de Blanzac, and after two years the fact is brutally thrown in Annie's face by the Duchesse herself, seized with a fury of jealousy for the wife's privileges. And Annie departs from all the principles that she had over and over laid down-she feels herself bound by her child, by her position, by a hundred ties, to remain; and she remains-like any mere Frenchwoman. In the end, for she is a kind little person, she forgives her dying rival; but she can understand neither the passion which led the Duchesse to transgress nor the consolation which her religion offers to her. Her own immunity, according to M. de Coulevain, consists in her limitations-she is capable neither of the splendid virtues nor the answering vices.

In his other book, Eve Victorieuse,' the author developes more fully the thesis of an American woman's insensibility, and questions the completeness of immunity which her training secures. (On the whole, we may observe, this novel seems less brilliant than the other, but that may be due to the astonishing badness of the translation in which we had the misfortune to read it.) It must be allowed that the two American women presented in the first chapter are not shown in an advantageous moment. Helen Ronald has a husband in every way satisfactory-rich, handsome, distinguished, and devoted. But her nerves demand a journey to Europe, and his scientific pursuits forbid him to come too, which appears to her almost a dereliction of duty. Her cousin, Dora Carroll, also charming and beautiful, is even less reasonable; she insists at the eleventh hour on accompanying Helen, though this involves putting off her marriage with a man who is eager to marry her. So the pair arrive in Paris, determined to have a good time. Almost from the first Helen Ronald, who is of striking appearance and affects striking toilettes, finds herself followed in the street by a young man. According to M. de Coulevain, a Frenchwoman in such a case would be annoyed and reproach herself; the American, on the other hand, is rather gratified than otherwise, and Mrs. Ronald is no exception. Confident in her bringing up, which has led her to view all positive transgression as a mark of vulgarity, and therefore as a thing impossible to the superior type of woman, she does what a Frenchwoman would consider frankly wrong. Just as she goes to questionable, or more than questionable, theatres, so she flirts regardlessly, convinced that she is (in her own metaphor) fire-proof. The elderly and experienced Frenchman to whom she uses this phrase warns her to beware

of the resurrection of Eve; but she despises the advice, and when she meets the unknown youth who has followed herhe proves to be an Italian (the Count Sant' Anna)-she flirts with him to the last limit of discretion. None the less, she is horrified beyond measure when he appears in her room at night. And just as she is disgusted at his interpretation of her conduct, so he is disgusted at her lack of response to his passion-it seems to him unnatural. So they part in anger. Nevertheless, Eve triumphs, for Mrs. Ronald is visited with regrets. (It is fair to say that M. de Coulevain supposes her to bear in her veins the taint of Latin blood.) The sight of the passion which she has evoked tempts her, and when later on she encounters Sant' Anna again, he has his full revenge by winning the affections of Dora Carroll, whom he marries. The impact of this American young girl on Roman society (in the black' aristocracy) is amusingly described, but we are concerned here only to draw a moral from the case of Mrs. Ronald, who suffers all the torments of jealousy before she finds peace in the Catholic Church, aided by a miracle of faith-healing. Practically, the point

of contrast is this: The American woman thinks herself authorised to play with fire because she knows and believes (rightly in many cases) that it will not burn her. The European (or let us say the Frenchwoman) admits that to play with fire is wrong, but if she provokes passion, admits that it has a claim upon her, and would be slow indeed to pique herself upon insensibility. Or it may be put in this way: Catholicism recognises the existence of sex passion, and holds it to be a sin to which all are prone, and against which all should be mindful to take precautions. Protestantism, at least as construed by the extreme type of the Anglo-Saxon (and it is in the essence of Protestantism to lend itself to individual interpretation), refuses to recognise that passion has any hold on a well-balanced nature, and therefore sanctions a course of behaviour which presumes passion to be non-existent. The ideal Frenchwoman is very unlike the ideal American lady. The American ideal looks for strength inside, and counts upon finding it; the Latin ideal recognises a human frailty, and believes that help will be given on condition of obedience. Unquestionably the American ideal is the more self-respecting, and it is not the meek, but the efficient, who are going to inherit the earth.

M. de Coulevain, it must be understood, in spite of his sentimental weakness for the artistic and emotional qualities of a Latin people, shares to the full the cult of efficiency.

Although he stops short of the orthodox belief that the more efficient race will wholly monopolise the direction of affairs-although he reserves a place for France in the scheme of things-he is of those who regard the American, at least the American man, as probably the strongest force in the future the inheritor of the world, for the world's advantage. Catholicism, for example, is to be taken in hand by America, revised, expurgated, and, in a word, brought up to date. Very different from this is naturally the attitude of the other novelist with whom this review has to deal. Father Sheehan's book, 'Luke Delmege,' is undisguisedly a study of an Irish nature brought for a moment under the influence of English ideals-of a Catholic temporarily affected by standards which Catholicism or at least Irish Catholicism passionately condemns. Luke Delmege is a young priest who at the opening of the book returns to his peasant home in the South of Ireland, laden with all the honours that Maynooth has to bestow, full of generous ardour, and full also of ignorant conceit. We are here examining the novel from a special standpoint, but it may be said that Father Sheehan's work ranks with Carleton's, and that is no small praise. It has something of Carleton's inequality, many of his lapses and technical incompetence, but it has a peculiar tenderness and beauty, and a richness of wit which may well stand comparison with Carleton's excellence. And whoever wishes to understand Ireland ought to read it, and will find it full of charm and of interest, from other aspects than that in which we propose to consider it. Indeed, even a mind thoroughly penetrated with the fundamental doctrines of imperialism, efficiency, and the rest, may find it an agreeable relaxation after the strenuous and tonic literature so lavishly provided to-day.

Luke then comes home, and the first man to greet him after the family's welcome is Father Pat, curate of the parish of Lisnalee-no scholar, no saint, a sportsman, a contemner of tea and coffee, but acquainted with every trouble and success for three parishes round, and adored as 'the 'best poor priest within the four says of Ireland.' That word poor,' as Father Sheehan observes, is in Ireland the distinctive term of popular canonisation.

"""Poor Father Tim!' 'Poor St. Joseph!' 'The poor Pope.' Is it not significant that an impoverished race, to whom poverty, often accentuated with famine, has been the portion of their inheritance and their cup for nigh on seven hundred years, should take that word as

VOL. CXOVI, NO. CCCCI.

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the expression of their affection? Happy is the priest to whom it is applied; he has a deep root in the people's hearts."'

To the priest of Lisnalee that term was never applied. Canon Murray, a man of good family and connexions, on which he greatly prided himself, commanded reverence rather than affection, and commanded it with good right, for he had been a bulwark against eviction, had promoted cottage industries of dairying, poultry farming, and beekeeping, till he could boast that such a thing as absolute want was unknown under his rule. But when Luke, with his ambitions and aspirations full blown, came, as in duty bound, to pay his respects, the Canon had nothing to speak of but 'a very respectable career in the Church,' leading to the honours and-ah! emoluments of the ' ministry.' This to a young man afire not for the common self-sacrifices of priesthood, but for his chance of martyrdom in China, or of ministration to lepers! Thus from the first two ideals are set before Luke-the one leading through years and well-established respectability to honours and 'emoluments,' the other through self-sacrifice and humiliation to objects perhaps wholly superannuated in a world that had spun so long down the ringing grooves of 'change.' Are we going back to coaches when we have 'steam ? Back to monasteries when we have hotels? Back to mortification, dishonour, forgetfulness, the innominati ' of the cell and the tomb?' Are we, in a word, going to turn our backs upon America, where, as Annie Villars observes, there will never be any saints, only to fall in with the unprogressive ways of the insula Sanctorum? These ways, as Father Sheehan's business is to show, are dear to the inhabitants of Ireland, for quite other reasons than mere native indolence or native propensity to dirt. Luke's father, Mike Delmege, was a stern old Irish Catholic of the Puritan type, silent, God-fearing, and just, who never allowed a day to pass without an hour of silent commu'nion with God in his bedroom after the midday meal, and ' on whose lands the slightest whisper of indelicacy was 'punished by expulsion.' Non sic itur ad astra. That is not the way to a balance at the bank. The man was

industrious and prosperous as a peasant, but peasant he would stay, unless he took the one line of success-optimi summi nunc via processus-through a grocery store with spirit licence attached, or else emigrated to America. And moreover, whether in Ireland or America, to achieve success in this world and the accumulation of wealth, it is essential

to attend to business, and to keep the mind resolutely fixed on practical problems and the heart where the treasure is. For the moment Luke was still in Ireland, still inclined to the ideals of the insula Sanctorum, and grew enthusiastic over the story of Father Tracey, who thought himself too elevated as a parish priest, and so, seeking salvation on a lower rung of the ladder, became chaplain to a city hospital, where he might be seen wandering the streets in an old coat green as a leek. Luke expressed a desire to kiss that man's feet, and his friend Father Martin told him it would be easy, for the toes were generally through his boots. This, however, was before Luke went on the English 'mission.'

The young priest saw England from the Channel, and could not understand the peace and calm of what he saw.

"I thought," said Luke aloud, "that every notch in her cliffs was an embrasure, and that the mouths of her cannon were like nests in her rocks."

"""Tis the lion 'couchant et dormant,'" said a voice.'

The voice which answered so eloquently to eloquence was that of a ship's officer, who continued to dilate upon the terror of 'the silent and sheathed strength of England.'

"I dare say it is something to be proud of," said Luke, who was appreciative of this enthusiasm, but did not share it.

"Perhaps not," the officer replied. "It is destiny."

"You see the Cornish coast," he continued, pointing to a dim haze far behind them, in which the outlines of the land were faintly pencilled. "Would you believe that up to the dawn of our century, fifty years ago, that entire peninsula was Catholic? They had retained that Catholic faith from the times of the Reformation. Then there were no priests to be had. Wesley went down, and to-day they are the most bigoted Dissenters in England; and Cornwall will be the last county that will come back to the Church."

"Horrible," said Luke sadly.

"And yet so thin is the veneering of Protestantism that their children are still called by the name of Catholic saints, Angela, and Ursula, and Teresa; and they have as many holy wells as you have in Ireland."

"It must be a heartbreak to the priests," said Luke, "who have to minister amid such surroundings."

"I only speak of it as a matter of fate," said the officer dreamily. "It is the terrific power of assimilation which Protestant England possesses."

"You must be proud of your great country," said Luke.

""No, sir," said the officer, "I am not."

'Luke looked at him with surprise.

"Ireland is my country," said the officer in reply.

"And these