New-York tribune., 1910-06-25

in the following manner:
/ am sending this by runner. Come back
directly. l expect Agamemnon any mo-
ment. The honfres are already visible.
axe with you, l will explain when you
arrive have quite decided that hair
measures are out of the question.
We dare say that Mr.. Barring thought
this very witty when he wrote it. and.
met casually in the columns of the Lon
don Morning Post" for which all these
| letters we're written. his ingenious fool
| ing had a trace of fun about it, But
! this kind of newspaper joke is short
! lived, and in book it somehow fails to
| win more than a good naturedn smile
| There is sprightliness, of a sort, in the
volume and there is a certain quite
! plausible picturesqueness The letters
| ahout Messeiina and Nero are telerable
and Mr. Barring does well enough with
| Cleopatra, Ovid and Marcus Aurelius
| The Arthurian skit, on the other hand,
| is merely deplorable in the uncouth vio-
| lence that it does to poetic figures, and
| on his Shakespearian excursions the
author gets quite out of hand. He must
wreak his foolishness on Lear" on
Macbeth and on Hamlet of all mas
terpieces in the world, and suggests
nothing so much as the thick hand of
stodginess> laid with Grass impertinence
| ,lpon images of beauty. Decidedly, Mr.
Barring would do well TO stick to his
Russians. writing the literary history
| that is within lis scope, and prudently
avoiding what he is pleased to regard as
exercises in ina aginative humor.
Mrs. Chartres has written novel of
exceptional interest. Considered merely
as a story, it has muchs color and lnees-
SAINT movement to recommend it, From
England to Italy it progresses, with an
| interlude at Davos. then to Monte Carlo
to New York, to Prague, and finally all
| over Europe in the wake Of a child OF
genius But it starts by the side Of a
cradle. and returns to it in the end
The baby opened it's eyes and said, l
am hungry" That is the lett motif Of
the book-the feeble cry whose compell-
| ing strength makes one gifted woman
! Law aside her pen for the sake of her
| child. and which makes that child, in
the helpless, exacting, inaperious little
| life born of her own. 1t is the struggle
between genius and motherhood in
| woman that Mrs. chartres has taken for
her subject. and according TO her. the
genius is sacrificed. killed instinctively,
without hesitation, at the call of the in=
memorial voice of the race. Neither
nature nor genius will accept a divided
allegiance. It is an interesting theory,
| likely to be much discussed, the more so
as it is strikingiy timely and something
new in current fiction. The case of Mrs.
| Browning comes to mind. of course. but
| II shines out in its loneliness as an ex=
! ception. The book is decidedly and un-
commonly well worth reading.
| In the matter Of adventure we might
as we'll have good measure. and that Mr.
| Frank Savile certainly gives US in The
| Pursuit" Something happens on each
and every page, the villain has "a run
| for his money and so has the reader
4 child, the heir of untold American
millions. is the quarry. It's villanous
father seeks TO kidnap it. and finds his
! OppcI lu41AIS III 1oAl6iC4s "AiiItlNi ]4!S SCAiS
who is delicate, has been sent for his
health, on board a yacht and surrounded
! by defenders. among them being a
charming young woman. Enter an Of
f1cer of the British army, in garrison at
! Gibraltar. He is drawn into the centre
/ Of the vortex of adventure and danger
and plotting and villany, on whose outer
wave a commander of the French navy
also appears; and as minor participants
there are Arabs and the scum of the
! Mediterranean seaports. Mention must
| also be made of a master scoundrel, who
| plays a game of his own within this
game. Finally nature herself takes a
hand at Messina, where the earthquake
settles the matter for good and all. This
| general outline of the plot must suffice:
| it purposeiy leaves the details of crowded
| incident for the reader to discover.
Some time ago Mr.. Edgar Jepson lib
Grated an attractive vein of llunlor in his
stories OF The Admirable Tinker" and
| Lady Neggs Peeress." Now. in The
Garden at 10" he seeks to make our
flesh creep. He is almost but not quite
successful. We are fairly keen upon
finding out what ultimately is to happen
to the parcel of enthusiasts who seek to
raise the great god Pan from his grave,
organizing their proceedings in the back
garden of a modern London house. But
Mr. Jepson is not particularly skllful in
the creation of atmosphere, where the
fantasticality of his motive makes at
mosphere of peculiar Importance. There
is a fragrant unreality about his tale. A
ma ster hand alone, TO be sure, could have
made this book even partly credible. but
that is no great excuse for Mr.. Jepson.
Ordinary 'larks't are more in his line.
A first book. Anne of Treboul," is a
very satisfactory piece of work, in part
because the author, with evident appre-
citation Of the range of her technical
equipment, has not undertaken too much
She has not attempted too large a can
vas for her setting-a Breton fishing vii
lage-and she has not ventured too deep
~ into the analysis of the soul Of her
heroine. the deformed girl, neglected by
the young men who has her Wondrous,
unexpected hour of love and happiness,
then pays the price of another's passive
perfidy with the nobility of character of
the humble. The man is lured back by
the girl who has houted him. Anne will
not bind him in a loVelesS marriage-She