New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-09-09
NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES
by MINOR WRITER'S.

Brothers. a.
IN HOT HASTE. BY Mary f. Hulah 16mo' PIP.
LAJIA. A Tale of Finmarh by Professor j. A.
Fr.is Translated from the Norwegian by
InserId Markhus. 12mo PIP 3s1. q. r. Put-
AN UINCIosETED SKELETON. BY Lucretia P. Hale
and Edwin l. Bynner. 3smo. Boston: Tick
nor & Co. o,
A PURE-soULED LIAR. 1emo, PIP. 1o1. Chicago
A WINTER PICNIC. BY J. and f. f. Dickinson and
S r. Dowd 1emo pp. 265. Henry Holt %
A FORTNIGHT OF FOLLY BY Maurice Thompson
lomo. PIP 40. John p. Alden.
SUMMER LEGENDS. by Rudolph Baumpach
Translated by Helen b. Dole. 16mo. PIP. 2o7
Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
THE LONE GRAVE OF THE SHENANDOAH, and
OTHER TALES. BY Dom Piaft Bcnoru
Clarke & Co.
Mr.. Payn is not at home in other-world liter
allure. His hand is not light enough. his fancy IS
not ETHEREAL enough and his magic effects are
stacy and material to an almost laughabic de-
gree In The Eavesdropper" he has imagined,
or tried to imagine the consequences OF possession
of the receipt Of fern-seed. which, according 10
the tradition. enables the possessor TO Walk IN
visible" The person into whose hands the magic
preparation falls is an old curmudgeon. who' at
the time he makes the discovery. is Ill III ped.
He goes forth clad in nvsibility. and hears what
his friends and girl he had desired to marry THINK
of him. There is nothing new in the IDEA. and
not much in mode of operation. Mr. Payh Is never
dull writer. lie has crisp and pleasant style,
and generally lively fancy. In this BOOK now
ever. he is scarcely himself. The conditions are
clearly unfavorable to his genius. and he founders
when he should fit airily. The sequel. in which,
as by on afterthought, the craziness OF the sup
posed narrator is indicated has an awkward ring,
as though the author were somewhat ashamed or
his foolinc and was anxious to make 1t understood
that he did not put forward such stuff as anything
but the fantasy of a lunatic.
Miss Hullah has not learned one of the most
vital necessities of successful fiction namely, how
to make her first chapters interesting. The be-
ginning OF In Hot Haste is unattractive that
no doubt many readers will proceed no further.
They will thereby lose fairly good story, but
that is the authors fault. The transaction car
ried out " in hot haste" is n marriage. and, ac-
cordng to the proverb, repentance follows there
upon, and suffering. and separation 1t is tale
of German life. but with little or no national or
local color. But for the names the people might
have been Americans. This of course is not good
art. and. in fact the novel appears to be the work
of an inexperienced hand. though it bears marks OF
talent.
Professor Friis writes in that peculiarly simple
and artless way which often characterizes Sean
dinayan fiction Laila" is apparently Intended
more as picture or panorama of Finnish life than
as a regular romance. 1t abounds with clever de-
scriptvc touches. sketches of the nomadic exist
cnce glimpscs of the bleak snowcovered countries.
with reindeer and dogs and wolves ranking next
to the men and women in Importance 1t shows
the depth and persistence Of the enmity between
the invading Norwegans and the Firms. whose
pastures are being gradually taken uD for settle
ment, and who are threatened with the fate of our
own Indians The story is rather thin. but the
views of Lapp manners and customs are inter
esting.
The Hale-Bynner partnership has turned ont its
oldest piece of work in An Unclosetcd Skeleton.
which is certainly in no sense an attempt to play
with physiological science. but is drafted on the
lines Of those French extravagances such as Eu-
gene Mouton is responsible for. and in which the
chief fun consists in the matter-of-fact sobriety
with which every possibility is deiied and violated
Only the Invalid with the Wooden Head can be
compared to the characters in An Uncloseted
Skeleton who have their brains mixed by an
audacious experimenting doctor and whose advent
ures thereafter arc controlled by the psychologist
bizarre and strange, but TOO skctchy. not sufli-
GENTLY thought or worked out. and is decidedly too
impossible to be genuinely interesting The secret
of success in this kind of story lies in keeping so
near the boundary line of scientific precision to
maintain in the reader half-belcf that the thing
alleged, however audacious, might really happen.
When 10 effort is made to produce this impression
only an extraordinary gift Of humor can save the
performance.
The author of Pure-S ouled Liar is evidently
a woman and n young woman; and probably n
young woman who has been reared in the highly
rarefed art atmosphere of Chicago. Nearly all
the characters in the story artists and art stu
dents, and. judging from the performances of q
couple Of the girl students at dinner given them
in restaurant. the aesthetics no less than the
ethics of the Queen City remarkable. On
of these young ladies climbs up on the table 10
propose toast and make a speech and nobody
seems TO think this performance surprising or abb
normal But, in truth, all the people talk and
act as nobody talks and acts in real life. and
this curious upsdc-down quality in the book is the
only one which gives it any interest One cannot
gi IS what will be said or done next. and the gen
cral effect is that of particularly perverse and
fantastic dream.
"a Winter Picnic" is an uncommonly well-writ-
ten sprighty and interesting account Of residence
IN Nassau OF four months Four American girls
tell of everything they in letters. extracts from
Journals and cosby talk. 1t is done very easily
and naturally. The four, with a materfamilias,
take house. furnish it with immense difficulty,
and make it headquarters. Then they wander all
over the island, peer into everything describe all
the tropical things they make vivid and graphic
sketches of the queer natives-or, 70 speak more
exactly, the African resdents-and Introduce the
reader so thoroughly to island life in all its salient
phases that long before the end is reached
he feels quite at home. There is shrewd obser-
walton, artistic feeling for beauty, feminine love
of flowers and graceful vegetation, and sharp
ear for the dialect of the negroes. As an example
of collaboration in authorship this little book is
certainly a success, and 1t also proves that there
is no subject so hacSneyed that it cannot be made