SOME RECENT FICTION

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2664, 8 January 1916, Page 9

SOME RECENT FICTION

MRS, HUMPHRY WARD'S LATEST. jVlrs Humphry Ward's latest novel, "Eltham House" (Cassell and Co., per Whitcombo andl Tombs), is a singularly successful re-onactment in fiction of tho century-ago famous cao of Lady Holland. Lord Holland, a political and social leader of tho dying years of the eighteenth century, ran away with the beautiful wife of Sir Godfrey Webster. After tho inevitable divorce, ho married the lady, whom the female society of that day severoly ostracised, but who, nevertheless, established a famous salon at her husband's historic mansion, Holland House, which still exists in Kensington. Statesmen, poets, playwrights, wits, all were proud to bo Lady Holland's guests, and being herself a highly intellectual woman with a cultured taste in literature and the fine arts, it is doubtful whether the absence of tho ordinary society woman of the period from her famous receptions troubled the hostess much. Mrs. • Wnrd now shows us how, so she thinks, a similar case would be treated to-day. Alec Wing,- son of an enormously rich nobleman, runs away with the young and haijdsomo • wife of another titled gentlemkn, and, after the erring spouse has been duly divorced, marries her. Returning to; London, after some eighteen months spent on the' Continent, the Wings take up their residence at Lord Wing's superb town mansion. The husband has great political ambitions, and his wife starts off to conquer London by making Eltham Houso the rendezvous of men famous in. politics, art, 6cionco, and literature. Both husband and wife are- from the first conscious that society is against them, but trust that the taboo will wear itself out in time. , Wing becomes more and more ■immersed in politics, makes_ a big hit in the House at'an opportune moment, and is convinced he will, get Ministerial honours.- The Prime Minister's wife, however, will not hear of it; the party leaders'fear the "Nonconformist Conscience," and filially it has to be made clear to Wing that the thing is impossible. Wing, alas, now proves himself a woak-minded egotist. Forgetting the sacrifice Caroline nas made for his love, ignoring all her splendid service to him in his political career, be displays; bis personal pique by a selfish upbraiding of his wife, and departs, on a friend's 'yacht on a-long trip to South America. His wife bravely stands up against tho world, the receptions at Eltham Houso being now on a more gorgeous scale than ever.' But the effort is too much for a woman who has long been suffering from a deadly malady, and Wing returns to Englanl' in time to witness his wife being carried out of her famous rooms —to die within a short six weeks. In her preface, Mrs. Ward tells ■us that the real question for Caroline Wing is "How much could the pride of life and the desire of the eyes do for this woman?—and how little P. What she really desired -was' something intangible and spiritual whioh was denied her. She tried to reach and hold this something gallantly, like one fighting a' forlorn hope—through, a lavish use of the tangible and the earthly. But the weapon broke in her lands, and there could be but one end:" Both AVing and his wife are drawn with a firm hand, and the political and society scenes are vivid-and Cwincing. The story is rich, in welMrawn minor, characters, notably Lord Wing, whom Thackeray himself' could not well have bettered, and is quite -the best story Mrs.. Ward; has given us for some time past. By all means put "Eltham Houso" on your next order list., i . ,

SOMETHING NEW. The title of P. 6. "Wooclhouse's novel, "Something New" (Methuen and Co.), is well justified, by the coutents of wbtit is ' a\ brightly-written and most amusing story. The leading characters are Asho Marson, a struggling _ writer of sensational "detectives''--he ? is tho creator of, "Gridley Quayle, Criminal Investigatori"—and a very jolly and up-to-date young lady, who, like the hero,' is seeking fortune in London, arid is a dabbjer in journalism. Marson and Joan made the acquaintance of an eccentric I'ankee millionaire, a great collector of scarabs. The choicest specimen in Mr. Peters's famous collection having been annexed (in a moment of absent--mindedness which Euspicious people might construe as kleptomania) by a ~ wealthy and eccentric peer, Lord Emsworth, the millionaire offers £1000 reward for its return,' and this reward tho two adventurers set out to earn. The plot _is complicated by the fact that the millionaire's daughter is engaged to marry the peer's son, an amiable, hard-up young nobleman, of the Johnnie type, who, when Joan had been, for » brief period, a member of an, musical comedy: company, had written her. several- love letters and 1 now fears a - breach of . promise' case. How , Mr. AVodeliouso workers out the final scenes in the vastly amusing little comedy drama which .is enacted «u Standing's Hall, I may. not tell, but shall content myself by saying, that

'"Something Fresh" is quite the best story of ita lsind I have read for many a long day. The Yankee millionaire and the eccentric old nobleman are ex- 1 ' ceptionally amusing characters, and tlio adventures of the hero, as valet, and of the heroine, as lady's maid, at Binding's Hall, are in - the/best vein of farcical oomcdy. Mr. Wodehouso cannot only toll a good story, but he possesses a singularly bright and attractive stylo. "Something New" may be commended as a sure and certain dispeller of the dumps. Sufferers will duly nolft. THE FURNACE OF IRON. . The Englishwoman who marries an Oriental and goes to live in India, Egypt, or elsewhere in the East, is, in nine cases out of ten, unconsciously courting uuliappiness. Not a few novels have-been written of late on these, mixed marriages. The most rccent is "The Furnace of Iron," by Andrew Firth (T. Fisher „Unwin). Evelyn Moresby, brought up in a quiet London home by her aunts, who aro'deeply.interested in "missions to far countries," marries Abdul Mababbi, a handsome but unscrupulous young Cairene, employed in the Egyptian Civil Servico. At first the English wife dearly loves her husband, but as, slowly, but surely, his real character becomes unveiled, loathing replaces affection.' The husbantl, whose chief object in marrying an Englishwoman was to secure promotion, allows his Egyptian relations to treat the poor girl very badly, and the death of her child, the result of native ignorance and improper treatment, ■ drives her so near insanity that she welcomes tho divorce which, under what seems to he a very cruel law, the mean and contemptible fellow is able to declare. Mr. Firth is clearly well versed in Egyptian manners and customs, and some of the-minor characters are strongly drawn, notably the superstitious and spiteful old native nurse who is primarily the cause of the child's, death, and is a strikingly powerful creation. THE PASSIONATE CRIME. • "Tho Passionate Crime," by E. Temple Thdrston (6. Bcll'land Sons; per Whiteombo and Tombs), is a-weird and strangely fascinating story of a young Irish jtoet, a student of "faerie" and all that is thereby connoted by a mind naturally ; inclined to mysticism, and a handsome lady of position and wealth, who reaches tho ago of thirty without loving, though never lacking wooers. _ Anthony Sorel idealises the horoino, in whom, however, love, though long delayed, assumes, when once evoked, a physical and sensual character. The mystic is beguiled, and succumbs to temptation. But his mystic ideal is shattered, reaction is speedy, and tho ctory ends in tragedy, Mr. Thurston'H .ytor.v. mux saoid. .Toflaof: the influence

of W. M. Yeats's' poetry, but it is a fine picco of literary craftmanship. THE SEALED VALLEY. "Tile Scaled Valley," by Herbert Footncr (Hodder and Stougliton; per S. and W. Mackay), is strongly commended as a powerful and well-written Story i of advonturo in the North Cariboo region of British Columbia. A young Canadian doctor, Ralph Cowdray, and a beautiful lialf-casto Indian girl, daughter of a white father and an Indian mother, play the leading parts in a drama in which gold hunting; the exploration of an Indian tenanted valley (the secret of the approach to which is jealously guarded); the revenge of a baffled frontier ruffian; and the love for the hero of a trader's daughter all combine to provide a rich feast of exciting incidents. The Indian girl is a specially well-drawn character, and the local colour of the story is both picturesque and convincing. An exceptionally good story in its own class.