The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1895-11-23
RECENT FICTION.

THE NANHATTANERS. A Story OF the
Hour; BY Edward Nan 3; van c,o 1ife' a rat MOI
New York: Lowell. Coryell Sc Co.
Here we have a stirring story Of
life and Of the 400 in the city
where the currents of humanity pull
safe faster and with greater side ed
dies than anywhere else on the North
American continent. Richard Stough-
ton, the juvenile hero, Is a Connecticut
son of Yale who preferred the excite
ment and the uncertainties Of active
newspaper work on the New York
Daily Trumpet to the dizziness of a
desk position In his fathers New Ha-
ven bank; and John Fenton, the ma
ture hero. is a ~three-fourths cynical
bachelor Of between 40 and 40 who
breaches the single tax, utters cpl
grams with q knife-cut in them and
Incidentally derives a livelihood at the
desk Of the Trumpet's assistant city
editor. We have culled some of Fem
editor. We have culled and repro
duce them as follows:
There are certain truths that the uni
verse holds In its secret heart and refuses
TO divulge. As a microcosm, every man
cherishes in his innermost being some bet
ter certainty that he must defend from the
gaze of the curious. If he draws the veil;
even by a hair's-breadth, that exposed
nerve known as conscience will throb for
an instant and close his mouth"
rs IL not some WOTu-JuSSier VIM uScS
epigrams to conceal the truth, who says
that the only vice which does not cling 10
youth is advice?"
you will find 1t necessary to repair, as
rapidly as possible, the intellectual raw
ages of a college education. The tendency
Of Yale life Is to convince you at gradua-
ton that you know everything. me eN-
perience Of q few years in metropolitan
newspaper life will convince you that you
know nothing"
Society has no a~llurements for me.
~ -. 49, NJ nnpta nf
at its best? Nothing more than a dress
parade of more or less well-groomed men
and women who revenge themselves for
boring each other in public by destroying
each others characters in private,
"A newspaper is an Unsuitable beast.
Its nav is never satisfied. 1t swallows
brains; talent Sn culture ! w ,haus ar aS yoaiin;
that grows with what 1t feeds upon. II Is
the hungriest monster the ages nave pro-
duced, and its food is human lives.
''There seemed to me to be something
grimly ludicrous about the vast majority
Of men, who fuss around for a few years
on an insignificant planet In an out-of,the-
way corner of space, as III they mad been
placed here for eternity. and were indl-
vidually of tremendous significance to the
universe at large
useless occupation, no matter how much
We admire the rainbow
II have grown very suspicious of those
chameleons we so proudly call convictions.
Lucky is the man who can reach middle
life and still feel absolutely certain that
two and two make four
AS foils to the mental %brilliancy Of
this epigrammatic journalist and his
equally bright though less coruscating
young friend. we are introduced to GER
tain personages belonging to Gotham's
ultra swell set. One or two bits of
portrayal in his direction will empha-
size the authors mastery over words:
'The Percy-Eartletts," as Town Tattle
always called them, were dining alone.
zen t~ete-a-tete and en- famille,' as the
husband sometimes remarked in a mildly
sarcastic way. Not that Percy-Bartlett
was in the habit of being satirical. Far
from 1t! He considered sarcasm and satire
the outward and visible-or, rather, audi
tendency toward ~vulgarity. The use of
these Weapons OF speech implied that one
possessed both temper and originallty,,
in the set in which the Percy-Bartletts
\ moved. But Percy-Bartlett had. by in
Nheritance, a rather peppery disposition,
fort. 1t was greatly to his credit. there
fore, tha he had rubbed his manners and
his speech into an almost angelic smooth
ness: and hnd SO t~noroughly stunned UNI inc suSh
ed in the accepted flora-of-the-mind
recognized by his set that he passed cur
rent as a man In no danger OF every say
ing or doing anything that would attract
special attention to- him on the part OF the
world at large. 1t Is not generally known,
but 1t is nevertheless a fact, that 1t some
come a ''howling SWELL" For by this vul-
gar term Percy-Bartlett was known to
the lower orders of society, the meaning
very last thing in which he would indulge.
There are those. the poet tells us, who
never sing and die with all their music
in them. In like manavr the modern
aristocral AZ one who never howls' Out
dio. Nth oil hfS bowling In him.
we may remark in passing that
stoushton. the younger of the twain of
the quill, through remote kinship Is
introduced to the childless dissatisfied
young wife of Percy Bartlett, manages
! at the first meeting 80 to awaken the
woman's warm interest that II sings
Heine to him n permits him to see
her shed tears, and ends by falling into
q love attachment Just saved from
husbands opportune death In the last
chapter.
Another parsonage Of interest to us
IN Miss Gertrude Van Week, likewise of
the 400, a young lady of bothersome
wealth and advanced ideas. From her
mother" the author tells US, Gertrude
had Inherited a strain Of Yankee hui
NOR that was not appreciated by the
set in which she moved. The whisper
has been spread abroad in her first
season that she said several really clev-
er things, and a good many conserva-
tive people had considered this an err
ratio tendency on her part that was
distinctly dangerous. Society did not
feel certain that Gertrude Var Week
might not at moment perpetrate
witticism that would scratch the face
Of its most cherished traditions" Thi:
original young lady, II may be re-
marked in parenthesis, allures and
tames the epigrammatic Fenton, ano
they part from us with every reason tc
expect an early marriage and happi'
ness afterward.
There are other characters In thu
story, but they are chiefly incidental
superficial study of certain prominent
phases of New York life Mr.. Van Zilt
ID justified in claiming a distinct sue.
cess will depend upon the point oil
view. He certainly is spirited, trench
ant and clever, and his yes have beer
used to good advantage. In any event
his book Is q pleasant entertainment
9 depressinglY large background OF
4ictional drivei assuming to embody
lfe-like studies Of the Four Hundred.
l.. s. r.
.IIL!TH, a romance. by George MELON
aid, cloth. IL mo-, $1.25, New York: Dodd
Mead & Go.
The author on his title page calls thi.
book a romance; but It is really al al
purport of which Ii that the pleasures
Of this world are vanity while the onl,
GOOD II that which endures. In the frs
chapter the narrator Of the story sit
IN his study after dinner to rest for {
few moments: and in the last HI