The San Francisco call., 1898-01-02

remarka ble for clever word-paintiner in pastel of the Grand Banks fishermen. It may safely be prophesied that Mas ter Harvey Cheyne will not divide lau- rels with Private Terence Mulyanev. Robert Louis Stevenson's "St. Ives" suggests the authors farewell to his loving public; it reads as if by some strange, clairvoyant instinct. he knew that this was to be his last story. and. knowing this. had put as much as DOS sible of his own strongly marked per sonality into the character of the hero. Upon A. T. Quiller- Couch was bestowed the task of completing the book whose writing was interrupted by the death or Stevenson. The highest praise that can be accorded "Q's'' work is sum- med up in the assertion that it is we'll nigh impossible to discern where the work of the pupil dovetails into that of the preceptor.
 The year that has just closed has marked the advent of but one or two authors of promise. Benjamin Swift" has come forward with his Nancy Noon" published first, we believe. in England. This young writer has dem onstrated the possibility of the Scotch story, with the ripe, rich and mellow kallyard flavor, but minus the dialect. The shrewd philosophy and originality or his progenitors is all there, and he can be assured of the support of a large audience in his very apparent at tempt to deal a vital blow at certain much praised and little understood it. illustrators of the "hoot mon" theory. ha aIc val of MT. w. Clarke Russell, in the person of w. w Jacobs. Whether this gentleman, who is a clerk in the Lon don postoffice, has ever been to sea is not known, but he is thoroughly ac- quainted with the ways of the modern mariner from the deck up." and uses his knowledge ably in Many Car goes.'
 With a passing reference to Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman," a bitter study in pessimism; to Anthony Hopes "Phroso," good shilling shocker," and to MT. Richard Harding Davis Soldiers of Fortune" a nondescript production which we decline to class fly, We arrive at that subdivision of story telling called by the Germans 'Tendenz- Fiction, the novel with a purpose, the story with a moral Writ CTS of this kind of literature have been busy the past twelve months Early in the year came Olive Schreiner with her Trooper Peter Halkett of Mash onaland." Then our charming compat- riot, Mrs. Gertrude Atherton, with heroine rejoicing in the romantic pat ronymlc, Patience Sparhawk." Ed ward Rellanv'S orrir,a5 third. and Mrs. Sarah Grand a close fourth with "The Beth Book" The reader was scarcely aroused from a mournful contemplation of this array of talent when lol Hall Caine appeared on the scene packing his Christian" and the greatest of all these is The Christian"
 Had Mir. Hall Caine foreseen the storm that would gather about his ears as the result of the publication of his book he might have hesitated in his urgent instructions to his publishers. He might have foreborne to inform the newspaper men in London that 'Arry had read the proofs of his 'Ampstead cath scene; that the Duke of Nocash had performed a like service for him
 
 brokers; that Dr. Sawbones had care fully revised his admirable descrip- tions of the doings of hospital nurses and internes, and that the eminent danseuse, Miss Lottie Highkick. had provided him with the latest wrinkles in the matter of stage undress But no' With d flare and a blare of trum- pets The Christian" was launched. How was it received? In a manner that befitted the trash of which the book is composed. The London Tines contemptuously dismissed the work with five lines, sandwiched in be- tween foreign markets ard home rails. Other competent critics were equally merc!less, and one, also in a London review, scathingly referred to Hall Caine as "tne arch he prostitute of the English language" This treatment was deserved. for the work is one of the most astigmatic pictures of life that we have ever pursued. Its, characters gather what little strength they pos sess from the same source whence the s4% CT rat. derives it's vicIonsness, and its ferc IS polluted by the foul touch of MT, Gaines hand. From the name os the book which appears on the title page to the quotation from the Episco- pal marriage service which precedes the word 'Finis." '.The Christian" is a fraud and a sham, destined to ob- hterate what fame the author had ac- quired in his previously issued works. The impartial reader can satisfy him. self of the truth of our observations by instituting a comparison between the respective styles of Mir Hall Caine and Mrs. Humphrey Ward, each of whom endeavors to preach a sermon. In the one is noticeable the striving for effect, the appeal to the gallery, the