There is naturally not so much scope for the display of Jokai's peculiar
and delightful humour, in a novel of incident like the present tale as
there is in that fine novel of manners: "A Hungarian Nabob." Yet even in
"Szegeny Gazdagok," many of the minor characters (e.g., the parasite
Margari, the old miser Demetrius, the Hungarian Miggs, Clementina, the
frivolous Countess Kengyelesy), are not without a mild Dickensian
flavour, while in that rugged but good-natured and chivalrous Nimrod,
Mr. Gerzson, the Hungarian novelist has drawn to the life one of the
finest types we possess of the better sort of sporting Magyar squires.
Finally, this fascinating story possesses in an eminent degree the charm
of freshness and novelty, a charm becoming rarer every year in these
globe-trotting days, when the ubiquitous tourist boasts that he has
been everywhere and seen everything. Yet it may well be doubted whether
even he has penetrated to the heart of the wild, romantic, sylvan
regions of the Wallachian and Transylvanian Alps, which is the theatre
of the exploits of that prince of robber chieftains, the mighty and
mysterious Fatia Negra, and the home of those picturesque Roumanian
peasants whom Jokai loves to depict and depicts so well.
R. NISBET BAIN.
Contents
CHAPTER
I. BOREDOM
II. A NEW MODE OF DUELLING
III. AN AMIABLE MAN
IV.
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