The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-09-26
NEW hooks.
Men Of Health and D'Annunzio.

The publishers notice says OF Essays |
on Great Writer'S" by Henry Dwight Sedg- |
wick, Jr (Houghton. Miffln L co.,, that
they deal mainly with great. healthy men
Of lettArs, such as Scott, Thackeray, Macau-
lay. Montague and Cervantes. So they
do, and they deal also with the italian
novelist Gabrielle d'Annunzio, who may
be thought to be something of contrast
N those others. We have never found
i, pleasant to read the D'Annunzio stories.
and we cannot discover that it is any great
ov now to read about their author. 1t
seems queer to introduce him with re-
Elections upon tom Jones' and the "Elegy
IN a Country Churchyard." Mr.. Sedgwick
remarks that none OF the Italian story
teers nowadays makes a habit OF turn
ing out joyous, mellow, merry books.
We ourselves have concluded from our
reading of Matilde Serao and Ouida. who
lives there, that Italy is melancholy
country.
The author Of "The Triumph Of Death"
is a busy man, 1t seems, and among other
enterprises of moment has undertaken
the task of "liberating the Italian tongue
He has studied Boccaccio and Petrarch
and others in order to supply himself with
full vocabulary. He will "fetch from
their hiding places words long unused"
and he Intends that his thoughts, which
shall be gathered from all intellectual
Europe shall have fit words to house Them
II is our opinion that he knows az well
as Mr.. Hall Caine the advertising value
Of arranging to have himself taken seri
ously.
He ought to be thankful to Mr.. Sedgwick,
who reviews his several methods for writ
ing a novel. including the philo-real and
the psychological methods. 1t seems that
he fa,homed the profoundest secrets OF
the several schemes Of art of the distin-
rlished NJ. Bourget and the prodigious
NJ. Maeterlinck This was cavernous and
fearful work, and it is wonderful that he
survived But he seems really to have
made an easy job of it. with his clear,
cool head he very soon mastered their
methods and in the achievement quickened
and strengthened his artistic capacities,
his precision, his sense OF proportion, his
understanding of form" Alas incidentally,
this nurture of his art rnagnifed and
strengthened his lack of humanity
The D'Annunzio stories affect the es-
sayist unpleasantly and deeply He says:
After finishing the last page Of The Tr-
umph Of Death quick as flash we pass
through many pages of emotion. In the
instant of time before the book leaves our
hand, our teeth set, our muscles contract.
we desire to hit out from the shoulder. Our
memory teens with long forgotten physical
acts, uppercuts, lefthanders, swingers,
knockouts By some mysterious process,
words that our waking mind could not
recall surge up in capital letters; all the
vocabulary Of Shakespearean insult rings in
our ears-base, proud, shallow, beggarly,
silk stocking knave. a glass gazing inical
rogue, a coward. a pander, cullionly
barber monger, a smooth tongued boiling
hutch Of beastliness IF he had said green
sarcinet flap for a sore eye it would have
been still another.l 'Our thoughts bound
like wild things from prizefghts to in
ouisitors, from them to Iroquos, to devils
Then succeeds the feeling as Of stepping
on a snake, a sentiment as Of struggle
between species Of animals, as Of instructive
combat for supremacy; no sense Of ultimate
ends or motives, but the sudden knowledge
that our gorge Is rising and that we will
not permit certain things. We raise no
Question Of reason; we put aside intelligence
and say: The time is come for life to choose
between you and US. The book. after
leaving our hand. strikes the opposite wall
and flutters to the floor
There are fifty pages Of D'Annunzio
and forty about Thackeray. Mr. Sedg-
wick does not think that Thackeray got it
quite right "He hal his virtues and il
only they had been little more powerful
we might have "beheld him brooding,
and deeply serious and deeply con-
scious," and some other things Of the kind.
That would have been nice. Cervantes
seems to be first with Mr.. Sedgwiok. He
calls him "the noble Spaniard." He has
not yet been fitted perfectly with an Eng
fish translation. but almost every Spanish
word" that Don Quixote speaks stands
out in the readers mind, separate and dis
tinct, like stroke In Q Rembrandt etch-
ing" The essays on Montague and
Macaulay are favorable to those authors.
All the essays are original In treatment and
rich in allusion and illustration. 1t may
be that thew will persuade the reader to