New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-01-09
SINISTER STREET.

MINISTER STREET B5 Compton M'c1snzie'
emo. Do 90. y. Appleton 60
This concluding volume Of the story
Of Michael Fame leaves one, so lar As
the hero is concerned, with an I'M
preston OF his utter futility, and az
concerns its author. with regret toat
what he began so well he has finished
with 90 little meaning. Michael Fame
the promising boy Of youths Encoun-
tor" disappoints our eXpectatlons'
and 60 do all who formed his circle
and environment in that exceptional
book-his mother even more than ne,
his sister. temperamentsl, eager FOR
the exploration of life. fully as much.
Mrs. Fame, elusively romantic, Justify.
ing BY her charm the course she mad
chosen in life, turns after Lord
Sgxby's death into sort OF well-0red
Mrs. Nickleby; her daughter, after
emotional experiences afar, OF wnicn
we hear only the echoes, settles down
20 the life Of a country squire's ~lfe.
For Mr.. Mackenzie provides generous
~ for the trio in the matter Of world
~ goods. They count for much in his
scheme Of things.
MichaePs money is neither his sal
walton nor his undoing. The difference
which poverty would have made for
him would in all probability only have
been that OF the way OF his descent
into insignificance. He becomes, what
one would not have foretold from his
beginnings, the dilettante afraid OF
life and confused by its realities.
Were he the child Of en- earlier ger-
Grafton one would diagnose his case
as Spleen" Mr.. Mackenzie intimates
at the end that the young man VIII
ultimately enter the Roman Catholic
priesthood. In which case, IL is safe
70 predict, the Church will never have
reason TO pride itself upon its new
convert from oxford. He will receive
from il far more than he can give.
The greater, and to US in this coun-
try by far the less interesting, part OF
this story deals with Michael Fane's
four years at Magdalen College, Ok
ford. The town, the university, the
life, the atmosphere are admirably de-
picted But-and this, like the languid
quality OF our interest, is the result
of difference in attitude toward life,
difference of traditions. so far as we
have them, even more than of meas
ured miles-the oxford Mr.. Mackenzie
draws seems to us TO be the one place
above all others in England incapable
of fitting its youth for mans encounter
with life. The eager, interesting boy
who enters its portals leaves them
with all that made his individuality
interesting and OF promise rubbed
smooth and polished.
He has been run through the mould
and turned out true TO type-the type
of the upper and upper middle-class
Englishman, conforming. correct, the
type which enters the country's public
service, its Parliaments and Church.
which fills its bench and bar And yet
there is something lacking. For Mich
ael Fame is a muddler, but he is not
of the breed that "muddles through"
And il is this logged faculty of mud
ding through, from the days of the
Crimean war and before them to those
of the South African adventure and the
present struggle. which is of most in
terest to US in English history, in the
English character. in English educa-
tion. oxford. as we read Mr. Macken-
zie. seems to be the place TO kill, not 70
educe and strengthen. this protean
faculty. But IL this were true, Oxford
would long since have ceased to exist.
Michael Fame in Sinister Street is no
less futile a figure. but the street itself
is worth our while. Here. indeed. Mr..
Mackenzie Is at its best. Vice as a
social problem, life that inverts all
the principles, all the virtues, all
the values Of civilized existence, vice
without the glamour of a labyrinth
whose prisoners do not even realize
that there is way out, and who, in the
case of the majority Of them, do not
desire to leave it-this is good work, a
sound social document. Michael wan
ders through il bewildered, with a
vague faith in the redemptive power of
his money, though mostly. he looks
hardly beyond temporary alienation by
its means. His search for the woman
for whose fall he holds himself re-
sponsible is Quiyotic, bu. again EVIL
dence of his fabbiness of fibre. Il is
in the reaction from the inevitable
disillusion OF his attempt 70 reclaim
her that he starts on his Italian pill
grimage-a weakling defeated By life
at its very threshold.
Cumulatively most Disappointing OF
all, perhaps, is the curious consistency
with which Mr. Mackenzie has robbed
all the characters which meant so
much 10 US and 20 his hero in Youths
Encounter" Of all their interest in the
sequel-all of them. that is. except Lily
and Burns, or Barnes, or Meats But
they belong 10 Sinister Street. and not
TO Oxford and the social demesnes that
thereunto adjacent lie in Michael
= ~ al