The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-01-02

What a Discriminating Critic Has to
Say of Mrs. Judah's Book.
Roswell NJ Field, in Chicago Post.

shy Oh MIS- OuuanS bOOks
Roswell NJ. Field, in Chicago Post
In a way the colony of Chicago writer's
may be said to have received an accession
in Mrs. Mary Jameson Judah, whose book
of Western and Southern sketches Down
Our Way" has just been published by Way
& Williams. While Mrs. Judah cannot be
exactly reckoned as a resident of Chicago
she has, off and on, been closely allied with
Chicago publishing house for her first adj
venture in book-making. Down Our Way"
is a volume of nine short stories, two of
which are republished from Eastern maga-
zines, and there is good reason to believe
that their reception will disprove the the
DRY that the day of collected short stories
has gone by. 1t is safe to assert that good
short stories will be always in demand, and
if there is local color with enough of the
writer's art so much the better chance of
an interested following.
In reading Mrs. Judah's stories we do not
except, perhaps, in one not very pleasant
instance-find any very violent striving
after the purpose" school The author has
not endeavored to show that life is par
ticularly dreary in the South or West that
the people are inclined to savagery, or that
realism is dependent on a lack of edu-
cation, on poor quality of food, on the
lack of the ordinary graces. Mrs. Judah
has simply depicted life and scene as she
mas round them, apparently with no other
ing incident and the very natural impulse
to tell it. Hence her stories are not la
bored, not ponderously didactic, and not
'purposeful," as the word is used in the
modern school of novel instructors Not
that they are devoid of purpose, but the
moral is not thrown at you, is not dinged
into you at every chapter the assumption
is that the average reader has penetration
sufficient TO grasp a moral without several
explanatory sermons-an assumption that
fiction.
The exception to the pleasant in Mrs
Judah's book is the story, The End of So
ciety," which we fancy will be greatly laud-
ed by such writer's and critics as affect to
nT1o Thp
and the more horrible the climax the great
er the value as work of art. To our mind,
however, the story Is as much out of place
IN the volume as tarantula in a flower
garden. 1t is a sketch of wretched ignorant
life, and includes a murder, hanging and
all the accomplishments of appalling mis-
cry. 1t Is just such a story as Ambrose
Pierce would revel in, and, indeed it wildly
recalls some of this authors most morbid
tales. As an example of the writer's skill
in ringing the changes on the different
phases of life it may be accepted under pro-
test, but 1t has seemed to us that such sub
Jects are out of place in collections of short
STORIES not merely because they are full of
misery, but because the misery is revolving.
The murder of Nancy Skies would be a lit
erary atroclty IL It were not simply an incl
dent in q series of Incidents
THE End of Society comes early in the
reading, and what follows easily dispels the
probably bad impression. Indeed, by con-
trast the writer shows that she is not in
sympathy with the morbid and the depress-
ing; that she has delightful quality of
HuinOr tnat vests itself in little SubtletieS
which always constitute d literary charm
and which is aptly illustrated in the heroine
OF An Adventure of a Lady of Quality"
VINO, having achieved a brilliant success
with Witt, ner paper at the Woman's Club on
me DIVINITY of Man." went out on the
street only to be the unwilling spectator of
a nght between two men, Il guess you'd
De pale, TOO, says the author of THE Di-
vinity of Man" naively to her husband. ..if
youd Just been in scrap" "a Part of the
New SouIh IS very pretty story of the
oid-tine Southern gentleman who found il
diIncuit TO reconcile himself to the changing
noieil9h t OF society and the obEreperous
ness OF the rising generation. "A Gentle
woman mas no special local flavor hut II
-. q very tVuchlng story, and it has a gentle
niue moral somewhere. perhaps in the SEN
the purest-nOt to be a child have eyer
seen was cannOn-ball artist q woman
VINO IS cad In tights and is shot ont If a
cannon II taxes good deal of good writ
ing ana sound argument to prove shat the
sweetest and purest human being allows
hersen TO put on tights and he shot ont Of
y cannon but we have read the story and
LINK I'M lhat the author has made her point
mere are other stories which might be
mentioned for the gracefulnsss of their CON
SStIuclIon ana the excellence of literary STYLE
U tIly Two OF the scenes are laid in the South;
the others have the flavor and tn q 10
gree, the dialect of Indiana. Hannilv the
uldlect IS not conspicuous, and is not a very
essential part of the narrative Mrs Judah
Hay De congratulated that she has not con-
tIacted the dialect habit" More than this
she is to be commended for her total avoid
enre OF the tricks of authorship which are
uSS,4aliy very palpabie limitations The sim
p.isIiy oI the title of the book is directly
manifested throughout the stories which
make no pretension of complicated niots are
tolu SIMPLY and intelligently and VET are
So.iCise, Ioreeful in good taste and not with
I Ia ~ nteesraIy elegance. Altogether they may
t ~ 81 lortn as the clever work of an unmis-