ere the material less ably handled we should suggest
an unnecessary redundancy, but we hesitate to pronounce superfluous
anything which is so exactly fitted, so neatly dove-tailed into the main
structure, as is each incident and character in the present novel. About
a dozen individual and more or less finished personages contribute their
life-histories to the book, yet each of these lives has some bearing
upon that of the heroine, Nora St. John, and notwithstanding these
intricacies the plot never becomes confused. It has been too firmly
grasped by the author's mind to be a puzzle to the reader's. Its various
ramifications are never allowed to get into a "snarl:" the mystery all
turns upon a single point which we will not spoil the reader's pleasure
by mentioning, and, arrived at the last pages, the various threads of
the story unwind themselves easily and naturally like a single coil. The
same skill is displayed in the management of the characters. Though
drawn with unequal power, many of them being seized with much vividness,
whilst others must be accounted failures, they are well grouped.
Numerous as the figures are, they never crowd or jostle each other, and
elaborated as they are in many cases, all are subordinate to that of
Nora, whose character and story stand out in a strong relief not easy to
obtain upon so varied a background. This character is finely conceived
and drawn with real power, being impressive by the very truth of the
rendering, for she is not invested with any strikingly heroic qualities.
A strong, passionate nature made cold by suffering and the constant
struggle to keep the secret of her one season of passion from rising
again to confront her--a woman of forty, who has no longer any illusions
or pleasure, in whose character intense pride is the only motive-power
left, and even pride is weary of its loneliness and the assaults made
upon it--Nora excites interest, and even pity, by her position and by
the aspect of a strong nature under subdued but real suffering. In the
later pages of the book, and notably in the scene with Mr. Sistare, in
which revelations are made by both, the changes gradual or sudden in her
feelings and thought are portrayed with the delicacy of light and shade,
the picturesqueness and self-forgetfulness, with which a fine actress
renders a part. This dramatic quality is perhaps the most striking trait
in _His Heart's Desire_. Many of its scenes are intensely dramatic, full
of p