The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1890-06-22
RIVAL TO AMEL1E R1vEs.

and Edgar Saltus has arisen. She is young
woman of the pen-name Of Wenona Gilman
and she has written story of the suggestive
title of "Social Lepers; or, Cold Facts" The
story is published in paper covers and is illu-
minated with a photo-process portrait of the
author and prodigality of polysylabc adiec
tives which seldom have a chance to appear in
print outside of the dictionaries. Wenona is
evidently proud of these adiectives. She
plainly considers them her strong point, and
no doubts willing to rest her claims to the reco-
lection and gratitude of posterity on her un-
sparing use of them She also employs ex-
clamation points and fragments of French with
notable lavishness Besides this she is strong
on pinchbeck cynicism and aristocracy of the
South Fifth-avenue brand. Wenona also deals
in crushed tragedy that might have been bor-
rowed from the late Count Johannes, and her
SMILES of the get-there-or-bust order of
architecture. Wenonas portrait shows the
iron jaw of relentless determination; and when
she sailed in to write a story, she evidently
made up her jaw to write an original one, IL she
brought on tetanus and strabsmus in the at
tempt.
Wenona introduces us to her heroine as the
clock is striking some evening hour, for she
ellis us that ''the room was in darkness, save for
the freight" great saving, by the way, and
as the clock struck, the hand of the heroine fell
from the lace curtain which it had been clutch
ing, reckless of laundry bills-the hand fell,
seeming to punctuate the strokes with
curious unrest that was fascinating" The
heroine, by the way, was endowed with strange
grazoso movements and "an individuality
that was betrothed to sorrow that
seemed to surcharge the respiration of the OBJ
ness of tear-falls, from the spray" Just how
this came about Wenona will no doubt make
clear with diagrams, in answer to popular
demand, in later editions of 'Social Lepers."
AS acute readers may detect from the second
last sentence, the heroine had an observer, and
of course he was not her husband. This is
more clearly revealed in the next paragrap phi by
| the aid of an electrical ray, which had
stolen into the room, and which also revealed
as it fell on the face of the woman that she
was possessed of "a misery that had been
| voiceless-but pier cannot stand the force of
| every tempest-tossed offing." The womans
'stag eyes, little later on became fixed on
! the man's-'hot and close like red nethite in
| color.n She hears her husband going out, and
! her ''face becomes gray and gnarled,n and the
! pain seems to stand out from the eyes CT her
! gentleman friend sin bass relief" as of course
always happens with gentlemen friends under
similar circumstances. The latter suggests
| upon she gets hot and the "silence under
which she had sought refuge tumbled down
and annihilated by the storm of her emotions"
| If any of the bric-a-brac was damaged when
| the silence trembled, Winona fails to mention
it. Then the heroine goes for her gentleman
| friend a little, which brings out the fact that
the latter is afflicted with ''intumescence of the
! heart" This, however, does not prevent him
! taking his innings, in which he charges Elise
such is the heroine's front name-with being
guilty of the heinous crime Of loving her own
! husband and adiure her to repent before it is
too late, intimating that she can love him if she
wants to as starter in her reformation.
At this Elise flares up again and wants to
| know if she is to be denied the happiness of a
laundress because she happened to be born to
the purple? Then, quite natural like, she grows
! philosophical and announces that there is moth
! ing so beautiful as the romance of life, which
ellis every crevice of existence until nightn-
gales twit forever in the hollows of the soul
and water-lilies bloom in the pools of the
| heart.n
This seemed to work her gentleman friend
up to great state of excitement as well it
might; and his eyes glowed, and ''his breath
scorched his lips as it came through;'' but,
strange to say, 'his voice was cool, even cold!''
And with this freak-voice he informs Elise that
she has been picking up her ideas Of life life from ron
'ictional writings" After sprnging this on
the poor woman Randolph Norton-for it was
he-stood gazing on his charming hostess,
watching the etchings that the pencil in the
wrestled with that word ''fictional," no doubt.
The effect on her voice was disastrous, for
the next time she spoke sit was like the crash
ing of glass; However, she invited Ranny to
dinner and he accepted too quick But of
course he was to dine with q woman who
was born to the purple, he had to go home and
dress. AS he started out of the house the pros
pect of getting bang-up dinner for nothing,
with probability of claret and possibly cham
pagne being thrown in, made him see things
Through that film that characterizes the nee.
talope in the light of day" In the street, too
Wenona tells US, his carriage would have given
evidence to a close observer ''of the auassation
of the heart,'' this, no doubt, being compli.
cation with the 'intumescence" already al
luded to.
Meanwhile, in the house which the gentle
man with the badly diseased heart had left
queer things were happening. The husband
returned for some unstated reason-no doub
f forgot his night-key-and the wife calls to him
in a voice that was ''splashed with chaotic un-
! certainty" The husband was impatient to get
away and keep an appointment he had made
, but gives his wife three minutes by the watch
: TO say what she had to say. She began to say
it, and her voice rose and fell upon her owl
senslbllities like the undulations of a surgne
: sea in the strained ear of shipwrecked human
q ity" She reproaches the husband with hii
l neglect OF her, and asks, as of course any
I woman born to the purple would under thu
y circumstances, "Will you tell me in wha
manner the ego OF to-day Is altered from the
I ego OF few short months back" etc., etc.
= which Of course quickly makes the husband
+ desperately tired, and he explains to her tn,
l difference between sweetheart and wife in Ian
. guage far more plain than polite. Then he
face grows the ''color of troua;" she storms
he storms; she accuses him of laison will
Aanon DuVal-fateful name he owns up
c detes her and leaves. Then the tragedy in he