cares about him at all; and might indeed have continued this attitude
of indifference--who knows how long?--had not some Higher Power
(perhaps the Paper Controller) decreed a happy ending on page 340. A
lesson, I am sure, to us all; but of what character remains ambiguous.

* * * * *

In such a title as _The North East Corner_ (GRANT RICHARDS) there is
something bleak and uninviting, something suggestive of the bitter
mercies of an average English April, that is by no means confirmed in
the story itself. Windy it certainly is--it runs to 496 pages--for I
do not remember any other recent volume where the characters really do
talk so much "like a book," and though, of course, this may be a true
way of presenting the customs of a hundred years ago, one feels that
it can be over-done. _Frank Hamilton_, the magnanimous friend, facile
politician and all-but hero, was the worst offender, not only making
love to the _Marquis's_ unhandsome daughter in stately periods, and
invariably addressing pretty _Sarah Owen_, who was much too good for
his and the author's treatment of her, in the language of a Cabinet
meeting (as popularly imagined), but being hardly able even to lose
his temper decently in honest ejaculation. _Rolfe_, his friend, was
a Jacobin of the blackest, who preached sedition and the right of
tenants to vote as they chose; and the _Hamiltons_ were renegades who
gained titles and honours by supporting a failing Ministry, from the
most opportunely patriotic of motives. The general drift of the plot
is neither very readily to be summarised nor indeed very satisfactory,
and one might disagree with Mr. JOHN HERON LEPPER at several points.
At the same time, as his many friends would expect, there is much to
be grateful for in this quiet study of Irish times and politics very
different from our own. There is a ring of sincerity for one thing,