The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-07-19


Oh coolness of silence, of the black green
OF pines and spruces, the yellow green OF
NAPLES and birches in unbroken forests Sike
d sea, and or q high altitude. A sense of
cleanliness and of pure air runs through the
STORY. The tale begins while the hotel of
arrival of the first boarder His bedroom
smells stutfy, though with a sense of clean
ii ana he opens his window and feels
the sweet breath of the mountain coming
in so cold that after he goes to bed he pulls
second quilt over him and then sleeps deep
and long. When the boarder goes back in
winter pure air makes the tide of sleep to
bear him down again the moment his head
touches the pillow, and he rises in the morn
ing with a gayety of heart which ne knows
to be returning health, and he jumps out
of bed and stuffs shavings into his stove
from the woodbox beside it and slides the
damper open, and then lies down again
listening to the fire that shows its red teeth
through the Stats and r0ars and laughs to
the day which sparkles on the white world
without. When he gets out of bed second
time he finds the room so hot that he has
to pull down his window sash, and ne
dresses in a temperature of 20 degrees below
zero, without knowing that the dry air is
more than fresh. Summer or winter the
Lions Head Inn is a delicious sojourn for
the novel reader. The incidents of the story
form pleasing drama. The people at the
hotel are sketched with light def, prac-
ticed hand, and a second reading brings
out the delicacies of the work still more
sharply. Howells was always good at draw
ing hotel women. He knows now to depict
their having to be quoted III their anxietieS
concerninS their baggage and the letters
and kilograms they nave sent about their
rooms before they can settle down to an
exchange OF apprehenslons among them
selves, their thin chit-chat about the
scenery, and their talk about things IN gen.
eral Among the hotel women at Lions
Head is a Mrs. Marven, an otticious, self
approving kind OF woman who manages the
plcnics with brisk efficiency from begin
ming to end, and inspires others TO help, in
strict subordination to herselt.s Another
woman there a Mrs. Vostrand. is an Amer
lean lady who lives principally abroad,
While her husband lives in Seattle. She and
caresStng voices, talk very politely 10 each
other, as if they We're strangers, or as II
strangers were by, DEFER to each other, COM
pare the New England mountains arouh9
Lions Head with Switzerland, are bothered
Win questions OF pfoprlety ana IN the
course OF the tale are looked down upon as
foreign Americans generally are by their
fellow-countrymen. Howeils has a lucky
hand with the artists at the inn. An artist
of forty-one OF the boarders-is strongly
dragoned around by wife almost as ola,
who has taken great pains to Sc
him to far greater advantage in
his profession than he could possibly have
his pictures even IN Boston, finds him
pupils and keeps the boldest of these from
flirting with him. Another OF the artists,
named Westover is highly immaculate, and
Cynthia, the housekeepr of the inn, is a
beautiful shy, pure, proud cold New Eng
lander. Whether Howells thought these two
were prigs is question.
The country folks OF the novel have a
lively interest. Their talk is never bore.
relish for their words While he was writing
them-the talk about the trance medium"
and her control and about the man who
knows how to run a hotel being always
the mean side in politics. The little
country house smelling of rats mold and
coal OIL is we'll done. The landlady of
Lions Head seizes the attention with
sharp grip. She stands straight at her
work. she has a massive beauty of figure
and a heavily nodded regularity of feature
that impresses such as have eyes to see her
grandeur among the summer folks, she rises
with a sudden lift of her powerful frame.
she has never been lonesome a minute in
her life and she calls the summer boarders
"tonguey."
However absorbing the other characters
may be, we rush with greediness at the
hero, Jeff Dargin, the landladys son, the
jay, the country jay. of the book. His, jo-
of the theater as a Harvard student, and
his rough good criticisms and something
native and primitive about him, his
statuesque beauty his Herculean strength,
his thick, dark yellow hair, his yeomanly
| vigor, his love of dress, his entire living and
| breathing personality, make him the more
| enjoyable. jeff does everything that jay
| can do. and yet is likeable. He behaves
with great indifference to the kindnesses
meant him, when invited out to dine ex-
cuses him easily, and never pays ms
dinner call; he believes lurid things of
of riot and that fashionable ladies go to
champagne suppers and opium joints, but
that he was at first" as he says He goes
to Europe on a cattle ship and brings home
nothing but hard-headed observations of
the facts of life and wholly adequate and
intelligent study of innkeeping. 1t would
be hard to find a better bit of dialogue
than Jeff's talk with country neighbor
novel reekS with good talk. We can all say
with Sir Andrew Aguecheek, "Ay, ay,
care not for good lifep' at least in novels.
We hurry by the projections of Westover
and Cynthia. We are interested in the af-
fairs of Bessie and Jeh. Bessie is drawn
with that strange facility for creating live
girl possessed in perfection by Mr. Howells
alone. She stands, slender girl, swayed
little backward, in graceful curve. She
has a thick complexion, liquid eyes, and
mouth beautiful and wildly red like a
crimson blossom. She sits with partial
deep easy chair. She leans forward with
her elbow on her knee and her chin in her
hand, and softly kicks the edge of her
skirt with the toe of her shoe. She drums
on her rich mouth with the tips of her
fingers. When Bessie meets jeff, instead
of dislilxing him promptly and decidedly as
strange massiVeness, his rust-gold hair, his
thick yellow brows, his mocking blue eyes
and his jaw squaring itself under the
rather insolent smile of his full mouth,
and after this meeting the dialogue of the
story becomes brisk fencing that striket
there is anything wicked in the book; trust
Mr.. Howells TO be moral The worst thing
Bessie does is to get herself kissed once.
Whew! Never was such fuss made in a
novel about a kiss Miss Lynde, Bessie's
aunt, is one of the best things! She thought
of people-people who were like her. and
people who were not like her. The life of
The country people who move to Boston to
live is like a piece of reality. For example,
Mr.. Whitwell did not dare to taste wine
at dinner; he was afraid of forming in
stantly the habit of drink If he touched 1t.
The book does not contain much of the
moralizing on sociology, or Of the notions
on commerce like those of clustered
monks in the dark ages, which Mr.. How
ellis sometimes wreaks on his readers, caus-
ing them to shout why can't the man
go and take a course of lectures on eco
Monies If he will talk about them? Why
should a poet and novelist try to rub in
verted idea, of the dismal science into our
heads?' No THE Landlord at Lions
Head is pure story telling May we
ceive many more such books from the dear
authors kind hands. MARY DEAN.
Publishers Notes.
The Century Company have in prepara-
ton a chiid's book on Joan of Arc, illus
trated in color by Boutet de Monvel and
printed in Paris by Boussol, Valadon q Co
Mary Hartwell Catherwoods novel, The
Days of Jeanne dare now appearing In
the Century will also be issued in the
autumn.
"A translation of a modern Greek novel
will be issued from The Bodley Head
John Lane New York;, within the next
week or two. 1t is the work of Gregory
Xenopoulos, who is perhaps the leading
figure in the not very large group of pres
emit time Greek novelists. In Greece the
people as a rule marry early and here a
certain study is made on that text. The
title of the novel is The Stepmother," and
Il Cd nv