and exactly,—written them, in fact, with all the verve and detachment from parochial partialities which might be expected of a foreigner rather than of a native. It is said that Mr. Maartens would not have agreed to a Dutch reissue of his books at all, were it not for the fact that in the absence of a copyright law to protect his interests, translations might well appear, and of course be wholly unsatisfactory to him from every point of view. It is commonly understood that the accomplished wife of the popular novelist, who is as notable a linguist as he is himself, and indeed born with the gift of tongues, is responsible for the translation into Dutch of those several romances which have won so much recognition among the English-speaking peoples. The author, of course, has revised them; but to all intents and purposes we have the strange, and perhaps unexampled, instance of a romancist choosing to write wholly for the foreign public.

Not that any one meeting Mr. Maartens for the first time would consider him a foreigner. Both in appearance and in manner, as well as in speech, he suggests an Englishman of a very recognizable type; and when he and his wife, as frequently happens, are in London, there is nothing outwardly to distinguish them from scores of their friends and acquaintances. Recently I saw a so-called authentic account of this writer. It stated that Mr. Maartens was the son of a Dutch peasant of that name, and that his books had long enjoyed a remarkable popularity in Holland. The latter misapprehension has already been set right. As to the first misstatement, that too is easily corrected; for "Maarten Maartens" is merely a pen-name, and belongs, so far as Mr. Maartens himself knows, to no industrious peasant or to anybody else in particular-though of course a fairly common name in Holland. How wise the adoption of a good pseudonym was, is at once evident when we know the real name of the novelist. It is only his intimate friends, however, who know the novelist as Mynheer Van der Poorten Schwartz. To correspondents in general, as well as to the outer world, he is invariably Maarten Maartens.

J. M. W. Van der Poorten Schwartz, to give him his native name once more, was born in Amsterdam on the 15th of August, 1858. He has, with his wife, traveled much; and this is perhaps one reason why they both speak Dutch, German, French, Italian, and English with facility and intimate knowledge. Although so English in his tastes, and so largely English by his interests, Mr. Maartens in his private life is primarily a Dutch gentleman. True, he has incurred a good deal of dislike, and even given serious offense, to many of his compatriots by what they consider his undue or disproportionate representation of Dutch life; but his neighbors at least do not hesitate to be glad that he is one of their number, and that he takes part in the

9359 busy communal life which is the general ideal in Holland. Maarten Maartens, who is now in the prime of life, lives for the greater part of the year that is, when he is not traveling abroad—in a beautiful house near the ancient city of Utrecht.

The first of his books to attract wide public attention - and I understand, the first that he wrote-is the moving story entitled The Sin of Joost Avelingh.' Almost at once this clever and fascinating study of human motives working out towards an inevitable end attracted the notice both of the critics and of the reading world. "The Sin of Joost Avelingh' was successful from the first; and every one was asking who the new novelist with a foreign-sounding name was, and what else he was going to give us. This book was followed by 'An Old Maid's Love,' which had for sub-title 'A Dutch Tale told in English. In actual craft of writing, this reserved and almost austere romance displays a marked advance upon its predecessor in certain points of style; it had not, however, the same success. This was reserved for 'God's Fool,' which both serially and in volume form was read and admired everywhere. The novelist's growing reputation was still further enhanced by what many people consider his best book, 'The Greater Glory.' This "story of high life" was actually written in 1891, and revised in 1892, though it did not appear in an English magazine-Temple Bar -until the winter of 1893-4. Early in 1894 it appeared in the then conventional three-volume form, and in the autumn was issued in a popular one-volume series. Serially, it appeared in America in the Outlook; and besides the authorized edition there have been several pirated issues. So early as 1894 also it was added, in two volumes, to the famous Continental Series of Baron Tauchnitz.

Mr. Maartens has written several other romances than these; and indeed we have come to look for at least one book yearly from him. But in those named the reader will find all his characteristics adequately represented. He is a writer with a grave sense of his responsibility to the public. Conscientious both as to the matter expressed and as to the manner of that expression, scrupulous in his effort to maintain a high standard of purity and distinction in the use of English, and eager to permeate all his work with the afflatus of a dominant moral idea, he may broadly be ranked with two such representative writers as George Eliot in England and Edouard Rod in France. With the deep and subtle author of 'La Vie de Michel Tessier he has in fact much in common. Some time ago an American gentleman asked one of the chief librarians in London which would be the best books by living writers, that would at once interest the attention and improve the minds of young readers in country districts in the States. Among the two or three names that were specified in particular was that of Maarten Maartens; and this indeed is a

verdict that can honestly be indorsed. His work is strong, virile, reserved, dignified, and true to life; while at the same time it is profoundly interesting, pictorial, dramatic, and with unmistakable qualities of style and distinction. It is more than probable that his best work will survive that of writers of much greater temporary vogue; and if so, that happy result will be to the credit of the always sane, and in the long run generally wise, judgment of the reading public at large.

Of his first six books-The Sin of Joost Avelingh' (1890), 'An Old Maid's Love' (1891), 'A Question of Taste' (1891), 'God's Fool' (1892), The Greater Glory' (1894), My Lady Nobody' (1895) — Mr. Maarten Maartens considers the chef d'oeuvre to be God's Fool'; and "the fool of God," Elias Lossel, is his favorite character. Undoubtedly, however, his first book and The Greater Glory' are those for which the public care most. There is one often quoted sentence in the latter book which I may give here:-"This is a true story. It is what they call a story of high life. It is also a story of the life which is higher still. There be climbings which descend to depths of infamy; there be also-God is merciful-most infamous fallings into heaven."

The following extracts are as fairly representative as is possible, both as to style and subject-matter. The reader must bear in mind that they are excerpts, and allow for an apparent haziness in atmosphere, of necessity an evasive quality when what should be given intact has to be presented fragmentarily. Perhaps however they may send yet more readers to the always instructive, stimulating, and deeply interesting romances of Maarten Maartens.

Woman Sharpe

JOOST SURRENDERS

From The Sin of Joost Avelingh›

OOST AVELINGH went up to his wife's room.

Joc

The doctor's last words had been spoken low; but Joost, stopping for a moment in the hall to pass a hand over his eyes and collect his bewildered thoughts, just caught them. He stumbled up-stairs, opened the bedroom door, and walked in.

God had answered him. There lay his wife, white and motionless, with staring, meaningless eyes, under the white coverlet;

unconscious, insensible. A shaded lamp burned on a side table; Dientje the maid rose softly from her chair near it, and came forward. He motioned her away- towards the adjoining dressingroom-and then sat down alone by the bed.

God had answered him. In the pride of his heart he had sought himself an answer, and had triumphed at the thought that it should be a pleasing one. But the very fact of his yearning for a sign in the heavens was the surest proof that the oracle in his own heart had spoken already. It had been speaking through all these months, as each successive experience led him nearer to the truth, all the shouting and din of the election had not been able to silence its voice completely; and now, over the tumult of this wild hour of false exultation, it shrieked aloud! The intoxication of the moment died away from him, leaving him the more dejected. And the hatred and contempt of himself which the last weeks had fostered, once more overflowed his heart.

God had answered him. He sat staring at the senseless face before him, and he read the answer there. He did not believe in such connection as the doctor seemed to snatch at between Agatha's illness and the trial. Living with her day by day, he had seen her well and happy, triumphant even, in the recognition of his innocence. The change had come suddenly; in the last fortnight, perhaps. He had watched it; her mother had spoken of it; her brother-but he had watched it, and seen it for himself. It was God's reply to all his lying self-exculpation, to his life of deceit. The curse of her race would fall surely and swiftly upon this innocent wife of his; for so mysteriously, yet wisely, doth God visit our sins upon our loved ones. Or, in his mercy, he would take her to himself and leave her husband comfortless, him whom no comfort could advantage, and whom misery alone yet might save. But whatever the future might fashion, it would bring them separation: Joost's heart cried out that it must be so, and the last words the doctor had spoken were become an irrevocable decree to him. He understood that it must be thus. He was unworthy to live longer by the side of this woman whom he cheated; and whether by death to relieve her, or by insanity to punish him, she would pass out of his existence. She would never speak to him again. Never! In that thought he first realized how unutterably he loved her, with a love which had grown from a boy's rash fancy for a pretty face, through XVI-586

trials and mutual enjoyments and deepening sympathies, into the very essence and existence of the soul. And yet his first yearning was not to retain her, if God bade her pass from him: it was only that-oh, by all his unworthiness of her, by his guilt and her gentle innocence, by his passionate love and her answering affection-by their oneness-of Thy giving, great Fatherhe might obtain mercy to confess his iniquity in her sight. For death was not death to him in that moment, nor detachment separation. And ere she-his soul's diviner part-pass on to fuller purity of knowledge, he would gather from her lips that she had learned his secret on this earth, had understood it, and forgiven him. Not, not to be left here standing with eyes that cannot pierce the darkness, and yet with a hope that told the loved one loved him still, and now read the soul he had so shrewdly veiled before her, and now-mayhap-mourned forever for a unity, high and holy, broken and trodden under foot. O God, have mercy!

He sank down by the bed and buried his face in his hands. And in the untroubled silence his heart cried aloud. It was of God that he must obtain forgiveness in the first place, and he knew it. But his prayers, in that turmoil of feeling, were of the woman he loved.

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

From An Old Maid's Love'

T WAS on a golden summer evening. a long June sunset, soft and silent-that Mephisto crept into the quiet old heart of Suzanna Varelkamp.

She was sitting in the low veranda of her cottage on the Wyker Road, with her gray knitting in her hands. She always had that gray knitting in her hands. If it rested on her knees for one brief moment, her friends could tell you that some singularly difficult question-probably of abstruse theology, or else about the linen-basket or the preserves—was troubling Suzanna's mind. Suzanna was a woman of industrious repose. She loved her God and her store cupboard. She did not, as a rule, love her neighbor overmuch: little unpleasantnesses in connection with the overhanging apples, or Suzanna's darling cat, were apt to