New-York tribune., 1903-01-18
FICTION.
THE LATE FRANK NORRISS EPIC OF
THE WHEAT"

! In the consideration of this novel two dis
tinct lines of approach must be followed by the
| reader. In the first place while it written
to form part of a series, the author took pains
to frame it that it might stand by itself, and
its intrinsic quality as an Independent novel
must therefore he ascertained. Secondly, its
significance as a part of the trilOgy projected
by Mr.. Norris under the general title of THE
Epic of the Wheat and begun with THE
Octopus in 1901. is matter of special inter
est heightened by the fact that the present
volume is the last work of a young writer Of
considerab BILE promise. 1t is easy to exaggerate
the Importance of that promise. The Octopus
is not by any means the momentous production
which it seems to be in the eyes of some critics,
who have been carried off their feet by enthusl-
asm for it's far from epoch making merits, and
have ever since been talking if the untimey
death of this author had given irreparable
| blow to American literature. In such situations
it is always we'll for the reader to look the
| facts in the face, and to study them dispassion-
ateIy, keeping his sympathes intact and his
| critical standard unshaken, despite the sur
| rounding clamor
AS a story THE Pit is we'll constructed, and,
on the whole we'll told, though not without
defects of style. If offers more picture OF
| the life that goes on in and around the Board
of Trade in Chicago, the life of which Mr.
Will Payne and several others have in late
years given us vivid gmpses in stories long
and short. The hero and heroine are married
sufficiently early in the book. He, Curtis Jad-
| win is an able capitalist, who in due time
| turns speculator His wife is a handsome,
clever and emotional girl from the East who
| begins by playing the coquette, but comes 10
feel genuine love for Jadwfn, and though more
than once shaken in her fidelity ends by prov
ing the depth of her tenderness for him. She
IS of course very different in her tastes from
her husband thereby providing the foil which
every novelist dealing with theme like that
treated in THE PITT seems to think he must
place beside his hero. In this respect the Jad-
wins sharply recall the MOultons in Mr. stephen
sons recent novel We wonder that MI MOTIFS,
who was no respecter of literary conventions
did not have the courage to make his hero ana
heroine absolutely at one over the speculative
motive which lies at the heart of the book.
He vould have communicated a welcome fresh
ness to his work and he might incidentally
have exploded the superstition that the mar
riage of oppostes is the only kind or marriage
that ever takes place in this world a feat 10
excite ambition in the realist above all neh'
Whether consciously or not, however, the author
of The Pit" has adhered to the conventional
lines of what we may call the drama of bust
ness
The strong man of affairs falls deeply IN
love with the woman of aesthetic temperament
he promptly sweeps his rivals from the held
including the usual smooth spoken dilettahle'
and the almost equally inevitable youth OF
rapturous enthusasms but callow methods-and
after his marriage he is caught, as these hus-
! bands in fiction always cauSht, between
the fercely conflicting claims of domestic nappl-
ness and business ambition. The tale, we re-
peat is we'll told, moving with fair celerltN'
The action would be smoother and more
rapid-and rapdty believe, is essential IN
a book supposed to find its atmosphere IN 'he
tense excitement of speculation in ChlcaSo-lI
the novel were not oyerladen, like its predeces-
sor with detail Thus the description, in the
onening chapter of the heroine and her sister
and aunt waiting for some friends in the vestl-
buIe of a theatre IS drawn out to Wearlsome
extent and the account of the operatc perform
ance that follows is similarly overdone MT.
Norris it is plain, had not learned what 10
leave out that photography is not art. An
illustration of the excessively minute method
he followed may be found in this description:
His horses were not shOwy, nor were theE
made conspicuous by elaborate boots, panudSeS
and all the other solemn paraphernaIla OF the
stable vet men upon the sidewalks, amateurs,
breeders and the like-men who uhderstoOu
good stock-never failed to watch the team go
nv heads up the check-rein swinging loose
ears all alert. eyes all alight, the breath deep
strong and slow. and the stride, machlne-llhe,
even as the swing of a metrOnome, thrown out
from the shoulder TO knee, snapped on from
-. in h