The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-10-09
BOOKS Oh THU DAY
A NEW BOOK BY THE YOUNG
AUTHOR OF 'FHE DE-
SCENDAN1"'
HENRY JAMES LATEST NOVEL

Gin the Cage" May Disnpp0int the
Great Mans Warmcst Admirers
- -"Robbie McDuR," a Romance
by Clinton POSSIBILITIES by Mrs.
Barton Harrison on "Ihe Well
bred Girl in Society,"
Jove sometimes mods. We are re-
minded of this fact by reading the
latest published work of Mr.. Henry
James. OF MIR. James at his best no
words Of commentator the critic owns
can be too strong. The author of THE
Lesson of the Master and THE Spells
of Poynton" has done work which is
beyond praise. 1t may be, of course,
that In the Cage" is great work, too,
but certainly the fact is less obvious
to the enlightened intelligence than it
should be. With the unenlightened in
telligence Mr.. James has absolutely
nothing to do The first notion Of the
story is suggestive and interesting. A
girl Of fallen fortunes who is clerk in
an English post and telegraph Office
develops as a cOmpensating gift to
tighten the mOnotony of her existence
a keen psychological insight. She had
"a whimsical mind and wonderful
nerves" Thrown into mOmentary and
superficial contact with all sorts and
conditions of men and women, she was
subject to "flickers of antipathy and
sympathy, red CLEANS in the gray, fit
full aWakings and fOllOWings, odd
caprices of curiosity" Her conscious
ness seemed to expand through her
brief and meaningless contact with
wider and more interesting social world
than she was fated to explore in her
own person. She apprehended types
and INDUCED in flashes of insight con-
corning individuals She remembered
faces and found clues and pieced to-
gether apparently unrelated facts, and
sometimes knew far more of those she
served than they could dream. From
this faculty Of hers sprang an interest
in a man and a woman who apparently
had no right to their interest in one
another Joined to this was an elusive
romance of her own. The opportunity
for making psychological ldyI was IN
Mr.. James grasp. The tale might
easily have been charming. Yet in
reality it is merely painful and sordid.
The beauty of Mr.. James art has Of
ten been employed to make us think
the painful and sOrdid beautiful, but
this time the art fails to coerce. Frank
ly, In the Cage" is hardly interest
ing. 1t lacks that richness and beauty
of finish from when the readers or
this author are wont to derive salts
faction enough to compensate them for
the kinds Of entertainment which MI.
James never pretends to furnish.
AS for the style Of the book, 1t is
written in Mr.. James latest-but we
trust not last-manner. 1t is involved,
labOred sometimes uncertaln-the ssVl L.
in short, Of "Maisle," as opposed TO
the style Of the other recent work OF
this writer. Now, ''Maisie," profoundly
interesting as it is, is not the book
upon which Mr. James can base his
claim to be a great styllst IL IS IN
fact the one volume of his authorship
which suggests the influence of other
minds upon the writer's own. In its
style is mingled the blind manner or
Meredith. together with the blind man
ner Of Pater. It has the worst faults
OF both of these great men, unredeemed
by Mr.. Henry James accustomed mer-
its. Frankly Mr.. James. without his
merits, is not WORTH while.
IN the Cage" by Henry James. Chicago,
H s. Stone & Co. $125 For sale by the
St. Paul Book and Stationery company
"Phases Of al Inferior Planet"
The punishment of precocity is great
Perhaps also the punishment of faith
in prec0city is greater than the crime
This is an indirect methed of saying
that admirers of "The Descendant"
that strong, if unbalanced, novel, by q
girl of twenty doomed to much
disappoirtment in her new novel 1t
has all the faults Of it's predecessor
and nonTSA its merits. phases of an
Inferior Planet is crude, hysterical,
childish, duh. This is a strong ar
raignment, but not more pronounced
than the facts warrant. The book is
written around a rather clearly con-
ceived heroine, one of the fluffy, NOR
bid, sensation craving girls who invite
temporary interest and permanent dis
taste in normal minds. The hero is,
as depicted, a quite impossible crea-
ton of the feminine mind. This is not
saying that Anthony Algarcife does
impossible things or that the outward
events Of his life might not be such as
they are described, but only that the
psychology which should hold those
events together and explain them is
wholly inadequate and futile. A man
OF intellectual prObity does not, under
any emotional stress whatever. take up
the religious life as this man did it, and
were he driven into that form of ex-
istence, as it is conceivable might be
the case for other reasons than those
offered, his inner life would be far 9TH
er than that of Father Algarcife. We
are told that women and the poor
adOred that gentleman, but the many
scenes calculated to illustrate his power
over these classes only leave the reader
wondering what they saw in such a
hopeless stick. The young author FUN
bles as helplessly in her effort to de-
pict his spiritual authority as she does
in painting the different phases Of the
attraction-Which never rises to love
between Algarcife and Mariana In
passing one may remark that the effect
of strength in a novel is not produced
by lavish use of impassoned terms.
Undoubtedly the author Of this book
viii be able to write a novel if she
ever has one to write. When her mind
has matured and her philosophy form
ed, she will be a we'll equipped writer.
At present she has nothing to say. Her
characters are like figures from a
dream. They do not fit either into real
life or into the world of romance. They
are purpOseless phantoms. We en-
treat Miss Glasgow to apply herself
to a diligent study of life and human
nature for the next four years When
she has acquired something of the es-
sential groundwork upon which the
designs Of literary art must be woven,
doubtless the world will be glad to buy
her tapestries, which are at present
heaps of Warpless wool.
PHASES of an Inferior Planet" by Ellen Glas-