New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1903-12-06

STELLA FREGELTUS A Tale of Three Destinies
BY H. Rider Haggard. limo. PIP. Y, Sol. Long
mans. Green & Co.
CALDERON's PRISONER. BY Alice Duer Miller
l2mo. PIP. 2s4 Charles scribner's Sons.
The peculiar gift of the authors of "Incom-
parable Bellairs' is for gayety as blithe as
breeze In spring, as sunny as sunshine itself
In their latest volume they re-introduce char
acters already made familiar in 1.-THE Bath
Comedy and they revive all of the charm of
that delightful book The heroine is the same
Mistress Kitty Bellairs, the most adorable OF
eighteenth century firts. and her adventures
have the daintiy romantic SAVIOUR which we
expect where she is concerned and when MT
and Mrs. Castle are at their best SeVeraI
years ago we hailed these writer's as having
unique significance in the field of fiction which
they more particularly affect. since in that field
where artifce ordinarily fourishes they pro-
duce work that Is spontaneity, naturalness, It
self. The scenes of Incompatible Benairs are
laid in the London and Bath Of the most decora-
tive epoch in English history. when men In
their laces and satins were only eclipsed be-
cause the women rose to phenomenal heights
of elegance in costume and demeanor. In those
days of powder and patches life seems almost
to creak under the weight of convention In
dress and manners but human nature was the
same then it is now. and the Castles. look
ing beneath the surface of the furbelowed So
fietv whose outward grace and brilliance they
know so well how to paint make their char
acters men and women who are not only alive
but lovahle.
Incompatible Bellafrs'' is clever piece
of artistic craftsmanship a painted fan of
the Regency, but In its perfect sincerity this
page of old romance is touching bit Of
modern realism. Mistress Kitty SO fair and so
petulant with the subtly shrewish touch SO
characteristic of her time, holds our sympathy
no matter how cruel she may be to her I'M
happy SWANS, and If 1t is partly the ingenuity
Of the authors in devising new situations for
her to confront that carries the reader through
this book at sitting, 1t is also the SYM
pathetic traits In this unreasonable young
heroine to which our interest in her story Is to
be traced Furthermore, she has admirable
foil in the Quaker turned actress. Rachel Peace,
who is brought upon the scene at once to be the
means of teaching Kitty her needed lesson and
to widen the scope of the book The two
women, disputing the centre Of the stage to-
gether, throw a food of light on the types and
ways of a bygone era It would be hard to
say which of the two ultimately fingers longest
in the memory. Kitty is. in her sparkling way.
indeed Incompatible, but the statelier beauty OF
Rachel Peace and the infinitely greater depth of
her nature. move the authors to a tenderness
which forms one of the best elements of their
work. Incompatible Bellars' brims with
incident. AT one moment we are in the heroine's
boudoir watching her fence with her gallants,
at the next, we are on the highway, witnessing
perilOus encounters, and one episode follows
another until the book seems a veritable piano.
rama But it is admirably constructed. it has
not only the briskness but the deftly ordered
form of a good comedy. brighter, better
written, more wholesome romance than this
could not ask
In a brief predatory note to stella Fregelius''
Mr.. Haggard confesses to the feeling that he
owes some apology to his readers for his bold
ness in offering to them a story which is in
10 sense a romance Of the character that per-
haps they expect from him" The wise reader
viii protest that apology is needed. He may
grant that stella Fregelus' is not steadily
nor so obviously exciting book almost any
of the authors earlier novels. But he
hardly fail to be impressed by the skill and
feeling with which Mr.. Haggard has worked out
an audacious and most suggestive scheme. His
hero is electrician who has drifted away
from the ordinary lines of scientific research to
absorb himself in the development of in
strument which will enable men to talk to one
another without the Intervention of wires.
though they great distance apart The
inventor is more and more tempted, as he per-
fects his machine, to speculate the posi-
bility of breaking down the barriers that exist
between our own world and the unexplored