New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1898-01-02

AND OTHER TALES. By Ruth Mci;nery
SIurL illustrated. Duodecimo, pp. 2Ol IIar
~ PLAIN AIR. Hy Elisabeth Lyman Cabot
Duodc, mo. PIP. 80. Henry Holt IL co.
MRS. CEICHTONS CREDITOR. by Mrs. Alex
4iatr. ScXtodocimo. PIP. Isl. Philadelphia: j. b.
lAppncot Company.
Az INHERITANCE BY Harriet Prescott Spot
sors ''''' ~ ~ ''''''' '''''"''
No writer enjoys the negro character with
fuller gustO than Mrs. Ruth McEnery Stuart.
Her dialect is the perfection of thick-lipped
utlrrance. The humor Of her darkies is racy of
the soil; it never reminds of the footghts.
But even with this instinct for hearty human
life Mrs. stuart cannot quite rid herself OF a
sort OF philanihropic suggestiveness not so bad.
indeed. the distortng ethics of the Sunday
school Sorybcok. but uncomfortably didactc,
nevertheless. That Solomon Crows Christmas
Pockets and other Tales is written for chill
dren may explain in part the conventional moral
tone that enters into Mrs. Stuart's plots. but
even in chillren's books no character need be so
obviously aniabe ace some of Mrs. Stuarrs
missionary spirits.
The priggish heroine dies hard The phrase
Is ambiguous. 1t is not that priggish heroines
seldom die. that their deaths are always
long drawn out and painful. but that no sooner
does one generation of them pass into oblivion
than another appears TO take its place. The in
dividual wiihers, but the class is immortal. The
prig Of the past was a conservative; he taught
unregonerate humanity how to walk in the paths
Of the fathers: he was eminently proper. The
prig OF the present is radical; he is wiser than
his parents. bigger than his community and
more evidently successful in carrying out
L. Il Il II is IIp
ignores all human rrejudices. for he is emf
nently rational. The heroine Of Miss f.. l..
CabOtS In Plain Air" like Mrs. Burnctt's
Fair Barbarian" projects herself into quiet
community and rcvolutiOniZes ii in the interests
Of Young America" one thing however must
be said for the authors skill. Miss Cabot's
picture Of fussy. assertivc Aunt Susan Clapp as
she searches for her pockets in her pctticoat
shows that the author can be entertaining when
for the moment she forgets to preach.
Mrs. Crchton's Creditor" is the story Of a
cherries sort Of villain. indiscrcct wife a
sentimental male conidant ard garrulous sis
ter The porsisency with which the various
characters recur to their own emotional ex-
Ieriences as topic Of conversation raises the
suspicion that they know Of nothing else to talk
about Mrs. Alexander's method Of commune
eating ner plot to the reader reminds one Of the
simplicity Of Bottoms play in the woods Of
Attica
Mrs Spofford can initiate the conversations
Of actual life with Photographic fidelity To
details. but one would characterize her az
realist Not only are her situations sensational
and false to life but they are further vitatcd
by an unWholcsomc sort Of didactcism Her
notion OF the life of the urrcgcneratc. as it APP
pears in her latest story, AN Inheritance" can
hardly fail t. recall TO mind the word plcturc5'
Of the rhetorical reyivalist Her virtuous people
are self-ccntred. Her saints would drive saint
TO drink and her sinners would drive the jplliest
sinner TO despair IT is hard to understand the
impulse which drives an author 10 mistakes of
this sort She must know that such eXaggera-
ton is intolrrable in life. She ought ~ know
L. L