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In her desire to present only real persons moving in a familiar world she merits, in Uncle Piper, praise almost equal to that accorded by Nathaniel Hawthorne to the novels of Anthony Trollope when he spoke of them as being 'as real as if some giant had hewn a great lump out of the earth and put it under a glass case, with all its inhabitants going about their daily business and not suspecting that they were being made a show of. It is, however, less of Trollope than of Howells that Tasma reminds the reader in this first story.

While in his relations with his womenkind the tractable section of them there is nothing of that quaint American delicacy and reserve noted by Howells, there is in its stead an absorbing tenderness which is irresistible. The superiority of Silas Lapham as a realistic portrait is not difficult to affirm; still, it is a fact complimentary to Tasma that the characters thus far approximate.

Campbell Praed. Tasma, as one of the younger writers, has rightly seen that, for the present at all events, more than sufficient use has been made in fiction of the natural peculiarities of Australia. Her novels are, moreover, all character studies, and little dependent upon local colour for their interest.

In 1879 Tasma went to live in Europe, and has since known Australia only as an occasional visitor. Becoming interested in social questions during a residence in France, she wrote in the Nouvelle Revue, suggesting emigration to the colonies and engagement in the fruit-growing industry there as a means of relieving some of the poverty of the Old World.

The style is, perhaps, scarcely easy enough for fiction. Its qualities and culture are those that equip the essayist or critic rather than the novelist. Indeed, judged by some of her early work in the reviews, and by the little philosophic exordiums with which she opens so many of her chapters, Tasma would have made a brilliant essayist.

The train was now winding through the valley of the Rio Tasma, and the sullen roar of the mountain stream was beginning to be heard above the thunder of the cars, which were rushing along at a rapid rate. "I am sure of it," replied Jack, as he continued to watch the ascending smoke, though without neglecting his survey ahead. "What else can it mean?" "Sure enough."

While reminding one, as she often does, of Jane Austen's humour, Tasma does not approach any nearer to that writer's supreme gift of describing character in dialogue than scores of others who have followed the same model during the last seventy years. Like most of the chief contributors to Australian literature, Tasma is a colonist in experience only.

Between the writers who profess not to see anything individual in the life of Australia and those others who confine themselves to describing a few of its principal scenes and types of character, Tasma holds a middle and independent place. She is absolutely without predilections and hobbies.

Written when Tasma was about thirty-two, it embodied some of the best fruits of many years' keenly critical study of life, in addition to the culture gained by travel and a wide course of reading. Of plot there is little there is still less in some of the later novels but sufficient variety of incident is given to afford scope for unusually rich faculties of sympathy and philosophic observation.

He must be there ready at all times until we have passed through the woods. Get back as soon as you can." "You can count on that," and with these words Plum began to climb over the tender toward the line of cars behind. The bridge of the Rio Tasma was now in plain sight, and Jack's whole attention was fixed upon the new structure that spanned the rapid stream.