Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1901-07-18

Beth and I took an outing today
Just a day In the woods, with dainty
tempting luncheon and a nice lot Of
reading. l was just finishing Goods
Puppets'' and could not have left it
home. Have you read it, II not, do
not fail to make it part of your summer
leisure reading. 1t Is most refreshing
VI course, its love story, the scene
OF which is set in the New York OF the
Eighteenth CENTURY. This period pro-
vides for the novelist's use much that
is quaint and picturesque in manners,
and some neat contrasts in character.
Loreliest thing in the old Dutch
dominies fragrant garden is mis-
motherless daughter, a creature guile
less ana gentle as wood dove. On her
pale horizon appears British officer,
a handsome gallant, given to meaning
less Irritation, but SO far as he is
capable of seriousness, in love with a
piquant, daring Colonial cousin. Here,
OF course, is matter for complications,
and they arrivs in due course The
tender hearted dominic, yillainous
young Dutchman, who brutally resents
Annetie's disregard of his so-oalled
affections; good old dog, and some
eccentric serving people help to make
THEN interohanging relations vivid,
often absorbing, and sometimes touch
ing story. The author, we are inclined
to think, has given unnecessary pains
to the study of the idioms OF Eigh-
teenth Century English. The object is
occasionally strained cannot see
the woods for the trees.' The letter
which opens the volume strikes us as a
labored tour de- force; the author of
THE Virginians' surely offered
better model for the time. It must be
said, also, that Miss Clark, the author,
here and there mixes her Eighteenth
Century diction with that Of the
Shakespearisn and that of the Restora.
tion period. This, hJweyer. in an affair
of passing fiction, is not important.
Beth took an old copy of David
Copperfield, just because she read
that Dickens had pronounced it his
best work.
/ hear that Mr.. j. M. Barrie and his
wife are coming to the United States
for a short visit in the autumn. They
will witness the first performance of
Mr.. Barrels play at Washington, but
will not stay long enough to ses it in
New York.
l hear also that NJ. Jules Verne, who
has been painfully i'll at his house in
Amiens, has entirely recovered and is
busy with a new novel. Another book
he finished some time ago and this
will soon be brought out 1t is called
the "Grande Foret," aud in it, the
author suys, he has tried to reconsti-
tute the missing link, or rather the
intermediary race between the most
perfect specimen of the ape and the
lowest Tyre of man." NJ. Verne also
says that he has treated the subject 10
a more copious and more fanciful way
than DR.. GARNER. At the same time
the novelist disolaims the conclusions
Of Darwin, whose opinions he does not
share.
What woman DOES not truly enjoy
reading Ouida? When the year no
longer brings book from Ouida, even
"a collection of short stories, our youth
will have definitely passed away. The
name always gives certain thrill The
present race of reviewers was quarrelling
over marbles and skipping -Iopes what
time her talent was pouring forth it's
best, with an upulence no one has since
equaled, unless it be Marie Corelli,
who definitely abjures life as it is-a
dull thing, no doubt-in favor of life
as it is not, and never will be, world
without end. Ouida did this, frankly,
splendidly, successfully. She still does
it. When we were really young, Ouida
was building reputation which we
venture to think, will never die way,
by writing novels of glorious improba-
bility. They formed the natural founda.
tion to the sofa cushion of the period;
they were smiled over, their raoiug and
military knowledge derisiyely can
vassed. but they were read. There is
only one "Under Two Flags" only one
Two Little Wooden Shoes, . and there
never can be any more. The wicked
guardsmen are dust, and perhaps they
always were nonsense; but some OF us
learned the geography of Europe and
the differing coiors Of the Continent at
/ Ouida's scornful knee.
Since those days the biggest woman
writer after George Eliot has changed
In degree rather than in kind She still
sees things sharply divided as in an
orthodox heaven, the sheep rpon the
one side, the goats upon the other.
For her, peasants, flowers, dogs. the
roor, tield-toil and the ancient arts are
paohou oiusoiy VI the r'SHb manu- Will
the sheep. Manufacturers, engines,
hospitals, institutions, rich people
county councils, stand hopeleasly on
the left. 1t is much easier, surely, to
write when you see things thus-and it
ia 40 affeotation with O1ida-far easier
to point a moral, simpler TO adorn
tale. And there liz SO great measure
of appealing truth in the sentiment.
All the stories in her latest book are
built like this. They are mostly heart
iending, and there are certainly things
little like them Ia real life, If not
things very like them. Whether she
tells OF two miserable little peasant
children, taken up for feggars in the
streets of Rome, brutBlly treated by the
police. ard turned out to die in a
doorway; whether she gives sketch of
the prison system in operation in Italy,
girls faith in her lover, or a small
English boy, brought up in Midland
towns aImshouse, it is always the same
way that she sees it. Her last book,
street Dust and Other Stories,'' |
have ON my study tables waiting for
long leisure summer afternoon to
indulge in 1t.
have here, too, little collection of
clever essays entitled "Vagaries of
Men, - and Polly bee, who wrote them,
exhibits knowledge of the sex that at
once astonishes and commands admira-
tion. Writing OF the New York man,
for instance. she informs her less exper-
fenced sisters that unless they play
BALI the first time they meet him they
viii never see him again; and her OBJ
seryation of men Of other cities has