New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-05-13
A GIRLS EXPERIMENTS.
MISS AMELIE RIvESS WORK.

A BROTHER TO DRAGONS, and other Old-Tims Talos
BY AMrLB hIvEs limo. PIP. 23o Harper 4
Brsthsrs
: THE QUICK OR THE DEAD. BY AMEIIE RIvEs. Lip
pinsstrs Magazine.
We have hero two quito distinct experiments
in fiction. The three stories entitled A Brother
to Dragons - The Farrier Lass O. Piping Peo-
WORTH and " Nurse Crumpct tells the Story are
styled by the author oldtime7 tales. There is,
however, very little genuine archaism about them.
What Miss Rives imagnes 10 be sixteenth or seven
tenth century English is nothing of the kind.
1t is an odd patchwork Of the kind Of sham anti
quariansm TO be found in eighteenth century plays
and romances and purely modern modes Of thought
and expression clumsily masquerading in uncouth
| phrases The Farrier Lass o. Piping Pebworth
is particularly full Of this pseudo nrchaism Tho
methods employed by the writer ore transparent
enough. Instead Of in the she writes i tn = ;
instead OF Of" she writes :" o. instead Of oil
that she writes a. that Then she peppers her
rustic discourse literally with by'r ay'ldn' and
Lardl' and the thing is done that is, done as
we'll as she knows how to do it The extent Of
her eruditon appears in tho grave statement that
a village woman set about to brew some SACK in
big pot over the kitchen fire. She evidently
| thinks that the country folk Of England made
their own sack rs Jersey farmers mako their own
cider. She alss represents a couple Of farricrs in
village inn as calling for sack and drinking it, APP
parently, by the gallon at sitting. 1t might be
thought that she supposed sack to be species OF
small beer Another instance Of her sciolism APP
pears in her speaking Of an old man as gammer.'
The word gammcr7 applies only to a woman. 1t
is corruption from grandmother just as
| gaffer' derives from grandfather
This is the WY her sarrulous farrier talks to
the winter ut the tavern: what there! cup
| ha M 1rip ninI1 Those
remarkable villagers. too have the name Of
Shakespeare familiar in their mouths as house
| hold words Apparently they have read his
pays-at time when not in fifty Of their class
| could sign a document in any other way than with
n cross. However, so long they say "by the
mass and "by'r laykns' often enough, and
Quoth l. and "quoth hc,' Miss Rives seems to
| think she has put on plenty Of local color Tho
| list OF her anachronisms might be extended in
| definitely the proceeding worth while They
are alluded to- however, solely for the that
such novelty as these stories seem offer consists
mainly in the tricks of style specified here
OF the three tales in the volume before
us, the first alone possesses any real
merit, and even that is eItravagantly sentimental
and wcarsome with mannersms, which rather
suggest want Of ideas than a redundancy OF them
In all her so-called od-time' stories Miss Rives
|
simile which, though they may possibly have the
effect OF poetic irnaCnings upon careless readers
arc fundamentally artificial far-fetched and there
[ for- in bad taste. We will take few illustra-
tions from The Farricr Lass o Piping Peb-
worth They all occur in the space Of two sue
ccssivc pages:
" Her dark cuYs crowned with a wreath o.
corn and o. peoples, that shined in the sunlig ht
like 10 gold strewn all with rubics'
Her brown throat rose from her white kerchief
like as a frozen wood-dove's duslIy breast doth
peep from new-fallcn snow
" He had eyes like pools o. water under night
heaven, wherein two stars have drowned them
selves, as 'twcrc, and brows as black and straight
as sweep o. cloud across an evening sky
Ruth walked at his side, all gittering with
her unbound hair, like TO sunbeam that follows
dark stream
Now, none OF these figures has the least dir Of
spontanety about it. Scarce any one OF them i'm |
presses tho reader fclicitous. And every one
Of them Is aasrantly misplaced in the mouth Of an
ignorant boor Of the period intended to be repre- |
sented.
The characters presented by Miss Riyes have |
no individuality. They are moro or less direren- |
tiated, but they not living people The |
creative imagination has apparently been denied 10
this writer, and she cndeavors to make up for the |
deficiency by various articles which arc not skill
fully cnrioyed.
But II her style and mannersms are bad in her |
old'time' stories they arc very much worse in |
the novelette, The Quick the Dcnd," contrib |
uted TO LppincOtts Magazine" and in addi. |
ton to bad style, we find here bad motive
In the three short stories there was some attempt
TO deal with healthy human passion. In the mod
ern tale there is nothing but study in morbid
nAlC 49,.
to make an accurate report upon the pathological |
phenomena she rashiy undertakes to describe
The first thing which strikes one in this story is
the astonishing variety OF inappropriate words
and phrases employed by the author and the OK
tcnt Of tn. liberties she takes with the English
language In the very first page we read of dry
grasses swirlcd about in q" the MINDLESS rain" Of
horses that 81 hurled through narrow gateways
large stones as though they had been mere fallen |
leaves One would think the occupants OF the
carriage at least would have recognized the diff
ference between large stones and fallen leaves
when they were hurled" over the former Then
We have bridge with " 1.-the middle, and
\ hurting brown stream" and susve air
tumn sky The heroine has on elastic right.
cool cheek whatevcr that may be, and She is
mlnlstered to by negro, woman who wears
with +" padding step The heroine herself has
a padding step also and long gracile fingers
everything in this book is remarkable. Barbors
and Dcrng, being out for walk stepped from
the shelter Of tho woods into the teeth Of 3 brown
gale This brown gale blew in volumes bulg-
ing with fierce sounds-as brown gales alone ever
do The fields. on this phenomenal OCCASION.
were q seething reach Of 'darx-gray weeds and
grasses and, not to fall below the prevailing
slnsularlty OF things the sky WIS n happjn9
cloak Of gray No wonder that Barbero in Tho
peculiar circumstances, should draw ragged
uneven brcath' For, in addition to all the Other
uncannnesses, " the wind slithered and Kissed
like q winged scrpent,7 and presently began TO
blow, in htful, whinnering gusts or conrsc
nobody can DC expected to behave normally in a
brown. oulsihg sale which slithers and winners
IL is IN this kind Of eccentric language tho |
story is told of large young blonde widow who
falls IN love with cousin Of her dead husband |
strongly resembling him. and after vibrating he |
tween terror Of the first and love for tho second
finally reaches the conclusion that she must not ,
marry. ms conclusion does not rest upon any .
reai hDldlhS iatbiunsss to the dyrd man on |