Perhaps it would not be unfair to
suppose that Miss MARGARET PETERSON had at this point her eye already
firmly fixed upon her big situation. Certainly the course of _Peter_ is
rather impatiently and spasmodically sketched till the moment when
matters are sufficiently advanced to ship him also to Africa, in company
with an elderly hunter of butterflies named _Mellis_. Their adventures
form the bulk of the tale (filled out with some chat about elephants,
and a sufficiency of love-making on the part of _Peter_), and I suppose
I need hardly tell you how one of them, poor _Mellis_, is immediately
captured and brought before the terrible white king of the hidden lands,
nor how this same monarch, a really dreadfully unpleasant person, turns
out to be--Precisely. So there the tale is; little more incredible than,
I dare say, most of its kind; and if you have no rooted objection to
characters all of whom behave like persons who know they are in a book
there is no reason why you should not find it at least passably
entertaining.
* * * * *
Mr. F. BRETT YOUNG'S manner of presenting _The Tragic Bride_ (SECKER) is
not free from affectation, and this is the more irritating because his
literary style is in itself admirably unpretentious.
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