New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1904-07-02
NEW NOVELS.
Tales of Modern ireland and old
Scotland.
THE RED LEAGUERS.
With a map. Emo. PIP.

With Ia map 5'Ai Emo fi' Pp ai5 MccluF: Philips
NANCY STAIR. By EIinor Mccartney Lane. With
frontspiece illustration. 12mo. PIP. $50 u. APP
pietoh & CO.
Poor Ireland Oppressed by her enemies and
betrayed by those she deems her friends, she
will get little comfort from reading Mr.. Bullock
story Of how next month, next year. some time
soon, she throws off the British yoke and
achieves her independence. Mr.. Bullock tells
how, taking pattern of the Beers, the Catholics
rise make prisoners of The Protestants and es-
tablish republic. His narrative deals with the
operations of the Annoy commando. Of which
his bumptiOus and Intellectual hero, Captain
Shaw Is the leader-tendered the command on
account of his military knowledge, acquired in
the South African campaign. Although him
self Protestant, he accepts. apparently, largely
because Jan Farmer, his rival for the hand OF
Leah Hynes. will be on the other side. He
fails in everything he undertakes, including his
efforts to be a gentleman. and fees to France
just in time to escape being crushed by the
fall Of the topheavy. i'll balanced, distracted
government he had helped to create. which
leaves the country open to d new and more eff
fective subjugation by the British. Despite the
authors skill in depicting types of character
and the easy. convincing style In which he
writes, 1t is not a pretty picture he draws Of
conditions, present probable, in his native
island.
Mrs, Lane is no New Woman. She believes
that marriage and motherhood woman's
true destiny and that her training should ever
be with that end in view. She holds that even
when circumstances have shaped a girls educa-
ton toward what is termed career" either
literary industrial. she never rid herself
of her natural tendency, and that 1t needs only
the spark of true love to set aflame the passion
that lies. however seemingly dormant, in every
woman's breast. When that times comes. If full
flment comes with it, all other obsessions will.
or should. be set aside Thus speaks Nancy
Stair the heroine of her latest novel:
That's by with forever. Jock; shall write
mo more verse-maklng?" I inquired.
Never more. unless it be to say woman this. p"
She stood with her hands folded before her. a
beautiful, fulfilled Nancy, looking down at us with
sweet earnestness her children leaning against her
4 should write: / Nancy Stair Carmichael have
learned that yerse-1naking and VeTse-singing and
a finer woman ] have learned that my woman =
body is not strong enough for the mental excite
illness Of women 10 handle nublc affairs for the
tender hearts which make good wives and mothers
and daughters; unht US FOR the judicial conduct
she finished, with smile
The book is charmingly written, and with a
mischievous verisimilitude that sends the reader
10 hunting through his biogra phical reference
books. only TO discover how he has been fooled.
The story is all pure fiction. A beguiling hero
ine is Nancy. Sweet. accomplished, brought up
among men to be independent and courageous,
she finds her true strength in woman's weak
ness. The scene is laid in Scotland toward the
end of the eighteenth century, and If there is a
suggestion Of Robert Louis Stevenson in the
authors methods and style. neither the story
nor the reader suffers for that