The times., 1899-06-04

TO be an ingratlating way.
my good woman said she, You look very
neat and tidy yourself, and don't doubt are a
good plain cook"
Now, it may be that the Mrs. Jamesons
OF our day and generation, who do mis-
sionary work on the natives in country
towns. think that this sort of thing i'm
presses their subjects, who are thereby
inspired with awe, if not with real rever-
ence. Not at all. 1t causes the visitor to
be regarded with a mixture of amusement
and pity, as IL she were some strange beast
whose habits must be studied. since the
Snowman pays money for her board. The
lady to whom this speech was addressed
was probably as well educated as Mrs.
Jameson herself, though not in precisely
the same way; she possessed the dainty old
fashioned refnements of speech and daily
life which belonged to the gentlewoman OF
the last generation; and when she was ad-
dressed as my good woman" and told that
she looked as If she were clean, it i'm
pressed her very much as it would i'm
press the wife of a United States Senator.
She comments on the affair, with gentle
amusement, siyfng that she had never be-
fore been addressed in that way. though
she always hoped that she was good wo-
man.
The tone of the book throughout is full
of this subtle fun. Now and then il al
is allowable in a situation so purely comic
as this. The only really false touch in the
book is the continued presence of the
Jamesons. On feels that it would have
been more appropriate for them to have
taken their fight forever, in the last chap
ter but, after all, perhaps the denouement
is more realistic as it is. New York:
Doubleday & Mcclure Company. $1,000
~ No
Ilwaine, is a story of the Australian bush,
a region only lately entered by the novel
list. The man has not yet appeared who
can handle this strange, wild, grim life
with the touch of genius; there have been
only scattering stories describing phases
of its aspect. Mr.. McIlwaine's work is as
good as anything which has yet been done,
and suggests large possibilities for either
himself or some one else in the future.
The story of it is briefly as follows: A
young girl of mixed English and Irish
blood goes out to Australia with an uncle
and aunt who have lived there for many
years on a ranch. She finds there an old
playfellow who has been transformed by
the rough customs of the place into a
rougher, sterner man than she has known
before. If one imagines New York lady
visiting a ranch in the Southwestern the
widest of that wild region-and meeting
there man whom she has known during
! her childhood and girlhood, but who has
been for ten years cowboy, rarchman, Vigi-
lante, Indian fighter and adventurer, that
may serve as a faint indication of the sit
| uation But the Australian bush is wilder
rougher, more trying, and more dangerous
! to certain natures than any part of this
country. The Englishmen who go there
and spend their lives retaining the will
derness are in truth martyrs of empire"
That is the key of the story so far as ro-
nance is concerned.
But, after all, its main interest is hardly
romantic. 1t lies more in the accurate de-
scription of place. people, and conditions.
! The character-drawing is very good, bet
| ter than the working out of the plot, and
| there is an accuracy and freedom in the
use of epithets and local slang which gives
racy flavor to the whole OF it. The fate
of blaeH girl-victim of the inevitable
race mixture which comes to pass in such
settlements-forms pathetic little inter-
lude. (New York: r. F. Fenno & Co.
Sl.25.)
Prisoners and Captives" is the slightly
Pathological title of Henry Seton Merri-
mans latest novel. The book is so thor
oughly permeated with the personality of
| its author that any criticism of it must
necessarily seem somewhat pointed.
If Mr.. Merriman were not a man this
book might be considered very good ex-
ample of the feminine style of noyel-writ-
| ing. Under the circumstances it is rather
an anomaly. Perhaps one might say that
it is the sort of book that woman might
write If she were for time imprisoned
! in the body of man, and did not like it
at all. A certain type Of lady novelist al
| ways strikes the personal note.
This lady novelist, also, considers it her
mission in life to preach to her poor blind
ed sisters on the duty of never trying to
know anything, and Mr.. Merriman does
this as if he had been trained from child
| hood under the estimable Mr.. Box, of
Philadelphia. When a man is really deter
mined to be feminine he can be more lady
like than any woman that ever was. An
other feminine trait OF Mr.. Merriman is
his propensity to interpolate his own re-
fections, by the page, in the midst of his
story, and to wander extensively and gen.
| tly into the field of moral sentiments AS
an example of his meanderings the follow
| ing passage may serve. Perhaps it is as
well to state that Mr.. Merriman is at this
| point explaining the character of his hero:
His actions and his words, as serving to indicate
| the workings Of his mind may be studied. From
the narration Of these the intelligent reader will
| no doubt gather as much ediication he Ia:
| humbly gathered in the footsteps OF the modern
lady novelist, trotting meekly after her through
mazes most extraordinary, until the fact that this
medley was the mind of fellow-man seemed
, totally incredible. Such men may exist, but il
| does not fall to the lot of us poor males tC
| meet them, though, indeed, we should scarcely
appreciate them if We did.
The intelligent reader may be left to de-
| termne at leisure what Mr. Merriman
means.
But there is one feminine characteristic
which Mr.. Merriman cannot be accused OF
possessing. According TO him, woman S
| mind betrays a certain estimable thirst
for knowledge. II this novelist had had
any such thirst he would never have made
| his American character. Matthew Mark
| Easton, such an egregious scarecTow. In
the first place, it is explained that Mr..
Easton is graduate of Harvard that he is
the descendant of slave-owners, and would
| have been ''one OF the richest men in
| America had slavery not been abolished"
This Southern aristocrat, with "a face like
a monkey" according to his creators ac-
count OF him, goes to call on an English
! dame of wealth and position, and opens
the conversation with the remark that he
does not think that her hired girl expected
visitors at this time in the morning.
Then he asks the lady how he ought to
write note inviting a friend of hers to a
theatre party. Should he send a verbal in
vitation by her brother, or say, as in
America @, Dear Miss Grace, will you
come to the theatre with self and friends
on Wednesday," He also says that in
America we pretend that the servants and
the masters are all equal, and that he re
spects the British domestic servant"
When he does not "surmise" he "guesses. -
II is also explained that he is the sort of