New-York tribune., 1901-11-17
FICTION
TIE PORTRAIT OF A MAN WORTH
KNOWING.
WORTH


MODERN ANTHgJs BY ttrs the Aq!hN5 Ismo, I5 pp vi
5lS. Doubleday. Page & Co
TEE ETERNAL CITY BY Hall Caine, Emo PIP
t5S. d. Appleton ~ Co.
TA1Es OF THE CIoIsTER By l5r5;t Elizaoeth Sd,ec C.
son of Short Stories) Emo PIP 90 'i''i
Bros.
The anonymous author who acileFeu SUI
startling and such evanescent celebrity pS inc
composition of An Englishwomans Love Lei
ters" has apparently made up his or hei ii'i'u
4bo+ a earious reputation is only to be gained
lv more serious work than characteflZeu 'ie
book lust mentioned a Modern AntSeus Is
to he taken on much higher grounds than tnose
which we associate with its frivolous pfeoeces
sor IT NAV not be all that novel ought 10 De.
II is not particularly well constructed 50 1ar
as the plot is concerned the author may De S'iu
TO have spread material not very suoSlahtial III
the first place over very large surface 50 'hi'
It seems rather thin. But. while the develop
mont or -rristram Gayney's character owes much
to certain events reported in the story we put
the book down at the end scarcely remembering
those events: all that we recall is that IT'S
Sran, has proved himself to be a man worth
knowing a companion in whose society every
hour has been interesting, and whose lndl-
author is at some pains to destroy our llhlhs
for the hero by using in the narrative a good
deal of the preciosity of style which disfgured
AN Eng1ishwoman's Love Letters" Yet even
the intrusion at intervals of a literary at
rosphere fails to rob young GaVney or MS
sct1Iality. He is young in years even at the
day of his death but from the very beginning
he is assiduous in accommodating experience, ana
we see him in many different lights, often fool
ish often headstrong, but always himself and
always lovable The spirit of nature is in him.
and indiyidualized as he is, there remains many
: touch in his portrait that is in the widest
sense human
Mr. Hall Caine is an industrious man-of that
there can be no doubt. The Eternal city Is
a very monument of industry. 1t is plain that
Mr. Cane has visited Rome and has done his
best TO make himself acquainted with some Of
her characteristics. But his intellect does not
act as the right kind of solvent upon the raw
material he has piled up He presents himself
TO the reader as a thoughtful novelist as one
who wishes in this book to say something about
serious problems in human experience; but he
leaves the impression that he has not really
thought about them at all. While he has been
trying to do the demon Of melodrama has
logged his elbow with the result that ne has
written not literature but fustian. The story
deals with love and politics, there is an attempt
at giving il also flavor Of art. The colors In
which the author essays to paint Roman digni-
taries and the broad spectacle Of life in the
great city are laid with a trowel upon 4
coarse grained canvas: the pathos in the tale
ras saccharine and the passion is turgid. 1t Is |
all intermnably long and ineffably dreary. MI
Caine reveals once more the sad plight OF the
mediocre novelist who presumes TO drag Rome, |
with all its tremendous associations. into his !
little story. and only bruises himself against
her melancholy grandeur, emerging from the |
transaction discounted and ridiculous.
The volume contributed by Miss Jordan to
the Portrait Collection of Short Stories, issued
by the Harpers, is made up of ten brief nara
tives Of American convent life The initial
story deals with that more than familiar motive
the stirring in a nuns consciousness of MEM
cries and emotions belonging to the world she
has renounced. 1t is treated sympathetically in
this case. and. in fact. Miss Jordan discloses
throughout a skilful hand in the deiineation of
her generally placid but sometimes sorely dis
turbed types