humor: to
find the pathos and the true love the reader must consult the volume.

_Divided Lives_, a novel, by Edgar Fawcett (Belford, Clarke &
Co.).--There is no more charming writer of English fiction than Edgar
Fawcett, and the volume before us is one of his best. He builds upon
the English method, animated by the French motive, and deepens the
shallow affection of the first to the unfathomable depths of human
passion to be found in the last. His dramatic ability holds one to the
interest of his book whether it has plot or not. Of course he has his
faults. His characters are known to us mostly by name, labelled, as it
were, and he will at any time sacrifice one or a dozen to work up a
dramatic effect. Then he has affectations, not precisely of style, but
of phraseology, that irritate; and he cannot resist putting smart
speeches into the mouths of everybody. Here is an example:

"Indeed, no," Angela replied, "there never was a more devoted friend
than Alva is. To leave her charming home, and all her gay town life,
for weeks, just that she may be near me! It is something to vibrate
through one's entire lifetime."

This is said by a little girl to her lover, and the lover responds:

"It teaches me a lesson. What is easier than to misjudge our
fellow-creatures, and how wantonly we're forever doing it! We are all
like a lot of mountebanks behind an illuminated sheet. The uncouth
shadows we cast there are the world's misrepresentation of us."

As these young people were desperately in love with each other, but
then just engaged, this sort of talk, however clever, is as much out
of place and jarring on one as would be the murder scene from
Macbeth.

Edgar Fawcett is given to a delineation of social life in New York.
This is a wide and varied field, and the author makes it intensely
interesting. We have called attention, however, to the fact that he is
not altogether correct. The English motive, of turning the interest
upon social caste, is not true when applied to our mixed condition. We
have no aristocratic class, as recognized in England; and the
assumption of such in real life is too ludicrous and unreal for the
purpose of the novelist. Mere wealth without culture, and culture
without wealth, contend in a mixed condition with each other, without
supplying the interest to be found in earnest endeavor to overcome
unjust distinctions and power. When Mr. Fawcett does deal with a class
he is not always just. In his _