The North Cumberland Reformer. — 1890-06-20 (Carlisle, Cumbria, England)

FOR THE RIGHT.*  A novel, with a eulogistic preface by George Macdonald, and another eulogistic preface, in the form of extracts from a review in The Nineteehth Coda? y, by W. E. Gladstone, ought to be a good one, and it is. It has side lights, some good character-sketching, though here and there almost verging on cane attires; sufficient details to make realistic the country and institutions of this strange drama; pathetic and stirring incidents; but the main interest centres in the life of the hero, Tams Barabola. "How much the story is founded on fact I cannot tell; a substratum of fact there must be." So writes Dr Macdonald, and we agree with him. Otherwise, the imaginative power of the writer would be remarkable indeed. As it is, whatever historical groundwork there may be is imaginatively built on with great power and artistic congruity, everything aiding, nothing for a moment overshadowing or drawing away our strained attention from the career of this grand, unique man, this unswerving champion and martyr of justice and truth. The main lines of the story can be compressed into a nutshell. A peasant boy, born in disgrace in a village at the foot of the Carpathian mountains, has unjustly to suffer for the sins of others, but, under the influence of a good mother, instead of being hardened by his neighbours' cruelty, becomes an ardent lover of truth, and so earns the reverence of all. He marries, a stormy marriage preluding the greater storm to come, the daughter of his employer in a neighbouring village, becomes the owner of a good (inn, is unanimously elected to the post of village judge. The agent of the lord of the manor robs the villagers of part of the comrfiran field. Taras resists the wrong, but will not allow the use of force in withstanding the aggressor. There is a legal enquiry, but wrong gains the day ; an appeal, but wrong again wins. Tams goes a long and difficult journey to Vienna to see the Emperor, the father of the people, but this is of less than no use. Each fresh effort only results in the wrong becoming more firmly fixed. Then, law, and the fountain of law failing 80 evidently, for him there remains only one thing to do. Gathering a daring but mixed band around him, he makes his home high up in the mountains, and , sallies forth whenever the cry Of outraged humanity goes up to him, to do stern justice on the wrong-doer. He has only two punishments, shooting, and shaving the head, a stigma of cowardice, and these he awards after a short, sharp, but on the whole just enquiry. He grows grey, and old, and sorrowful, before his time, but he will not, cannot give up this work which God has given him, the avenger. His movements are so sudden and audacious, so well conceived and carried out, that they strike terror, but hope, too, and admiration, into the I province. The military are called out in force, but all efforts to capture or prevent him, fail. Finally, the Government institute fresh enquiries, and justice is done as regards the original cause of dispute, but Tams, in spite of the entreaties of his wife and friends, determines to continue his course, as the work of an avenger is still required. Then the members of his band, from one poor motive or another, fall away from him ; of the few left one proves a deceiver, who, by a false but specious accusation, induces him to shoot an innocent man; and Taras, seeing that he has done wrong and committed murder, gives himself up and is shot. The story is told forcibly and picturesquely, but., what fascinates the eyes of mind and soul is the picture, in bold colours, of the man "who to revenge no wrong done to himself, but out of pure reverence for justice, gives up everything, wife even and children, and openly defying the emperor, betakes himself an outlaw to the hills, to save that justice whose ministers have forsaken her."  Well does Mr Gladstone say the book "is charged with the profoundest moral teaching."  • For the Right, by Karl Emil Franzos, given in English by Julie Satter, with a preface by George Macdonald, LL.D., and review by the Es. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. (one vol).--James Clarke In Co, London.