I believe that _Paul Moorhouse_ (LONG) was never really predestined to end unhappily and that his suicide was a conclusion as little premeditated by the author as it was apparently by the hero. If such ends must be, they should be a climax demanded by relentless logic: some sort of culminating event should occur which, added to what has gone before, leaves no alternative. _Paul_, however, had survived for years under the stress of all the circumstances which finally constrained him to make an end of himself; and, had he stayed the course--only another hour or so--he would have found that all had turned out for the best and that adequate arrangements had been made for his permanent happiness. No doubt these things happen in real life and I cannot accuse Mr. GEORGE WOUIL (a most discerning author) of any inhuman treatment of his puppet; yet I wish that he had been more kindly disposed and had spared me a bitter disappointment. Having known _Paul_, man and boy, for upwards of ten years, I had become sincerely attached to him; as assistant time-keeper, foreman and works-manager he showed a spirit true to the real Black Country type. He had his moments of weakness when he went astray after the manner of his kind; but he always became master of himself again and, when he had to, paid like a man the price of his misdeeds, never pausing to discover the overcharge. As for _Joan Ware_, his intended and his due, she was a dear; poor dear!
I do not think that you will believe _The Story of Fifine_ (CONSTABLE), although Mr. BERNARD CAPES takes some pains to give it an air of actuality; but if you are like me you will not be greatly concerned about that. Purporting to be the ill-used daughter of a mad French marquis, _Fifine_, in that _naïve_ and charming way which has always been so dear to the hearts of novelists, came to live at the bachelor abode in Paris of the sculptor _Felix Dane_ (his half-sister, who was keeping house for the marquis, provided the introduction), and, calling each other "cousin" and "gossip," these two shared rooms together in perfect simplicity of soul and held several conversations which reflect, I suppose, Mr. BERNARD CAPES' views on the plastic arts and life in general. And why, in passing, he should continue to heap ridicule on staid Victorian respectability I cannot for the life of me imagine. The plucky and unorthodox thing nowadays surely is to make game of Bohemianism. But, anyhow, the happy moment for me arrived when _Felix Dane_ suggested (on the grounds that the marquis would soon discover his daughter's hiding-place) a holiday tour through Provence. Mr. BERNARD CAPES in Provence is Mr. BERNARD CAPES at his best. How the lovers (for that--perhaps you roguishly guessed it?--they gradually became) paid visits to Nîmes, to Aigues-Mortes, to Arles and to Paradou les Baux, and met _M. Carabas Cabarus_, the native minstrel, you must read for yourself, for I cannot give a faint idea of the eloquence with which their fairyland is portrayed. And if the plot ends as artificially as it began, and with an unnecessary tragedy thrown in, I suppose for the sake of that idyll in the very nesting-place of idylls I must shrug my shoulders and forgive. After all, it does not matter much who _Fifine_ really was, nor what happened to her. Suffice it that Mr. BERNARD CAPES has conducted her to Arles.