The Vehement Flame
by Margaret . New York: Harper & Brothers. 1922. 8vo, 378 pp. $2.00.
IT is hardly necessary, at this late date, to say of one of Mrs. Deland’s novels that it is interesting in plot and character, serious in conception, skillfully written, and expressive of a characteristic ethical idealism. The Vehement Flame is all this, and has, moreover, several impressive scenes, written with fervor. The author has never been afraid to grapple with ‘difficult situations,’ but never, perhaps, has she set herself a more difficult, artistic and moral problem than here.
Eleanor, a woman of thirty-nine, permits herself to be swept into marriage with Maurice Curtis, a boy of nineteen, to find, almost immediately, that the disparity of their ages is the measure of a disparity of interests so great that in all matters less engrossing than love mutual understanding is impossible. Instead of trying to understand her husband, she is jealous of his youth, of his friends, even of his ‘kid cousin,’ Edith; and he tries, for a time quite effectually, to establish a monopoly of his affections, his society, his time. But at last he becomes so bored by her alternate suspicions and endearments that lie seeks other female companionship, finding it for the moment in Lily, a pretty little creature of more charms than virtue, with whom he manages to entangle himself disastrously. Meanwhile Edith has been growing up, and she now comes forward in the story to complicate still further poor Eleanor’s efforts to hold her husband by her autumnal beauty and her rich singing voice. The rest of the novel is an account of growing estrangement, leading to a solution which readers will or will not like, according to their temperament.
A male reader, somewhat puzzled by the feminine absorption in love expressed throughout the book, also finds it a little hard to decide whether Eleanor’s woes are due mainly to her age, her jealous disposition, or her simple stupidity. The study of her jealousy is, however, detailed and acute, and at times subtle; and it may be the author’s view that such jealousy as hers is explicable only by her age or her lack of intelligence. However this may be, her very soul is turned inside out and is found to contain nothing but an emotion. She is described as beautiful and as having a beautiful voice; but throughout she never makes an intelligent remark, has no interests in life apart from her husband’s love or coldness, makes not a single attempt to render his domestic file bearable. On the two occasions when she acts unselfishly, what she does savors so strongly of hysterics that she perhaps receives more credit for it than she deserves. Hers is a somewhat tenable exhibition of what unmitigated eroticism can do to blight a life and all its surroundings. Her doings on the occasions when she rises above herself are admirably narrated, however, and make upon the reader’s mind an impression more lasting than any other incidents in the book, except, perhaps, the scene on the roof of the boarding-house during the eclipse.
The story is the story of Eleanor, and it is this fact which makes one wish that Mrs. Deland could have found it. in her heart to illustrate the raging flame of an awful passion in a soul less petty. For the devastating power of a passion cannot be fully revealed in a small soul. The resulting lack is what one perhaps feels most in a novel otherwise so excellently written.
R. M. GAY.