The times., 1898-08-07
Recent Fiction.

iNeW YORK. u. Appleton a. GO.
Recent Fiction.
1.-The Terror is a new novel by Felix
Gras. author of 1.-The Reds of the Midi
and has some of the characteristics of
the authors former work. 1t is vivid,
dramatic and incisive in style, and the
plot is cleverly worked out The
story is that of a young girl of
the French aristocracy, Adeline,
daughter of the Marquis dam
brun, who was hidden in Paris, among
working people who were her friends, to
protect her from the evil designs of hu-
man wild beasts who desired her money.
The introduction which Is remarkably
clever. arouses ones interest in the story
at once. 1t is simply the report of a con-
yer alton among schoolboys on the eve
of their holidays. Each tells what he is
to nave for a holiday treat, and the last
of all is a little fellow whose enter. am
ment is only the stories of O1d Pascal"
Determined not TO allow the others to
outshine him, he says,
You should have heard the story that Old Pas
cal told us last winter, evening after evening"
while we sat around him in the shoemaker's shop.
1t about what happened 10 him after he ran
away from NalCmort He had to away be-
cause the Marquis d'Ambruu's game-keeper,
big fellow named SuTto, wanted TO kill him
3 The marquis daughter. Mile. Adeine-who
was as sweet and good as She could be-let Pas
caet of the cellar where Surto had shut him
up to starve. Then the good priest Of
Aialemott, Monsieur Randcplet, got him of safe
at night and be went all the way afoot to
AvEron. II was in Ayignon that he met Nau-
clair. NauClair was = sergeant ID the National
Guard and he as kind to Pascalet he
could be. And Lazuli, Nauclar's wife.
She took much care Of Pascalet as she did of
Claret, her own little son. Lazuii man
aged TO rescue Adeline from horrible old W,
with a sharp knife, named La JacaTasse. Ade-
lines own mother had given her 10 La JacdTasse
to be killed You see, II Adellne was xii d, and
her brother Robert was killed, and the marquis
killed. too, tncn the marquse and Surto
would have all their money. And then
Pascalet became Adel!nc's little lover. That was
while they and Sergt. Nagclair and his vie were
all living together IN Paris with q lner named
Planchot IN tae Imp2Sse Guemenee-Tgat close
/ by the ruins Of the Bastile. Su-to and La
Iacarasse, who had murdered her father and
her brother Robert, hunted all over Paris alter
! her so that they might murder her, too. And
/ know that she had all sorts OF a bad time get
ting away from them and getting away from the
/ gulIlotlne-ior she was a noble you see, and II
! the Reds had caught her they would have sliced
/ her head right of. But she did get away, and
! Old Pascal must know how she did it; and
that's what ! want him 10 tell. TN be a story
TO stretch your ears out as long as your arms!
This introduction is to be commended
as a means of awakening the interest
! of the reader, and also dispensing with
| the need of lengthy explanations at the
! beginning of the book. In il one gets
/ as in a nutshell the whole of the pre-
vious history of the characters and the.
author is enabled to plunge at once into
| the heart of the story, with the certainty
! that the reader is as anxious as the
| schoolboys 20 know how Adeline got
away, and what happened TO her while
/ she was being hunted through Paris.
/ The story of that chase occupies near
! ly 800 snugiy-filled pages, and embraces
many startling and thrilling adventures.
La Jacarasse is fully as horrible as any
/ ogre OF the imagination could be; and
Surto is hardly less fearful 10 think up
on. Not far behind them in iniquity
! is one Calisto dandiEed serving-man
vino is implicated in the plot to gain pos
| session CT Adeline
But through it all moves the slender
little figure of the patrician waif like
| that of Alice in her Wonderland some
times frightened. sometimes dismayed,
but always winsome and sweet. The
character of Adeline is not only the most
| attractive. but one of the best drawn, in
the book. She is just on the borderland
between childhood and womanhood, and
there are few hero!nes of this indetermin-
ate age who can be made thoroughly in
teresting. Little Adeline is one of the few
| Naive, sweet and simple, she seems in
very truth the little princess of fairy
tale-a historical fairytale. ''The Ter
| ror'' is a book TO read for the story. 1t
carries one along with the irresistible in
| terest one used TO feel in fairy tales and
| books of adventure during the age of
awakening imagination 1t is an interest
| ing story, well told, and good picture,
withal, of the fearful days of the Revolu-
tion as they appeared to the hapless hu-
man beings who helped to make up the
chaos. Victor Hugo and other great nov
elsts have dealt with the controlling in
fuences of that time; this is simply a
story of those whose fate it was to be
controlled-the lambs harried by the
wolves. Much credit is due the translat-
! or, Catharine A. Janvier. 1t is not the
easiest thing in the world to translate a
French novel SO as to give the epigram-
matte, idiomatic force of the original ex-
pressions, unimpaired, to the English or
! American reader. In fact, 1t may be
doubted whether this has ever actually
been done. But the present translator
comes as near to writing French in Eng
lisn as any one can reasonably expect to
do, and the result is pleasing. CNew
York: D. Appleton G. Coz
For Freedoms Sake" by Arthur Pat
| eiSOAr - d SboIy Oh lHe D0rQer wars of
Kansas and of the early deeds of John
| Brown. 1t is told with a manifest preiu-
| dice in favor of old "Ossawatomie." and
an evident knowledge of the subject. and
there is a good deal of rough truth and
force in the telling, though the book is
far from being artlstically perfect The
hero is New England man, one Robert
| Holdenough, who comes to Kansas with
the intention of d4ing what he can to
prevent the Mssourians from making the
| new territory a slave State. The scene
| is laid near Ossawhtomie, and old John
| Brown and his sons are prominent figures
| in the story. There is a thread of a love
story, the heroine being a Southern girl,
and the villain a Virginian, with more
zeal than judgment; but the real central
| figure of the novel is John Brown, and
the real theme the struggle between pro-
| slavery and free soil elements in the first
| half of the century.
It may be a good thing, even at this
late day, to have presented to the public
this particular view of John Brown
Fanatic ne was, without doubt, and
charity must hold him a monomaniac;
| still, as far as that was possible to a dis
ordered mind, he was sincere, and he be-
| lieved that he was doing right and nee
| essary thing. He was conscious of the
| unpopularity of his course, and was pre-
pared to be condemned and abused by all
men; and to a man in this frame of mind
arguments do not have much weight.
There are people VINO, in these aater days,
have called him hypocrite. It may be
well, therefore to have a word or two
cnnlyap o,, the nth side fYor ~, lya of