quially would be called a simp, by denizens of
the Low World a boob. He redeems himself to some extent by sending
Madam Sapphira a belated bouquet of cyanide of potassium. On the
whole, though characters and phrases in his work might be brought
forward to prove the contrary, Mr. Saltus obviously has a low opinion
of women and thinks that men do better without them. The greater part
of the time he appears to agree with Posthumus:

"Could I find out
The woman's part in me! For there's no motion
That tends to vice in man but I affirm
It is the woman's part; be it lying, note it
The woman's; flattering, hers; deceiving, hers;
Lust and rank thoughts, hers, hers; revenges, hers;
Ambitions, covetings, changes of prides, disdain,
Nice longings, slanders, mutability,
All faults that may be named, nay that hell knows,
Why, hers, in part or all; but rather, all;
For even to vice
They are not constant, but are changing still
One vice of a minute old for one
Not half so old as that. I'll write against them,
Detest them, curse them.--Yet 'tis greater skill
In a true hate, to pray they have their will:
The very devils cannot plague them better."

"Enthralled, a story of international life setting forth the curious
circumstances concerning Lord Cloden and Oswald Quain":[23] a mad
_opus_ this, an insane phantasmagoria of crime, avarice, and murder.
For the second time in this author's novels incest plays a role. This
time it is real. Quain is indeed the half-brother of the lady who
desires to marry him. He is as vile and virulent a villain as any who
stalks through the pages of Ann Ker, Eliza Bromley, or Mrs. Radcliffe.
A Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde motive is sounded. An ugly man comes back
from London a handsome fellow after visits to a certain doctor who
rearranges the lines of his face. The transformation is effected every
day now (some of our prominent actresses are said to have benefited
by this operation), but in 1894 the mechanism of the trick must have
been appallingly creaky. This story, indeed, borders on the burlesque
and has almost as much claim to the title as "The Green Carnation."
Was the author laughing at the Eighteen Nineties? The period is subtly
evoked in one detail, constantly reiterated in Saltus's early books:
ladies and gentlemen when they leave a room "push aside the
portieres." Sometimes the "rings jingle." He has in most instances
mercifull