The Washington times., 1901-09-22
Recent Fiction.

THE Wouldbegoods' is the odd name of
a story by E. Nesbit and the book is
much better than the title. 1t deals with
| the adventures of party of children
/ spending the summer at an English coun-
| try house. The story is told in the third
| person by the eldest boy. The name is
that of society which the children FORM
| ed with the intention of keeping in the
| path of duty and doing good deeds, but
| in the effort to benefit their fellow-beings
! they get into more scrapes than one
would suppose children could unless one
| had had experience with them.
There are eight of the children in all
six of the Bastable family. and two visit
| ors. Each. from the eldest, Oswald, to
the youngest, II. O., has a distinct and
spicy individuality. The flavor of the
book is decidedly boyish. as only three of
the children are girls, and two of these
do not count for much in the scrapes.
The third Alice. is a winsome little body
of the type which our mothers knew
the ''tomboy," and of whom her brothers
are apt to say approvingly that she lis
most as good as a boy
The atmosphere OF the story is whole
some, and in spite of the never-ending
mischief into which the children tumble
and the slang which they talk, 1t is not
likely to have anything but good infiu-
ence over the young folk into whose
hands it may fall. The young Bastables
do not tell lies, they do not dodge pun
ishment, and there is nothing petty or
vulgar about any of them. Moreover,
there is vein of delicious humor running
through the whole, which should make
the book amusing to grown people; and
the reflections in which Oswald INDUCES
fnt nj
times extremely pithy. The language is
mixture of schoolboy slang and what
ever book Oswald happened to have been
reading last. To judge from the text his
readings included Scott's novels, Monte
Cristo and the Jungle Books. besides
some juvenile literature of a religious ten
dency read at odd times when nothing
else was to be had.
Here are some of Oswald S reflections:
In some ways the good times you
have with grown-upS are better than
the ones you have by yourselves. At
any rate, they are safer. 1t is al
most impossible, then, to do anything
fatal without being pulled up short by
a grown-up ere yet Tic deed is done.
And. if you are careful. anything that
goes wrong can be looked on as the
grown-up's fault. But these secure
pleasures are not so interesting to tell
about as the things you do when there
Is no one to stop you on the edge of
the rash act.
Daisy giggled at this. Our own
girls never giggle. They laugh right
out or hold their tongues. Their kind
brothers have taught them this.
II anything in these chronicles of
the Wouldbegoods should lake you
try to be good yourself, the author
will be very glad, of course. But take
my advice and don't make a society
for trying it. II is much easier with
out.
The American reader may be moved to
some reflections on the subject of the Gu
rious perversions of the language to be
observed in English slang 1t really
seems as If IAN awfully decent dinner
were a phrase which could be spared
from civilized speech; and Everyone was
frightfully glad to see us" is another odd
combination of words. But these children
only talk the same lingo to be found in
English society novelsz New York: Har-
per & Bros. sl.5O)