Considered purely as a romantic narrative, as a story of friendship transformed into hatred and the pursuit of a private feud under the guise of wreaking Divine vengeance, _Foes_ is a superb tale. Considered as a novel, _Foes_ is a terrible failure. Why? Is it not sufficient to write a superb tale? Yes, if you have essayed nothing more. Is a novel anything more than “a good story, well told”? Yes, if the writer essays to make more of it. The novelist who has aimed at nothing beyond the “good story, well told” has a just grievance against any one who asks anything further. But against the novelist who has endeavored to make his story, however good, however well told, the vehicle for a human philosophy or a metaphysical speculation, the reader has a just grievance--if the endeavor has been unsuccessful or if the philosophy is unsound. Now as to the soundness or unsoundness of a particular philosophy every reader must pronounce for himself. The metaphysical idea which was the basis of Miss Johnston’s novel was this: All gods are one. All deities are one. Christ, Buddha; it matters not. “There swam upon him another great perspective. He saw Christ in light, Buddha in light. The glorified--the unified. _Union._” Upon this idea Miss Johnston reconciles her two foes. This perfectly comprehensible mystical conception is the rock on which the whole story is founded--and the rock on which it goes to pieces. It will be seen at once that the conception is one which no Christian can entertain and remain a Christian--nor any Buddhist, and remain a Buddhist, either. To the vast majority of mankind, therefore, the philosophy of _Foes_ was unsound and the novel was worthless except for the superficial incidents and the lovely prose in which they were recounted. It might be thought that for those who accepted the mystical concept Miss Johnson imposed, _Foes_ would have been a novel of the first rank. No, indeed; and for this reason: Her piece of mysticism was supposed to be arrived at and embraced by a dour Scotchman of about the year of Our Lord 1750. It was supposed to transform the whole nature of that man so as to lead him to give over a life-long enmity in which he had looked upon himself as a Divine instrument to punish an evil-doer.