The San Francisco call., 1897-06-13
HARDING DAVIS IN PIECES.

SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE-By Richard Hard
ing Davis. New York: Charles Scribner's
suns. tof sale b. all b -okseilers. Price SIS u.
The reckless extravaganza with which
Richard Harding Davis has made his latest
pook into a disappointment will strike some
OF his readers curious change from his old
way of accomplishing that end. This time
instead OF making his threads meet under
slandlngly al the termination of his romantic
fabric, he seems rather TO have spun each one
OF Them separately and TO have lost his origi-
nal scheme OF continuity in tangle while the
ends OF them flew loose in the breeze of
chance. Chance doesn't often help an author
out at the close of his tale if at the beginning
ne has gallOped from the main path into a
uozen aimless diversions and lost his way in
all Of them. That is what Mr. Davis has done
IN Soldiers of Fortune" which, in truth, is
an ironically appropriate title. And he has
uohe IL all so freely, so happy-go-unluckily,
mat we are willing to acknowledge ourselves
Ieireshed and somewhat amused If not salts
ned with the story itself.
Inc hero is mining engineer, formerly q
COWBOY OF The West, who is introduced to the
heroine and to the reader at a society dinner
IN New York. The heroine is a girl of social
emlnence and notable beauty whose ia ther en-
pIoys the hero engineer to go TO South Amer
lea ana open up some mines which the latter
mas discovered for him. Previous to his de-
pafture, Clay (the hero aioresaid) and Miss
Langham (the heroine) became interested"
IN one another, although quite properly
helther OF them acknowledges it even
secretly" Their scquaintanceship has been
100 orlei. Clay goes to Olancho, distinguishes
AImseH nightly by accomplishing the very
thlng that he had gone there to accomplish
ana at the end of year or two The Langhams
journey from New York all the way to that
IaToaFous coast 10 see how he has done it.
20 rFrQDN
together and Clay nObIy determines 10 make
hay while the sun shiues. This he proceeds to
DO In most amazing way by suddenly falling
III love with sister OF Mis- Langham, a super
huous young person without mature idea in
her head, and with certain extraordinary prc-
penslues for splashing about in the mud OF
mines, running the donkey engine and driv-
ing coaches with no remotest relevance to
anything whatever in the original forecast CT
the tale.
This is one of Mr.. Davis aimless sidetracks.
with a lot OF little sub-sidetracks laid along
1t Tor no other purpose than to give the super
nuous heroine something 10 do-and all that
she does IS an agglayation and disturbance.
ny Clay makes so abrupt a transfer of his
hhections Is a mystery. The girl to whom he
transfers them is merely an accommodation
for some occult scheme which the author
nounderingly fails 10 make clear The origi-
nal heroine promised al first 10 be an interest
ir'g study, but when the author got lost on
This particular sidetrack he forgot where he
left of with her, and never went back to com
pIete her history. She drops out at the most
interesting point in her development, and is
only casually referred TO thereafter
Yet it is not in love, but in war, that Mr..
Davis gets tangled up SO ineXtricably that he
has 10 be rescued by MS readers ina sginatlon.
He drags one of those numerous South Ameri-
can revolutions on to his stage as theater
manager might drag on a carpet with the
subsequent difference that Mr.. Davis doesn't
know what to do with his Bit OF furniture after
he gets it there. The awful confusion 10
which he finally involves his various conflict
ing actors and the bewildering and miraculous
expedients TO which he forces them in mis- mad
scramble 10 get them out again furnish what
is probably destined to go on record as the
most wonderful picture of battle ever drawn
in nineteenth century fiction. The in
cidental circumstance that the reader gets
utterly lost before he has waded half way
through it is deplOrab.e, of course, inasmuch
as the reader hasn't the writer's assistance
toward getting out as the Characters in the
story have; but otherwise, the beautiful
superiority of the work as a modern war mud
die which nobody under heaven may under
stand is left undimmed.
The fact that Mr.. Davis in this case chose for
his hero G cowboy instead Of a swalIow-coated
leader in society indicates laudable purpose
which, alas he failed TO carry out TO the end
The cowboy falls short of the mark after max
ing a splendid start-proba bly, because Mr.
Davis heart failed him at the supreme moment
and his instincts deserted to the conventional
society man OF the story, who is more in the
authors line, and who, on second thought,
seemed filter than Clay did to marry the girl
OF positive refinement Clay as a rough-and-
tumble hero, a romantic cnap in leather
breeches and sombrero, is to the acute sensi-
bilities OF Richard Harding Davis and his
valet a very good fellow and an interesting
character TO gaze at through lorgnettes but
when it comes to the real point of marrying a
correct society favorite ike Alice Langham-
well, OF course, line must be drawn some
where. (Here a deprecatory bow and a
smirk)
Mr.. Davis had better keep to his society
novelettes and stories. This other kind is too
much for him-or he is not bold enough for it.
1t viii not admit OF halfway measures. If
SOLDIERS Of Fortune" had not gone to pieces
in the middle and the threads had not blown
hither and thither like chaf before a Western
gale-if the story had been held together and
pursued to the end on the line which the
author had evidently mapped out for it in the
beginning-it would have been good bit of
work.
But 1t did go to pieces in the middle.
CARROLL CARRINGToN.
ONE VIEW OF RUSSIA.