The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-05-15
LITERATURE OF TODAY
IAN OPEN BOAT: A TALE AFT
Err THE FACT"

MIR. stephen Crane Contributes Out
of His Own Experience to Lit
Standardization in Minia-
tures"-"The Lion of Janina''
and Others-NOtes of Interest to
Book Lovers.
| Mr.. Stephen Crane does great things
| greatly and mean things meanly, and
| his method in either case is identical
| and just there is the rub. The reader
held in the unrelenting grasp of Mr..
| Cranes visualizing power, comes to re-
| sent bitterly the use of the same re-
vealing adjectives, the same hurtling,
| direct sentences-in short, the peculiar
style that stamps everything he writes
with the color of 1.-THE Red Badge of
| Courage"-in the painting of lesser
picture. The race in 1.-THE Wise Men, a
| fragment from his last published book,
| may be worth the graphic-or rather
| Photographic treatment 1t receives from
| stephen Crane, but its presence cheap
ems Death and the Child" another
sketch in the same volume. Having
read 1.-THE Wise Men" with enjoyment,
it becomes ones unwelcome duty to
completely forget it in order to enjoy
rightly death and the Child" or the
yet greater sketch that gives it's name
to the book-'"The Open Boat" Had
Mr.. Stephen Crane never published
THE Red Badge of Courage" he would
| never have written The Open Boat"
for it was his strange war story that
sent him as war correspondent to Cuba,
and that incidentally led him
to the wreck which gave him
the power to write this re-
markable sketch. THE Red Badge
gave him prestige and Indirectly "The
Open Boat" and so for second time
we are in it's debt, for THE Open Boat"
mere sketch though it is in size and
treatment is the greatest thing Stephen
Crane has done and almost deserves
| place in the classics. It is bit of
romantic realism of which only Mr..
Crane is the master, and the experience
that bought. it was cheap at the price
of two days and a night in boat with
death.
We have been shipwrecked any num-
Der OF times in literature and escaped
in an open boat with more than one
hero of biography or fiction, and have
been duly impressed with the possibili-
| ties of the situation, but this is some
thing entirely different AT the first
reading it has no literary qualities,
good or bad-no more literary qualities
than would two nights and day spant
IN ten-foot dinghy on the open sea
with hurt captain, a cook and an
oiler for companions. This description
seems to the reader as the forgotten
lines of the Soldier CT the Legion"
seemed to the correspondent in the
dinghy-"It is no longer merely a pic
ture of few thross in the breas: of a
poet, meanwhile drinking tea and
warming his feet at the CRATE; it is an
actually" Whatever qualities of a
master stephen Crane may lack, he has
the visualizing Eower in an unprece-
denied degree. The critic may amuss
himself with the quaintness Of Mr.
tins its very like jeering at 5OO-pound
torpedoes. ~
ne Open Boat, Tale Intended to
Be After the Fact: Being the Experience
OF Four Men From the Sunk Steamer
commodore. is the introduction
gwen to sixty pages OF vfsualized emo
tions emotions so forceful that thew
aEnihiiate everything but themselves.
a boat has never seemed is small, nor
the waves as vast and gray, the nisht
as lnterminable, nor the toll of rowing
as terrible, the helplessness of coura sc
and effort so complete, fear so devolIr-
Ing and endurance so inevitable as in
these sixty pages. The trivial, the in
consequent, the grCt sue, the 7mmon-
place are a part of the whole that in
tensifies every shadow and the sub. le-
ty OF the thing reminds one of a curd-
ling painting by Hogarth. 1t is, l think.
the pest that the startling author of the
grewsome Sack Riders" and the dis
turbing Red Badge of Courage" has
done. Other men have experienced
| shipwreck; he has d:sseoted 1t. And to
some purpose, for the good of men. For
himself he has CARED
The faith of men that ha' brothered men
BY more than the easy breath
And the eyes O. men that ha' read wi men
| In the open books of death"
/ Better work than the rest of the book
/ contains is to be looked for from Mr.
Crane, if he takes the lesson to heart
! The Open Boat and Other Tales of Adj
venture, by Stephen Crane. Doubleday
Mcclure Co.. New York: s1Oo For
| sale by the ST. Paul Book and Stationery
company.
| "Heirlooms in Miniatures.
! ITO gather together some interesting
and representative American NINA
! lures, and to accompany them with a
brief record of the individuals whon
they represent, was the first intention
OF the author Of this volume In the
course Of her researches and while in
correspondence with families owning
precious heirlooms in miniatures. sc
much OF interest was brought to light
with regard to early American painters
that the book las grown into chron.
lcle OF the saying and doing of the
aruStS, as well as of those whom they
portrayed. For this divergence from
her original design the writer feels tina,
she need make no apology. in view OF
the interest that belongs to the reminis
cences and anecdotes which have beer
| brought to light, our early artists he.
ing men of attractive personality
whose histories are inseparably con,
nected with their country's progress
III tie arts and sciences, as well as
with her colonial and her Revolution.
airy life" The book itself, aptlv named
Helrlooms in Miniatures" is in all re.
spectS its own justification. It's inter.
est is threefold for either artist O,
amateur The gossipy details of socia
! happenings OF a century ago lose mono
OF their vitality because the gallants
and danes about whose PORTRAITS II
little" those memories cluster are deal
and gone these many years. Gossip :
century old may not be as dangerous
as that born an hour ago, yet 1t is
almost as fascinating. The artists Of
TINS period have not been brought be.
/ fore Americans with the persistenc,
that is their artistic due, as well as oul
patriotic tribute, and Mrs. Wharton ba;
done well to give them such prominenct
IN hef book. But to the lover of pic.
lures the reproductions of the NINA.
lures themselves are the real treasur,
OF the volume. The temptation comes