The times., 1898-01-16
arhe school for saints.n

with 1t. The characters are drawn
with a keen insight and vivid reality
which challenges admiration, the dia-
logue is terse and sparkling, and the
epigrammatic and felicitously turned
sentences are simply legion. Whether
there is anything more than amazing
cleverness in the book is for the reader
to decide. To some people it viii ap-
pear a work of undoubted genius, and
to others it viii be tiresome- But as
to the thoughtfulness and skill of it's
author there can be but one opinion
and if the reader tires of it before the
four hundred-odd pages have all been
turned, it is only as one might tire OF
a dinner party where all the women
were beautiful and all the men We're
brilliant.
The hero of the book, Robert Orange,
is an ecclesiastical ascetic thrown into
the field of politics. He looks like a
Jesuit and acts very much like one.
He is. in point of nationality, COM
bination of English and Breton blood,
intense ideality and practical shrewd-
ness striving for the mastery in his
nature. To many men his scruples VIII
seem hypercritical and his principles
fantastic. He is the sort of man VINO
is so incomprehensible to certain other
men that he runs a great risk of being
considered hypocrite. But he is sim
cere earnest, and genuine. The ne
roine, Bright Duboc, afterward Mad
ame Parfete, is exactly the sort OF
woman to realize Roberts ideal. She
is the most human and most lovable,
and also the sweetest and purest, crea-
ture in the book. The picture OF her as
she appears at the beginning OF her
career-a French young girl fresh from
convent training, married without her
desire. yet with her consent, to a man
much older than herself, is picture to
be remembered.
Her resemblance to her mother,
the author says, was such as one
might suppose the purified spirit bears
to its earthly body. She was the same
creature, yet all changed. Bright was
tall and slight. She was real blonde,
with that soft, fiaXen hair which never
grows to a great length or in heavy
masses and which is too fine to bear
the weight of pins. Mrs. Parf1ete con-
fined hers. very simply and regardless
of the fashion. in a jeweled net. Her
eyes We're blue, unfathomably deep,
and her features had an irregularlty
which. while ii destroyed her claim TO
any classic beauty, gave her a most
uncommon and distinguished appear
ance. She was a child-a child
in face, which was younger than any
poetic conception of youthfuiness, ana
a child in figure, clad as ii was in a
pensionaires frock Of white lawn made
and embroidered by the nuns in the
convent at Tours
With so charming heroine, married
to a husband IN no way attractive, ana
with a hero of so intense and passion
ate a nature the thing logically to be
expected is a real French novel. But
st does not come. No love affair shows
its head till the husband has disap-
peared. and is supposed to be dead. 1t
is hinted on the last page that this un-
comfortable individual reappears after
the marriage Of Robert and Bright. but
whatever of French novel there may be
IN that situation is saved for sequel.
..Tbe School for Saints" is all that its
name implies, a history OF self-Sacrl-
flee. of remuneration, of devotion, and
of pure sorrow and pure happiness.
When Bright is described by Robert in
these words, the sainthood of both hero
and heroine can hardly be doubted:
The impossible word is the one
which would seem to imply the small
est doubt of Mrs. Particles loyalty to
her husband. She never left him; he
abandoned her. and received a large
sum of money for his act. She has
offered again and again to follow him
into exile But he puts her off with
lies He is a spy and villain and
traitor-the very scum of the earth.
Love has no place in the
question. Loyalty and forbearance
and forgiveness she gives, and gives
nobly. People who have lived
self-indulgent lives and loved many
times in many ways, think it
no sacrifice to renounce all human
affection. They leave it gladly-per-
haps because love, long ago, left them.
But TO strong pure hearts-hearts
neither jaded, nor embittered. nor
made cheap by constant exchanges
love always seems the most precious
of life's sifts-the one gift, too, which
we may have on earth and in Heaven,
also. Those who belittle it, have first
befouled it. You can always be sure
of that"
The strong point of the story is its
character drawing A better portrait
Of Disraeli has never been made than
the fiash-light photographs in this
book. The cynical, willy, mocking
statesman of the British Empire, with
his genius for epigram, and his court
Illness. and his sarcasms, one meets in
these pages as one might meet him in
a drawing-room. His character is sin
gularly consonant with the general
tone of the story. There are half a
dozen characters in the cast whose
lines might have been spoken by Bea-
oonsfield. Says Earl Wight, the friend
of Robert: Tell me how to spell 'GleI,-
corbie is a blockhead in Spanish. For
he reads all my letters and memor-
anda and 1 would not have him come
across a line that might hurt his feel
ings."
"What with men not daring to ven-
ture upon marriage and what with
men wearied out of it," says Hercy, Il
begin to think that st. Paul did wrong
to spare us his full information on
the point.
AT eight and twenty" says Dis
raeli Il too. thought that compromises
were nearly always immoral, as well as
dangerous, but, unless l am mistaken,
YOU viii find that the best-ordered life
is that which shows the largest record
of compromises. One need not be mon
ger of principles-that is a vulgar
trade and always leads to moral bank
ruptcy: but one can be, as it were, 4
worker in principles, and set ones
mind as piece Of mosaic
when most people speak of the
SOUL says Robert, they mean the
FIVE senses
The character of Robert is thus sum
med up:
"Orange was, by his fathers blood
and his own early associations, Bre-
ton Renan has said that all the Gel
tic races have in their hearts an eter-
nal source of folly and that this very