ith persistent misunderstanding and arduous devotion through 240
pages. He attributes her aloofness to his father's unfounded charge
against his mother and her father. When he learns that she has borne a
child he suspects rape and, with a needle-like dagger that leaves no
sign, he kills the man he believes to have seduced her. Then he goes
to the lady to receive her thanks, only to learn that she loved the
man he has killed. Varick gives himself into the hands of the police,
confesses, and is delivered to justice, the lady gloating. A
strikingly pessimistic tale, only less good than "Mr. Incoul." There
is superb writing in these pages, many delightful passages. _La
Cenerentola_ and _Lucrezia Borgia_ are mentioned in passing. Saltus
has (or had) an exuberant fondness for Donizetti and Rossini. Here is
a telling bit of art criticism (attributed to a character) descriptive
of the Paris Salon: "There was a Manet or two, a Moreau and a dozen
excellent landscapes, but the rest represented the apotheosis of
mediocrity. The pictures which Gerome, Cabanel, Bouguereau, and the
acolytes of these pastry-cooks exposed were stupid and sterile as
church doors." This required courage in 1888. One wonders where Kenyon
Cox was at the time! Give this book at least two stars.

"Eden"[13] is the third of Saltus's fictions and possibly the poorest
of the three. Eden is the name of the heroine whose further name is
Menemon. Stuyvesant Square is her original habitat but she migrates to
Fifth Avenue. The tide is flowing South again nowadays. Her husband is
almost too good, but nevertheless appearances seem against him until
he explains that the lady with whom he has been seen in a cab is his
daughter by a former marriage, and the young man who seems to have
been making love to Eden is his son. Characteristic of Saltus is the
use of the Spanish word for nightingale. There are no deaths, no
suicides, no murders in these pages: a very eunuch of a book! A motto
from Tasso, "_Perdute e tutto il tempo che in amor non si spende_"
adorns the title page and the work is dedicated to "E----H
Amicissima."

With "The Pace that Kills"[14] Saltus doffs his old coat and dons a
new and gaudier garment. Possibly he owed this change in style to the
influence of the London movement so interestingly described in
Holbrook Jackson's "The Eighteen-Nineties." The book begins with
abortion and ends with a drop over a ferry-boat into the icy East
River. There is an ave