Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1885-03-10
THE NEW AMERICAN NOVEL.

1Ork. ~. Appleton ~ 20. 1854. Up. 3JI. L
Here is an American novel, written by an |
American, to the manner born written of
American men and women Of American so
cial and political life; for an American pur-
pose, and by representative of that most
characteristic American estate--journalism.
All of this possibly could have been said of
other books that have preceded it-and still
the Great American Novel fingers SO be It. |
Uncle Toms Cabin " was written with
purpose and IL served IL. Tourgee's "Fool's
Errand " had purpose; II challenged pub
lie attention and held It. "The Bread Win
ners" was no accidental success, despite its |
literary deficiencies. Scores of "American |
nove's"-novels of New York society, novels |
OF Washington politics, and novels Of scnti- |
mcnt, with good deal more of literary finish |
| than any one of the books quoted, have fallen |
dead and fiat |
Now and then novel comes along that |
tells just what vast number of people have |
been thinking and saying to themselves. |
"Helens Babies" attained its phenomenal
popularity because "Budge" and ''Toddie'
were in a million households
Here comes a book that under the guise of
fiction, on passable plot, with familiar
characters, gives us view of metropolitan
journalism, of modern politics, of labor
! agitations, of fashionable dissipation, of
| worldly women and still more worldly men,
| Of selfish, sordid wealth, of good hearted,
halfeducated womankind that falls something
short of heroic book that deals, in short,
with just such people and such events a.
were familiar in Washington, New York aud
Chicago say fifteen years ago.
When this is attempted by one who has
studied history with eager zeal and viewed
contemporaneous life on both continents with
the eye of a journalist by graphic and
eloquent writer with exhuberant powers of
EXPRESSION with vivid imagination, with a
soul all aglow for liberty of the individual,
for the rights Of man, for freedom Of trade, for
independence in journalism, in politics, and
) for the social elevation of the bread winners
in society, the result is bound TO be book
: that will be read because II is worth reading.
1t cannot be suppressed by those whom il
ofiends it cannot be kept out OF the market
by the studious indifference of the book
, reviewers whose employing journals are
outraged at its brutal frankness.
! IL is very fairly advertised as an answer to
the "Bread Winners" II is in every re-
spect very much stronger book.
; ii has very grave faults of style, and these
are not the least interesting features of it,
Its characters are not portraits of actual
i | people, for scarcely one of them is consistent
9 wholly with the original from whom IL is
J. drawn; and yet they are entirely natural and
"A | ditctctucl posslDltt lcE ntdIlN tNtIy
}. portrayed attaches to some well ll-known indi-
3 sidual and nearly every incident related has
- had its counterpart in recent well-remem-
y bcrcd events, differing only in associations
y from those of the book
The opening chapter deals with an Orange
u mems celebration in New York In very
ls clever manner. II Is marred by two pages
a of turgid and bombastc composition which
only serve To tell that the day was hot and
thus some of the best and the worst charac
II teristics of the book confront the reader in
the first dozen pages. Much of the book
deals with the motives and methods o
q modern journalism They are relentlessly
i'm laid bare to view by one who has seen then
- on the inside. Ii takes no acuteness to dis
40 cover that the Tribune and Whitelaw Reid
., the Sun and its editor and other metropol
- itan journals and their attaches, have con
tributed 10 the author much of his material
~ 1t would not be fair to him nor his original
iu to say that any one of =" The Money Max
al ers newspapers or personagcs follow
,r- out continuously a single actual jour
al | nal journalist of New York. II i
easy to suspect, however. that the writer ba
'N theory as to the mysterious author Of tn
N Bread Winners" and that he identifies hin
il | with former New York Journalist, whom
he lashes in the character of Hitiidrd, one q
the principal figures in the Money Makers
o and one of the most odious.
eir that merits your unqualified respect am
g admiration. The bad very bad indeed
NJ and the weak thoroughly contemplate; tb
~ good are not unmixed good and the reform
ih- ers are rather inpetuous and unsteady sci
'er But all this is perfectly natural and yer
lty much after our every day experience.
-, The dissipation of fast young men in Ne,
York their orgies and intrigues the secret
nat of the green-room and the loose morals of tli
his stage and press here depicted are all faithfr
nat pictures OF alife that every active journals
A., has come in contract with and every observe
II" of modern society will admit EtodnO
We GrimStOne is a very fair offset to Mdud Ma
les chen OF "The Bread Winners" The Madau
not DomiHguez of Washington society an
- BeanrjumbcS of the opera boufle have n,
'u- been drawn with undue colorng at all.
If has not been so many years since the
,ur Haunted themselves before the America
., public, the mistresses Of famous state
s and the admiration of Gallo
hat youth OF fashion. The scene shift
III from Washington and New York, from Ne
York TO Saratoga, from Saratoga 10 Naledc
(Which may be any lake city of quick growt
- in the Northwest), but the actors are IL
same, the passions the same and the inc
,o dents are of the same everyday life of Ii
ne bread winners and money makers.
all The graphic events which hurry each oth'
ra- toward the conclusion of the book the lab,
will troubles the disastrous fall OF the opel
to house in Naledo, the burning of the hot
les death trap, are to be found almost exactly
20 the daily files of actually reported Occu
p features of American life, as the rise, the Ii
,i, u. and death of Aaron Grimst0ae. the prof
en % gacy of his son Herbert and his inhertan
~ of worldly success and the original an
~. ~ striking character of Mrs. Carer.
,on Andin no respect has the author better show
his skill and fidelity to nature than in his fin
r 'rop disposition of his characters, his incomple
nua aua ending of the parable and his frar
~, ~ acknowledgement of his inability to sol
Wv; ;,io the problems he proposes, and that weigh
a,I heavily upon our society and politics
of | "unmcried rewards and unrcwarded mcri
~. ~. | hapless love and lovcless happiness; Mise
eh' riveting the shacklcs Greed foigcs and lgn'
an ancc holding the lees of the 1incon To its op
I'VE | lips, while Greed and Irony gulp down the de
ON drnughts of the lifc-giving nectar. Money n
The | only the law but the gospel of life Money {
'o law-maker; Money, the priest at the altar
that worship whose creed Is inequality al
whose ideal Is self"
The book is full of faults, as it is full of @
IT'S. celences itabounds in cruditiesa as 1t sparkl
My with cxquisitely cut gems of philosopf
ase thought and epgrammatic wit; 1t displa
rbe | the most inexcusable aflectations OF learniI
tod and it contains eloquent pages worthy
- Macaulay. 1t excites the constant wond
,.o, ,'s that its author having done so well has II
ns nso done better and it challenges at every tn
Wy admiration for rare delineation of charact
.o, , and analysis of motive.
aho III is strong, earnest protest against Il
VIZ %i friyolousand tendencies OF the a
IN a., and the wrongs committed through t
~ ~; accursed greed of gold, the fatal Midas tou
hate ~. l.., .ta. "A