New-York tribune., 1900-05-13

just the kind of remark, we may add, that a
small boy would make to a playmate. Chris
topher duly falls in love with Eliza but she
remains ignorant of his passion until the
eleventh hour, when the story is coming to
end, fact which bellies the intelligence with
which she is credited. Before she makes the
discovery she falls in with several lovers,
of whom addresses her dear lady" with
sickening iteration, in their first interview.
There is a missing claimant to Miss Earring
don's millions, and he turns up, also the
eleventh hour with results that will surprise
the reader. But cannot that the
prise adds much to the novel. The Earring
dons' is of those stories which seem nova
days to be getting themselves written out of a
kind of Ollendorffian formula. You sketch a
tolerably ingenious plot and then develop it With
the aid of intolerably ingenious epigrams. The
breath of life is mssng from novels of this
class.
| THE Monk and the Dancer a collection OF
short stories, is also tinged with artiiciality
and in places the work is lamentably thin. on
| the other hand there are places in which the
work is well done, showing that the author has
a mOdicum of knowledge concerning human
nature The titular story, which relates the
experiences of a young Trappist Iured from the
| safety of his Algerian monastery by a public
| dancer, has a of originality and is written
with beguiling vivacty 'TrOt, Trot to Mar
ket is a rather jejune performance but The
Poach' and The Senior Reader" suggest, like
THE Monk and the Dancer" that Mr. Smith
is possessed of an imaginative vein and. with
his sprightly STYLE may day put forth
admirable fiction. The present volume is GER
| tainly promising.
! Mr.. Jack London has something of the un-
usual gift for blending the natural and the
unusual The stories in The Son of the Wolf"
|
life of the Yukon district. the gold fields that
lie beneath the Arctic sky they are enriched by
a strange atmosphere, they celebrate novel
adventures and comparatively little known
types. But because Mr.. London has delved be-
meath the surface his miners and Indians are
wonderfully lifelike, easy to understand
though the posture of affairs in each of
the tales is so to be startling. Mr.. Lon
don is, we believe, young writer. We hope to
hear of him, his work is alive.
| Mr.. Wister's book is uneven In quality
| The Jimmyjohn Boss" the first of the eight
stories is spontaneous and has vitality. There
is merit too in "A Kinsman of Red Cloud" and
"Sharon's Choice" but in Twenty Minutes for
Refreshments we have found Mr.. Wister, for
the first time, almost unreadable. His nspira-
| tion seems have failed him, and this volume
is the whole, not quite good expect
a book by the author of Red Men and
White to be. There are two interesting items
prefXed the stories One is the dedicatiOn
ITO Messrs. Harper and Brothers and Henry
Mills Alden, whose friendness and fair dealing
/ L glad Of this chance to record" Then there
is this engaging ''preface':
It's very plain that if a things the fashion
Too much the fashiOn-if the people leap
To do ii, or 70 be it, in a passion
OF haste and croWding like a herd of sheep
Why then that thing becomes through imitation
Vulgar, excessive, obvious and cheap.
~ E~pI1f I n N.Ind d-GIr To ha
What every Tom and Dick and HaTy's doinG
Stranger, do YOU write books? l ask the ques-
tiOn,
Because I'm told that everybody writes;
tiOn.
And proper slumbcr. all our days and nights
Are wholly filled. 1t seems odd suggestion
But if You do write. stop it. leave the masses
Read me, and join tn, small selected classes
\ little Of Mir. Jerome's humor goes long
way. Three Men Wheels" contains about
three hundred pages. too many by half There
are however, some funny episodes in the book
I and when he is talking about German law
German dogs. about the mshaps of his three
men, Mr. jerome is mildly amusing. His di-
gressons meant to be comic, and there
many of them. They mostly forced and
dun.
TFay