The times., 1898-10-09

come an angel of comfort and hope. She
would eventually have been sought out by
the hero. who has never forgotten her
and has made proud success with his
book, and they would be married and live
happy ever after. That is the way it
would turn out In the old-fashioned novel.
In real life, given a sensitive. ambitious,
h1gh-strung girl like Mariana, and an ut
terly uncongenial home, our heroine
would return to her family under COM
pulsion, beat her wings against the cage
until weary to the soul and finally either
drown herself or marry some man of the
neighborhood in order to change her lot
in life for something, no matter what.
After her marriage she might either be-
come hopeless invalid or a Horrible
Example. Algarcife would meanwhile
have forgotten all about the little neigh
Dor who made passing impression on
him.
The author in. handling the situation
takes the realistic rather than the ro-
mantle view of 1t. Algarcife discoV-
ers Mariana's trouble and, actuated by
sudden impulse, half of chivairy, half OF
real affection, asks her to marry him.
There is about the same mixture of graf
itude and of romance in her feelings to-
ward him. but she accepts him and they
marry and are for a short time very hap
py. The impression is somehow given
that they are rather surprised to ma
themselves so comfortable. Both have
been too thoroughly wrapped up in their
pet ambitions to speculate much on mar
riage in the abstract or in the possible
concrete, and they are therefore possess
ed of no fragile ideals TO be destroyed
Such is the nature of the human being,
however that having no ideals of marri-
age they speedily manufacture some, and
when the inevitable baby arrives on the
scene, breaking up the husbands work
and destroying the wife's last remnant of
ambition, these ideals gradually disinte-
CRATE before the dismayed eyes of their
owners. The baby's death results in Mari
ana's leaving her husband and accepting
an engagement with an opera company.
Some years later he becomes what his
foster-father intended and trained him to
be, priest, and after eight years of sep
aration the husband and wife meet once
more, are reconciled, and plan to go to-
gether to the south. This plan is frustrat-
ed by the death of Mariana. So ends this
odd little study of one phase of the life
of the nineteenth century. A story such
as this would have been impossible seven
ty-five years ago; il may be impossible
seventy-five years hence. Like Gissing's
whirlpool" Sarah Grand's Beth Book"
Mrs. Burnetts Through One Administra-
ton 1t is a record of passing phase
OF social LIE. 1t resembles tneSe
other novels OF modern times only
In so far as it is a study of the
inner life Of woman. 1t is, perhaps, a
little like Evelyn Innes'' in the charac-
ter of it's heroine but there is just the
difference between the two that there Is
between American and European Bohe-
mia. The former is almost provincial In
its earnestness: the latter cosmopolitan
in its lightness. The Bohemians of this
book remind one of children tricked out
in the costumes of mummers. They are
not real mummers: they know nothing
of the perlls the years of training, the
reckless wildness of the stroller's life;
they only divine a part of it, and play
that they know the whole. Mariana is
essentially innocent and pure: Algarcife
essentially chivalrous. honorable and
kind They are simply two natures
thrown together by chance into an inti-
mate relation, for which neither was eN-
actly fitted and the lesson of the book,
If there is any lesson in tit is not a
purpose NOVELS that two people who
have once entered into each others life
as had these two, even when the rela-
ton was assumed carelessly and without |
due sense of its seriousness-even such a |
man and woman cannot break loose from |
their common past. Their paths have |
crossed once: they cross again, and be- |
ing two simple souls, knowing each 9TH |
er's hearts. they are attracted at the !
second meeting precisely as they were a
the first. The book may not achieve a |
startling popularity, but ii is one of the |
most interesting psychological novels |
which we have had for some time. CNew |
York: Harper & Bros.)