Although the plot of "As it was Written" turns on the murder of the heroine, the book is yet a considerably livelier one than Mr. Bates's, and imposes no such burden of hopeless misery on the reader. A startling and mysterious crime is dear to the human imagination, and here we are confronted with one hideous in its cruelty and inexplicable in its circumstances. The story is told by the passionate lover of the murdered Veronika, and there is much youthful eloquence and pathos in the description of his meeting with the lovely young Jewess, their sympathy in art,--for both are musicians,--their ardent hopes and beliefs for each other. They are to be married in a fortnight, when the frightful act is interposed which transforms the whole aspect of the world for the young man. The reader must discover for himself the key to the tragedy. The book is one of those which the phenomenal success of "Called Back" summoned into existence. That clearly proved that the public loved a mystery and a sensational _dénouement_, and ever since the annals of crime have been rummaged for horrors. But "As it was Written" has an advantage over other works of its class in a certain charm and freshness, not only from its Jewish setting, but from the fervid youthful feeling which gives a pleasing and natural touch to the narrative.
Warren Bell, the hero of Mr. Julian Hawthorne's "Love--or a Name," finds himself, at first presentation, on his way to offer marriage to Miss Nell Anthony, who has just been left motherless, and to whom he feels that he owes this manly tribute. He acquits his conscience of this duty, but performs it nevertheless in such a jerky, unlover-like fashion that few young women, certainly not one of Miss Anthony's force of character, could have been imposed upon. "I thought you l-loved me," said he. Which surely is not the way to win a fair lady. Much to his comfort, as well as to his ingenuous surprise, he is refused, and goes back to New York, having renounced "Love" and decided to care only for a "Name." Mr. Hawthorne seems to have made an effort to work into the story of his hero a faithful account of New York "ring"-management and official corruption. Warren Bell finds a patron in Mr. Drayton, who has all sorts of ambitious schemes to further, and offers his committees and his confederates a "big game" in the way of "water-works" stocks, and the like. These pictures of corrupt judges and dishonest corporations have some probability: they show us many clearly-developed sensual and mercenary scoundrels; they are all, very possibly, portraits from life; but they are all excessively crude in their likenesses and inexpressibly wearisome. It is a distasteful and unsavory world to which the author introduces us: if he wishes to show us consummate rascals we insist that he should wrap them in some veil of decency, if not of art, and not fill his pages with incidents and talk which properly belong to the police-court. Mr. Hawthorne finally rescues his hero from the ignoble set from whom he has luckily escaped winning a very bad name, and makes him seek his happiness instead in love, which Miss Anthony obligingly consents to give him. The other characters mostly expiate their crimes and misdemeanors in a succession of tragic and unpleasant incidents, and one closes the book with annoyance that so raw, tentative, and unpleasant a story should have been forced upon one's attention by its bearing the signature of a writer who can do so much better.