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Uviicic of Reviews, 1/10113. 



NOTABLE BOOKS OF THE MONTH. 



A MODERN PARIAH. 



1 Wift Out of Egypt. By Norman Lori- 

 mer. (Paul, 3/«.) 



In order to read this book with full 

 appreciation, the gift of sympathetic 

 imagination is needed. Miss Lorimer 

 introduces us to the descendants of the 

 older inhabitants of Egypt, and few 

 British people know anything of the 

 life they lead. For us Westerns it is 

 somewhat difficult to realise that the 

 Copts (Egyptian through " gypt ") are 

 the present-day representatives of the 

 early Christians, and that, in spite of 

 frightful persecutions under the 

 Romans first, and later, from Arab 

 domination, they have clung to their 

 religion as if it were an actual part 

 of themselves, though in that clinging 

 they have kept only the forms, and 

 have lost the spirit of Christianity. 

 Would an English Christian accept a 

 Copt as a brother, both of them pro- 

 fessing Christianity ? 



Miss Lorimer takes us to the home 

 of one of the noblest of the Syrian in- 

 habitants of Egypt. Mr. Lekejian, 

 himself of high birth, has married an 

 Irish lady, and the two have always re- 

 mained lovers. Brought to Egypt by 

 her husband, Mrs. Lekejian was some 

 time before she realised that she was 

 a pariah to English society in Egypt— 

 a despised "native" or " levantine." 

 Her husband's life had been spent in 

 forwarding the best interests of his 

 people, and he was loyal to the Eng- 

 lish rule in Egypt, realising that 

 neither Copts nor Syrians would make, 

 under present conditions, good rulers, 

 years of oppression having broken their 

 spirit 



Rich, cultivated, artistic, speaking 

 many languages, Mrs. Lekejian's lone- 

 liness is difficult to realise. When their 

 little daughter, Hadassah, was seven 

 years old, her parents sent her to Eng- 

 land to be educated. The principal of 

 the private school in which she was 

 placed was a woman of exceptional 

 power and broadmindedness. Stella 

 Adair, as she was called, to avoid her 

 father's name, which was difficult for 



English people to pronounce, was the 

 darling of the school, and soon invi- 

 >ns for the holidays were showered 

 upon her, so that her only difficulty 

 was to choose which to accept. Very 

 often her parents came to Europe and 

 took her travelling with them, and 

 when she came of age to leave school 

 and return home she did so, betrothed 



-with her parents' consent — to a 

 young English officer, the brother of 

 one of her school friends, Nancy 

 Thorpt Vernon Thorpe was hand- 

 some, almost Greek in his devotion to 

 physical training; he had grit and 

 courage, but was unimaginative. He 

 had been taught that the telling of 

 a lie is a crime — but not the equiva- 

 lent in the Latin mind — that is, that it 

 is a sin to hurt another's feelings ; 

 Stella, on the contrary, was imagina- 

 tive, cultivated and thoughtful. 



Stella at first found her home life 

 most delightful. The house was in a 

 beautiful garden, exquisite with be- 

 gonias and Eastern kiosks of old, grey 

 wood. With its mysterious devices for 

 irrigation and artificial lakes, its or- 

 chards of rare fruits and scented 

 shrubs, it was lovely enough to gratify 

 any Eastern princess ; but Stella was 

 Western, and an outcast amongst the 

 people who were the " Power for 

 Good " in Egypt. 



Stella, who had been home a year, 

 was expecting her lover, whose regi- 

 ment had been ordered to Cairo. The 

 evening before she had been to see 

 "Salome" performed at the opera. 

 I ter brother, a clever musician, and 

 who, like herself, had been educated 

 in Europe, was with her, and also her 

 cousin, Girgis, the rich owner of a 

 large agricultural estate. He was as 

 wholly Egyptian as Stella was West- 

 ern. Again it came as gall and worm- 

 wood to the girl to discover that her 

 father's people were set apart. They 

 were a servile race, a mixed race, a 

 Semitic race, which had known oppres- 



ive rulers ever since the biblical days 

 of Assyrian and Babylonian invasions. 



