The times., 1898-11-06

| tions OF common village folk there plays
| an airy and romantic fancy which Is
| rarely seen in writer's of the realistic
school Howells himself has It not;
| Frederic, whose "Damnation Of Theron
Ware is one of the greatest of Ameri-
can realistic novels does not possess 1t;
| It was Bellamy's own. He allowed 1t
free play with the simplicity OF the av-
| erage American whose ideal is always
| about ten feet ahead of him, and who
| does not conceive of other ideals beyond
| his horizon. That, perhaps. is the se-
] cret of the eternal American optimism
and the incessant American activity. It
| is the energy of the donkey trying to
| catch a bundle of hay suspended foot
from his nose The power and the limi-
! tations of that type of imagination made
Looking Backward what 1t was, and
! the power with fewer limitations may be
seen in this little book of short stories.
/ The tale which gives its name to the
1 book is fanciful sketch In which the
authors thought has free wing. 1t is a
| description of the supposed Inhabitants
| of Mars, who are represented as race
of beings like ourselves, but with the pow
ef of foretelling the future with absolute
/ accuracy. In other words, these supbos-
! ed Martians see their future lives exactly
| as we do our past experiences, and they
live in anticipation and possession, While
| their memory is very poor. Looking down
on our earth they call it THE Blindnan's
World The originality and power OF
| this notion dawns on the reader only
| after the sketch Is finished. One of Bel.
| lamy's gifts was the faculty of making
| the most outlandish things seem natural
| and true, and that is what he did in this
| case.
1.-The Old Folks Party is the story Of
| six young people who, for a frolic, agree
| to personate during one evening their
| own future selves as they might be after
the lapse of half century. In this Mr..
Bellamy touches upon one Of his favo ite
ideas, elaborated more thoroughly In his
book, Miss Ludington's Sister"-the
| thought that each human being is really
composite of an infinite number OF
beings of all ages. or rather that our
! past selves are really as much dead per-
! sons as II they had actually given up the
| ghost. This notion is also the theme OF
| another story In the book-"Lost-"
1.-The Cold Snap is perhaps more like
Hawthorne than any other sketch of the
book, and il has also something OF the
quality of Poe. But It is purely Ameri-
can, thing which neither Poe nor Haw-
thorne was. They were in the quality
of their Imagination English writers on
American soil Either would have been
Bellamy could never have done his work
| as anything but an American. THE
! Cold Snap" is piece of pure description
1.-TWO Days Solitary Imprisonment is
study of circumstantial evidence, with
| few speculations on the power OF hyp-
motto suggestion. The latter subject Is
also touched upon in "a Summer Even
ing's Dream" and AT Pinney's Ranch,
which deals with telepathy and has also
a strong dramatic interest ITO Whom
This May Come" has likewise a psyche
logical tone, being fanciful sketch Of
the possibilities OF mind reading. A
| Positive Romance" Is not much Of a ro-
| nance. but very good study Of positiv-
ism. One or two other sketches are sim
| ply bits OF frolicsome humor, with small
kernel of deeper meaning. Deserted
| and Hooking Watermelons" are stories
of this type. Only one of the fifteen tales
In this collection has at all the atmos-
phere of Looking Backward and that
is with the Eyes Shut" which deals
with the possibilities of the phonograph
and might have been written by Julian
West himself.
/. The two remaining stories, Potts
Painless Cure" and "A Love Story Re
versed," show a quality which is rarely
| absent and as rarely prominent in Bel
lamy's work. 1t is a delicate and true
comprehension OF average womanhood.
1t has come to be a truism that<wheneyer
the women OF a story are drawn more
accurately than the men that story was
written by a woman. Two types of wo-
men have been known to the average
masculine novelist-the good woman, often
q simpleton, and the bad woman, always
clever. The man who complacently smiles
over the conviction that he knows all
flrn
ally very far from real knowledge. The
average sort of man who does not sup
pose himself to know It all is much more
likely to get at the truth, and the truth
Is that there is great deal of human ma
ture in the average woman. just as there
is in the average man, and to say that all
women will behave In given way under
given circumstances is as absurd as to
say that all men are alike. Bellamy never
makes this blunder. He has an intuitive
comprehension of women, as fine and
true as his comprehension of men; and
he never makes a slip. His work is SYM
pathetic and his women are individual
They are commonplace, but they are not
| conventional. and they are not types
| One feels as II one had met them, and
| they are no more to be classified than are
| personal acquaintance.
| Occasionally Bellamy's style is uncouth
| and his people are one remove from the
| farmer who wants to knaw." They
| have graduated into the class which says
| 1.-THE roar Of Niagara has been notori-
ously utilized as a cover to unlimited os-
| culation," and which talks of ''Mr.
Smith and lady," and of "slaughters' at
| fire sales" This is the class which drops
its plain honest English words and takes
| to sonorous Latin sentences extracted
| from the sixth reader and the newspa-
pers. Mr. Bellamy's people play melode-
ons and go to 'sociables." Not one of
| them ever gave an o'clock dinner or a
box party at the opera, and If they go to
Europe they go as Cooks tourists. Not
! one of Mr.. Bellamy's maidens ever had a
| chaperon or needed one, nor is one of
his heroes capable of disrespectful be-
| havior toward any woman. rich or poor.
| His attitude toward women Is that of
/ the American of the next generation aft
| er the pioneer. The latter regarded wom-
an as something between luxury and a
comrade; she was never plaything or an
| incumbrance. And 1t is Bellamy's delin-
| cations of women which especially marks
| this little volume of fiction as something
unique 1t is even more rare than his
| daring and brilliant Imagination (Bos-
tom Houghton, Miffiin & Co. Washing
| ton: Brentano)
"Scrfbes and Pharisees,o
"Scribes and Pharisees," by William LIE
Queux, is book without much plot or
much realism, although 1t affects to have
great deal of both. 1t is a rather dreary
| study of what the author calls Jfterary