The times., 1899-07-16
proofreading was not more carefully done.
(New York: Harper & Bros. s100.)

"Sundown Leflare," by Frederic Reming-
ton, is book as realistic as Mr. Carruth's
work is fanciful. There is but one Sc
rious fault to be found with it. and that
is that the pages are not four times theiI
present size. Mr.. Remington's admirable
drawings, which ought to be more inter-
esting than the text, lose most of their
fine quality through being reduced to a
space two and half by three and a hall
inches square Those which originally ap-
peared In "Harper's Magazine" covered q
Iull page, and that was not too large for
them, Tor one cannot put a band of In
dians. stretch of prairie, or an Arizona
mountain range into a kodak photograph
to advantage
Shutdown Lefiare" is half breed guide,
mixed French and Indian, and his dialect
appears to be faithfully reproduced. The
work has not, of course, the thoroughness
and depth which might come from a life
long residence in the Indian country, for
the evidence is that Mr. Remington spent
comparatively short time in the COM
pany of "Sundown," and found so much of
interest in this typical plains character
that ne was constrained to make some use
OF him great part of the work is merely
suggestive, but the suggestions are vivid
enough to be very interesting.
This waif of the cattle country is a man
would have had a history, whether his lot
had been cast in Afghanistan. in South
Africa, or in Mexico; yet by character
and tradition he belongs to the particular
time and place in which his lot is cast.
He is blood brother to Peachey Carnehan
and Mulvaney, to Mowgli and Jack Ham
lin; he might have ridden with Jameson S
raiders or shared the fate of the Outcasts
OF Poker Flat; he is not savage or a
| CIVILIZED man, neither soldier, trader.
hunter, gambler nor criminal; he is az
adventurer pure and simple. While he
has traits in common with the black sheen
OF the world, he belongs to his own pecu-
liar breed, evolved by contact of the Latin
and the Red Indian. The story of his ad-
ventures, not always savory; his deeds,
not always heroic; his light loves and
queer superstitions, is not told with the
skill of the professional litterateur, but it
is fascinating because it is the story of a
live man. Shutdown Lefare is new char
acter in literature.
The only idealizing which Remington
has done in dealing with this man is in a
more or less careful censorship over the
language of the tales, for, as he hints
some of Sundown's dialect is not intended
for polite society 1t is curious to see
how, in spite of the very limited vocabu-
larry of the half-breed, his history stands
out as wildly and picturesquely as if
| written by Parkman. Such is the rhet-
oric of the man who knows what he is
| talking about, and tells his story simply.
The syntax will be rather difficult for those
who do not like dialect, but those who do
will have little trouble with It.
| The most attractive of the sketches Is
probably Shutdown Leflare's Warm Spot"
which tells how he stole Snow OWLS wife
and fought for her. 1t is as uncivilized as
buffalo hide and as full of color as the
| Garden of the Gods. "Sundown's Higher
| Self" is perhaps the most artistic of the
| tales. Seldom has the secretiveness of an
alien race in the presence of the white
| been so cleverly indicated. The artist is
trying to coax the scout to tell him what
his medicine" his Indian charm, Is. The
response is a story of the way in which
the medicine" behaved in a certain rather
desperate strait Another attempt to get
at the character of the "medicine"-an-
| other story. Finally, after pull or two
at the artists canteen, Shutdown appears
to be softening, and the investigator says,
persuasiyely:
~ say, sundown, have always treated you
well; want you to tell me Just what that med
| icine is like, there in your teepee."
''Ah, dat medicine. Well, she ees little bag
full of de bird claw, de wolf tooth, tree arrow
head. un two bullet what ave gone troo my
body
rs that all?"
'Ah you white mani"
And one suspects that Mr.. Remington
was as far from the truth as ever.
Whether any white man, any civilized
man, can really get at the inner thoughts
and feelings of a wild man, may be doubt
ed; but at any rate Mr.. Remington has
given us a true picture of Sundown Le-
fare, and one may guess at things which
he does not tell. (New York: Harper &
Bros. S1.25.)
Jesus Delany' is the decidedly striking
title of a book by Joseph Gordon Donnely.
1t seems to be intended to prove that a
converted Mexican is Mexican still, with
all his original and aboriginal instincts in
him. The pains which the author takes to
drag this in is rather annoying at times.
The hero, Jesus Delany, is a Mexican
boy brought up in a mission school and
intended for an evangelist. He has been
educated by the missionaries, at a North
ern college, and is one OF the oldest mix
lures OF religious enthusiasm and secular
fight ever put into the pages of a work OF
fiction. The character of the missionary.
who is called throughout the Reverend
Lamb" is bitter satire on the missionary
character, and there are two or three 9TH
er satirical touches in dealing with the
other workers" OF the mission station
The only person spared is Mrs. Lamb who
is represented as an attractive and noble
woman Query: Why is the good woman
of a novel almost invariably beautiful and
aristocratic in appearanceD. The adven-
lures of Jesus pronounced Haysus, with
accent on the last syllable), are of va
ried and surprising nature. He fights a
duel, conducts a revival, takes part in
bullfght (as matador), gets into a fight
which results in his being sent to jail,
falls in love with the daughter of the gov
ernor, and ends his career by being exc
cuted for the crime of murder He is a
picturesque character.
While the realism of this book may be
doubted, it certainly indicates that there
is field for romance writer's in Mexico
and the field is hardly touched. 1t will
probably arouse bitter resentment among
some of the people satirized in 1t, but that
does not, of course, matter at all. 1t may
be suggested, however, that the book
would be more artistic if it were more i'm
partial and less bitter. New York: The
Macmillan Company. s1.50.)
Pastor Naudie's Young Wife" is a ro-
nance of French provincial town. and
is the work of Edouard Rod the eminent
French critic who has lately visited this
country. On reading the book, the ver-
dict of the public will probably be that NJ
Rod cannot only criticise but create lit
erature, for this story has all the delicate
finish and subtlety which is associated with
the best of the French romance-writers. 1t
deals with the fortunes of an elderly Prot
estant clergyman who decides, partly for
the sake of his children and partly from
certain yearning for happiness in hum
drum life, to marry second time, and is
led by the advice of friends into a mar
riage with a girl some fifteen or twenty
years Younger than himself who is pos