Given the choice, would a woman Jof the necessary temperament prefer be the material wife of her chosen man or his mystical mistress? This fg the question which will linger la the mind of the romantic reader at, the close of Mr. Joseph Hergesheimdelicately graphic romance, jalisand" (Heinemann, 7s. Gd. net), the scene of which is Virginia in the Gays of Washington and after. Not, any means, of love alone is. the romance compounded. Mr. Hergesheimer would seem to have drawn three strands of almost equal fascination from the cloth of life and woven them into a perfectlsbalanced work of art.
A Federal fanatic, Richard Bale lot thirty has emerged from the Welter of the War of Independence log that served as a perpetual, reminder of "ice bright with blood," end sietled down to the life of a Jcountry gentleman with two pre-Joceupations: General Washington jund Balisand. Concerning the former he believeri him to be the one safe and permanent factor in the politienl world, The latter hat stood facing the Novth River for more than a hundred years, through, to be exact, five genera: tions of' the Bales of Balisand._ The first Richard Bale in America had in 1652 cut down the trees where the house was to stand and cleared the underbush from the followed naturally that Richart Bale the younger detested Jefferson and all he stood for. In ibis own werds:— the country may go to hell him (Thomas Jefferson), bu: Balirand won't; every friend I have can urn "Republican, but! there will be no Republicanism at Balisund; as long as it stays! where it is by the North River, a3} Jong as there is a Bale alive, it will keep the way it's always been, with a bowl of punch on the ruble and a horse to carry. the! Black cockade.
Such was Richard Bale's mental aod moral environment when the ins. He had his hobbies—
(the-best An-it like a gentle. nian), an adoration of flowers, and 4 prophetic affection for a brace of pistols made by Mortimore of London, with thirteen.inch barrels ing' an ounce bullet, discharged by a flintlock. "It was one of this that he described to himself! (between the firm and second decanters. of the Antigua) as "a dove like @ rose with a stem."
Into this skilfully suggested at-tao sphere the woman comes: Lavinia Roderick, with a song on her lips:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.