has a curiously nineteenth century fin de siécle flavor; it goes without saying that such an argument could by no possibility have been formulated by the Wandering Jew or anybody else, at the time of the narrative. But the Wandering Jew and his religious hobby are not, after all, the chief elements of interest in the work, and when we have set them aside there remains a historical romance of considerable interest and constructive skill. There is no doubt that the writer has made a careful study of the period, and actual observation has given vividness to many of his descriptions. We do not suppose that his book will bear the minuter tests of historical scholarship, but neither will the romances of Scott, or of Kingsley, or of Lord Lytton. It doubtless comes as near to historical accuracy as "Ivanhoe," or "Hypatia," or "The Last of the Barons." The interest of the narrative is fairly sustained, and is worked up to a proper climax in the story of the siege of Constantinople. As for the style, it is—well, it is what readers of "Ben-Hur" might have expected. The less closely it is examined, the better satisfied will its readers be. We have no doubt that the book will prove popular, for the average reader cares nothing for style; that it will ever rank as literature may be confidently denied.
"Not Angels Quite" is the incomprehensible title of a molluscous narrative that is neither witty, wise, nor well-written, although it clearly aims to be all three. The story, as far as there is one, is that of Goethe's "Wahlverwandtschaften," but lowered to the level of comedy, and utterly devoid of human interest. But the writer can hardly have expected his lay figures to be taken as real characters; they serve merely as a framework for his superstructure of dull realism, for his small-beer chronicle of the doings of a few eccentric Bostonians, given over to all manner of "fads." Anything more incoherent than this jumble of empty discussions, inapt quotations, and attempts at humor, is not often met with between the covers of a book. The style, with its self-consciousness and its affectations, is simply intolerable.
One takes up "The Complaining Millions of Men" with the notion that he is embarking upon the dangerous sea of socialist tendenz-ftction; but he is quickly undeceived. The hero is, indeed, a sort of socialist, and is first introduced to us as a haranguer of labor gatherings; but the socialism which he and his fellows represent is drawn in such caricature that it cannot be considered a serious study. This hero, who is a Hungarian of uncertain origin, and who is "taken up" as a sort of fad by Boston society, speedily developes into a brute of the most unmitigated sort, whose conduct is too repulsive to be even interesting for any considerable length. Mr. Fuller has evidently set out to be a realist; and unrelieved tedium is, for the most part, the reward of his readers. In one respect he has carried realism to an unjustifiable extent. A number of well-known persons, mostly writers, figure in his pages, their actual names being very thinly disguised. The taste of this procedure is always questionable, and when it goes so far, in one of the present instances, as to insinuate a lack of personal cleanliness on the part of a certain character of whose identity no one will remain in doubt it becomes simply intolerable. This is the worst offence chargeable to the writer, although others are not wanting. The story, which is told at great length, is essentially improbable, although to a certain extent probably based upon an actual Boston scandal of a few years past.
It is a far cry from "The Chevalier of Pensieri-Vani" to "The Cliff-Dwellers." Mr. Henry Fuller's new novel entertains us with no record of sentimental journeyings among the mountains and the monuments of the Old World, but gives us instead an alert and unsentimental depiction of everyday life in the newest great city of the New World. It is interesting to note how completely the writer has freed himself from a manner which, although at first charming in its graceful languor, was fast becoming a mannerism. The vein was near the point of exhaustion, and was wisely abandoned when it had yielded its best ore. Mr. Fuller's "cliff-dwellers" are the people who live and move and have much of their being in one of the many-storied office buildings of Chicago. The metaphor of the title is original and pleasing, although possibly a little too elaborately worked out in the introductory pages. When we come to the substance of the story, it is found to consist in a series of very realistic episodes in the lives of half a dozen men of affairs, relieved by a few equally realistic domestic passages, and given continuity and coherence by their relation to the fortunes of one central figure, that of the unheroic young man who serves for a hero. The heroine of the story is not so easily singled out. Both of the successive wives of the hero have claims to that distinction, and so has Miss Cornelia McNabb, who comes from Pewaukee to Chicago bent upon conquests matrimonial and social; but we are, on the whole, inclined to regard as the real heroine the pervasive but almost mythical Cecilia Ingles, who, without entering upon the scene, so constantly piques our curiosity, and of whose personal appearance we should have no notion had not the artist made up for the neglect of the narrator. Mr. Fuller's chief types the banker, the banker's son, the real estate speculator, the Western representative of an Eastern house, and the young man whose fortunes most engage the reader are absolutely truthful; the uncompromising actuality of their delineation will cause many a reader to wince, but he must at the same time confess to the accuracy of the portraiture. At first sight, Mr. Fuller's study, although minute, appears merely superficial, but a closer examination shows that he has insight as well as the observant faculty. We come, for example, upon quiet incisive characterizations of Chicago that say
