The Washington times., 1901-10-20
Recent Fiction.


express all possible thoughts. Chicago
A. C. McClurg & Co. sL25)
Recent Fiction.
The TelI>S" is book by Edward
Noyes Westcott, illustrated with several
portraits of the author, pictures of his
homes, and with an appendix containing
| some details of his life. 1t will be in
teresting to people who have been smitter
with the David Harum" mania, but
would probably have attracted little at
! tention did II not appear as a pendant to
the other book.
| The story, which is a short one, Is writ
! ten in the simple and straightforward
manner chara cteristic of the author, but
so far as plot and characters are con-
| cernod, is quite ordinary love story with
a decidedly realistic flavor. The heroine s
| father, Alfred Samno, is a hari-headed
| old business man with considerable indi-
viduality. and, in fact, all the people in
the romance are individualized d'ztlnctly.
The appendix contains several letters OF
Mr.. Westcott's, In one of which he says
of his now famous novel:
! II think ! will not press further at
| present upon a depressed and over
crowded market / should never have
made any move If 1t had not been for
the opinion of other people BY the
time ! had typewriter It the second
time / was so sick of the stuff that l
could smell 1t when / opened the front
door
A friend, Forbes Heermans, says of the
book:
Many people. hitherto quite un-
known, have unb!ushingly SET for
their claims TO be the originals of one
or another character of the book; and
while these foolish attempts 10 acquire
a little unearned Importance are more
absurd than serious, yet it may not
be out OF place here to state that all
such claims are absolutely without
foundation. The characters are all
drawn from life, IL is true. in the sense
that they are Hfelike, but not from in
diyiduals. Each enc IS entirely the
creation of the authors imagination,
and this fact he asserted with much
earnestuess over and over again.
should not dare put real people, just as
l see them, into my book he once
characteristicaliy said; they'd spoil
it"
As a companion to David Harum." the
little volume will be an acceptable gift
book. CIew York: d. Appleton & Co.
S1.OO)
THE Secret Orchard is the enigmati-
cal title Of a story by Agnes and Eyer
ton Castle, which has nothing whatever
to do with orchards. The interest is
psychological and ethical. The hero is
a French nobleman with Stuart blood in
his veins, a careless, happy. proud and
not too scrupulous man Of the world,
with a streak of idealism in his nature
The plot deals with the unlocked for
Nemesis which overtakes him just as
he has made up his mind TO be true to
a long neglected ideal. and throughout
the course of the story the reader is kept
in suspense as to the exact amount of
the punishment which is to be inflicted,
and the ultimate result of 1t all. There
is a great deal of human nature in it,
some rather excessive emotionalism,
much ingenuity IN contriving situations,
and a certain dramatic fitness in the de-
nouement Perhaps the most remarkable
figure in the book is that Of Joy, the
wan. who is made the instrument of the
dukes destruction. She is just such a
combination Of innocence, precocity, pas
sion, and brain as enc might expect to
find in medern French girl isolated from
guiding and protecting Influences, and she
is altogether fascinating. CNew York:
Frederick a. Stokes Company
THE Serious Wooiug' is a new story
Of English life by John Oliver Hobbies; il
is scarcely pretentious enough to be
called novel. A perfectly unprejudiced
person might suppose, from the perusal
of the average modern English society
novel, that the writers of such fiction
were rampant democrats; for more
brainless futile and immoral creatures
than those represented as the English
aristocracy were probably never put into
books before. They not only play tennis
with the Seventh Commandment, but
they often play hob with the Kings Eng
lsh and ordinary common sense. and
make blunders which the average Ameri-
can grammar school child would not be
found committing. Mrs. CTaigie's latest
production IS a fair sample of the kind
OF fiction above described.
The situation is this: beautiful Young
girl is sold to brainless cretin twice her
age because he has money, estate, and |
title, these being regarded as the ultra |
desirable things by her mother and her |
associates generally. In plain English. |
the important thing seems TO be that the |
match made by such a girl shall suit So |
ciety; whether It suits her or not IS en- |
tirely beside the question. After the |
match is made she may construct her own |
moral code so long as she has nothing TO |
do with any one not born in her own STA
tion In life. The present novel seems writ
ten especially to exhibit this thor-y Of lie |
in all its unlovely nudity, and It is one |
of those theories which emphatically need |
to be decently clothed in euphemism. But
euphomism has no place IN the speech of |
the heroine's friends and relatives. ThA