It is discouragingly seldom that a book comes to the reviewers’ hands, which, by its virility and its honest merit as literature, in the old and true sense of the word, rises as high above the average as does “The Garden of Allah,” which Robert Hichens publishes through the Stokes Company; and it is because it truly possesses these qualities that it gives promise of a life of appreciation which will outlast many other volumes in the year’s crop of fiction.
In the consideration of such a book the motive power, the plot, is hardly of moment—it is the workmanship, and what one might term the self-conviction of the novelist, that counts. After all, the story of the renegade monk and his earthly love, culminating in marriage, is not unusual; one foresees the ultimate solution of this problem—his renunciation of the world and his return to his monastery. It is a theme which has engaged the pen of writers time out of mind—but it is safe to say that never has the theme been handled with such mastery, with such keenly sympathetic character delineation and analysis, as that with which Mr. Hichens has handled it. His craftsmanship, his insight into and understanding of human nature and the forces that mold it—the intangible forces of the earth and air, the minute happenings of one’s daily life that, in themselves, are too likely to pass unregarded, but work so powerfully and well-nigh irresistibly upon the spirit of men and women—all this is superb and thorough.
His literary generalship amounts almost to genius approaching that of the great masters of fiction. Indeed, if any fault can be found with the book, it is that it is too painstakingly complete; nothing is left to the imagination—or, rather, the imagination is forced by the essence of eternal truth that seems to form each phrase and sentence, to comprehend all, down to the least detail; and a thorough reading of the book leaves one with the sense of physical fatigue, as if the reader himself had experienced the violent and terrible ordeals of the soul that were the portions of the actors in this drama of the African desert.
Whether or not it would have been wiser for Mr. E. Temple Thurston to have published his new book, “The Apple of Eden”—Dodd, Mead & Co.—under a nom de plume, is largely, if not wholly, a commercial question. Those who have shown a disposition to belittle it on account of the interesting but irrelevant fact that he is the husband of the author of “The Masquerader,” have exhibited small powers of discrimination and missed an opportunity to do justice to a remarkable book, for such it unquestionably is.
The book is a very keen study of character; one of the sort that could be made only by a close observer of human nature, accustomed to the analysis of motives and to the due apportionment of their elements.
It is the story of the evolution of a young priest from an inexperienced celibate to a fully developed man, by which phrase is meant spiritually and intellectually developed by the desperate method of temptation.
Father Everett embraced the priesthood and committed himself by irrevocable vows with all the enthusiasm of ignorant youth and without the slightest comprehension of the significance of his manhood. He naturally, under such circumstances, never questioned his fitness to advise and rebuke and absolve sinners. But with the appearance of the woman, another and hitherto unrecognized side of his nature began to stir, and his torture was prepared. That his love for Roona Lawless was reciprocated, instead of bringing them joy, only added to the horror of their situation, and it was well for them both that the man had access to the shrewd kindliness and the worldly wisdom of his vicar, Father Michael.
The old priest showed his surprise when the climax of his curate’s confession brought out the fact that the latter’s transgression was limited to the exchange of a kiss, and when the young man exclaimed: “Glory be to God, wasn’t it enough?” the other replied, dryly: “Faith, it’s well you found it so.”