New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1902-11-02

Emo PIP. Viii. 400. The Macmillan Company.
THE SUCCESS OF MARK wYNGATE: By Q;
( ( CO Sl'OS''Ao i-'no' PIP '-'' A0u''''a!' 1'''
IN KINGS .RYTAYs. BY Stanley J. weyman-
12mo PIP 3i6 Longmans. Green & Co.
Miranda of the Balcony" is a good story.
aThe Four Feathers" is better one In it Mr..
Mason shows improvement all sides His
characters are richer and more natural in their
individuality: their experiences have OF
the color of actual life, and the story, as a
story Is more plausible and interesting. In
fact the narrative gift which is one Of this au-
thor's first and best resources seems here to be
exercised with greater ease and to more ad
mirable purpose than in any OF his preceding
volumes. He treats Of young man who comes
from a long line OF soldiers. but who inherits
from his mother a rather mOrbdly imaginative
strain to which he owes the strangest develop
Inents In his inner life. Harry Feversham en-
braces as a matter Of course, the military
career. His fathers could not well do
otherwise. But when. just after his engagement
70 the woman he loves. trouble in Egypt arises.
he allows himself TO be swayed by certain emo
tions which have from the start made his life
as an officer intolerable. and he throws up his
commission Three officers in his regiment are
with him in his rooms at the critical moment
They afterward put their heads together. and
they send him in a little box three white
feathers. These reach him on the night of ball
at the house OF Ethne Eustace: he opens the box
in her presence. and in the talk that ensues, in
tensely painful for both Of them. he makes this
confession
IAN my life have been afraid that some day
I should play the coward and from the very first
/ knew that l was destined for the army. 1
kept my fear to myself. There one to
whom / could tell it. My mother was dead and
my father'-he stopped for moment. with u
deep intake OF the breath. My father
he resumed, would. nay, could. never have
understood. / know him. When danger came
his way it found him ready, but he did not
foresee. That my trouble always fore
saw Any peril to be encountered, any risk
to be rum foresaw them. l foresaw something
else besides My father would talk in his mat
ter-of-faCt way of the hours of waiting before
the actual commencement of battle, after the
troops had been paraded. The anticipa-
ton OF the suspense and the strain of those
hours was torture to me. / foresaw the pos
Sibility of CoWardice. Then one evening, when
my father had his old friends about him on one
of his Crimean nights. two dreadful stories
were tOld-one of an officer the other OF Il sur
Eeon, who had both shirked. | now con
fronted with the fact of cOWardice. l took those
stories I'D to bed with me. They never left my
memory; they became part OF me. l saw my
self behaving now as one, now as the other, of
those two had behaved. perhaps in
the crisis of a battle bringing ruin upon my
country certainly dishonOrng my father and all
the dead men whose portraits hung ranged in
the hall | tried TO get the best of my fears
1 hunted but with map of the countryside in
my mind. l foresaw every hedge. every pit
every treacheroUs bank"
yet you rode straight" interrupted Ethne.
The end of this talk is foregone conclusion
Ethne being what she is, a woman no less
brave than beautiful and lovable. Il think that
I rather like your father" she says Il
don't understand" The engagement ring slips
from her finger 10 the table, and she adds a
fourth feather to the tiny heap that lies there
All this occurs early in the story. The rest of
the book Mr.. Mason devotes to unfolding his
herOS character. He accomplishes this in the
right way 10y carrying Harry Fcyersham
through the experiences that could alone re-
veal the exact nature of the man. There is
practically deliberate analysis. Character is
shown to Us as it is acted upon by life The
same excellent judgment is also shown in the
general management of the book Feversham is
not always to the fore. Ethne herself is fire.
quenty upon the scene, and always for good
reason. From beginning to end we are alb
sorbed in the adventures, spiritual and other
wise. Of a single man. but from IrPj ming to