Jtniev! or Rtviewi. I/IOIOS. 



BOOKS OF THE MONTH, 



MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL'S "CONISTON" AND OTHERS.* 



Whv is it that two voung men bearing the un- 

 usual 'name of Winston Churchill should simul- 

 taneously achieve the highest distinction in two hemi- 

 spheres in such diverse lines as statesmanship and 

 novel writing? The odds against such an extraor- 

 dinary coincidence are some billions to one. "Vet 

 it has happened, as coincidences will. And a very 

 inconvenient coincidence it is for the future his- 

 torian. It is inevitable that posterity will confuse 

 the two Winstons, and credit or debit the novelist 

 with the actions of the statesman or the statesman 

 with the books of the novelist. Nor can we blame 

 posterity when w^e remember how many of our con- 

 temporaries are this dav making the same mistakes. 

 Mr. Winston Churchill,' the Under Secretary- for the 

 Colonies, will see his popularity increase by virtue 

 ( : the interest which will be excited naturally and 

 properly in the man who is supposed to have written 

 his namesake's novel. 



Mr. Winston Churchill of England, although he 

 can do many things well and a few things supremely 

 well, cannot' write novels like Mr. Winston Churchill 

 of America. This is not to say that he cannot 

 write novels and write them well. But to WTite 

 novels like Mr. Winston Churchill of .America is to 

 be at the top of the profession. His latest story, 

 '• Coniston," secures him a foremost if not the 

 foremost place among the novelists of our day. I 

 make no invidious comparison between Mr. Winston 

 Churchill and the veterans who still linger on the 

 stage, the hari-est of whose genius is already gather- 

 ed. But comparing him to the present generation 

 of novelists, I do not hesitate to place him among 

 the first. There is no English or American novelist 

 whose work is so human, so loving, so beautiful as 

 h\s. " Coniston " is a better story than " The 

 Crisis.'' It is a story of living interest, dealing with 

 living issues of present-day politics, as well as with 

 the perennial interest of the loves of men and women. 

 I heartilv recommend it to all those of my readers 

 who are wondering what story they shall take away 

 with them on their holidays.' I say unhesitatingly, 

 " Take ' Coniston.' " If you do you will not only 

 take it away with you ; you will bring it back, and 

 give it a permanent place in your library of the 

 best fiction. 



It is a curious story in its construction. For it 

 gives us the Inve story of two generations. It is a 

 double-decker of a romance. We have the love 

 affair of the mother in the first story — the love affair 



•d) ■' Coniston." By Winston Chnrchill. (Macniillan. 63.) 

 (2) "The Twice Bom." (Philip Wellby. 38. 6(i.) 

 (J) "The Field of Glory" By H. Sicnkiewicj. (John 

 Lane. 68.) 



of the daughter in the second. Mr. Winston Chur- 

 chill is innocent of any trace of psychic imaginings, 

 but reading his story immediately after the novel of 

 " The Twice Born," it is impossible not to be struck 

 bv the support which " Coniston " gives to the theory 

 of the English novelist — of which I shall have more 

 to say anon. For Cynthia, the mother, loved Jethro 

 Bass in her inmost heart — innocently as a maiden 

 might — although she afterwards wedded another 

 man and bore to him a daughter, also named Cyn- 

 thia, who, when her parents die, is instantly adopted 

 by Jethro Bass as his own. According to the theory 

 of the " Twice Born," Cynthia the Second was first 

 born on the astral plane as the child of the loves 

 of Jethro and her mother, and afterwards incarnated 

 in mortal flesh and blood as the child of her mother 

 and the man she married. Cynthia the Second 

 bears many of the distinctive marks attributed to 

 the '• twice bom," and her instant recognition by 

 and devotion to Jethro remind me of the way in 

 which Reggie and Stella recognise the authors of 

 their being before their rebirth on the physical 

 plane. 



I see that one critic discovers in Mr. Winston 

 Churchill an American Thackeray. There is a cer- 

 tain justification for this comparison. But he re- 

 minds me more of the author of " Uncle Tom's 

 Cabin." Jethro Bass, in his relation to Cynthia, re- 

 calls irresistibly the picture of Uncle Tom and Eva. 

 Jethro is higher in the intellectual scale than Uncle 

 "Tom, but morally he is lower than his black proto- 

 type. Eva was more angelical than Cynthia, but 

 both girls stand in the same relation to the elder 

 man. They are to these men as goddesses, teachers, 

 inspirers; and the chief interest of both stories lies 

 in the delineation of the ascendency which young 

 and beautiful girls possess over men old enough to 

 be their fathers, but who, through ignorance in the 

 (ine case and politics in the other, are below the 

 level of their young Egerias. The scene of " Conis- 

 ton " is laid in New England, but this also recalls 

 not " Uncle Tom," indeed, which was a tale of the 

 .South, but its authoress, who in her " Minister's 

 Wooing " introduced us to the same New England 

 as that in which Mr. Winston Churchill has placed 

 his characters. The same New England geographi- 

 callv, but oh, ho«' different morally ! Mrs. Stowe 

 painted the New England of her ancestors, 

 which .still bore in every feature the lineaments of 

 the men of the MavUcnvcf, and whose intense, ear- 

 n<-st soul wrestled not with flesh and bloKjd, but 

 with principalities and powers, with spiritual wicked- 

 ness in high places, who spent sleepless nights over 



