"Phe Wishing Well."
A good strong plot of the old-fashioned order is to be found in Mr. Samuel Gordon's new novel "The Wishing Well" (Melrose, 1 6d.). Here a husband is oblige to efface himself, paradoxically, enough, in order to save the honour of his wife and daughter. 18 yeara pass before he returns, and then it would seem as if the problem he is called on to face has become even more difficult than before. Indeed the utmost ingenuity is required of the author before matters can be put straight. Mr. Gordon, however, ever falters, and even the inevitable tragedy which befalls the iniquitous Grandcourt and his unpleasant and unhappy wife does not seem a too artificial device, And the final chapter, with its unexpected side-ight into the heroine's character, comes ax a welcome surprise, Barney.
Whether the readers of Mr. S. B. H. Hurst's now novel "Barney" (ohn Long, 7s. 6d.) like it or not—and there' will be very wide differences of opinion among them regarding its likeability—they will be unanimous at least upon one point—that it is a very unusual and original book. It is at ones a philosophical treatise and a series melodramatic adventures—a suflciently curious hybrid. Tt details the adventures of "Barney" Billiard, a young Englishman of good family, Griven from his home by a disgrace: ful and quite unfounded accugation. "Barney combines a love of adventure and colossal physical strength, and these attributes lead [him into and bring him through a perfect Had of strange incident in the wildest parts of North America incidents mainly of a magical east. And through them all he is seeking, with the fonsest effort of a power" ful mind steeped in philosophical study, for an explanation of the my-story of ekictence, for a reconeilia tion with the vast, vague Powe! which created and sustains the fal Hie of creation. A. strange book, containing much powerfully, if sometimes crudely, expressed thought, and many striking adventures, by, flood and field—London "Sunday, Times."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.