Mountains of the Moon, and the secret of eternal life; this violation of the first principles of art—­that is to say, of the rhythm of feeling and proportion, is not possible in France.  I ask the reader to recall what was said on the subject of the Club, Tavern, and Villa.  We have a surplus population of more than two million women, the tradition that chastity is woman’s only virtue still survives, the Tavern and its adjunct Bohemianism have been suppressed, and the Villa is omnipotent and omnipresent; tennis-playing, church on Sundays, and suburban hops engender a craving for excitement for the far away, for the unknown; but the Villa with its tennis-playing, church on Sundays, and suburban hops will not surrender its own existence, it must take a part in the heroic deeds that happen in the Mountains of the Moon; it will have heroism in its own pint pot.  Achilles and Merlin must be replaced by Uncle Jim and an undergraduate; and so the Villa is the author of “Rider Haggard,” “Hugh Conway,” “Robert Buchanan,” and the author of “The House on the Marsh.”

I read two books by Mr. Christie Murray, “Joseph’s Coat” and “Rainbow Gold,” and one by Messrs. Besant and Rice,—­“The Seamy Side.”  It is difficult to criticise such work, there is absolutely nothing to say but that it is as suited to the mental needs of the Villa as the baker’s loaves and the butcher’s rounds of beef are to the physical.  I do not think that any such literature is found in any other country.  In France some three or four men produce works of art, the rest of the fiction of the country is unknown to men of letters.  But “Rainbow Gold,” I take the best of the three, is not bad as a second-rate French novel is bad; it is excellent as all that is straightforward is excellent; and it is surprising to find that work can be so good, and at the same time so devoid of artistic charm.  That such a thing should be is one of the miracles of the Villa.

I have heard that Mr. Besant is an artist in the “Chaplain of the Fleet” and other novels, but this is not possible.  The artist shows what he is going to do the moment he puts pen to paper, or brush to canvas; he improves on his first attempts, that is all; and I found “The Seamy Side” so very common, that I cannot believe for a moment that its author or authors could write a line that would interest me.

Mr. Robert Buchanan is a type of artist that every age produces unfailingly:  Catulle Mendes is his counterpart in France,—­but the pallid Portuguese Jew with his Christ-like face, and his fascinating fervour is more interesting than the spectacled Scotchman.  Both began with volumes of excellent but characterless verse, and loud outcries about the dignity of art, and both have—­well ...  Mr. Robert Buchanan has collaborated with Gus Harris, and written the programme poetry for the Vaudeville Theatre; he has written a novel, the less said about which the better—­he has attacked men whose shoestrings he is not fit to