St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-08-01
NEW BOOKS.

nicholas Blood, Candidate," is a
sketch of more than ordinary power.
Its author, Arthur Henry, has been
known OF late as writer of exquisite
verses, and the youngest member of the
famous Whitechapel club, of Chicago.
Nicholas Blood is his first story. 1t
is scarcely more than word painting of
vivid scenes seen by the eyes of young
poet. 1t is impossible for one who does
not know the South to judge of the
truth of the picture. Mr.. Henry draws
of the darkest aspect of the
negro question. 1t is not a pic
ture to please Northern sentimentalsts
and rose-water phllanthropists. 1t is a
horrible picture of the very possible re-
suit of negro supremacy in the South,
and as Il glimpse into the practical
workings of politics, will doubtless be
made much of in the opening campaign.
Mr.. Henry is an impressionist. His
high lights are thrown into almost pain
full prominence by the depth of his
shadows. From a sociological stand
point the book may be pessimistic. 1t
is unfortunately built upon fact. In a
literary sense it is dramatic, and gains
in that quality what it loses in logical
sequence. 1t does not end. 1t has no
plot, it is simply series of fiash-light
pictures, and on the dark surface of the
main incidents floats the eXquisitely
pure love story, like some sp0tless gold
hearted lily borne along on the foul cur
rent of sewer. Here and there in the
book are some very clever Things. Here
is one of them: "Darkies in their con-
versation sing. There is minor sad
ness to every tone. They may be super
stitious and ignorent, but their voices
are like ancient harps. When they
speak it Is like obscenity put to the re
Deum. IL is as though b0bolink had
talked slang"
can Unwedded Wife," by Genevieve
kirke, is another of those books that
have no reasonable excuse for being.
1t is the story of bright, ambitious
girl of more than ordinary intelligence
and beauty, who, with her eyes wide
open to all the consequences OF her act,
allows married man to make love to
her. relying OH his promise to make her
his wife as soon as he can procure di-
vorce from his wife. She goes through
sham ceremony to satisfy her aunt,
and lives with her lover for some
months. The usual end comes, and
she leaves him because she thinks he
means to leave her. The character
seems an impossible one, and the end of
the story so improbable that it may be
called impossible too. The influence of
such story is bad. or should be bad on
young, unthinking girls. There is no
road to happiness but the highway of
purity and honor.
The popular field for literary incident
Of late is located in the West. The
latest adventurer in this field is Miss
Minnie Gilmore, daughter of Pat
Gilmore, the musician, and to him and
her mother the authoress dedicates her
book in very pretty tribute. The West
that Miss Gilmore knows and writes of
is something like that old mythical
country we used to hear of "a way
down East" There may be such place
where supposedly well-bred people
slide down bannisters at evening par
ties and cOarsely ''chaff" young men
for their attention to strange lady, i'll
that lady's presence. and where the
mother tongue is not only murdered,
most shockingly mutilated; but
that West is not the one we
know. There are some very pretty
bits of word painting in the book. but as
rule the lavish use OF too tropical col
orIng displays the "prentice hand"
rather than that of the master. These
are faults, however, that the Softening
hand of time will rectify, for the author
is but young If the picture in the front
of the book is good likeness. Miss
Gilmore calls her story "a Son of Esa !"
and the hero or central male figure in
the book still follows closely the patterns
of treachery and deceit ser by his pot
tage-buying, lentil-lOving prototype Of
10,
beautiful character, pure, higi-mind-
ed girl. whose natural tendency to idle
ness has been cultivated by her mysti-
cal father until the little heaven of
worldiness we ali inherit from Mother
Eve only served to intensity her feeling
for the sorrows and wrongs that cry
day and night TO heaven. Re-
leased from tho tender ministry
by her fathers death, she comes to her
sister. Althea Rounds, at her home in
Newfield, somewhere in Colorado, to
live, and there under romantic circun-
stances, was for the first time the hand
some young Anak, Steel Hartman
with young girls propensity to lde-
alize she endows the man with all the
romantic virtues that the pureSt Knight
of the Round table might wear, and
then worshipped him only to find her
idol clay.
Steel Hartman on his part loved the
girl with all that was highest in his
nature, and when he feared that to tell
her the truth would be to lose her de-
liberately, lied, and from that moment
being unworthy, began the downward
course that ended in ruin and dishonor
Some of the minor characters are we'll
drawn, and the story is carried to an
artistic ending.
Laura Daintrey is much given to dis
secting for the dear public isolated dis
eaSed social instances with the air of
one who deals with generalities. "Ac-
t3on" is the story of a beautiful New
York heiress, who, after living as her
guardians mistress for two years, falls
in love with handsome author, who
loves the other girl, and commits sui
eide on the eve of the disclosure of her
shameful secret through the malice of a
maid and discarded lover. The book
is unhealthful, unnatural and unpleas-
ant. Prominent New Workers of So
cial and literary fame are easily to be
detected under various aliases. Miss
Daintrey belongs to the depiorable
school Of modern writers which devotes
its time to serving up sm0king-hot pies
concOcted from the moral mud of So
ciety, but ''Act@on" lacks even the
merit of being an artistic mud pie.
For the Sake of the Family" is
rather clumsily written, but does not
lack interest. The story is slight, and