New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1898-12-18
FICTION.
TIE CHARACTERISTIC OF THE WORK
OF WILLIAM BLACK.


/ THE HEADSWOMAN BY Kenneth Grahame.
lSno PIP. 81 John Lane
GESTiEMAN or JAPAN AID \ LkDY,
KITO. GLORY. BY John Luther Long. Duo
decimo PIP. 22i. The Century Company.
PEEPS AT PEOPLE Being Certain Papers from
the Writings of Anne Warrington Withcrup'
Collected by John Kendrick, Bangs Win H.
| lustrations by Edward Penield Duodocino PIP.
| ISL Harper K Brothers.
| TATTLE-TALFS OF CUPID. Told by Paul Lccos,
ter Ford. Duodecimo, PIP 26i Dodd' Mead
& Co.
THE PEOPLE OF OUR NEIGIIBORIo0D. by
Mary r. wilkins. lsmo. PIP. l5l. Doubleday
Mcclure Company
TIE MAN WHO woRKED FOR IS.i C0LI us si
Boston: Copeland & Day.
TALES OF THE ENCHANTED ISLANDS or
THE ATLANTIC. BY Thomas Wentw9rih
Uigginson with Illustrations by Albert Her
ter. Duodccimo pp. 49, The Macmillan com
pany.
wild Ee!in" opens with a bizarre scene. y
nroncate lord energies from nights drinking
from the house he has rented in Scotland ahd'
with disheyelled aspect and vulgar language
he affronts the noble landscape. The reader
rubs his eyes Is it possible, he murmurs, that
| William Black is gonG to harp long on TINS
| raucous note? Then he smiles. reassured as
he perceves the unreality of the episode III
which the author seems to play at being very
modern and wicked In the next chapter the
hero appears. and few pages further on via
Eedlin herself and her stately mother also come
upon the stage. At once the story fails ih'o us
easy. soothing movement, and it is clear enough
that the novelist is himself again. PlacldIty IS
perhaps the word which best describes the pre-
vaiIing tone of the late William Black in his
fiction Human nature. as he understood 1t, was
capable of dark deeds, but he never cared l"
put much stress on this fact. II bad people en-
tered his books, il was only on suherance that
he received them. and he made them as niue
like human beings as possible. Some readers
might he inclined to say the same thinS ABOUT
his blooming young herones. his impeccabie
heroes. his exemplary mothers and his amiaple
fathers: they might even protest that his
humble fishermen and gardeners. his buXom
| serving maids and his faithful glles are all n
little uncertain as actuaties: but TINS would
be carrying too far the natural impotence pro-
voked by themes and people intensely common
place. The truth is that Mr. Black had observed
his personages closely and painted them win
UNREASONABLE accuracy. The trouble lies in
his passIon for uuetude One does not want TO
hear the clash of arms all the time, and in
| trigues too complicated bound to prove
wearisome in the end, but the cOlorless estl-
mablc people who move through this authors
works are somehow uninteresting. II they had
not been brought again and again TO our atten-
! ton We might have got to like them more. But
it is with justice that Mr.. Black has been ac-
cused Of repeating himself lie seems to have
had kind of formula and nearly every one
Of his books Is based upon It, wild Eelin'' is
no exception to the rule. The men and women
! in IT, the landscape and the fishing, are all as
he painted them years ago. and went on paint
| ing them with exasperating assiduity. 1t seems
a pity that this heroine should die and leave two
men unhappy. both deserving her love. and yet
/ we cannot feel very sorrOwful the books
| conclusion. For Miss Eelin just stops short OF
| imposing herself on he imagination. She may
! be real in some ways but, the whole, she is
not so much woman a puppet. And that,
alas is the conviction to which the late William
Black vas apt to drive his reader in nine cases
out Of ten.
| It IS not unlikely that Mr.. James Jeffrey
Roche has some satirical intention lurking be-
Meath the gayety Of Her Majesty the King"
But the point is not made visible enough. We
! ignore il, whatever it may be. for the sake Of
! the airy nonsense Of which the little book Is
composed. 1t is pleasant extravaganza. with
a delightful climax: and the buresque maxms
in which the book abounds though trfng. are
funny enough TO raise indulgent smile.
"Thc Hcadswoman" is fantastica farce, in
which the daughter Of medieval executioner
insists upon inheriting her fathers grewsome Of
flee. and for her pains secures gallant hus-
band IT is a pamphlet to be read In ten min
utcs, and for that length Of time. as The author
has an agreeable OF humor, ii is not with
out some usefulness as a diyerting piece Of fool