_Time and the Woman._ By RICHARD PRYCE. Not by any means a pearl of Pryce,
and certainly not likely to make so great noise in the novel-reading world
as did _The Quiet Mrs. Fleming_, by the same author. METHUEN & CO. publish
it.
The Baron heartily recommends FRANK BARRETT'S novel, in three vols.,
entitled, _Kitty's Father_. A thoroughly absorbing plot, well worked out,
and interesting right up to the last page. _Kitty's_ father is a mysterious
person, and she, not being a wise child, for she doesn't know him, does
several foolish things, and says several wise ones. _Kitty's_ uncle is a
necessary nuisance, but a cleverly and consistently drawn character, while
_Kitty_ herself is delightfully made out of good home-spun material. But
the villanous Curate is just a bit too grotesque, too Uriah-Heepish for the
awfully tragic situation in which he is placed. When the imaginative author
shifts the scene to Dublin, why did he not represent an Irish
Cardinal-Archbishop as waiting at the stage-door to escort home the
light-and-leading lady? But "for a' that and a' that," most decidedly "read
it," quoth the Baron, and on he goes again.
MARION CRAUFORD'S _Children of the King_, published by MACMILLAN, is a
tragic story, told in most simple and most fascinating style. It is all
colour and character: the colours and the characters being those of
Southern Italy.
Out of regard to the importunities of numerous correspondents, the Baron
has read IBSEN'S _Master Builder_, translated by two of the Ibsenitish
cult. "Only fancy!" Of all the weak-knee'd, wandering, effeminate,
unwholesome, immoral, dashed "rot," to quote _Lord Arthur_ in the
_Pantomime Rehearsal_, this is the weak-knee'dest, effeminatest, and all
the epithets as above superlatived. Read it by all means, and see it, too,
if you will, but if the honest English play-goer's verdict is worth a "big,
big, D" (I thank thee, W. S. G., for teaching me that abbreviated form of
dashed expressiveness!) he will give IBSEN'S _Master Builder_ the benefit
of the "D," and "D" it once and for ever. And that, at your service, my
masters, is the rough-and-ready opinion expressed by,
Yours truly, THE BARON DE B.-W.
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