The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-11-19
Bret Harte's Book
And Why 1t Has a
Charm All Its Own.

10-O-~-O-0-~DoO0O0O~O~-@~N~0
Houehton. Mifiin & Co. have issued a
yc,urae of recent short stories by LleI
IIarte. I. is a little late to exploit the
virtues OF Bret Harte as story7telier'
but 1t is fact, nevertheless "a warm cen
genial fact. that a certain modern tend
eacy among short story writer's en-
hances Pref Harte.
There rnay be a name for that certain
modern tendency. We do not know H. II
there is. 1t manifests itself by complete
r,overtv of invention, a shackled serV1tude
TO the god Probability, an transformations
disnlav CT literary STYLE" and nebu-
1ouslv vague conclusion to each MARIA
tive. The man or woman who writes this
kind of story entertains timidity OF On
inte,ligible finale. If the hero OF me
sketch dies, the author SHES on from
the word "die" like a young colt from
Chinese dragon. There IS some new RUE
in IN to-date literature which excludes
the sledce-hammer at the end of short
tale to drive a plain, final fact into
renders mind and compels the use OF
feather For instance, the context leaos
us to believe that John Smith dies ana
the story ends "And then" A man
Of cut glass culture readily sees that IL
is all NJ with John Smith and that the
undertaken IS at the front door, but the
humble ones of facts and figures VINO de-
strov common beefsteak in order TO live
and not svllabub. want something strong
or than land then We want john
Smiths demise recorded in SO many
words. We want our feet on the rlch'
alluvial soil Of certainty and not in the
unsubstantial .interstellar reaches OF IN
gertrude. And in a short story we want
invention. We want things to happen
and to keep on happening, if in the lines
Of probability well and good; If not, no
harm done. We can even forgive Rud-
yard Kipling for turning a menagerle
loose with a vocabulary occasionally
But the up-to-date short story writer Is
afraid Of invention. Either his own taste
or an autocratic magazine standard
scares the average author to death. Per
haps the author and the magazine fancy
this style, but the reader, in his humble
capacity, has some rights, and while
"
some cloth-bound short stories which
could borrow vigor from many paper
back dime novel and not suffer by 1t.
Now the charm of this volume of Bret
Harte's short stories is that they are
stories unafraid. 1t IS necessary in one
of the delightful narratives to remove a
certain grouchy old individual, and the
author facilely introduces an earthquake
which gobbles said individual up with
neatness and dispatch and clears the
track No earthquake ever did interfere
In a life in this way, but the excuse IS
that an earthquake might, and that a
3ustice-loving earthquake should. The
narrative Of the girl with a face that
would curdle red ink drinking from an
arsenical mountain spring and uncon-
sciously becoming gaspingly beautiful,
may, in certain magazine-nurtured cir
cles bring screams Of horror. but most of
us. Of the beefsteak crowd, Toll in the
cushiony softness of the lie and like ii.
And in it all Bret Harte keeps his men
and women men and women. No matter
how odd or improbable his stage investi-
ture the man of unmistakable and direct
motives IS before us. clean cut and char
acterful. the woman with Ineligible mo-
tives and clearly understood passions
moves in our sight naturally as life. Be
cause Of this the book OF short stories
bears re-telling orally. One who has
read them can tell them. and more than
that. seeks the opportunity to do so.
The book takes its title from the I'M
tial story, The Mediation of Jack Ham
lin and is published by Houghton, Milf
fin & Co, and may be obtained Of the
Goldsmith Book and Stationery company
Of Wichita