The Savannah morning news., 1901-12-22
THE LITERARY OUTLOOK.
A NEW SCOTCH WRITER, GEORGE
DOUGLASS BROWN.

cause of His First bOok-NoNeIs
and Their Dramatic versions.
Book Guessing Contests-New York
Looking at KipIing Manuscript.
william Archer's poets of the
Younger Generation."
Washington, Dec. 20.-Out of Scot
land has come new writer who has
attracted more attention than any 9TH
er hitherto unknown in the world of
books. George Douglass is the pen
name he has assumed, but in private
life he is known as George d. Brown.
This fact, together with the single
item that he is an oxford man not
long out of college, is practically all
that the public has learned about him,
and yet around his head has rained
particularly in England) a storm of
criticism that is like to gain him a
unique place in letters and doubtless,
a future fame in connection with any
Forthcoming work. For in The House
With the Green Shutters this author
has given a story that is unlike any
thing else. There is no love element,
10 relief from sordidness, ignorance,
se1ishness and all the attending ills of
mind, no hero to charm the heart, no
relief to save or 10 be saved from an
awful fate-only the most commonplace
of common things seen from the
rough sde-I was about TO say the real
side-but it takes considerable courage
to agree entirely with the authors
| view of things. notwithstanding this,
scores have risen up to proclaim the
| book a true picture of just what it
| purports to be-the life of small town
in Scotland. These have called Doug
| lass the peer of Barrie and McHare1T
| and have not hesitated to say that his
| book is such a piece of work as Balzac
! would have done, had he been a
Scotchman. On the other hand there
are as many others who, though sd-
mitting the book to be wonderful
work in many ways, have called it real
| ism carried to pessimism and have
| granted to the author only the credit
| of being a good disciple, in style to
| George Eliot and in thought to Car
| lyle. When all is said and done, how
| ever, there is due probably fair aver
| age of praise and blame, and by blame
| we do not mean that the author has
not done well, but only that the story
is too unpleasant. True, we may pro-
| claim it-perhaps we are forced to this
! belief, but gruesome and distasteful is
the judgment many will place upon it.
| John Gourlays there may be in every
| town in Scotland, but many will pre-
| fer to read of Sentimental Tommies
| and Jamsies and Davie Balfours.
| Why THE House With the Green
| Shutters" was not called THE Fall of
| the House of Gourlay" is a query that
has often been propounded. That
might have suggested Poe's Fall of
| the House of Usher" but not because
of any similarity in the tales. The
latter is a pure fancy and the Scotch
story is intensely and awfully real.
The only point of likeness in the two
is in the fact that both houses fall
at the end. The petty gossip of duh
little country town is well illustrated
in the Green Shutters.
" Any news?' a body will gravely in
quire. 'Ou, aye another will answer
| with equal gravity. I saw Kennedy S
gig going past in the forenoon Aye,
man, where would he be off till? He's
owre often in his gig. I'm thinking
| and the Kennedy and his affairs will
last them, till bedtime"
Because Gourlay was a stern man
who had succeeded by the force of an
indomitable doggedness rather than
| by intelligence, the bodies" despised
uliit SilQ 6OdQeu Iillil Will IuSlE SOSSlp
and sharp tongues as much as they
dared. And because young Gourlay
was despicable braggart and as cow
ardiy as his father was bold ne was
as vigorously attacked. John Gourlay
was afraid of nothing-even the bod
les admitted that and one of them
relates d characteristic instance.
'Ye mind what an awful day it
was; the thunder roared as if the heav-
ems were tumbling on the world. and
the lichtnin sent the trees daudin on
! the roads, and folk hid below their
beds and prayed-they thocht it was
| the Judgment. But Gourlay rammed
his black stopper in the shafts, and
| drove like the devil o'hell to Skeighan
Drone, where there was a young doctor.
| The lad was feared to come, but Gour-
lay swore by God that he should, and
he garred him. in a the countryside
driving like his that day was never
| kenned or heard tell o.; they were back
within the hour; I saw them gallop
up Main street; lightnin' struck the
ground before them; the young doctor
covered his face WI his hands. and
the horse nochered wi fear and tried to
wheel. but Gourlay stood up In the gig
and lashed him on through the fire
Through the years of his boy s
growth to mans stature Gourlay's
business fell gradually away until,
when the young man is expelled from
the university. everything had gone.
Then comes the black and awful end
of murder and suicide-the just end,
one is forced to admit, but what a ter
rible life story 1t is.
Mr.. Brown was born in the west of
Scotland in 1862 of a parentage half
Scotch and half Irish and was brought
up amidst a farming and mining pop
ulation. From his boyhood, he has
made a practice of getting into close
touch with workingmen of all classes; !;
his particular delight was to engage an
innkeeper in gossip. At is he went to
Glasgow University. but for the first
two years he neglected his classes and
spent his time in reading everything
he could get hold of. Curously enough,
now he says that he does not believe in
much reading, claiming that the stuff
q man gets for himself is infinitely bet
ter than the stuff he gets out of books.
throughout his last year at Glasgow
however, he worked hard and won
scholarships that netted him about s4,-
900 and on part of this money he went
TO oxford. When he left oxford he
was without money or relatives who
were able to help him in any line of
work. so he tramped down to London.
with seventeen pounds as total capital
and started as a man OF letters. Such
Is the story OF his life as related by
himself.
AT the present time four dramatiza-
tions OF four of the years best selling
novels are being presented in New
| Hork-"Beaucaire ire" Orchard Mans