SOME RECENT FICTION.

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 217, 1 June 1918, Page 11

SOME RECENT FICTION.

Hugh Walpole's New Story. Mr. Hugh Walpole is admittedly in the front, rank of present-day English novelists, and a new story from his pen is to be' regarded as an event of some importance-in the literary world. His war story,'"The Dark Forest," published in 1916, was somewhat disappointing, coming as it did after that really brilliant achievement "The Duchess of Wrexe." In "The Green Mirror" (Macmillany,' however, Mr. Walpole seems to me to be at his best. The book, which 'was "finished in 1914," was "revised in tho autumn 0f'1915," deals with the lifo .of an upper middle-class family living in London in pre-war times. With the Trcnchards, who are'of Corpish extraction, the Family is everything. Here is how tho Family v regarded tho outer ■ world:— Not to be a Trenchard was to bo a niecer or a Ohinaman. And here I may remark with all possible haato that Knthorlne was never taught that it was a fine and a mighty thing to ho a, Trenchard. No Trenchard had, since timo began, considered his position any more than the ;stars,- tho moon, and the sun consider theirs. If you were a Trenchard you did not think about it at- all. The whole -Trenchard world, with all its ramifications, it great men and its small men, its dignitaries, its houses, its castles, its ■ pleasure resorts, itfl foreign baths, its theatres, its shooting, its churches, ite politics, its foodH and drinks, ite patriotism and charities, its aene, ita lakes and rivers, its morality, its angers, ita pleasures.! its regrets, its Qort and Hβ Devil, the whole- Trenchard world was a thing intact, preserved, ancient, immovable. It took its stand on its history, its family affection, its country places, ita loyal conservatism, its obstinacy, and its stupidity. ... It had no need for any self-assertion, any struggle with anything, any fear of invasion. From Without nothing c6uld attack" its impregnability. From Within? Well, perhaps, presently—but no Trenehard wae awaro of that.

But, as Mr. Walpole shows us, tho Trenchnrd fortress wae nut only fated to be stormed, but to lose its chief treasure. Tho audacious intruder is an Englishman -who has lived somo years in Moscow, nnd who there had "an affair" with ii lady who, though eho never visibly appears in the story, is ono of the most importunt iniluencce therein. Philip Mark's attack is so sudden, so utterly unprecedented in Tronchard history, that the Fainily-outsido Katherine—fails to roaliso its full import until it is on the eve of But when tho Family onco wakes up it docs bo to soino purpose, and it takes all tho intruder's powers of selfreliauco to save his strong personality from being overcome by the awful Family dignity, wrath, and capacity for pnssive, but nono the Ices powerful, resistance. Jn tho end \ho triumphs and wins his Katharine, but even then tho outraged Family spirit dictatos to Mrs. Trenchant a moan rovuugo on her daughter, with whom e!i,e coldly declines reconciliation. The. 'L'renchards, like tho Old Guard they arc, dio hard but nover surrender. It is inipossiblu in such brief space as that at my command to give my readers an adequate idea of tho combined strength nnd delicacy of Mr. Walpolo's charncterdrawing. Aunt Aggie, the most uncompromising of Trencliards, is worthy <jf Tliackoray himself, nnd tho weak and vacillating Henry (who, .by the way, was fated to "make good" in "Tho Dark Forest") is an equally clever creation. In some ways tho story is reminiscent or Mr. Walpolo's first .novel, "The Wooden Horse," but this is no drawback to tho quiet pleasure with which thoso who enjoy really hiph-cla* fiction will rend the later story. The author himsolf calls it a "quiet story," but etill waters run deep, nnd amidst such n. still and old-fashioned atmosphere as that of the Trenchird houso in Westminster human passions can sometimes run very high. ,

"Ttio Little Lady of the Shot Gun." "My real niimo's Lucy, but folks mostl>; call me 'Little Uell tat,' on account o my temper." Such is tho self-de-scription of tho lively young lady who is tho lieroiuo of Leslie Gordon's highly sensational but decidedly well-written story. "The Littlo Lady of the Shot Gun' (flodder and Stoughtnn). .She Js the daughter of "old innn Leblane," a' crafty, rascally old fellow, who curries on an extonsivo business as a moonshiner,''- otherwiso an illicit distiller of whisky, in a secluded ravino away back in the wilds of Western Can■ada. How into tho life of the "Hell Cat" —a very charming creature, despite her unpromising local nicknamo—there- comes ono Two Pan, wandering prospector, and, as ho has hitherto fondly believed, con-iu-nied misogynist; how Two Pan is, qiuto wrongfully, suspected by "old man Leblanc" and his associates to be a police spy; how the gold-seeker and the heroine nro forced into an alliance against a. common onemy; how real police eventually arrive, and what then happens, are told by Mr. Gordon in a well-planned, woll-written story, in which comedy ie constantly jostling drama, and from which even tragedy is not absent. ■ Tho story is sensational enough, but is freo from any taint of mero melodrama. /l'he homoly philosophy of the prospector rings truo, and few readers will thero be who will follow tho story of his taming of- ! "Little- Hell Cat" without feeling touched by tho honesty and sincerity ol tho rough but good-hearted fellow's chnracter. To write a Wild West story which is distinctly original,, and doc 3 not smell of tho kinema box, is not an easy achievement nowadays,, but this Mr. Gordon has certainly accomplished.