The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-04-16

| written a story that is as true as any
! story of real life in that circle which
sets an example of defiance of the Ten
Commandments and most other vir-
tues?
THE MARRIAGE OF WILLIAM
ASHE, by Mrs. Humphrey Ward. IL
! Illustrated. Publishers: Harper &
Brothers. New York.
No book of this decade has been
more widely talked about than this
now novel by the novelist who has
been called the modern George Elliot.
There is strength and a power about
! the earlier novels of Mrs. Ward that
give them place with the great works
| of modern fiction. The reputation
that Robert EIsmere" gave her has
grown with her successive novels.
About them all there is a serious pur-
pose that lifts them from the class of
novels that are mere telling of stories.
But while written by a master hand,
THE Marriage of William Ashe" is
disappointing. The story is unreal
and the characters either too good or
too silly and weak. William AShe, 1.-The
'the spiritual aristocrat, as Mrs. Ward
calls her hero, is an English leader of
the highest type, member of Parlia-
ment ranking with the strongest men
of his party, and the author gives him
He marries moral plebian," a
selfish, vain, fascinating little creature
who would have spoiled his career
without compunction to carry out a
petty whim. She is good looking and
at times shows brightness that redeems
a character wholly wanting in those
qualities that giorify womanhood. The
critics generally agree in saying that
Mrs. Ward has taken as the ground
OF of nj af
fair of Lady Caroline Lamb (wife of
Lord Melborne), and Lord Byron, and
has woven into the story many of the
traditions connected with Lady Caro-
| line. If that actual parsonage was as
aggravating and as unreal as Lady
Kitty, there is no harShnesS toward her
that her husband would not have been
warranted in employing to teach her
sense or to rid himself of her pres
ence.
Neither of the chief characters can
be said to attract strongly-the man
is too perfect and the woman too
Eighty, but, though feeling that the
characters do not possess the qualities
that ought to interest, still you can
not stop reading and are consumed to
know what will be the end of the mis-
mated pair If the novel has any
moral-and Mrs. Ward always has q
purpose, whether avowed or concealed.
1t is that marriages between people
of opposite training and taste cannot
be expected to turn out we'll. The
glamor of the early love will pass away
when the woman is selfish and silly
and the man is absorbed in great AT
fairs for which his wife knows moth
ing and cares less. That moral is not
cXpressed-it is strongly draWn-and
YOU rise from reading the book with
a feeling that at least the mar
riage of William Ashe was not made
in heaven, and that if marriages are
made in heaven they get nightly
changed in coming down.
The book is on every tongue, and
you must read it, for who can afford
to miss reading the book that has
created the sensation of the year? But
when you have read it, if you like the
old time sweet novel which ends by
getting married and living happily
ever afterward." you will put it down
with a bad taste in your mouth, for
those people do not live happily and
never could unless both were wholly
made over.
Here are four criticisms from ac-
copied authority that put a higher es-
innate on the novel than it deserves:
The New York Times says: Its
place is with the books that do not
die"
The Philadelphia Inquirer says:
There have been loves in this world
which have terrible consequences, and
though Mrs. Ward attempts no
Cleopatra theme, she has sounded the
heights and depths of passion"
The New York Sun says I'm re-
cent fiction we have found nothing by
which We have been more impressed
and entertained"
The Boston Transcript says: "But
of all we have to thank Mrs. Ward
for creating a good hero who is not q
prig, and a wonderfully eccentric wo-
man who provokes evil without being
herself inherently evil"