New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1903-08-09

Company.
THE THOUSAND. EUGENIAs, AND 9th OTHER 5P
STORIES. By Mrs. Alfred sidgWlck' 1zino' PIP
s2S Longmans, Green & Co.
A DAUGHTER OF THE SIOUX; 4 Tale Of the
Indian FrS1teT gy oh GePe CannanX Ming
CHEERFUL. AMERICANS BY Charles Battell
LooInis With Twenty-four Illustrations ~
Florence scovell shinn, Fanny Cory f. od o.
Fithian and F. r. Gruger. 12no, PIP. K ZS''
Henry Holt & Co
One great merit OF 1.-THE Call OF the wild" IS
that, although It's hero is a dog. 1t does not re-
mind the reader of Mr.. Kipling any other
writer who has dealt with kindred motives Ii
is an original book. the whole tone and drift OF
which testify simply to Mr.. Londons own
imaginative power and his skill in narrative
Buck, the big st. Bernard, with touch OF the
Scotch shepherd dog who fills this story, is
mighty animal who at the same time is not
represented as exhibiting his might and hero
ism at the outset. On the contrary. he is more
of a household pet than anything else when the
tale opens and when he is treacherously sold to
serve as a sled dog in tie Klondike he is beaten
into submission. 1t is some time before his true
character as a ruler among dogs is made mani
fest. But this only makes his biography the
more plausible. We him gradually growing
in strength and in craft he works his way
UP in the rough hierarchy of Northern dogs.
He fights, but not successfully until after he
has suffered bloody discipline. Then he moves
swiftly to a commanding position, and, be it
added he does this without exhibiting any of
those human" traits which too many writers
have latterly been attributing to four-footed
figures in their stories He is a splendid dog
to look upon, Mr.. London laints him. and
he possesses what we can well believe to be
dogs character full Of nobility and courage,
but still a dogs and a kind of novelists
hybrid From being the servant of one driver
after another Buck passes into the companion
ship OF a man who merely loves him. Here lies
a weakness in 1.-The Call of the Wild" Bucks
adoption by JOIN Thornton, who comforts him
for all the bitterness he had endured carries
with 1t something of tie atmosphere which
goes with the reward of virtue in conventional
fiction. Mr.. London would have strengthened
his book II he had followed the line of greater
probability, and had shown his hero as strug-
Cling with adversely to the end. AS it is, one
Is willing to overlook this part of the story for
the sake of the viyidness and charm with which
Bucks return to the savagery of his primeval
ancestors Is described. We could spare the
last passages of all. in which the author has
thought it necessary to talk vaguely Of what
happened after Buck met and fought the wolves
and. conQuering, iran with them yelping
he ran" The addition is seIf-conscious and
inartistic. But the book remains good book,
tull Of vitality and deeply interesting
''The Thousand Eugenias" is taking story
It is melodrama, but melodrama presented
with such discreet taste and such easy vivacity
as to enchatn to the end ones interest and Iik-
Ing. The title In itself is a success, for who
would guess at first sight what it means? We
will not reveal the secret, but the reader may
be that 1t is worth while for him to find
out. The story centres in a girl heroine, a
creature sweet, good and bright, who has fallen
unwittngly into the tolls of a sWindling hus-
band and wife. The dirty pair are uncommonly
well drawn they are handled deftly and lightly
and their villany is made to seem not only
possible, but probable Among the shorter
stories which follow this novelette, is one "The
Last Straw" which shows with really tragic
power the apparently useless sacrifice of a noble
soul to silly and selfish one In such an ex-
ploitation Of human nature Mrs Sidgwick is
at her best
The readers of General Charles Kings many
military novels know very well what to expect
when they pick up a new volume. There are.
OF course, some more or less thrilling episodes
OF Indian warfare daring rescue. a bloody
ambuscade, heroic self-sacrifce. There
must also be undeserved cloud hanging over
the most estimable young soldier of the from
tier fort-a cloud which is always removed in
the later chapters. All this we find in "a
Daughter of the Sioux" together with a nov