New-York tribune., 1903-04-04

moments in the autumn If they know how ne
gets on and If they remember how "onder-
fully good looking he was.
Lady Cheriton like Mrs Mannering. is at
odds with her husband, and are 10 assume
that she finds happiness in advancing the fort
unes of Young Dacre. This IS, in some re-
spects, a very conventional story. There are
the usual fashionable and important person
ages revolving around the central hgures'
There are the usual brushes at the Foreign
Office Cyye wonder what the English novel
ist dealing with high life, would do without a
crush or two at the Foreign Ofice) But MIS-
Ward does not follow convention in the man
agement of affairs between Dacre and Lady
Cheriton He falls in love with her, as he is
bound by all the laws OF fiction to do, but she
does not give her erring husband cause for
righteous Indignation by entangling herself
with her protege. IF she loves him it is in very
sisterly or cousinly fashion, and she rejolce5
in his engagement TO a certain Lady Anne. VINO
passes gracefully across the stage from time
to time. Mrs. Wards idea is TO distribute dis
comfort all round. TO make Lady Cheriton mis-
cradle for one reason, Lady Anne for another,
Dacre for q third, and so on. not forgetting the
reader. Here again the work is very well done
The plot hangs together. People walk in and
out OF it at a natural gait, and say what they
have to. say in very good English. We are
NY
with themselves and we are family aware
throughout of that religious atmosphere which
the author evidently wishes to make a serious
element in her pages But we cannot feel that
The Light Behind" very much worth
writing. It depresses where il ought to de-
light or. at least, to rouse genuine interest
with Mr. Gissing's book things changed.
though not in the direction that would wish.
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft' Is one
Of the most melancholy books that even Mr.
Gissing has written Only this is intensely in
teresting, a fact inclining one to forgive much
Why II should be sorrowful we at loss to
understand. The chapters OF which the book
consists are represented as containing the refec-
tions of d man Of letters who for thirty years
has lived by his pen, doing the work OF hack
He was struggling man, beset by poverty ana
other circumstances very unpropitious TO mental
work" But better times came. AT the age
Of fifty. Just when his health had begun to fall
and his energies TO show abatement. Ryecroft
had the rare good fortune to find himself sud
denly released from toll, and to enter upon
period OF such tranquility Of mind and condi-
ton as he had never dared to hope. In
few weeks he Quilted the London suburb where
Of late he had been living, and, turning to the
part Of England which he loved best. he present
" established himself in a cottage near Exeter
where with rustic housekeeper TO look after
him he was soon thoroughly at home was
be happy there? Unspeakaby happy, and dur
ing the too short period that was left him before
his death he gave himself up to the peacetul
hours among his books and in the fields 1or
which all his life he had deeply longed. But
the diary from which this book is supposed TO
be derived is colored throughout by an incurable
melancholy. The poor hack has been too long
cb0
wounds, for all that the latter sedm TO have
been healed, and though there are moments IN
which Ryecroft's delight in some passage IN
literature or some lovely scene passes into MS
prose there is a note almost painful in every
thing he says. He is interesting, however al
ways interesting, and for that let US be CRATE
full Mr.. Gissing cannot blame us If we read an
autobiographical significance into this volume
It echoes again and again the tastes, especially
the classical tastes, which were unsupported
while he was known novelist alone, puC
which he freely disclosed in his fascnauhs
hook Of travel by the Ionian Sea-" We have
quoted from The Private Papers" before, "heh
the book was running serially through the
rages Of THE Fortnightly Review" but we can
not better show It's quality than by quoting from
IT again Melancholy it is. but the reader VIII
understand why we commend II to him with
the utmost cordiality if he will but recognize
the appeal in a fragment like the following:
Truly, 1 grow aged. I have no longer much
delight in wine.
that of ItaIv Wine drinking in England is
after all only make believe, a mere playing
with an exotic inspiration. Tennyson had MS
port, whereto clngs good OLD tradltlon' snG[-
ris sack belongs to nobler age; these drlnkS
are not for us Let him who viii toy with du-
bious Bordeaux OF Burgundy; TO get good OF
them, souls good, you must De on Lhe green
side of thirty Once or twice they have pluckeo
me from despair; / would not SPEAK uhIhoiy
oe arv+binp in cask or bottle which bears the
da,-s gone by Never again shall know the
mellow hour Fegndt rosa, cum mddeht cuptttt-
Yet how It lives in memory!
what call YOU this wine?" I asked Of the
temple guardian at Paestum. when ne MINIS
tered to my thirst Ifno az CdtdoLtd;;r ;rzne ne
answered, and what q glow in the name! 1hele
I drank It seated against the column or Fosel-
don's temple There drank it, my feet resting
on acantbus my eyes wandering from sea 10
mountain. or peering at little shells nlched III
the crumbling surface Of the sacred stone = ne
autumn day declined; q breeze or evening WINS
pered about the forsaken shore; on the Tar
summit lay a long. still cloud, and its hue was
that Of my Calabrian wine
How many such moments come back to me as
my thoughts wanderl Dim little trdtt0i1e in city
bv1xavs, inns smelling of the sun IN 1ofgoLleh
valleys on the mountain side, or by the tdeIess
shore where the grape has given me OF its bIood,
and made life a rapture. Who but the Yerlest
fanatic of teetotalism would grudge me those
hours so gloriousy redeemed? NO draught OF
wine amid the Ol1 IOiiIDS IIlS -
hut made me 70. the time a better man, larger
of brain, more courageous, more gentle IWas
a reyelrv whereon came no repentance. Could
I but live forever in thoughts and feelings such
as those born TO me in the shadow of the ltaIlah
viner There l listened to the sacred poets;
there I walked with the wise Of old; there did
the gods reveal to me the secret Of their eternal
calm. hear the red rillet 1t flows into the
rustic glass: I see the purple light upon the
hills Fill to me again, thou of the Roman
yisage and all bur Roman speech! Is not yonder
the long cleaning Of the Appian Way? Chant IN
the old measure, the song imperishable