My enjoyment of a book that is frankly a study on a special subject is always limited by the interest of the subject itself, however prettily the theme be embroidered. The most eloquent disquisition on postage stamps, for example, would leave me unmoved. MARGARET PETERSON needs no introduction as a most eloquent writer on things Indian; yet "Eurasia," her set study in _Tony Bellew_ (MELROSE)--I am not likening it to philately, and should be sorry to be disrespectful to either--so swamps her story, and is in itself so little agreeable, that I cannot feel much enthusiasm for her latest work. That it is dry and barren cannot be said of a single page; indeed, I could even wish that such adjectives might be applicable here and there as a relief from the--shall I say?--clammy fungoid atmosphere that permeates, and is intended to permeate, the world that lies between the covers of this volume. The central figure--certainly not hero, and wanting something to be man--exhales in his fickle violences just this miasma; and rightly so, if the general conception of the book be just, for he is born of a Bengali mother. Even his final sacrifice to save _Joan_, herself about the only character one would care to meet, is hysterical and unnecessary, and does little to redeem him. I would gladly believe that the picture of her unpleasant experiences is as false as, I think you will agree, it is on the whole ugly and unsympathetic; though I admit that a lack of sympathy is as much against the intention of the writer as a certain unpleasantness is the deliberate object of her able craftsmanship. I must place it in your hands at that, with the advice to read or pass by according to your interest in the subject. * * *