There is a looseness of construction, a prolixity of trifling incident, at certain portions of the book which at times weaken its interest, and it is evident that purely artistic ideals were not its chief inspiration. Still, when all is said, its merits far outweigh its faults, and it is well worth the serious criticism it will receive. It testifies strongly to the writer’s brain and skill and arouses interest in her future work.
The Secret Woman. By Eden Phillpotts. The Macmillan Company, New York. Price, $1.50.
The comparison to Hardy has become a commonplace of any criticism of Mr. Phillpotts’ literary output, and the comparison carries an inevitable distinction and disparagement. The distinction is that Mr. Phillpotts is the one writer worthy to be called a disciple of the Wessex chronicler, and the disparagement is in the differentiation at once apparent in the similarity. Primitive nature, physical and human, is Mr. Phillpotts’ theme as it is Mr. Hardy’s, and the primal passions in rustic life are the elements of both novelists’ tragedy and comedy. But though one man may want and try to make from the same material the same things as wrought by another, it is out of his power to do so, and Mr. Phillpotts’ work lacks the strength and seriousness of Mr. Hardy’s. In the first place, the colorless irony of the older writer, epitomized so perfectly in his title, “Far from the Madding Crowd,” is lacking entirely in Mr. Phillpotts, and the latter’s florid descriptions and psychologic analyses fail of the Hardy effect because of this lack. The personal note of Mr. Hardy, ironic, accentless, incisive, is the salt to his magnificent dish of natural elements, without which their strength and freshness would pall upon the taste. And as a literary artist, too, Mr. Phillpotts falls below his master. Despite the wealth of natural description with which he burdens so heavily his narratives, there is nothing that touches the Hardy landscapes in power and artistic truth. The wonderful and haunting picture of the moor in “The Return of the Native” is Hardy at highwater mark, it is true, but there is nothing in the Phillpotts gallery that can even be compared to it.
“The Secret Woman” is a story of human frailty, passion, crime, and soul struggle, set in the rocks and glades of Dartmoor. An illicit love between a married man and a beautiful and pagan-hearted girl is the basis of the plot, and the murder of the man by his wife in a fit of jealous rage is the first act of the tragedy. A touch worthy of Hardy occurs in the interview between husband and wife just after the latter’s discovery of the man’s unfaithfulness, when a sudden gust of wind and rain drowns the wife’s voice as she offers pardon, thus through the blow of blind fate sealing the husband’s doom. The murder is witnessed by the two sons, but is kept secret, though it divides the brothers and fills the mother’s life with a never-dying repentance. The figure of the murderess, Anne Redvers, and the study of her character and soul development, are the most elaborate and striking work of the book, but it is Salome, “the secret woman,” and her intrigue with the dead man, unknown and unsuspected, that furnish the motive for the drama. In striking contrast are the two women, one dark, stern, conscientious, softening and mellowing through sorrow and repentance into sympathy and forgiveness, the other fair, conscienceless, self-indulgent, swayed but by emotion and passion.
Jesse, one of the sons of the murdered man, loves this girl, his father’s paramour, and she becomes his betrothed, driven to this step by poverty, though she never intends to marry him. This intolerable situation is finally ended by his confession to Salome of his mother’s crime which has darkened his soul, and this is followed by Salome’s reckless disclosure of her love and sin to Anne Redvers, whom she denounces as a murderess. Anne goes to prison gladly, Jesse kills himself, and Salome lives on, constant to her dead lover and incapable of repentance. Truly Mr. Phillpotts has not spared us a possible horror.
We have, of course, the rustic comedy beneath the tragedy—the artless peasants, their quaint talk and ancient superstitions; and the figure of Joseph Westaway, the shiftless, tender-hearted incompetent, bravely and unreasonably optimistic amid crowding misfortunes, is very nearly a masterpiece of portraiture.
In this terrible drama, Mr. Phillpotts offers us in succession the various theories of materialism, Old Testament theology, pagan indifference, and simple, unquestioning faith in a divine power. Each is presented with admirable impartiality, its play upon the story being merely an aid to the desired dramatic effect. At the last, the struggle is between Anne and Salome, and the former who has found peace in Christian faith and atonement, makes her appeal to Salome to seek comfort and salvation by the same road. Finally Salome promises to take the sacrament, but as she kneels at the sacred table, her heart is unchanged—
“A man’s voice suddenly ended the silence and—echoes from a far past—his words fell upon her ear strangely. All solemnity has perished from them. The Commandments tinkled like a child’s little prayer at bedtime.... Light rained down and quenched the candles and touched the petals of exotic flowers. The air of the sanctuary was sweet with them; but Salome’s thoughts harboured in the dust.”
America, Asia and the Pacific. By Wolf von Schierbrand, Ph.D. Henry Holt & Co., New York.
The interest of the ancient and of the mediæval world centered around the Mediterranean. Recall the names of the states that fought for and obtained the trade of that sea and you have the history of civilization. Egypt, Phœnicia, Greece, Carthage, Rome, Venice, Spain, one after another, played the leading role. With the discovery of the new world the scene shifted to the Atlantic and England shouldered her way to the limelight. Now, it seems, another new world and a richer has been discovered. It happens also to be the oldest world and the last act of the drama is to be played on the Pacific, the widest stage of all. Before the whole world as audience, the nations are contending for the prize—the trade of China. Which one is to get it?