SOME RECENT FICTION

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2787, 3 June 1916, Page 9

SOME RECENT FICTION

The Strangers' Wedding. 3lr. W. L. George, the author r.f "Tho Making of nil Englishman," and of tiiat remarkably clever story "The Llecond liUKiuutg," nifty not in his latest story "xh'e Strangers' Wedding" (T. .fisher TJttiviti); have reached the higJi standard set ill nis earlier work, but he has written,nevertheless, a story writ worth reading', liy this time the marriage of a highly educated young man of fastidious u-sto and habits, with a young woman r.ianirestly his inferior in education ami social position, a woman l'aiv to look upon, but of hopelessly crude intellectual equipment, is, as a motif for a novel, wmewliat vieux jeu. in this instance, the hero, u .young man. fresh from Oxford, is engaged in "settlement" work in j r ,ondon, and meets ami falls in love with a v aslieiwoman's daughter. Sue is as honest as 6he is pretty, and in some ways much her husband's superior. 'For lioger "ncnte —"Caniinnl. Quixote" he had been called at Oxford—is a terrible prig, and one can quite understand how tho young ife, tiring of his '.superior person" attitude, eventually bolted with a former admirer, a soniewhnt blatant yonng Socialist. The transformation of the pretty Sue lrom her dingy milieu in the Euston Bond district to an artistically furnished houso in the West End, and her reception by her husband's family and friends nftoru Mr. George opportunities for some clever contrasting of social elements, and in his character sketches of the leading lights at the "settlement," and of Sue's parents and relations, he treats his readers to some excellent humour. 'I'lio working plumber, "OWGarty," the rascally jerry-builder, Green, the acidulous spinster, Miss Miakin. with her Whi'to Slave traffic mania, end

tho pugilistic parson, ''Fighting J3i11," aro all excellent. As for Groby pore, with his sioblwriug affection for Sue, and his veakness for trips "round 'tho corner," lie is surely a reincarnation of our old friend Mr. Eceles, and recalls,, too, certain of Mr, Do Morgnn's creations in tho same genre. A capital story in its way, but, as 1 have said, hardly up to the high water mark of "Thy (Second Blooming." Tristram Sahib.' Jiast and West clash in Hiss AVylio's latest story, "Tristram Sahib" (Aliils and liooii, per George ltobcrtson and Co.), jusi .is they clashed in the same author's •earlier, stories, '/The Kajah's People" mid "Tho-.Temple of Dawn.". As before, Miss Wylio displays a powerful grip of the inevitable and everlasting conllict "rietw-iwn British and native Indian philosophies, beliefs, manners, mid customs. The story has an. exceptionally Strong plot, centring round the relationship between the hero, an 'English doctor, who hates the very idea: of. killing anything, but is a skilled healer, not only,of 6ulfering bodies but agonised minds, and his illegitimate brother, a clever, unscrupulous Eurasian, 1 whose advent to tho little native Stato of Ciaya brings in its train so much trouble to 'Europeans and natives alike. Two women play important roles in the drama—tragedy it were better named— which is played out in Gaya; one a colonel's (laughter, a prim but obstinate little Puritan; the other a woman of strong passions, liud.'a truly great , soul, a world-famous European dancer. Tho hero marries the wrong woman, and thereby brings, for a while, misery not only upon himself, but upon soveral other' people. A great flood, a native rising, and the almost' miraculous cure of a case of seemingly, hopeless paralysis are all factors in'the culminating'and sensation solution of Tristram's' life problem. Apart from its exceptionally strong plot, the story is remarkable for the many new iignts it throws upon the' vexed Eurasian problem.