The Review's Bookshop. 



413 



SOME PLAYS. 



The Waters oj Bitterness and The Clodhoppers, by 

 S. M. Fo.x (T. Fisher Unwin. 2S. 6ci. net). A trageciy 

 and a comedv. The author possesses the essential 

 touch of modernity ; to this add the necessary degree 

 of sympathy and discernment with an eye for a situa- 

 tion, and the mark of the playwright is sure. 



Tasso and Eleoiwra : A Drama with Historical Note, 

 by Gertrude Leigh (Chapman and Hall). The intro- 

 duction is very illuminating, and therefore somewhat 

 overshadows the poetic drama which sets forth the 

 melancholy story of Tasso's hopeless passion. The 

 verse has considerable merit, but will, we fear, please 

 a too limited circle. 



Chaucer Redivivus, by William Scott Durrant, M.A- 

 (George Allen. 6d. net). The text of a little playlet 

 which has already seen the footlights. The author 

 has a pleasing mastery of " ye olde Englishe," and 

 introduces us once more to Chaucer and his enter- 

 taining company of the pilgrimage. 



NOT.\BLE NOVELS. 



The Forest on the Hill, by Eden Phillpotts (Murray. 

 6s. net). Here w^e have the novelist throwing off all 

 disguise and writing to please himself. Happy is the 

 author who no longer needs to discover what the 

 public wants, but can give them just what he thinks 

 is good for them. Mr. Phillpotts is quite honest 

 with his patrons ; he plainly labels his book 

 •■ The Forest on the Hill." and we are permitted to 

 share with him his devotion to the spiritual and bodily 

 ■ presences which constitute the subtle personality of 

 Yarner, the Forest on the Hill. Mundane readers 

 will perceive certain human atoms moving dimly 

 beneath the shade, but we will do Mr. Phillpotts the 

 credit of suggesting that he is not really concerned 

 with the welfare of said atoms, and this probably 

 explains the off-hand way in which he settles their 

 ri'spei live fates, dealing out death and disappointment 

 with quite imp.irtial hand. It only remains for us to 

 congratulate Mr. Phillpotts on his secure hold of his 

 public whirh enables him to pleasure himself in his 

 writing ratlur than endeavour to ascertain that 

 uncertain quantity known as public taste. Mr. Phill- 

 potts can now cry quits with Mr. Hardy. 



The Revolt, by Putnam Weale (Methuen. 6s.). A 

 book so cleverly written, though it revolts the reader, 

 cannot lightly be laid down. It is a study of two 

 abnormal broihers, who have never known love or 

 home life, and who are practicalh' devoid of moral or 

 religious prin<i[>le. The elder marries, and his bachelor 

 brother, coming to visit him, falls in love with his 

 wife. Hence mingled pa.ssion and pain and the inevit- 

 able tragedy which threatens the reader almost from 

 the first chapter, for the brothers had fought as babies 

 at their first conscious meeting, and so in later life they 

 fight to the death at its tragic dose. 'I'he story is power- 

 fullv written, but tiiiijcd with a cynicism fortunately 

 absent in red lilc. 



Photograph by\ \C. Vamiyk. 



" Marjorie Bowen " 



(Miss G. M. V. Campbell). 



hero 



The Quest of Glory, by Marjorie P)0wen (Methuen. 

 6s.). Most peojJle will agree that Miss Howcn has 

 reached in this 

 work a higher 

 rank as poet 

 and artist than 

 she has before 

 attained. Her 

 vivid imagina- 

 tion makes the 

 awful retreat 

 from Prague in 

 1742 as impres- 

 sive as if it 

 were a present 

 day report from 

 a war corre- 

 spondent. One 

 purpose of the 

 book is to .show 

 that true glory 

 is the preroga- 

 tive neither of 

 the soldier nor 

 the statesman, 

 but that it con- 

 sists in a noble 

 aim persisted 



in through good fortune and ill. In her 

 Miss Bowen has given us a vi\id portrayal of the 

 Marquis de Vauvenargues, one of the most charming 

 figures of French literature. Perhaps she lays too much 

 stress upon his physical beauty ; but th.at is only a 

 detail. Whether helping the sufferers in the hideous 

 misery of the retreat, saving a village from small-pox, 

 or bearding Richelieu in his own .sanctum, the nobihty 

 he shows is the .same. The two principal women 

 characters are as real as the Marquis himself, though 

 they are Miss Howen's own creations. Briefly, 

 Vauvenargues had been for nine years a soldier, when, 

 his health ruined, he vainly attempted to obtain a 

 diplomatic post under Louis XV. During the retreat 

 from Prague he had been much impressed by a 

 beautiful Polish Countess, who had shared the sufferings 

 of the armv. In Paris he discovers that she is one of 

 Richelieu's creatures, and resolves to conform to the 

 wishes of his family by marrying the pretty young 

 French girl designed for him. Returning home, he finds 

 that a party of gipsies have introduced small-pox into 

 the village, and in the attempt to .s.i\ e a child and burn 

 the infected tents he himself contracts the disease. 

 The pretty girl would sacrifice herself, but with his 

 looks gone, lame, and poor, how could he accept it ! 

 The parting from her. and later from Carolo, are two of 

 the most poignantly impressive scenes in the book. 

 Finally, when he desires to use his pen for his country, 

 his aristocratic family object, and give him the alter- 

 native of submission to his fate as a helpless hanger-on 

 or a penniless exile from home. 



Alniayne of Maiitiort, by R. II. Grellon (Grant 



