays, and attempting to deal in fiction with subjects best treated in magazine articles or pamphlets. "THE DESPOT." In "Tho Despot" (John Long) Miss Ellen A. Smith, whoso "Price of _ Conquest" was so readable a story, introduces us to a very extraordinary leading' character, Paiil Manderson, who is half philanthropist, half diarlatan, and who sacrifices anything and everything to tho compassing of his plans. The character has evidently boon drawn with much oare, but truth to tell, it is difficult to conceive how Manderson could succeed in imposing his will upon his essociatos as he does. With all his faults, however, ho possesses the gift of winning almost slavish devotion, a result due no doubt io his possession of a strong personal magnetism. As a psychological study "Tho Despot" is a decidedly interesting story.