We cannot honestly say that " The Witness of the Sun " is well named, or well conceived. We: suppose that this novel ought to be classed as belonging to the passionate, sensuous, and fleshly school. The one commendable feature of skill that we find in the book is a certain warmth and glow of colour' in the descriptive pas sages As for the characters they are cer tainly original enough, but with the uncom fortable originality of madness, so that you seem to be walking and talking with the inmates of Bedlam, who may turn upon you at any moment and rend you. A .mother, for instance, talks to her son as follows:— " Vladimir, if you ever marry, I don't think I shall make a great noise. I think I shall go very quietly to your bride's house to take her a "wedding present; and when she is asleep, with her white throat bent backward for your dreamed-of kisses, I shall give it one snip, deep to the left, with my little orooked toilet scissors, and then strike her across the lips, very lightly, once with my gloves. Come! How pale you are I How you scowl, my great one!" kc, kc.
