The times., 1899-02-05

| or less able works OF fiction. 1t Is an in
| tangible sort of problem, and its solution
| depends so entirely on matters of tempera-
/ ment and experience that discussion will
not heip 1t much. In this particular book
! the form it takes is as follows: South
| ern woman, born Calvert of Baltimore
! ana widow of a Gano of Maryland, is de-
! prived of most of her fortune by the war
and retreats to an ancestral piece of prop
! erty IN the Middle West, a house inner
| tied from her father. This house, called
! the Fort somehow fits the personality of
this extraordinary woman to a marvellous
. degree.
The hero and heroine of the book are
first cousins, grandchildren of Mrs GanO.
The one, Ethan, is dreamy, interpretive,
! morbid; the other. Valentine, is bright,
eager, intense, full of the JOY of life. They
are warned by Valentines father. 4 man
much like Ethan in temperament, that they
must not marry; that the family is tainted
with consumption, and they have no right
to infect unborn generations with the dis
| ease. Despite this warning, they deter
mine TO take the chance, vowing to each
other that if their marriage does not prove
childlessSthey will die together. Ii viii
seem TO the ordinary reader as if this plot
was morbid enough 10 satisfy the most
persistent seeker after sensation.
In its development. however, it Is less
morbid than might be supposed. There are
two things on which reviewers seem to b.
| tacitly agreed; one is that Mrs. Gano, the
/ grandmother, who Is of course, not a
! Gano at all, is the most interesting and the
only live parsonage in the book; the other
is the impossibility of settling the ques
tion whether or not suicide is a crime. Tne
! problem of the story they intuitively let
alone; the one strong character they in
stinctively praise. The book is not great;
II is not even artistic; and these Two
things prove it. The writer has not the
| artistic sense required for the handling of
such subject, and yet she cannot let it
alone. She is simply clever woman in
fected with the restless pessimism of the
| age-a system of thought which teaches
nothing and arrives nowhere. This pessi
mism is a. necessary development in the
thought of the world; but there is moth
ing in 1t which deserves to be perpetuated
in literature, and to make it the central
motive of a novel is false art, because it
appeals, not TO the ideal, but to the morbil
instincts in the reader. Cynicism may be
mischievous, because it is only half truth;
pessimism must be mischievous, because
there is no truth in it.
The writer of novels has no business to
lay the scene of n story in a malarial
swamp and infect the readers imagina
tion with germs. 1t is not necessary TO
the older writers-deliberately 10 forget
the suffering and crime of the world: it is
not necessary to ignore the existence of
such morbid conditions as those under
which the Ganos lived; but unless these
things can be portrayed in their proper
relation to the life of the human race,
they should be let alone. Snakes are in
the world and they are used effectively
in sculpture, but the artist who should
| make statues OF snakes and nothing else
would be wasting ninetenths of his time.
There is really no way to speak of this
book without discussing its general tone,
for its atmosphere is as insistent as
London fog. There are some chapters
which, unobscured by the problems, might
be charming and true; the story OF Ethan's S
child-life in the old Fort with his grand
mother, the girlish struggles and impetu-
Gus outbreaks of the impulsive Valentine;
the picture of the grandmother, with her
stern rectitude and old fashioned notions
of behavior But these are mere frag
ments, of little value because they are not
placed in true relations. This book is one
OF the halfway books, distressing because,
with all their cleveTness they are essen
TALLY fragmentary in construction and un-
wholesome in tone. They are part of the
pose of the present generation. just as
the silly genteel love story was part Of
the pose of the last. and the roistering,
swearing, drinking heroes, with the NOR
ality of savages. pleased the fashionable
reader of a century or so ago.
There is no morbidness in real art how
ever tragic or pathetic a story may be.
The lesson which the novelist of the pes
simistic school most needs TO learn is that
unless he or she can see some use in mis-
cry it ought not TO be painted If it will
clear up some doubt in the mind ofsa con-
fused reader or awaken dull minds to the
ideal, or give some hope to a soul strug-
Cling with new and troublous conditions,
then it may and should be painted; not
otherwise. (New York: Harper & Bros.
$1.50.)