"Yes, dear."
"I fink I could go _all_ to sleep if you"d pit your head down on my pillow next my bunny."
A stir in the darkness, and an instant"s quiet, followed by, "Why, Favver, what makes your face all over water?"
There was no answer.
"And your beard is as wet as--" She broke off to explain to herself: "Oh, it"s rain, of tourse. I forgot it"s raining. _Now_ I remember how to _really_ go all to sleep. I did before. I listen to it going patter, patter, patter, patter--" The little voice died away.
There was no sound at all in the room but the swift, light voice of the watch calling out that Time, Time, Time can cure all, can cure all, can cure all--and outside the brooding murmur of the rain.
A faint, clear gray began to show at the windows.
THE END
ROMAIN ROLLAND"S JEAN-CHRISTOPHE DAWN MORNING YOUTH REVOLT Translated by GILBERT CANNAN.
600 pp. $1.50 net; by mail, $1.62.
It commences with vivid episodes of this musician"s childhood, his fears, fancies, and troubles, and his almost uncanny musical sense. He plays before the Grand Duke at seven, but he is destined for greater things. An idol of the hour, in some ways suggesting Richard Strauss, tries in vain to wreck his faith in his career. Early love episodes follow, and at the close the hero, like Wagner, has to fly, a hopeful exile.
""Hats off, gentlemen--a genius." ... Has the time come for the 20th century to uncover before a master work? A book as big, as elemental, as original as though the art of fiction began to-day."--Springfield Republican. (Entire notice on application.)
"The most momentous novel that has come to us from France, or from any other European country, in a decade.... Highly commendable and effective translation ... the story moves at a rapid pace. It never lags."--_E. F.
Edgett in Boston Transcript._
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE IN PARIS THE MARKET-PLACE ANTOINETTE THE HOUSE
473 pp. $1.50 net; by mail, $1.62.
A writer in the _London Daily Mail_ comments on the French volumes here translated as follows:--"In "The Market-Place," we are with the hero in his attempt to earn his living and to conquer Paris. The author introduces us to the numberless "society" circles in Paris and all the cliques of so-called musicians in pages of superb and bitter irony and poetic fire. Christophe becomes famous. In the next volume, Antoinette is the sister of Christophe"s great friend, Olivier. She loves Christophe.... This, the best volume of the series, is a flawless gem.
"The House" introduces us to the friends and enemies of the young musician. They gravitate around Christophe and Olivier, amid the noisy and enigmatic whirl of Parisian life."
It is worth adding that toward the close of this book a war-cloud appears between France and Germany. Christophe, with Olivier, visits his mother and his Fatherland.
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WILLIAM DE MORGAN"S JOSEPH VANCE
A touching story, yet full of humor, of lifelong love and heroic sacrifice. While the scene is mostly in and near the London of the fifties, there are some telling glimpses of Italy, where the author lives much of the time ($1.75).
"The book of the last decade; the best thing in fiction since Mr.
Meredith and Mr. Hardy; must take its place as the first great English novel that has appeared in the twentieth century."--Lewis Melville in _New York Times Sat.u.r.day Review._
"If the reader likes both "David Copperfield" and "Peter Ibbetson," he can find the two books in this one."--The _Independent._
WILLIAM DE MORGAN"S ALICE-FOR-SHORT
This might paradoxically be called a genial ghost-and-murder story, yet humor and humanity again dominate, and the most striking element is the touching love story of an unsuccessful man. The reappearance in Nineteenth Century London of the long-buried past, and a remarkable case of suspended memory, give the dramatic background ($1.75).
"Really worth reading and praising ... will be hailed as a masterpiece.
If any writer of the present era is read a half century hence, a quarter century, or even a decade, that writer is William De Morgan."--_Boston Transcript._
"It is the Victorian age itself that speaks in those rich, interesting, over-crowded books.... Will be remembered as d.i.c.kens" novels are remembered."--_Springfield Republican._
WILLIAM DE MORGAN"S SOMEHOW GOOD
The purpose and feeling of this novel are intense, yet it is all mellowed by humor, and it contains perhaps the author"s freshest and most sympathetic story of young love. Throughout its pages the "G.o.d be praised evil has turned to good" of the old Major rings like a trumpet call of hope. This story of to-day tells of a triumph of courage and devotion ($1.75).
"A book as sound, as sweet, as wholesome, as wise, as any in the range of fiction."--_The Nation._
"Our older novelists (d.i.c.kens and Thackeray) will have to look to their laurels, for the new one is fast proving himself their equal. A higher quality of enjoyment than is derivable from the work of any other novelist now living and active in either England or America."--_The Dial._
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WILLIAM DE MORGAN"S IT NEVER CAN HAPPEN AGAIN
This novel turns on a strange marital complication. The beautiful Judith Arkroyd, with her stage ambitions, the pathetic Lizarann and her father, Blind Jim, are striking figures. There are strong dramatic episodes ($1.75).
"De Morgan at his very best, and how much better his best is than the work of any novelist of the past thirty years."--_The Independent._
"There has been nothing at all like it in our day. The best of our contemporary novelists ... do not so come home to our business and our bosoms ... most enchanting ... infinitely lovable and pathetic."--_The Nation._
WILLIAM DE MORGAN"S AN AFFAIR OF DISHONOR
A dramatic story of England in the time of the Restoration. It commences with a fatal duel, and shows a new phase of its remarkable author ($1.75).
"An artistic triumph.... He is a persistent humorist."--_Boston Transcript._
"A better story than any of the others, so far as sustained interest is concerned.... The rich, suggestive, highly metaphorical the M. I.
style.... A marvelous example of Mr. De Morgan"s inexhaustible fecundity of invention.... Shines as a romance quite as much as "Joseph Vance"
does among realistic novels."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
WILLIAM DE MORGAN"S A LIKELY STORY $1.35 net.
"Begins comfortably enough with a little domestic quarrel in a studio.... The story shifts suddenly, however, to a brilliantly told tragedy of the Italian Renaissance embodied in a girl"s portrait ...
which speaks and affects the life of the modern people who hear it....
The many readers who like Mr. De Morgan will enjoy this charming fancy greatly."--_New York Sun._
"In the forefront of English fiction.... Both ingenious and amusing....
All in his highly personal and individual manner, the result of which is a novel with an emphatic difference from all other works of contemporary fiction."--_Boston Transcript._