The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-10-15
HowELLs, LAsr sroRY.

(Mary Abbott in Chicago Times Hera1d)
It is beautiful and wonderful thing
to see Mr.. HOWells' spin out a whole
book of average size on the most mea-
ger incidents and developments in I'M
incidental and undeVelOped lives And
yet, as they are principally what the
books OF our careers are made up of.
ana especially as Mr.. HOWeIS has such
a clean-cut gift and is so humorous. one
cannot call it uninteresting, as certain
~ it is not exciting. to read of such I'M
eVentful happenings and such self-eVi-
dent evidence as An Open Eyed Con-
spiracy," Mr.. HOwelIs latest novel, pre-
sentS.
The Marches, well known to Mr.. How
els readers of many years standing.
are at Saratoga, and Mr.. March now
too mature to be called Basil but as
romantic as ever, in his mild way, finds
q party of three from De Witt Point
but horribly embarrassed by the COM
partnership of a young girl. whom they
have invited to make the trip with
them.
For Saratoga is as inaccessible to them
from the inside as it was from the out
side They have heard of ''gayetieS,''
but OF course see none, since there are
none now to see. They were too sim
pie to enjoy simple joys. In the keen
phrase of Mr.. HOWelS Tt was our
sophistication which enabled US to
taste pleasures which would have been
insipidities to them yet Mr.. HOWelIs
mot Basil March, who, being fictitious
has a right to be considered anything
he chooses to call himseIf), proves him
self not to be so very sophisticated for
the times. He writes sWeetly of the
two women that they had been the
closest friends before one of them
married, and that the young wife still
thought the young girl worthy of the
most splendid fate that marriage could
have in store for any of her sex Can
it be that even at De Witt Point a
young wife still has that feeling in re-
gard to her unmarried friend? Do not
married women grab the men every
where. and young girls look forward to
marriage as a blessed state wherefrom
they too can enter the grabbing lists?
MrMarch's discOvery-the young girl
is alphabetically unhappy, almost sui
len, in her failure to be amused, and
the Marches soon provide amusement
for her, in the form of q young man.
who goes gently and gradually at his
work, without a murmur. They fall in
love easily, and Mr.. and Mrs. March
are blind to the consequences of hav-
ing brought them together. in the con-
ventiOnal Way-blind in the cOnVen-
tiOnal way is the meaning-'until too
late But the young man has engaged
himself to the young woman, not sport
ed with her maiden fancy-sO all is
we'll The father-a dapper little shop
keeper, creates a faint diversion by re-
fuSing at first to consent to the match,
because the young man has no Occupa-
ton, but his daughters tone causes him
to relent, and he relents.
It speaks reams for Mr. HOWells' tai
ent that he can, with nothing more
than this humdrum cOurtship of two
mediocre young beings, with almost no
stage setting, and hardly any action,
make story which holds the attention.
The style is elegant, in which the
sparse little tale is wrapped, and there
is humor in gentle doses, such as this:
we would feed the trout in their blue
tank if we did not see them suffering
with surfeit and hanging in motionless
misery amid the clear water under a
cloud of bread crumbs" But when not
son why humorously, is the most excit-
ing episode in a novel, wild epithets
can hardly be applied to the movement
of the piece. 1t is, to tell the truth
slow, and the whole effect is soothing