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Uncle Piper, on the other hand, is introduced, as all of Tasma's characters are, in sundry solid-looking pages of direct narrative. It is true that their humour and epigram make bright reading, but they are necessarily without the power of pithy dialogue to create a vivid impression of character. Whether Uncle Piper is a type of Australian plutocracy need hardly be discussed.
Tasma's efforts to give variety to her work, and keep as far as possible out of the beaten paths of the Australian writer, have not, however, quite excluded from her novels characters which will be recognised as typical. There is, for instance, the young pleasure-loving colonial man who keeps racehorses, gets deeply into debt and love, and has sometimes to encounter awkward parental alternatives.
It is difficult to appreciate the tragic pathos of so common a matrimonial error as Pauline's, especially as George, though uncongenial in his tastes, and not exempt from the ordinary weaknesses of men, is entirely devoted to her, and would readily have improved under her influence, had she chosen to exert any. Tasma's more recent work is better both in spirit and literary construction.
The most vivid chapter to be found in any of Tasma's novels is that in which Uncle Piper, after witnessing a love-scene between Laura Lydiat and George, sends for the latter and threatens to cast him off if a marriage of the pair should take place. Laura is an agnostic and a sort of 'new woman' who maintains a constant attitude of disdain towards her stepfather.
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