The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-01-29
ROMANY AND CYMRlC.
Mr.. Watts-ounton's New Romance.

"Aylwin.' BY Theodore Watts-Dun-
ton. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York.
Aylwin is much read and much
discussed book at the present moment,
and desevedly so, for if not a great
work, it contains many elements of or
iginality and power; it is fresh and
strong and sweet; it is a love story of
rare charm; it is told by skilled story
teller and literary craftsman. Ii is the
most imaginative English novel of re-
cent days, the most fantastic and
weird after She" the most unreal
istic. Perhaps these are a few of the
reasons why in England "Aylwin" is
said to be the novel of the hour, and in
this country it has easily disEanced its
rivals as the novel Which it is fashion
able to read or to have read.
Mr.. Watts-Dunton stands high in
literary circles in London. Although as
a member of the staff OF the Atheneum
the major part of his work has been
anonymous, The Coming of Love;
Rhona Boswell's Story" introduced him
to a-large and general circle of read
ers. He has written number of
poems which reveal a mastery over
form, and his essay on poetry in the
Encyclopedia Britannica is not less a
model OF English than little master
piece of criticism.
In "AylWin" he has produced a novel
of rare imaginative power and poet
zeal feeling 1t is idealsm, romance,
poetry, from beginning to end The
reader surrenders himself at the be-
ginning to the little lad who one lovely
summer afternoon was sitting on the
edge of the cliff that skirts the old
church yard of RaXton- on-Sea, and at
the end, when through ENHANCEMENT
and intricacy, that lad, grown now to
g. young man, energies into peace and
blessedness, he turns the last page with
a sense of awaking TO the common
light of>day Only once does the world
trude. and that Is when mesnerism Of
the Salpetriere type Is Introduced to
transfer the curse from one person TO
another-a mingling Of nledieValism
and 10th century science which is
laughable rather than annoying.
There is little attempt at charaoteriz-
alton; the people of the book are types
visions, dreams. The plot is poorly
constructed and unravels in the clos
ing chapter with rapidly that nearly
takes away the breath. But every
where there is style, charm, magic.
Very meagerly and mperfectly
sketched, the plot is in part this:
Aylwin the hero, who tells the story
in the first person, is the scion of no
Bile house and the son of man OF
mystic ideas who owns an amulet of
extraordinary power. Aylwin, when
crippled boy meets Winifred, q little
Welsh girl a cymric child, versed in
strange old Welsh lore and passion
ately attached to the mountains and
history of Wales AS children they
become betrothed, but when next they
meet after years of separation, Aylwin
is strong young man, the heir OF
wealth and a great name, While she is
only the daughter of a drunken village
sexton. But, defying the social gulf
that divides them, Aylwin vows to
make her his wife, and the lovers re-
new their troth in secret on the shore.
That same night Aylwins father dies,
leaving the mystic amulet which he
has always worn on his breast in
memory of his first wife, to be buried
with him, under penalty of horrible
curse upon the violater of his tomb and
his children.
Winifred's father, ignorant of the
curse, steals the cross one wild mid
night, but so speedily does the curse
operate that before he reaches home
he is overwhelmed in a fearful land
slide and with the moonlight cross of
the gnostics' still glittering on his
breast, is borne down to ruin. His
death Shrek is heard by both Aylwin
and Winiffed.
Aylwin, with instantaneous intuition,
realizing the sacrilege that has been
committed, has but one thought, to pre-
vent the curse from working upon
Winifred, but although postponed, the
knowledge of it eventually comes to
her. Insane at it's awful import, she
loses her reason. and, mad, Wanders
away into the Welsh mountains, finally
drifting to London and begging her
bread Let his children be vagabonds
and beg their bread, let them seek it
also out of desolate places" reads the
curse. With awful minuteness, destiny
works itself out; futile are the efforts
to escape what the powers of evil have
everything must yield to
fate.
Aylwin has gypsy blood in his veins.
and in order to find his love, he joins
a gypsy band. The chapters that de-
scribe their eonings and goings are
among the most delightful in the book
stepped as they arein legendary lore and
Romany magic, with the glamor of i'm
memorial romance and mysticism
thrown over woods, mountains an
streams. Mr. -Dunton may
fatter the gipsies, but he has certain
~ drawn a fascinating picture of them
while IN Sinf, the noble, splendid Ro-
many girl who loses her heart to Ayl-
win. while never failing in efforts to
restore to him his lost love, many
readers will find the true heroine, not
in the passive and shadowy Winifred.
It We're best to stop here without
even limiting at the conclusion more
than is implied in saying that in the
end, love overcones hate. In Ayl-
win was the true love of the spirit--a
love so intense that nc mower in thf
universe. not death itself was strong
enough to sever it from It's object. This
hidden under all the fantasies and d.
versions Of the tale, is the essential
germ of it, as it seems to the writer
an in this it is but a rescript of life
wherein love may all the time be seer
fighting with and finally conquering the
curses of both the dead and the liy-
ing.